The director of District 9, Neill Blomkamp, has created another Sci-Fi blockbuster, Elysium. Using the Sci-fi genre, he satirizes many things, inculding the gap between the rich and the poor, hierarchy and a society where you can get proper health care benefits only if you have money. In this film, Matt Damon is a standout as he plays Max Da Costa.
In this movie, it is the year 2154 and there are two classes of people: The very rich and the rest of the population. A very high percentage of the human population remains on the devastated Earth in poor conditions. Only the upper class lives an extravagant life on the luxurious space station Elysium, with access to medical devices that keep them free of disease just by lying in it. Max wishes to bring his beloved friend Frey to Elysium one day and works everyday as a factory laborer with that yearning. In contrast, on Elysium, no one has to do tough labor because the robots do it all for them. One day, Max is exposed to lethal radioactivity at his factory and his expected lifespan is decreased to only five days. With the solid resolution that he must survive, he embarks on a mission to Elysium. However, his fight for his own survival actually becomes a fight for the fate of the whole population of Earth. He eventually becomes a hero for the world.
Some might think that Sci-Fi movies are full of delusional and fantastical stories that are far from reality. However, in fact, this film sets the space as a background to express and depict social issues and conflicts that are happening in our reality today so that people can sympathize on such issues portrayed in this movie. Through this genre, you can look into the problems we are currently facing in today’s modern society more deeply. Since mankind appeared, what is called class has existed endlessly: inequality – those who have and those who do not, the rich and the poor – exists all the time.
I would like to blame our human mind as the root cause, rather than the system that operates society, i.e. problems of the system. Humans exist fundamentally with selfish mind. Selfishness is the mind to keep the self. It is referred to as ego in psychological terms. One psychologist said that the difference between nature and man is that nature is selfless whereas man is selfish. Nature coexists for one another and does not have ego, the self; therefore, nature just lives and just exists. Of course, you might regard a lion eating a deer as a selfish action but that is only for survival and to maintain the food chain. A lion would not eat a deer to attain wealth or benefits for the self. But humans, although they have enough of something already, they try to accumulate more. If we take the rich as an example, they already have adequate wealth – enough for eating and living – but they keep searching for something more. Human’s greed and the mind for the self are endless.
So far, we have blamed society and systems, along with the leaders and others. But stop doing that. Each one of us needs to look inside ourselves. The cause of everything in the world is within the mind of the self; it is within me. Not only should we look within and reflect on ourselves, but we should throw away the ego, what we call our self, and selfishness. When the existence that we call our self is completely eliminated, we can also live for others naturally without trying hard, just like nature, like the world. There is no self and everyone becomes one. How could you harm others? The generation has come when you can throw away the false mind of the self and live as the truth with the true mind.
There is an old saying that in the 21st century, or in the future, the generation of material civilization will pass and the spiritual civilization will come. What has ruled our society so far was human greed, authority and money, i.e. materialism. However, the generation of materials is passing by, and so those who hold onto such things and depend on them will not be better off, eventually, because it is not of nature’s flow. Now, anyone can reflect on the self and throw away that selfish and greedy self completely. The generation where you become the non-material existence, reborn as the soul of the truth in the world and live forever – the generation of spiritual civilization – has come. The Master who can teach you righteously has come along with the method. Now, anyone can practice themselves and prove it by themselves through the method. The method of living forever while living has come out.
This material body and money cannot be brought with you once you die. Steve Jobs and Michael Jackson earned enormous amounts of money but they left everything behind. However, while living, if you have a never-dying soul and become one with it, the complete soul never dies after the body disappears, and even, after tens of thousands of years pass. Everyone in the world will become the mind of the truth and the mind of oneness. Then, the world will become righteous and everything will be just.
Such a good generation has already come and countless people have become complete, the truth. Should you just do nothing during this good season? If someone can make you the truth, the teacher who teaches you that truth would be the truth; yes or no? Every year, so many people have become complete and become the truth. Don’t hesitate to practice this magnificent study that can get you the righteous soul in this new generation of spiritual civilization.
To conclude, let me introduce a writing of master Woo Myung, the Great Master of the generation who has been devoting his entire life to wish everyone in the world could be enlightened to the truth and live happily forever since he became the truth.
Let’s Go To The Living World
The world is alive, but man is not able to live.
The world just exists,
But man has countless troubles and is dreaming unreal dreams –
He does not know all of it is meaningless and false,
For he is not Truth,
And so he dies after a lifetime of agony and anguish.
He does not know the true meaning of the plaintive words
That one lives forever.
Is it not natural and logical that one dies if he has not become Truth?
Man thinks that someone will save him even if he has not become Truth
But this idea is wrong;
So come to your senses, strive to become Truth
As becoming Truth is of the utmost importance.
What is real and false,
Is the world and man; the world is real and man is false.
It is nonsense to think that one can live eternally
Without his mind becoming the eternal world
And being born in that land.
Do not try to find or achieve something
For Truth is revealed only when one discards his false self
And the only thing for man to do
Is to be born in the land of Truth
By the will of Truth’s master.
If one does not do this
There is no purpose or reason for living.
Instead of living a human life of seventy or eighty years
Live an eternal life, live to the life of the world –
Such a person is wise and sage.
He who tries to possess more, commits more sins
While he who discards and eliminates even his self
Can be born into the world of Truth.
One whose mind has become Truth
Has heaven in his mind and the whole world is alive
And he himself is born in his mind.
If there is no human mind at all
And only the mind of God within you
You no longer take pictures
And the master of the consciousness is within you.
Your true soul must be born
In the land of that original foundation
If you are to become the forever-living immortal.
He who talks of going to heaven after death
When he has not gone to heaven while he is living
Is not able to go to heaven and dies forever.
– From Master Woo Myung’s book, Stop Living In This Land Go To The Everlasting World Of Happiness Live There Forever