»the indian family?«

before i ask my question, i would like to appologize if it's already been asked. i didn't read the whole website yet!
throughout the matrix trilogy, there was an obvious connection with multiple religions. In the Matrix Revolutions, Neo, while beeing in the train station, meets with this indian family. Sati, the little girl, is the last scion of the matrix universe. The meaning of the name Sati is: true, in the indian language. Without beeing able to make a connection with her name and her role in the movie, i noticed that in the Revolutions, they put a lot of emphasis on their family and Sati herself. And even, if you look closely, in the Reloaded, Sati's father was just finishing his meeting with the Merovingian when Neo Morphius and Trinity entered the restaurant, so even in the second movie the producers introduces us to the indian culture, or buddhism ( a big portion of indians are buddhist, just so you guys know ). I'd like to also point out that the final song we hear, during the end credits had some sord of an indian feel and vocals too, and when Neo confronts the machines, he acts a little like Buddah himself. So here it goes: My question is: What is the connection between Matrix Revolutions and the Buddhism? Is Neo going to reincarnate himself, like in buddhist beliefs? Why give so much attention to the indian family if maybe there,s no connection at all? Sorry if my explanations were long, and i'm really looking foward to your thoughts and answers on this one.

The whole concept that our world is an illusion and to attain salvation we must find the truth is a Hindu concept. The word Maya summarizes the above idea. Maya is basically the Sanskrit word for illusion. Then we have 6 versions or "Avataars" of the one. In Hinduism Vishnu has 10 incarnations and after each incarnation the world is cleansed. As far the population of Buddhists in India is concerned it would be at the most 6% of the total population. Anyway there is a whole thread about the elements of Hinduism in this site.

Buddha was a Hindu King. Buddhism is a certain re-orientation of the same ideas and hence there is tremendous synergy between the two. Hindus consider Buddhism as a branch of the same tree, rather than a whole new tree and they revere Buddha as an incarnation. In matrix movies there is a synergy of all religions. And I love that because spirituality of all religions is the same, the external practice is just a superficial shell on that spirituality.

Indian family, I think has a lot of significance, especially in context of what Sati is and what love really means (sacrifice). Sati, the little girl is the love/truth/devotion to be preserved for the next version of matrix. Her father, who is in charge of recycling may have significance concerning the process of rebirth and there is also reference to Karma as how it is as simple as “doing what you have got to do”

Also, there are many little metaphors picked up from Indian scriptures. The most important is about Neo being Blind in the end. He stops seeing things as forms rather than the light within. Shiva, the one who dissolves the creation and liberates it to peace, is also depicted in scriptures (instead of blind) with eyes closed to imply that he sees only with intuitive eye. The movie also ends with a chant for Shiva (Om Namah Shivay)

On the whole I feel, M1 is about being aware of out trapped existence (matrix called as Maya in Hindu [and Buddhist] scriptures), M2 is about exploring our potential to reach out to the source and yet sacrifice for sustenance of love and M3 is about ultimate peace, liberation and immortality (end of Time). The chant at the end of M3 is from Upanishad, a very ancient Hindu scripture, sums up the progression of this trilogy.

nice, thank you very much for your answers, especially bEagle. i really want to know how you figured all that out! it's really amazing
well thanks again

Watched movie twice. But I think key to the plots and subplots is spiritual symbolism. Would recommend you to explore the underlying philosophies (Hindu scriptures such as Upanishads, Ramayana, Puranas, Buddhist Work, Bible & Greek Mythologies) There is still a lot I am figuring out. And I could be wrong in my interpretations, but exploring these riddles is fun.

I don't have the time to reasearch this fully but In the Bible jesus goes from being a child and then almost instantly he becomes an adult. Now I have friends one hindu and one budhist that tell me in their holy scriptures the talk about a wandering stranger who preforms acts much like jesus now I cant remeber which one told me this and at the time I thought that both religons were the same thing i didnt too much care. but If this is true with neos life parrelleling jesus couldn;t that be what neos experince with the indian family in mobil ave.was about?

That is an interesting thought and I have also read about Jesus being in India. Nobody can prove these things, but this is an interesting fact that in Bible his life between childhoods and age 29 has been edited out.

