the one thing that I saw that was in common with all these people was that other people believed that they had the answer
the main thing a spiritual leader said I have the answer and other people went to them
Vikram Gandhi
Become a Story Now
hi my name is Vikram Gandhi and I’m a
filmmaker and this symbol here is a
symbol pronounced UI and it’s the sound
of transformation so if everyone can
close their eyes you can picture a blue
light if you’re able to and you can just
say it with me
[Music]
so who I is very similar to ohm which
you might recognize the ancient Hindu
symbol and also used in Buddhism and why
is very similar except the main
difference is that I made up why and
some of the similarities are the sound
but also it has a little bit of the part
of the ohm and then I just made a little
line and then put a little dash and then
I have a necklace of it and you can be
branded on yoga mats and whatever
however you want to use it so I’m here
to tell you about the Guru you saw
before Shree Kumari who I made a film
about and the symbol of who I and also
how this filmmaking process changed me
and gave me a glimpse on what personal
transformation is so I can start from
the beginning and I grew up in New
Jersey to a very religious Hindu family
and this is a picture from the newspaper
and and this is my family I’m the small
one smallest one there next to my mother
and my grandmother and so when I was
growing up you know pretty much what
most of my friends knew about Hindu
religion came from this one film called
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
and if you remember there’s a high
priest who reaches into a man’s chest
grabs his heart and then it goes on fire
then of course everyone is so elated all
the followers there and this is
something I could use as self-defense
when I was a kid because if anyone
messed with me I could also threaten to
remove their heart but I grew up in a
religious household and I realized that
a lot of people look at religion as some
traumatic event that they had when
they’re a child and the rebellion
against in most of their life or
something that they were told by their
parents to believe in and had a lot of
questions in and often were too afraid
to ask but for me you know I was
surrounded by religious leaders here’s
me looking at some books while I’m being
lectured by Indian priests but the thing
is that in Indian religion there’s so
many stories and that was the basis of
my religious experience growing up was
learning about all these stories
mythology hearing stories that were just
like the comic books that I read of
spider-man but these characters were
Krishna Shiva Hanuman and I also read
the same comic books about Jesus and
Buddha and other religions because there
was all sort of this big mythological
story when I was growing up and as I got
older these stories were always in my
mind and I was interested in religion so
I studied religion in college and soon
at some point I started realizing you
know the stories of religion aren’t that
much different than the stories that I’m
reading in my literature class the real
difference is that people in the
religion classes saw the effect of these
stories on people’s lives and I think it
was really interesting to watch how the
stories that we tell ourselves show us
why we believe in what we believe in so
as I got older you know I had a lot of
questions and I changed my major into a
literature major because of this region
the reason pretty soon afterwards I
wanted to I was looking at the society
around me and I live in New York and one
thing that’s become really popular after
this is the yoga industry in New York
and I started realizing that there’s
this embracing of Eastern spirituality
that was happening in urban centers and
I had a lot of questions because I saw
the same symbols not the UI a symbol but
the ohm symbol being used in a in a yoga
center or on a mat or some it seemed
like it was creating a product and I had
a lot of questions about you know our
people do people really know what
they’re they’re talking about here are
they do they understand the depth of
this and I wanted to look at what people
were believing in so I started making a
film about this industry and I met with
one person and they said you must meet
my guru and I went met their guru and I
would be exposed to somebody I thought
well this person has no idea what
they’re talking about and then I meet
someone else who was totally inspiring
and I just it was exposed to a wide
range of people but the one thing that I
saw that was in common with all these
people was that other people believed
that they had the answer that was the
only thing and and when I looked at
religious leaders of all kind I think
that was the main thing a spiritual
leader said I have the answer and other
people went to them so you know I had a
lot of questions about this and a lot of
concerns I didn’t understand why people
were looking at these spiritual leaders
this was my biggest question why do we
need these people and what I realized
