A story that will make you believe in Pi.
Pi was ardently
searching for God. He started of as a Hindu, went to the church and became a
christian, and then he also became a Muslim. All of these faiths, all of
these paradigms, all of these religious narratives were constructed
by other people, and given to him. He was given his Hindu faith by his mother
and the society he was born in, he sought out his Christian faith and it was
given to him by a priest, and likewise with his Muslim faith.
And so it
goes with us. We are given our faiths and beliefs in god through external
sources. They come to us in the form of stories that didn't happen to us, but
ostensibly happened to someone else along time ago. And we try
to reconcile those stories to our own lives. They give our lives
meaning. But the meaning isn't innate, it is created in our own minds.
When Pi's dad
fed the goat to Richard Parker, and Pi had to face the grisly reality of the
world, the ugly brutality of it all, and the finality of death, He
couldn't reconcile that with any of his faiths. So his life became
aimless, unhappy and unfulfilled.
And so it goes with us. That is the spiritual journey for many people. When confronted by the
utter meaninglessness of life, that bad things happen to innocent people, that
children get cancer and die, that people get slaughtered in wars, people
starve, get sick and die, that life is a series of random occurrences,
then our faith wavers.
So next Pi does
what many of us do. He attempts to fill that void in his life with love. With
another person. But his relationship ends when they are pulled apart.
And so it goes with us. How many of us end up with our first love, for our entire lives?
Relationships end for whatever reason, and we feel lost again.
And then he goes
through his whole ordeal. Shipwrecked, adrift, loosing everyone he loves,
watches his mother get murdered, and he becomes animalistic to survive. He
leaves that higher human conscience and on that boat, life is only about survival.
Not about faith, not about god, higher powers
or existential dilemmas. It is solely about survival.
And it is no coincidence that he sailing over
the Marianas Trench, the deepest part of the ocean. He is drifting over a
literal abyss. And when he finally loses everything, when he is at his most
desperate, when he is starving to death, he stares into that abyss, and has
a renaissance He finds his meaning. His own PERSONAL meaning.
The sequence begins with the beautiful tender shot of Richard
Parker staring into the abyss, and we follow the animalistic tiger in
his transcendental trip, and we come out of it reborn as Pi. As a human.
And he makes choices. He creates his own narrative, his own myth, his own
personal religion.
When he rejoins society, the animalistic side of him leaves, and
never returns, but he is reformed. His journey has parallels in
Jesus, Moses and other religious founders going into the wilderness and finding
their purpose. Pi was thrust into his own wilderness, has his epiphany and
he comes out reborn. His journey and self-discovery was foretold by his
girlfriend in her dance “god goes into the forest to find love.” God (Pi) goes
into the forest (wilderness) and finds love, love of self. Unlike his previous
search for religion where he tried in vain to find meaning external from
himself, he found his meaning within himself. He became his own God.
He consciously created his own meaning.
What we witnessed was the inception of a religion. For Pi, it is
a personal truth that he found within himself. The belief system isn’t fully
formed, nor is it codified. It is contradictory, confusing, and esoteric. There
are no rites, no traditions or holidays. Once Pi’s story is externalized and
his disciples spread, interpret and embellish his gospel, it’ll perhaps take on
another level of meaning.
Perhaps the followers will create their own traditions and rites
such as The Eating of Pi on March 14, and The Dance of the Lotus. Perhaps they will venerate the
Orangutan Mother of Pi. Perhaps they will have pilgrimages sailing across the Marianas
Trench. They will sculpt effigies of Richard Parker. Perhaps they will wear Pi
symbols around their necks. Perhaps they will build cathedrals of vines that
float on the oceans. Perhaps they will sing songs to the glory of Pi, create
religious laws and codes of conduct, institute leaders and will tithe.
But Pi himself, the founder of the faith, had a completely
different, internal relationship to his story. And so it goes with Abraham. And
so it goes with Buddha. And so it goes with Jesus.
And so it goes with Pi.
