Swami Dyananda Saraswati is exactly the sort
of spiritual teacher most seekers hope to study under. He is witty, charismatic,
and decidedly beyond worldly concerns. Yet, he functions in our terrestrial
realm with quite a high level of competency. It is easy to understand why his
Arsha Vidya Gurukulam ashram draws students from around the world for its celebrated
five-week course—and he is a major reason why they keep coming back. They might
not necessarily attain enlightenment, because that is the sort of thing you
never find when you look for it. Nevertheless, the Swami’s diverse students
will find some degree of illumination through his words in Jillian Elizabeth &
Neil Dalal’s Gurukulam (trailer here), which fittingly
screens this weekend at the Rubin Museum of Art in Chelsea.
Advaita Vedanta is the oldest school of
Vedanta, the Hinduist philosophical tradition to which J.D. Salinger subscribed
to sometime after the publication of Catcher
in the Rye. Frankly, Salinger was far more of a hermit or Stylite than the Swami
ever was. Despite renouncing the world, he is quite sociable and gregarious. Clearly,
enlightenment will not begrudge a little friendly conversation.
For obvious reasons, those most interest in Vedic
and Hindu religious thought will get considerably more out the documentary than
comparatively casual viewers. However, it is still rather intriguing as a work
of non-fiction filmmaking. At various points, Elizabeth and Dalal essentially
present the audience with a choice. They can either join in Swami Dyananda’s
meditation and visualization exercises, or they can remain spectators. They are
both valid choices, but you have to choose.
Of course, much of Gurukulam is devoted to quiet observation, but it is never as
hushed as Into Great Silence (a not
terrible comparative film). There is always plenty of life going on at the
Arsha Vidya. In fact, even to shallow agnostics, it looks quite livable for an
ashram nestled in the rainforests of southern India.
Indeed, this is an unusually transporting film,
submerging viewers in the sights and ambient sounds of Arsha Vidya Gurukulam
and its surrounding environs. Serving as cinematographer, documentarian J.P.
Sniadecki (whose are films are screening throughout Manhattan this week) has a
keen eye both for the big, symbolically loaded Samsara-esque shots, as well
as the smaller, lighter moments of bonhomie.
