Introduction

Gatekeeper: In the name of God, we are at the beginning of the sixth program of the third chapter. I am glad an opportunity arose for us to meet again. The film we have selected for this conversation is named "The Color of Paradise" (or "The Color of God"); I suggest you watch the film first and then, with the discussions raised in this program, re-read and interrogate your thoughts about this film once again; you will certainly get a better result.

Before the class begins, I want to speak briefly about a subject. A friend had said he wonders why we still speak of the difficulty of the path, while we tread in this path and this subject must have been solved for us; why from time to time do we speak of the difficulty of inviting the teachers? It has a simple answer: this difficulty returns to their confrontation with humans. When we want to invite a teacher to appear and speak for you, for our audience, know that they ask and examine who your audience are; are they the same audience for whom they spoke for years and in the place where they should have shown a worthy behavior and deed, instead left the class and went away?

The difficulty of the work is in this very thing, that once again we ask them to establish a connection with a fresh audience, like us. It is not a talk of hopelessness, nor of sadness and anger; it is a talk of a nudge, a warning to all of us and you to cherish these classes. I make speech short and wait for the meeting.

The Teacher's Discourse

Greetings to you, I am glad an opportunity arose to be at your service. I hope you will benefit appropriately from the discussions that arise. Regarding this film, we can have two approaches: first, the approach of narratives, and second, the interpretive or hermeneutic/ta'wili approach. In the first approach, you see hands that narrate; for example, a boy who is blind, but with his hands, with the connection he establishes with his surroundings, touches the surroundings, benefits well from his ears, and establishes a good connection with the surroundings. This became the narrative of the hands that see. You see the hand of an old woman who worked for years and years; this hand is calloused, but the narrative of this hand is acceptance, a kind of approach of accepting and embracing. You also see another hand, the hand of a man who plays the role of the father; it has a negative (excluding/preventive) and repelling role; although that too is the hand of a worker who carries the pain of years of work with it, but the interesting point is that the narrative of this hand is a repelling and denying narrative, not an affirming one. These are different narratives that I think you can recognize.

But our main discussion will be from here onward: the interpretive/ta'wili discussion. We want to examine the story from this perspective. You have your previous lessons about the Formless Space (Shapeless Space / Formless Mind) and the Shaped Space (Form Space / Shaped Mind); in our interpretation, we enter these very parts. We want to see how these three characters of whom we spoke have established a connection with the Formless Space. You remember that in the previous lesson we said there is a distance or gap; we want to see how this distance is in each of these three characters. In the first character, we are confronted with a child; therefore, we can predict that this distance between his conscious shaped mind and the Formless Space is not very thick; meaning he must confront many Inspirations and receptions, and in the entire film this subject is shown to a great extent.

Look at the beginning of the film, where he treats his surroundings with affection and kindness; that chick, that bird which he finds with difficulty from the ground and places in its nest. This has a symbolic state, but shows this boy is responsible; he wants to accompany nature, play a role, show affection, and change disorder to order. In subsequent cases, you see that he listens well and even expresses opinions; in some scenes, he says birds speak with each other, and as if he strives to show he wants to understand what they say. In the entire film, you see this. These are the displays of a connection; the connection of the Formless Space with the Shaped Space, an Inspiration, a nudge that is continuously struck; because this child is so alert, so present from the mental aspect that he performs these activities.

But what is it that hurts his shaped mind? This becomes another discussion; like most humans, we must speak of the wounds of his shaped mind. What is his wound? From what is he sad, of what is he afraid? That his father does not come after him, that his father does not want him; this subject is so heavy for him that in one place with a heavy sigh, he says his blindness has become a factor for them to reject him, not to love him. Of course, this talk is not a deep talk for a child; its cause is, then why does he not see his grandmother, why does he not remember her, why does he not remember his sisters? It seems that in this part, he has suffered from a kind of self-absorption (inwardness) and does not know how he should solve it; but it is interesting that he seeks an opportunity to establish a connection with his Creator and raise all these problems, all these sadnesses and sighs there and ask Him to solve his issues, or explain to him why he has no sight.

There is also another view that we must have on the character of the grandmother. You see the distance of her shaped mind with the Formless Space is very small; from where do we understand? From the fact that her personality is an affirming and positive personality; she has a state of acceptance before the subject placed before her, she confronts with an open face and open embrace, she does not flee, she does not want to delete or deny anything; rather, she wants to see her grandchild's talents with precision, establish a connection with him, show affection to him, and not let him be lost; because she sees well how his father behaves with him. In different parts of the film, you see this suitable connection of the grandmother with the boy.