Again, all religions are same at the core but differ in practices. Some practices in Hindu, Buddhist and Christian are similar. To name a few
Om -> Amen
Concept of Trinity
Significance of Ash
Mother Divine
Temple Bell
Many of these practices couldn’t have been taken from Jews as they don’t exits in Judaism

A movie like matrix is great because it goes to spirituality of every religion and finds a uniting ground. Something a like Jesus would do.

i really don't know where to post this so i'll just post it here!
when i was younger, my grandpa thought me this magic trick. behind all magic there is an illusion, a trick. this one consist in leading the person you're trying to fool to believe he or she choose a card in the pack, without you knowing wich one. Then, in a process of ilimination and apparent randomness, you show the person his or hers card. then this person thinks is magic, or maybe luck. the thing is, since the beginning of the trick, even before the person knew wich card he would pick, you knew what will be the card, and lead the person to it. about 94% oh the time, the person really thinks he or she picked the card and it was truly magic! you're probably thinking: where the hell she wants to go with this? My point is, the person didn't really chose his card, you chose it for him. all along, it wasn't even question of choice, it was in fact a question of observation, who's attentive and who's not. and maybe a question of who's naive and who's not! so i guess it's supportes the fact in the matrix reloaded: choice is irrelevant, choice is the problem, choice is an illusion! because of the context wich you positionne the person, she really thinks it's magic, not wanting to think further than that, or maybe convinced subconsiously that it's really magic! where it might be relevant to say: you cannot see past the choices that you don't understand! it's not some sort of theory, just something cool i thought it would be cool to share. so even though the choice question in the matrix looks complicated to understand, it shows that we live surrounded by this subject: choice! to get up in the morning to beeing insulted by someone who gave you the finger! choice is our purpose! lolololololololol!( it was an easy one! so what you think?

Choice is irrelevant, choice is the problem, and choice is an illusion!
>> It is a great sentiment. 100%. Sometimes (only sometimes) when one sees and becomes the whole, all choices merge into one. And then there is really no choice. Like in love there is no choice.

Choice exists only when you are in duality. In duality, there exists a mind and then with mind follows the comparison. From the comparison comes the notion of choice. If love is the domain of 'no choice', lust is the major part of choice.

For the whole (the one), there is no division, and hence no preference. Choice is an illusion from the perspective of the one who has become the one.

For the one who has not become the one, mind and comparison still exists. Then choice is real. In that case a choice that benefits many rather than the few takes him a step closer to the whole. The ‘whole’ is made of the ‘many’. Maybe the virtue of service and selfless acts lies in this type of choice?

Being insulted by someone who gave finger doesn’t benefit anyone at all and so should never be a choice. Honestly, only easy to say!

what i meant by it is a choice to be insulted by someone who gave you the finger is that you always have a choice. if someone gave you the finger and you're insulted, you chose to be. there is a buddist saying about this situation. the moralof that story is deflection and self control. you decide to be insulted if someone gives you the finger. you could just continue your day without giving a damn! but we chose if we are insulted and if we're not! but still is some sort of control. cuz little choices like that are too easy to pass over and not even consider them as choices. without even thinking more that we slould, we give back the finger as quickly as we got it. but it's still a choice at it's very deep root, every action has a reaction as the merovingian would say. But wich reaction will it have, that's our choice! with the finger example, you have a multitudes of reactions that you could have, wich brings us to a choice! choice is in some sord irrelevant, cuz we wnat it to be. humans are so lazy, they doN't want to have choices to make every day, so we say that it's a problem when the fact that we're able to makes these choices is probably the most beautiful thing in our lives! i could even go deeper by saying that we chose not to make these everyday choices. we chose not to choose. and we still do it every single day of our lives. it's a form of control that we bestow upon ourselves. (by the way, i appologize if i'M not clear in my explainations, i'm not english, so it's not perfect ) and great thought though, i love it! thanks for the reply

so basically your saying the rejection of choice is still a choice...

"Whats really gonna bake your noodle later is would you have still broken it if I hadn't said anything"

English is alright and your thoughts are interesting. There is always something lost in expression and there is always some miscommunication happening all the time. That is part of the charm.

