With a home-style cinema verité video approach, lecturer, author, and contemporary mystic Steven Harrison talks about “nothing.” The opening dialogue is casually filmed at a kitchen table—cups clink, a tea kettle whistles, and a cell phone rings amidst questions about enlightenment. The main body of the film is Harrison's presentation to a Swiss audience. Complete with a Swiss interpreter, we are asked to search for that which is “just as it is,” unblemished by judgment and conditioning, and to view everything and each other with “fresh eyes.” He contends that thoughts define and separate; like a string of beads, they divide and disconnect, and cannot lead to unity. Rather than searching in the field of thought with studies, philosophy, and spirituality, Harrison directs his audience to find dynamic awareness—the essential connection to all of life—as one enters silence to explore and experience “nothing”. Interspersed with questions from the audience and film clips of nature scenes with accompanying music, this film directs the attention to the questions and the vast stillness of consciousness. Just as it is.
—The NAPRA Review
Sept/Oct 2002
