Finding The Holy Grail
Here, let’s take a look at a scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), the third episode of the Indiana Jones series. It is a scene from the ending part of the film where Dr. Jones and a Nazi secret policeman have found the treasure they have been looking for, the ‘Holy Grail,’ a cup Jesus used at the last supper.
After a great struggle, the Nazi party and the party of Dr. Jones arrive at the ancient shrine where the Holy Grail was concealed. They elaborately discover that hundreds of different grails are displayed in the shrine. The final hurdle is to find out which is the ‘real’ Holy Grail. They believe the legend that they can live forever if they drink water from the ‘real’ Holy Grail. Each of the characters, who have been struggling throughout the movie, chooses the grail they like. First of all, the head of the Nazi party chooses the shiniest and fanciest golden cup. It must have reflected his mind that ‘the Holy Grail must be at least good-looking.’ He pours water in that glass and drinks. His entire body ages instantly and vanishes in dust. The result is the opposite of eternal life, and obviously, the wrong choice.
Soon, Dr. Jones chooses a shabby and tacky wooden cup among hundreds of other cups. The reason was because Jesus was the son of a carpenter. He puts water in that cup and pours it over his father’s gunshot wound. The wound heals perfectly.
This scene actually lingered in my mind for so long even though I watched it when I was a kid. This conclusion,that broke our ordinary conception that the most splendid glass would be the Holy Grail, was rather a fresh shock. We often meet such circumstances in our life. We judge people – even though we see them for the first time – by their appearance or social status. We are blind to who they really are on the inside. Unaware of the fact that the most beautiful truth always exists in an ordinary and simple appearance, we are always into the fancy, showy outer wrapper. This is how foolish we, humans, are.
We generally encounter such errors because of the conceptions that we have within our mind, layer by layer. The prejudice and standards that you judge the world with in your own way, blind your eyes like colored glasses. Therefore, you believe that what you see with your eyes are true and cannot see the real world beyond the world filtered with these colored glasses.
However, if you take off your colored glasses that you are wearing now, if you peel off the layers of dirt in your mind, you will soon be able to see what the ‘truth’ is. As simple as Dr. Jones said –‘because Jesus was the son of a carpenter’– you will see the truth so easily. Likewise, if you find the truth, that truth will give you the eternal life, like the water in the Holy Grail. The eternal life, in fact, symbolizes the existence of the truth that is eternally living. The characters had believed that the Holy Grail would keep their body alive forever, but it does not really make sense for the body to exist forever. When you come out of the conceptions and customs that you have, and become the body and mind of the truth, you will live forever.
The female main character is attached to the Holy Grail until the end and finally gets buried with the Holy Grail as the shrine collapses. In order to avoid a similar fate, we should open up our inner eyes that can see what the truth really is.
The real Holy Grail that exists in the form of everything in the world is already in front of you. Only the wise person will know this. Let’s open up our inner eyes and read the words of wisdom by Master Woo Myung.
People See Outward Appearances But Truth Sees The Inner Heart
In the Bible, it is said that people see outward appearances but Jehovah sees the inner heart. This means people judge others based on their appearance.
Man’s mind is a bundle of attachments;therefore it is filled with self-centered and selfish minds. A person is judged to be a good person if he pretends to be nice, knowledgeable, great, modest, wealthy, well-mannered, and humble. Moreover, these days a person’s worth is judged not by his heart but by external factors such as how much money he has, what car he drives, which house he lives in, and whether or not he wears designer clothes. But from Truth’s point of view, there is nothing of value in man’s filthy and evil body and mind.
A person of true value is one who has become Truth; a person who has become Truth is Truth and as such, he is complete.
A person doing the second level of this meditation can see the limitations of the consciousness of someone doing the first level of this meditation. In the same way, when Truth sees a person who has done levels seven and eight, he can see the limitations of that person’s consciousness – the areas he has not been able to become Truth itself and complete. Truth looks only at whether a person’s mind has become the pure Energy and Light of Truth. This is what Truth wishes people would become.