Not choosing is also a choice like Xhadow has aptly put it a noodle. Analyzing the choices and consequences too much and getting lost in them is the product of mind that is looking for the best result (yes, like Mero's mind). The parameters affecting these are so complex that the small mind can never grasp. They say nobody can fully grasp the trajectory of wheels of Karma. It is futile, yet we have to act and choose. If I am correctly understood, is that what you are implying by the control we bestow upon ourselves?

Anyway, a misunderstood reply has its own charm.

In the context of choice, I heard a story from Gita (a Hindu Scripture). Arjun, the king has been wronged by his cousins and has been stripped of his rightful Kingdome. Arjun decides to fight back, and just before the war starts, he is paralyzed by the thought of having to kill the very same people who he once called brothers, friends and teachers. The dilemma for him is if that is the right choice and will it lead to good consequences. Krishna, who is the divine incarnate, narrates the rest of the scripture to him. There are a lot of things there, but the relevant gist to our topic I guess is kind of simple.
1. Do the right thing, with no expectations of outcome
2. Not doing the right thing is also a choice that has consequences
3. And the right thing is “Bhahujan Hitay, Bahujan Sukhay”, I might have garbled it, but it simply means for the goodness and benefit of many instead of few (All Neo’s choices lie in this category, even sometime when he don’t understand them)

I heard this story from a talk by “Sree Sree RaviShankar”. I was actually in Quebec, Canada. Check this out

Remember what the oracle said in M2.

Don't worry about the choice, you've already made the choice now you have to understand why. ( I think i screwed up the exact words but thats the gist of it)

Basically thats saying to me that choice is irrelevant if you don't understand the choices that you make.

i live in the province of quebec but not in the city, montreal is maybe 2 hours from quebec city. still i like montreal better! much more to do! thanks again for your reply, i really enjoy them, to be contradicted is fun and you're thoughts are very much interrresting, keep writing anything you have in mind about anything!

just a simple question: i read that during his journey, jesus was invited to tibet to stay with some monks and disscuss about his way of thinking. do you have more info on that?

Don't have much info. on it. You might find a lot of stuff to read about it on internet. It is difficult to find hard evidences on these things. I don’t know if there is so called “scientific” evidence on the fact that he existed at all.
But Some Supporting links

Well as far as the bible being smoothed out I do belive that happened... Anything written by man is subject to falablity, but to prevent this from becoming a religous debate I will leave my thoughts at that.

As far as the whole persicution for his no mainstream beileifs, it wasn't exactly like that it was more of a power issue thats why he was crucified instead of just killed they wanted people to watch as there "king" suffered and died.

However there were many that beilved that Jesus was stepping over his boundaries once he was older and there were even a few who hated him for it.

Well as far as the bible being smoothed out I do belive that happened... Anything written by man is subject to falablity, but to prevent this from becoming a religous debate I will leave my thoughts at that.

As far as the whole persicution for his no mainstream beileifs, it wasn't exactly like that it was more of a power issue thats why he was crucified instead of just killed they wanted people to watch as there "king" suffered and died.

However there were many that beilved that Jesus was stepping over his boundaries once he was older and there were even a few who hated him for it.

hummm....what i think? i don't know about you guys, but i think the bible is a very delicate issue. my personnal view on the bible can piss you off if you're in fact very religious and take it very seriously.
so i'll find a way to express myself clearly, cuz i don't want a misunderstanding! lol

I feel the same way thats why I am trying to avoid a religous debate. I respect all religons I just have my own thoughts about them and those thoughts tend to get me kicked out of various religous establishments. (So much for asking a question)

I think the matrix does a good job of displaying many religons and showing how they intertwine and coexist and actually make up who we all are... To be honest the degrees of seperation between all monotheistic religons are extremly small when you start to break it down... usually the translation is all that keeps them apart... but here I go...lets not tumble down that rabbit hole.

i understand completely what your saying! it happenned to me too. well i didn't exactly got kicked out of an establishment but almost! i learned t never ask questionabout the contradictions in the christian religion to a catholic priest! lol
but anyways, we could still exchange our views on the differemt religions, i'd be really interested!

