At 15, as he sat in an algebra math class watching his teacher demonstrate an equation, Emmanuel Itier converted the numbers to words in his head that formed a poem. That night he had a dream about the poem that gave birth to his existential script, The Cage, about a man’s mid-life crisis. He thought to himself that he should turn it into a film and recruited a few friends, one of whom had a video camera to shoot the short film in 24 hours. He showed the dark film with lots of blood to his father who was a doctor and mother, a teacher. After watching it they said “Emmanuel, you’re very creative and it looks like you won’t become a doctor or teacher, so go do what you are called to do.”

After The Cage, Emmanuel produced a few other short films and upon graduating high school he spent a week in film class at a local college in Paris and immediately sensed he could do better on his own. He left and got a job in sales for a cable company while simultaneously interning for production companies.

About this time, he met an American flight attendant, a relationship developed and they were married and moved to US in 1988. Upon arriving in Hollywood, Emmanuel spoke no English, nor had he any real credentials ,so he did odd jobs until he began teaching French to Hollywood film executives one of whom, Peter Hoffman, the CFO of Carolco, the production company responsible for Rambo, Basic Instinct and other action films, befriended and mentored him. He learned the ropes by observing and reading scripts and self-trained to become a producer. During his teaching days, a Paris friend contacted him and asked if would like to be a US correspondent for a French film magazine to which he said yes.

Emmanuel went on to produce ten films and direct three, many of which were low budget horror films made because the Hollywood financiers were essentially “unconscious, making films for unconscious audiences”.

After ten years, Emmanuel remarried, had his first child, and had a second revelation. He heard a voice say “You need to do something with your life”

A few minutes later, the idea of oneness popped into his mind and his first conscious film, Invocation was born. Invocation answers the question, “What’s the meaning of existence?” In his mind, Emmanuel heard narration by Sharon Stone and pursued her for 3 years. When they finally met, she read the script and told him that the film was very important and should be seen by every member of Congress and screened at the Smithsonian. When he told her he had no money left, she told him that was not a problem and that she would be honored to narrate. She became the Executive Producer and will share in any profits.

The film has been screened at twenty festivals winning six awards and has received great feedback from luminaries including director Oliver Stone and Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu both of whom appear in the film.

While watching his engaging and important film, I was taken on an journey through the minds of a wonderful group of people from many walks of life who illuminated many areas of great interest to me and NPD readers including peace, mystery, awakening, the material and spiritual, science and religion, consciousness and non-locality, I and We, and silence.

Among the many powerful quotes in the film is this one: The terrorism of the strong brings about the terrorism of the weak. And it’s opposite may well be true. The peacefulness of the strong could bring about the peacefulness of the weak. It’s an idea whose time has come. The underlying message of this film is that we must come to see the divine everywhere and in everyone we see for we and life are one seamless whole however it may look and we may then, finally, realize the peace we seek in ourselves and the world.

Photos are Emannuel with Puppet Ji, Desmond Tutu and Sharon Stone.

“So far, we haven’t come far in solving our deeper cultural problems but we can do a lot”, says Itier, if, we focus on action rather than what’s wrong. The way I see it, humanity is not failing but is rather reinventing itself. There’s been far too much talking and thinking. Many more of us need to put the idea of peace into action and actually become it.

What took place historically is what Emmanuel calls the “castration of the feminine” by and in the masculine. “For the past 10,000 years. we have been the victims of a controlling masculine dominated system that directed women away from their power and positions of power and, at the same time, also killed the feminine in the head and hearts of men and turned them into killers rather than lovers

To help reconcile this dangerous historical split, Emmanuel is completing production of his next film, Femme: Women Healing the World featuring visionaries including Nobel Peace Prize Winners Shirin Ebadi and Mairead Maguire and modern day visionaries Barbara Marx Hubbard, Riane Eisler, Jean Houston, Jean Shinoda Bolen, and Marianne Williamson. And, Yoko Ono contributed a song for the film.

“Today”, Emmanuel says, “we have a group of serial killers and psychopaths in charge of the planet. A re-balancing is underway, so I have been called to produce my trilogy of Invocation, Femme and the last, We Come in Peace: A Re-Evolution of Economics and Politics that integrates the themes of oneness and the reunion of the feminine and masculine in all of us and applies this union to a vision of a transcended economics and politics in action.

Emmanuel is a man on a passionate mission of peace and film is his vehicle of love. I look forward to reviewing Femme and Come in Peace for NPD the minute they become available. Should you wish to support the making of his next two films, please contact Emmanuel through his production company’s website http://www.redefinegod.com or at wl1@cox.net.