Let me also say another sign: when the time of this old woman's departure (death) arrives, an interesting scene happens; precisely before the last moments, you see that the grandmother is struggling, she wants to awaken the opposing party, she says to him: "I am not worried for my grandson Mohammad, I am worried for you." See what a view she has; she does not go to the side of considering this child's disability as a strange problem or dead end at all, but rather she challenges her son, the owner of this child, as someone who must come out of this dead-end-like view; that for solving the issues of your life, do not choose a negative view that you want to delete something to obtain something, do not look at life in this transactional way. Then that symbolic scene arrives: you see she returns a fish that is dying to the water. Do you see? Hands that are life-giving; these are all the symbols of this film. Why should no one else return this fish to life?

It is a symbol that the old woman as if plays a big role in this film; she wants to return everything to the state of vitality, to usual life. But she herself becomes a "Traveler of the Moonlight" (Musāfer-e Mahtāb); in the night she sees the moon, she is displaced. This is a sign of a suitable shaped mind; becoming a "Traveler of the Moonlight". Let us put the "Traveler of the Moonlight" aside and wish her success.

The third character is the character of the father; what interpretation do we have for him? It is clear he tolerated much pain; he worked and strove since childhood, and his wife's death made the situation very difficult for him; along with this, he also has a deep grief, a very bad feeling about having a disabled and blind son. From where does this feeling come? What is this reception that his mind has made? Why does he feel shame, why does he not want to witness the behavior of those around him with someone blind and continuously flees? In the film, you see he even bends his path to flee from confronting these individuals, and continuously his cry is: "Mohammad, you have no future here; these people mock you, bother you." But he does not know Mohammad's problem is not what he imagines; the mind of this father shows a personality that is not a support and point of hope for this child.

Let us cast a more precise glance: this returns to the fact that the shaped space of this father's mind has a large distance from the Formless Space. What does it mean? It means that the attitude he has toward his surroundings is a transaction/trade attitude; he wants to organize his life, obtain something, but for obtaining it, he does not pay attention that he must also preserve what he has; he must enter connection with others with the gnosis/cognition he has toward his possessions. He himself fuels the existing tension; by deleting his boy and bringing him, on some pretext, to that blind carpenter, you see not only the boy himself suffers from an unnecessary turbulence from the mental aspect, but also work reaches a place where the boy wants to bring his complaint to God. See what a blow he received from the spiritual aspect. In the entire film, you see this narrative that he fears, he fears losing his father, and as if he also diagnoses correctly, because this very thing happens; they separate him on a pretext from the place where he had reached peace beside his grandmother and sisters and place him with the carpenter. Perhaps if the introduction-making was correct, perhaps if this was done with the accompaniment of the grandmother, this unnecessary turbulence in the mind of this boy would not have appeared; these are the very turbulences that drag some individuals to the abyss of destruction and distance them from ordinary life.

We were speaking of the father's character; we said his mind is not a creative mind, not a mind that has a correct interpretation of its surroundings. By deleting his son, you see he also loses the grandmother; he makes her very angry at him, she cries out at him that you seemingly want to serve this boy, but in reality you are after another story. You see the grandmother, whom we affirmed, interprets that you do not want to do this work with purity of intention, you are after another thing; if you were thinking of this child, you would not descend this calamity upon him. Pay attention to this: this turbulent mind has another sign too; fear.

The father himself fears; voices appear in his mind, he feels it is not what happens in his surroundings, a voice that he perhaps heard somewhere years ago, but now they return too; every time he wants to take his abnormal decisions, he fears and this fear appears in the form of these vague voices, but he cannot come out of this situation. With his wrong decisions, he begins an eroding process that suddenly leads to losing the grandmother; because the grandmother too, under the influence of losing her connection with Mohammad, suffers severely from problems, becomes ill, and eventually is deleted from the text of the story. Is it not other than that the mind of this individual, with this performance, not only did not make the situation better for himself, but made it far more critical?

That marriage he was in pursuit of, he also lost; why? Because he receives a blow precisely from where he did not expect; his own old mind, and the old mind of those around him, what does it say? It has no good omen (bad luck)! Because the grandmother passed away, because his mother passed away, so it has no good omen! Ponder the rest yourselves.

What is the summary of our lesson? Now that you received that the Formless Space and Shaped Space exist and your mind is defined in the Shaped Space, look yourselves: what structure do you want your mind to have? A structure that can establish a good connection with its surroundings, be searching, be in pursuit of peace and affection-offering, its view be affirming and life-giving; or that you be in pursuit of transactional life, trade life, without any special Inspiration reaching you, without any peace being in your mind, and with the decisions you take, whether you want to or not, make the situation difficult and more difficult for yourself. I hope these explanations were able to complete the previous lessons. I say goodbye to you; I hope to meet you on a moonlight night.