I agree that religion has we know it has caused more problems than solved any, but remember it was interfered with by men to suit their need for power over the hundreds of years. Medieval times certainly bear this out by how they controlled the masses with everything written etc in Latin, which made religion a mystery to the ordinary folk. Only the wealthy, and powerful were able to enter the church, the peasants were kept outside with miracle plays to keep the whole further mysterious to the masses. The bible is not meant to be taken literally, but symbolically as with our dreams.

if this thread is still alive, i thought i'd supply some info-
there is a sect of muslims, called the ahmediyas, who beleive that jesus came to kashmir, after he feigned death and resurrection, and lived there till he was 120. indeed, he would have to pass through kashmir if he ever came to india(the sea route was discovered much later)

but i think there is a simply way to know if jesus has ever been there. if so, and if indeed he lived there 3 times more than what he spent in israel, their religion's central tenet must be 'love your neighbour'. instead, if u find endless sophistry, stupid philosophies, meaningless mythology and whatnot without that all-important theme, you can be sure that neither jesus nor his message has reached there. indead, is any religion similar to the above description meaningful? anyway there is not enough information to accept the jesus-travelled myth. we only have their word. but we also only have the word of the apostles and those who say he was resurrected.

maybe hinduism considers buddhism to be a branch of itself, i dont know. but buddha started his movement in opposition to the practices of the rigid ritualism and discrimination of the brahmins(higher-caste hindus). this may also be the reason why buddhism rejects and denies the authority of hindu scriptures such as the upanishads, gita etc. buddha also denied god and if u look at it frankly, it is a kind of nihilism, of the self and desire. it was with the (later) rise of 'mahayana' buddhism(higher/greater path, literaly) that buddhists started worshipping buddha as a deity. this is ironic, as buddha himself denied god. mahayana is in many ways a radical departure frm the original budhhist doctrine.

Quote:

we only have their word. but we also only have the word of the apostles and those who say he was resurrected.

don't you think it's a little odd that the only evidence we have on jesus's life is written by 4 guys and 3 out of them didn't know jesus?
[/quote]

This is a very interesting thread as I was lacking in my depth of understanding of Hinduism and Bhuddaism... That being said, please consider the following thoughts on the trilogy:

In Mathematics, among it's other uses, a Matrix is a device used in Set Theory to synthisize or combine/reduce elements from multiple sets into a single set. So, analyzing the movies top-down, the Matrix is combining elements of all of the Earth's (major) religions, including pagan mythology, into a single 'answer' (path).

The elements/symbols are all (almost) so simple IF you have enough knowledge about various philosophies and religions. As as aside, Philosophy, Religion, and Mathematics have been a 'trinity' since the ancient Greeks (at least.) I won't go into this too much except to cite a few examples that should make this observation axiomatic (even though the events cited are anecdotal.) First, the relation to Mathematics and Philosophy WOULD be very well known, if American schools still taught the Humanties properly. But, I won't get political.

