Religious Studies
Meditation and Movies
Mitchell Gerrard ('12); Mentors: Darryl Smith, Arthur Horowitz
Abstract: India has a long tradition of ashrams,
which have varying functions, but are generally
places where people live in religious seclusion,
studying various forms of Yoga, meditation, and
the arts, among other things. I visited India testing
my proposition that the “higher” religious
ambitions of an individual striving to actualize
themselves through a transcendent being or power
are not far removed from the “lower” secular
ambitions of tragicomic theatrical performance. I
was fortunate to stay in an ashram where
Bollywood movies were regularly screened and
every night a religious “serial” was shown on TV,
providing both religious instruction and theatrical
entertainment. I found that though the emergence
of Bollywood and other forms of theatre have
challenged many of these religious traditions, and
vice versa, this challenge from both ends should
not be seen in a negative light, but instead as a
productive synthesis of the philosophy of religion
and theatre.
Funding provided by Pomona College SURP