Spiral - Review of Inner Worlds, Outer Worlds film

Inner Worlds, Outer Worlds

Last updated: March 25th, 2019

Religions exert so much effort battling one another in the quest to assert superiority. According to Inner Worlds, Outer Worlds, a 2012 documentary directed and produced by Canadian meditation teacher Daniel Schmidt, this effort is wasted since all religions are just different manifestations of the same universal ideas. The root belief of all religions is that there’s a field of energy linking the inner spirits of individuals to the external world. Within this field of energy, vibrations occur and exchange information with akasha, which is the empty space present within everything. This exchange of information causes happenings within the universe to occur.

The ancient Greeks deemed the understanding of all these occurrences the logos. Humans are only able to understand a small part of the logos, just as the individuals dwelling in Plato’s cave are only able to see shadows moving along the walls. The film presents the idea that modern people think too hard, and this thought is removing humanity further and further from the ability to discover Plato’s “golden key,” another term used to refer to the universe’s secrets. Schmidt believes humans have become obsessed with finding scientific answers as well as chasing pleasure, and would actually come closer to discovering truth if they just relaxed and observed the universe’s flow.

According to the documentary, the universe flows as efficiently as possible, making use of the most efficient patterns and shapes. One symbol commonly found within the universe, and highlighted within many ancient religious traditions, is the spiral. The spiral represents the turning of the world, which continuously spins akasha into solid forms. It can be seen, for example, in the way plants emerge from the ground and how flower petals are arranged. Besides the spiral pattern, other commonly occurring patterns are the branching pattern and the triangle, the only pattern that’s self-stabilizing. If these sound like the patterns often used within architecture, that’s because, like the architect of the universe (whatever it may be), architects choose to work with efficiency.

Schmidt attempts to get people thinking about the world in both scientific and spiritual terms. Instead of encouraging them to see religion from a hierarchical perspective, he encourages viewers to take a wide view, understanding it through physical principles. Seeing religion in this way allows them to begin to see that although all religions appear different on the surface, they truly do have a similar universal basis and similar ultimate goals. This bridging of the gap between religion and science just may be what the world needs to promote increased religious tolerance. Someone can easily deny the existence of another’s spiritual master, but it’s not so easy to deny the basic workings of the universe which inspired the worshipping of that master in the first place.

To learn more about the workings of the universe, and how everything is connected within, including all spiritual practices, watch Inner Worlds, Outer Worlds here (this is a complete playlist, starting with the trailer): 

[su_panel background=”#f2f2f2″ color=”#000000″ border=”0px none #ffffff” shadow=”0px 0px 0px #ffffff”]by Erica Roberts

image: jurvetson (Creative Commons BY) 

  1. I really enjoyed reading this and want to see the video. This is the “Impersonal” aspect of God, which is undeniably Universal and about which it seems to me there’s not even the slightest possibility of denying that at the deepest level all cosmic spiritual descriptions are One. Nobody can argue with a triangle! 🙂

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