My favorite anecdote that ties all three is the story of '0' and Infinity. In short, The Ancient Greek Philosophers (whom we generally think of as the 'trinity' - Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle) based many of their observations and logical arguments on numbers. Many of these numbers bordered on 'divine' and one, The Golden Mean, was considered divine. Moreover, several of our modern mathematical terms for numbers also have significance as philosophical terms, especially 'rational' and 'irrational'. Of the AD schools of Greek Philosophy (the 'trinity' of 'Sophists', 'Skeptics', and 'Stoics') the Skeptics came the closest to admitting a form of 'zero' by philosophising that Things are not necessarily what they appear to be - they could just as well be something else (this concept of 'what is reality, anyway?' goes back over 2 millenia.)
Another aspect of this 'mystical' relationship of numbers that was passed from the Greeks to the Romans to The early Christian Church was a fear and/or misunderstanding of '0' and Infinity. It was the influence of early Islamic Indians, passed along from the Hindi and Bhuddists who were being conquered/converted at the time, that these two mathematical concepts eventually entered Western Culture (these 'numbers' or concepts were considered heretical until around the 13th century, when they entered the lexicon and the culture through art - a point on the canvass the appeared to stretch into infinity but where everything was reduced down to nothing, '0' size - also known as 'the vanishing point - was the revolution that took the previously 2 dimentional paintings and allowed them to suddenly take on a third dimension, depth.) Even into the 20th century the churches (Christian, Hebrew, and Islamic) 'circled the wagons' in fear of zero and infinity in the aftermath of Einstein's Theories of Relativity. The long-and-short of it was that the only solutions for his equations, which were really about Time and Time-as-a-dimension, were for a Universe which had existed for an Infinity and would extend into infinity, or else a Universe which began with a singular event (which Edwin Hubble predicted and Stephen Hawking and Roger Pemrose proved to be 'The Big Bang'). But, there were even scientific and theological drawbacks to this theory (which theologians obviously preferred, as it indicated a 'creation event'.) The problem was, what did God do during the infinity before the creation? Scientifically, Einstein, among others, was not happy with the concept of the Big Bang (which he expressed in his famous quote about God playing dice with the Universe.) Several Physicists and Mathematicians propounded a theory in which the Universe was just in an 'expanding phase' and that, at some point - owing to the gravity exerted by the amount of matter and energy extant in the Universe - it would all come together again someday, collapsing to another singularity, leading to another Big Bang. (Would that mean that, according to 'The Matrix', the world is the product of the 6th such event?) While that particular theory has fallen out of favor it has by no means been entirely disproven. It is not inconsistent with a 'Big Bang' (just with 'THE Big Bang') but it does not get the endorsement of any of the Western Religions or Islam. Obviously, it IS in keeping with the Hindi and Bhuddist faiths (as a 'recycling' of the Universe.)

That was a long aside! Obviously, there is much, much more to the story/stories, but I hope that you can see that there has been much historic entertwining of Philosophy, Religion, and Mathematics to allow it as a given.

I don't want to go on for too long, so, for now, I will only address the issue of some of the symbologies from Western religion and mythical paganism. Most of them are obvious but a few seem to have eluded a lot of folks. So, here I go...

Neo - Anagram for 'One'; Can also be construed as 'the New Messiah', sent to deliver the 'chosen people' - the residents of Zion - from evil (the machine world.)

Trinity - Most obvious is the Christian 'Holy Trinity' but with the twist of being feminine. Most people think that this is a post-modern philosophy but, as I will point out later, it actually traces it's roots back to _original_ Hebrew (Jewish Kabala,) to Gnosticism, and to Paganism. Also has analogs in Hinduism and Shinto. Most blatant reference to modern Christianity is when the Merivingian asks if she is ready to die for Neo. This is a twist on 'For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son...' Only, in this case, The Holy Trinity (and Sacred Feminie) so loves the world - and her other half (the Yang to her Yin) that she is willing to sacrifice him through giving up her own life. As I just mentioned, Trinity also symbolizes something that transcends the obvious reference to her name, which is generally called 'The Sacred Feminine'. As I will point out momentarily the concept of the Sacred Feminine was abolished from Modern Western Religions by various means. Most notable is Christianity. Gnostiscm holds that Jesus was a very powerful Jewish prophet, a descendent of Solomon and David, which would have qualified him to be King of the Jews. However, it is widely believed that there are over 70 scriptures that are not included in the Roman Bible (which is now the King James, and subsequent 'modern' translations.) What was kept out, by decree of Constantine the Great, at the convention at Nicea (from whence the New Testament was compiled) were many scriptures that referred to the most powerful of the disciples, the one whom Christ had actually annointed to be 'the Rock upon which my Church will be built', and the one to whom he was closest (which created jealousy and tension, especially from Peter) - Mary Magdelene. MM was actually a daughter of royal Jewish Bloodline, as well, which, as the wife of Jesus, would have truly elevated JC to the title of King of Kings. But, there was a lot of political maneuvering after Christ's crucifiction, and by the time of the Nicene Creed, MM had been recast as a harlot and an 'unclean woman'. All of this brings about 4 main points: #1) As a good Jewish man, it would have been highly suspicious if JC were not wedded by the time he reached manhood. There is no restriction upon Rabbi's to remain bachelors and, in fact, it is considered sinful not to marry and reproduce. This brings about point #2 - It is highly probable that JC and MM had at least one child (Gnostic scriptures indicate a single child, a girl, named Sarah.) Upon JC's crucifiction, MM and her offspring would have no longer come under protection from those who had theo-political aspirations/motives. It has long been believed that MM fled, with her child, to Gaul - France. I'll come back to this in a moment... Meanwhile, with Mm's absence, the 'main men' of the Apostolic group began to write their scriptures - and, as it is the victors who write history, recast MM into the role that would last for 2000 years (the Catholic Church canonized her as a Saint in the 1980's, but how many Bibles have been re-written to at least cast her in a light favorable enough for veneration?) So that brings up point #3) The main scriptures that made it to Nicea had already hidden the 'truth' about JC and MM. Only the Book of Philip, which was not included at Nicea, and does appear in the Gnostic Bible, makes any references to MM's place in the Canon. But, Constantine still had a big sell. It was true that Christianity was sharply on the rise in AD 5th Century Rome, but the Pagans still had a (shrinking) majority. So, at Nicea, Constantine, and his advisors, 'borrowed' from paganism, mythology, and some from the Eastern religions in creating the New Testament (which did not appear during JC's lifetime, nor even during the first couple of hundred years after his death!) His birth was moved to coincide with the celebration of the Winter Solstice, his death with both the Jewish Passover and the pagan celebration of the re-emergence of Persephone (oooh!) from Hades - a celebration of fertility (is it a wonder that we hunt for eggs?), and a few other 'fun facts' that were meant to 'prove' Christ's divinity. In truth, he was an extremely charismatic man with a very powerful message and readlly didn't need the window dressings added by Constantine. But, too late. You can't unring a bell. That's #4 - that the stories in the New Testament are just like the stories in every other 'holy book' - A very good set of rules for living a good life with some morality tales and some marketing material thrown in for good measure. A lot of you may be wondering what kind of devil worshiper I am by now! I'm not; I'm a 'Christian' who can handle the truth and still believe that it is the message that is more important than the messenger.