that I was looking for was something
called the religious experience or the
spiritual experience and when I was in
college I read the book the varieties of
religious experience by William James
and he defined this experience as with a
lot of traits but two of them were being
noetic which means you experience some
sort of wisdom from an experience like
that and the other is ineffability
which means you can’t describe it so
that’s a really hard thing to make a
movie about you could talk to everyone
and everyone’s talking about some
experience that you can’t define and
everyone says that they have the answer
so I’m thinking okay
everyone says they’re authentic I could
go to a Christian teacher I could go to
a Hindu teacher I could go to a Buddhist
teacher sometimes they’re teaching the
same exercises but they have a whole
different background to it you know and
I’m kind of thinking you know what none
of this stuff is true it’s all made up
right so I wanted to say let me do
something let’s make a film that I can
actually show
that a fake religion couldn’t be as real
as a real religion is there anything
like religious authority like spiritual
authority so what I decided to do was
you know I know that I don’t have any
grand wisdom but perhaps maybe I can use
myself to prove a point so here you have
shri Kumari shri Kumari is a character
who comes from my mind he lives in a
place called Adi cache which you see
here at least it looks very similar to
Rishikesh India however it is a
fictional land that doesn’t exist
he has a trident this is one of his
friends another guru looking gentleman
and here is shri Kumari in a ash
festival ceremony with other people
covered in ash and here he’s telling a
joke to one of his buddies so how do you
create a religious leader you know these
are images I made a website
Kumari Kumari and everything on this
website is pretty much the truth about
me except that doesn’t refer to the fact
that I grew up in New Jersey
here you have me with a famous guru
named Sri Sri Ravishankar I just walked
up next to him for a second and got that
and this is Kumari
in a temple and this is the temple of
nun chinch which is the highest part of
Ali cash and you’ll you’ll notice the
who I symbol over there so what we call
this is yeah this is also the video you
saw before is a YouTube video we put
that online because gurus get videos
made attributed to them and we actually
were able to get hits in a week because
you can put ads in India very cheaply so
Kumari was legitimate after this what is
you know what is the reason of this the
word avatar is a word that we know from
James Cameron but also it’s from us a
Sanskrit word and it means descending a
descending being so you see mythological
characters in Hindu religion it means
when a God comes down to earth and takes
a different form in our digital age the
same word avatar is used when we’re
talking about our image on Facebook or
in the TED talk you know bio you see a
little image of this person and there’s
and this is sort of a identity that we
have digitally that’s becoming more and
more part of our lives and you know when
you look on Facebook and someone has a
picture of themselves looking happy in
40 different pictures partying all the
time and you think that person’s really
really got it going on you know that
that’s not really them you know that’s
their persona are they lying no but it’s
something that we aspire to be and you
know in the same way I was looking for
Who am I aspiring to be when you’re
going to create a character who’s a
spiritual leader you know there’s a lot
of pressure there you’re trying to find
out who is the hero that I would be like
I’m trying I’m trying to you know I’m
trying to put kumari up there with you
know the greats but Jesus you know it’s
yeah it’s gonna take a lot out of me I
have to put all of my mind into this
right so so inevitably I said I need to
the character that I aspire to be
creates some sort of higher self he’s
not going to be perfect but that’s the
that’s the aim of of what Kumari was
trying to do so here are some terms that
fleshed out the Kumari world you see who
ie the primordial mantra and you see the
the word pink Aloka which is sort of the
sounded like a good word for like a
heaven type place so I’d say you need to
go to Pinkel oka and and I created this
whole world of sort of a nonsense but
the one thing that I really believed in
here was something myself
Vikram the filmmaker also believed which
was this idea of the mirror that
everything here was a reflection of what
we wanted to see ourselves so when he
looked at a religious leader or
spiritual leader you’re really looking
at the higher self within you and you’re
kind of seeing what you want to see and
so we also made a Kumari Sutra and the
first verse of the Kumari Sutra is
got’em yada got us they got um yeh vaada
goddess there and that means just do it
and what we all say what I did was I
just took some of my favorite slogans
inspiring words and I retranslated them
back into Sun script and so the next one
is be all you could be said of all Bob