There is a deep longing for peace in our personal lives and the world and in every moment we help create that world by how we live.

photo by marie jose travier

“I’d heard of music for money, music for fame, music for personal power, but music for God!”

“I had found the spiritual home I’d been seeking for most of my life. And if you listen to my music and lyrics, like “Peace Train” and “On The Road To Find Out”, it clearly shows my yearning for direction and the spiritual path I was traveling.”

“Stevens formally converted to the Islamic religion on 23 December 1977. In 1978, Stevens took the name Yusuf Islam. Yusuf is the Arabic rendition of the name Joseph. He stated that he “always loved the name Joseph” and was particularly drawn to the story of Joseph in the Qur’an.”

The thing that invites me and delights me in Yusuf’s story is the universality of peace to all spiritual practices. He was seeking peace, no matter his Swedish Baptist and Greek Orthodox parents, and at long last, he found it in Islam.
When we feel at home in our spiritual lives, we’re hitching a ride on the peace train.

Visit www.susancorso.com, for spiritual nourishment.

The greatest achievement is selflessness.
The greatest worth is self-mastery.
The greatest quality is seeking to serve others.
Conquer the angry man by love.
Conquer the ill-natured man by goodness.
Conquer the miser with generosity.
Conquer the liar with truth.
The Dhammapada

Let your love flow outward through the universe,
To its height, its depth, its broad extent,
A limitless love, without hatred or enmity.
Then as you stand or walk,
Sit or lie down,
As long as you are awake,
Strive for this with a one-pointed mind;
Your life will bring heaven to earth.

Sutta Nipata

Last evening, I was privileged to view A Walk of Wisdom, a powerful film about a remarkable nun who has positively impacted the lives of thousands around the world and is the leader of Thailand’s spiritual community with her own 30 minute morning television show. At the end of the film, I was both inspired and moved to consider my life and how I have chosen to serve. And I wondered, how  might I be of more service…

Please consider purchasing a copy of this deeply moving visual poem if you want to be amazed at what one person can accomplish in the world with determination and compassion guided by the Buddhist philosophy of love. If you screen it in your home and invite your best friends, you will all be touched in one way or another, as was the case with the audience last night, at the depth and power of unwavering love in action. Here is her unlikely story…

From Asiaone News

She was a supermodel in Thailand’s fashion industry 30 years ago. She has also represented her country to take part in a variety of beauty pageants and the public was amazed by her beauty and elegant style. She was a young and gorgeous celebrity who always put on designer clothes but that did not help her find real happiness and peace deep inside her heart.

She later decided to give up her flourishing career at a young age of 27 to get her hair shaved and become a nun.

Community learning centre

For the next seven years she meditated intensely and with her earnings, bought an unimproved piece of land in the center of busy Bangkok and built the Sathira-Dhammasthan Buddhist monastery to fulfill her wish of world peace.

Now, a well-known messenger of peace, Mae Chee Sansanee’s monastery has become a community learning centre where members of the public can relax in a calm and peaceful environment while serving as an ideal place for pregnant mothers to instill a sense of peace in their unborn babies. Most of these women were abused or raped and without her guidance, learning forgiveness and to let go of their past, they could easily transfer the hatred of their abusers to their unborn babies.

Today, Mae Chee Sansanee is not only a tutor dedicated to deliver the message of peace and Buddhism, she is also the dean of Savika Sikhalaya Buddhist College and the co-chairman of the Global Peace Initiative for Women.

A movie on her legend

The movie, A Walk of Wisdom, produced in 2004, is a portrait of her life that depicts her legendary transition from being a top model to a Buddhist nun.

When she was invited to hold a seminar in Malaysia recently, she told Sin Chew Daily whatever decision a person had made, a truly successful life must come with a peaceful mind. According to her, when a person loses his direction, the best solution is not to escape from reality but stop his pace so as to figure out the solutions to his problems. The wisdom of life suggests slowing down our pace at appropriate times so that we can get a clearer picture of the rapidly moving world and our place in it.

Mae Chee has taken her philosophy into prisons working with men and women as well as children around the world.

To learn more about this dedicated servant of love and order, please click here.

On 10.10.10 a thought experiment will take place and everyone on earth is invited to participate. Everything that exists was once a thought so…what if billions of us focused on peace, could that thought become a reality.? We are about to find out in the largest experiment of its kind ever conduced. Please sign on to this experiment if you feel so moved and share it with your network. At worst, it will put the focused thought of peace into mass consciousness and, at best, it could penetrate and shift the consciousness of this planet into the interconnected whole it is and perhaps bring about the flowering of a peaceful world that works for everyone.

“You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one”…am I?

I am off to Thailand tonight and will be sending my next post from there. In the meantime, here is a moment of musical peace for you.