I'll clean up with one last little bit for now (I've given enough to ponder so far, I hope.) Remember when I said that it was said that Mary M. and child ran off to Gaul, which is modern-day France? Well, the story goes that Sarah's offspring, who was of obviously royal lineage, ultimately married into an upstart set of Royalty - the first real 'kings' of France - known as 'The Merovingian'. Thaaat's right! Moreover, they were sworn to protect the secret of MM and her bloodline at all costs. That's because, by this time the New Testament had been added to the Old and there was now an official Christian Bible. And, if the Catholic Church (which WAS the Christian church - Protestantism was still a thousand years in the future) found out that there was someone claiming to be a descendent of JC - who, by now, had been portrayed as God, unyielding to the pleasures of the skin, etc. - someone who could PROVE who they were, with documentation (the gospel of MM, along with others, including - as rumor has it - the gospel of JC himself) AND the sarcophageous of MM, well that would REALLY upset the old apple cart! So, the Merovingians formed a group of warriors, known as the KNIGHTS TEMPLAR, who were tasked with retrieving some of the documents and other proof from the Temple of Solomon (hence the name) and to hide and protect this proof, along with the bloodline of JC and MM, the SANG REAL (Royal Blood), which later came to be called the SANGREAL (Holy Grail).

So, the Merovingian (of the Matrix) is a French Aristocrat, married to the Sacred Feminine (in this case, Persephone, the Greek mythological incarnation of the SF, and the theological equivalent of MM). They have at their disposal 2 mysterious, unnamed warriors on a quest (The Twins - the Templars.) And, since in 'Revolutions', the weather is decidedly 'winterish', it is Persephone who must return to Hades (the Merovingian just goes along with her.)

One last thing: Agent Smith. I haven't played with it as an anagram yet, so I don't know exactly how his name is derived, but, he is an Avatar (an Angel) who has broken away from the Architect (the Creator) and so has fallen from Grace. He cannot Create; he doesn't have that power. But, he can destroy. Moreover, he can inhabit another's body (possession) and multiply (become Legion.) Plain and simple, he is Lucifer.

That's enough for now. Did I set a record for longest post ever? I only hope that some of you find it intriquing... There's plenty more where this came from...

To any and all who slogged through my first post - Sorry for the length and especially for the numerous errors in spelling and grammar. I just didn't watch what I was typing! (Too dependent on the machine to correct me...)