Seeing a movie like "Revolver" reminds me of the two-edged sword that is Flash. A LOT of modern cinema and TV seems to depend upon Flash to make money at the box office. And it works. Throw in enough CGI or action Flash into an otherwise-mediocre flick, and it wows at the box office. Tired old retreads like "Super 8" become big hits. Testaments to confused and possibly deranged mindsets like "Sucker Punch" also make money, as long as they contain enough Flash. This phenomenon of Flocking To Flash seems most pronounced, sadly, in younger generations who have been raised on video games, the popularity of which depend almost entirely upon their Flash quotient.
Now segue to spiritual experience. How many of the things we read on forums like FFL are based on Flash? When pressed to explain why they still consider Maharishi a major spiritual teacher, one who was arguably more than human, people trot out their Flash stories. Same with other spiritual teachers, obviously including some of the ones considered High Rollers in the spiritual pantheon. Would anyone still be talking about Christ if he hadn't turned a little water into wine, walked on water, and risen from the dead? Flash. Lately we've heard a few mentions of the "miracle stories" people experienced around Maharishi, as if they justify the lingering devotion that people feel towards him. Flash. Color me not convinced that Flash is all that important. And I say that having seen more than my share of it. Seeing the Flash was FUN; don't get me wrong. But did it really change my life? Did it justify me continuing to believe in things that objective reality has revealed over time to be...uh...mistaken? Flash distracts. That's one reason that mediocre filmmakers have IMO become dependent on it. Throw in enough Flash, and its very Flashiness will distract a certain percentage of audiences enough to convince them that they're watching a good movie, and not a piece of trash. Movie audiences have been trained to equate Flash with quality; if the movie sucks but the CGI is great, it's permissible to consider it a good movie. Bzzzzzt. I don't buy this. For some reason, I have retained enough resistance to Flash to be able to notice if a Flashy movie has nothing going for it *but* Flash. I think that spiritual seekers might benefit from developing a similar resistance. One of the "take aways" I still consider valuable from studying with Maharishi comes with the early days of his teaching, during which he taught that siddhis and other forms of Flash didn't have anything to do with enlightenment. Apples and oranges. He later reversed himself on this. I think he was onto something with the earlier teaching. Flash is flash. Enlightenment is enlightenment. The two have no more to do with each other than squeezing apples has to producing a glass of orange juice.