and quite beautiful actually one of my
favorite ones is it’s sunny delight it’s
unleash the power of the Sun and it’s
just I mean it’s almost tribal you know
so so what why am I talking about this
because we have religious symbols
religion is supposed to kind of complete
us give us a way to think
give us a system of belief and you know
in our day and age we kind of find the
same we’re looking for the same desire
and other things and they’re not that
much different these logos than these
logos so I decided to create the Kumar a
system of logos and here you have who I
you have the symbol and this one is
called the happiness symbol
because that’s what we’re all looking
for and basically there was one truth
that I believed in all the jokes aside
that we all had the answers within us
and the Kumari you know sort of world
continued there was exercises attached
to it I can show you one this is very
similar to something you might see but
then there’s this movement all of these
things are part of the rituals that that
are in are in yoga and other spiritual
practices I just wanted to create this
whole universe it was a it was a way to
flex my imagination so what was the
reason you know we so I made a film
about this and I brought it to Arizona
and I and I spread the teachings of
Kumari in character and I had a lot of
people who really believed in Kumari at
the end of the film I tell everyone who
I am but it all builds up to this one
idea that what you see inside Kumari is
what you want to see inside yourself
which is this mirror philosophy and I
can just tell you briefly about how this
experience affected me because it’s not
as if I was in control of what was going
on in fact because it’s a religious
experience I didn’t know what was going
on in people’s heads at all I was just
there experiencing this great thing and
seeing people look at me with this great
affection great joy and great hope and
so what I decided to do was only teach
the only the things that I believed
which is I don’t really know anything
about you I don’t have great wisdom I
think you have the wisdom inside so I
said why do you look inside yourself and
find this higher self right so I said
you know make an illusion
I knew Kumari was an illusion I could
tell other people oh I think that your
religion is an illusion too
no one really wants to hear that but
Kumari always used to say and he spoke
in this accent which I haven’t told you
which is my grandmother’s accent is very
very good study so if he met a you know
a rabbi a priest
I like your study but he’d say I want
you to create your own story so
the idea behind the mirror was very
simple I’m a guru and I’m an illusion I
want you to create a sense for yourself
an illusion for yourself to fixate on it
could be someone else’s but it’s huh
but it should really be your own what’s
the guru inside you what’s the higher
self you want to aspire to make a plan
and then just do it and then I unveiled
that you know I’m just like everyone
else I’m not from a foreign place I’m
just a regular American and and you know
what what happened here is that Kumari
gave people faith and because he’s not
real what I realized is that faith in a
way is just remembering that life can be
really good you can make yourself happy
and it doesn’t have to be but now every
moment can be spiritual
so Kumar I used to tell people you know
you had all great spiritual beings and
you need to stop pretending that you are
not and the reason was because when I
was Kumari I listened to people I really
heard them I looked them in the eye I
wasn’t distracted by my iPhone or by all
the problems of Vikram I was a blank
slate and for a moment I got to write my
own story and be a story be a myth and I
wanted to encourage people to do the
same thing and not to listen to all the
stories that you’re always told but to
be writing your own so I just want to
leave you today with the trailer for the
film it’s going to be out in June but we
happen to be showing for the first time
publicly here and thank you all very
much
so many of us look to the wisdom of the
east to solve our problems in the West
growing up in America I too had a lot of
questions and I met a lot of religious
leaders who claim to have the answers
but were these gurus real or just full
of it to find out I decided to
impersonate the spiritual leader and
build my own following that’s how I
became cubot it begin to feel the blue
light I feel myself getting warmer than
normal I’m sure that’s your energy I
have always wanted to connect with the
true authentic person from India
[Music]
the purity the honesty
there’s nothing phony about you don’t
know if I am good I am bet you don’t
know that I just can’t believe that you
would come and spend this much time with
individuals just what you’re doing right
here by coming here and helping others
the most important thing you can do I
will tell my kids my grandkids about
this wonderful person who came into my
life it changed me
are you the biggest figure that I know I
think so much I forget who I was before