top of page

Don’t Look Up: A Deep Look at First Principles and First Values & Why We Can’t Look Up Without Them

The recently released movie Don’t Look Up is about two astronomers who have just realized that a deadly comet is hurtling towards earth. The data is clear. It is going to happen. But they can’t get anyone to look up and pay attention.


The reason "Don’t Look Up" is on the big screen now is because it's telling the story of our time and it's very much the story of at least one key part of our work at the Center for Integral Wisdom and One Mountain, Many Paths.

Don't Look Up was named one of the top ten films of 2021 by the National Board of Review and American Film Institute. It received four Academy Award nominations, four Golden Globe Award nominations, including Best Picture – Musical or Comedy, and six Critics' Choice Award nominations. The film won Best Original Screenplay at the 74th Writers Guild of America Awards. The film set a new record for the most viewing hours in a single week on Netflix, and went on to become the second most-watched movie on Netflix within 28 days of release.

In this deep-dive sense-making series, Dr. Marc Gafni unveils the hidden secrets of the movie Don't Look Up that haven't been discussed anywhere else. 

 

We are engaging in the spiritual/political practice of reading a text of culture, which is the same spiritual practice as sensemaking.

 

Is it an evolutionary story? Is it an important story? What's right about the story? What's off about the story? What does the movie "Dont Look Up" tell us and not tell us about facing Existential Risk?

In this Dharmic Critique of the movie Don’t Look Up Dr. Marc Gafni seeks to explore this Outrageously painful and Outrageously beautiful moment of reckoning for our species – and indeed for consciousness itself.

This series was recorded in the live weekly broadcast of One Mountain, Many Paths with Dr. Marc Gafni. You can join this weekly broadcast for free every Sunday at 10 am PT.

PART 1: 
A Deep Look at First Principles and First Values & Why We Can’t Look Up Without Them

If this movie was about anything, it was about snapshots of the Global Intimacy Disorder. It’s only a New Story, a shared story of value, rooted in First Principles and First Values as a context for our diversity, in which we can all play our unique instruments, It’s only a New Story, that can actually militate towards a Planetary Awakening in Love through Unique Self Symphonies.

Watch Dr. Marc Gafni's first introductory teaching on Don't Look Up which does not include any movie clips.

PART 2:
Why Would a Three-Star General Charge for Free Snacks: Unlocking the Hidden Riddle of Don’t Look Up

There’s this invisible thread that weaves through the movie about this three-star general charging for snacks. This symbolizes something important. It’s an intuitive realization by the makers of the movie, which they don’t quite know how to explicate. It’s not quite formulated even in their own minds and hearts, but they’re reaching for something. They’re reaching for something Good, True and Beautiful. That is: Reality is made up of billions of micro-acts. This small, minor, irrelevant act is everything, because it’s exponentialized across the system when the system is sans “First Values and First Principles.”

Watch Dr. Marc Gafni's Teaching which includes 10 second fragments of Don't Look Up movie clips.

You can find the full relevant Don't Look Up movie clips related to this episode right below this video. 

Don't Look Up movie clips in this episode:

Below is a compilation of all the scenes about the topic: "why would they charge us for free snacks?"

PART 3: 
“Wanna Make Out?” Scene: The Hidden Narrative of Desire in the Movie Don’t Look Up


 

Desire is not this strange thing that arises in the human being, which undermines our sense of being a social self, or being enlightened, or being a good citizen. That’s how we relate to desire. Actually, we need a new narrative of desire, in which we realize that Desire is the nature of Reality. It’s the intrinsic value of Reality, awake and alive in me.

Watch Dr. Marc Gafni's Teaching which includes 10 second fragments of Don't Look Up movie clips.

You can find the full relevant Don't Look Up movie clips related to this episode right below this video. 

Don't Look Up Movie Clips in this Episode:

Watch the "wanna make out?" scene from Don't Look Up:

PART 4:
“She’s Coming Back," “Mom” Scenes: The Hidden Narrative of Being Welcome in Universe - Don't Look Up

Jason, when he’s before the shadow of the valley of death, speaks for all of humanity denuded of the mother. He says three times in three different scenes: She’s coming back. She’s coming back. She’s coming back. Mom! At the end of the movie, he comes out of the destruction, and the first thing he screams is Mom!

The experience of Mother is the experience of “I’m welcome in the Universe. There’s a welcome home sign in the Universe.” It’s the experience that we belong here. It’s the experience that value is real.

It’s the experience that it’s not a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, day after day.

Watch Dr. Marc Gafni's Teaching which includes 10 second fragments of Don't Look Up movie clips.

You can find the full relevant Don't Look Up movie clips related to this episode right below this video. 

Don't Look Up Movie Clips in this Episode:

Below is a compilation of all the "Mom-scenes" from Don't Look Up:

PART 5:
“We’re All Gonna Die”: The Key Seven Inner Knowings of Immortality

A key theme in Don’t Look Up is — as Kate (Jennifer Lawrence) and Dr. Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) both scream at pivotal moments in the movie — “We’re all gonna die!”. They are of course referring to existential risk, the potential death of humanity. But how you approach the potential death of humanity has everything to do with how you think about the death of the human being. And in fact, Kate and Dr. Mindy are right: everyone is gonna die! But what does that mean?

Watch Dr. Marc Gafni's Teaching which includes 10 second fragments of Don't Look Up movie clips.

You can find the full relevant Don't Look Up movie clips related to this episode right below this video. 

Don't Look Up Movie Clips in this Episode:

Below is the first scene of "We're all gonna die" as used in the episode above:

PART 6:
Death Stands Before Eternity and Says Only Yes: Eight Scenes

The moment we’re all Enlightened if we know how to meet it, is when death presses us into life. That’s what Rilke was talking about, that death actually is the one thing that presses us into “YES!” He says: “Life is always Yes and No, but death presses us into the realization that it’s all Yes!”

Watch Dr. Marc Gafni's Teaching which includes 10 second fragments of Don't Look Up movie clips.

You can find the full relevant Don't Look Up movie clips related to this episode right below this video. 

Don't Look Up Movie Clips in this Episode:

Below is a playlist of all the Don't Look Up-scenes used in this episode

Death Stands Before Eternity and Says Only Yes: Eight Scenes

Death Stands Before Eternity and Says Only Yes: Eight Scenes

Watch Now

PART 7:
Don’t Look Up: The Last Supper Resurrected - Prayer Reloaded

This last scene enacts a new "last supper moment." It is a crucifixion moment. This "last supper moment" is enacted unconsciously by the makers of the movie.  A last supper scene. This is when reality itself gets crucified. What do you do when you get crucified?

Even when the world blows up and we can't make sense of it all. We know that there's a greater sensuality, there's a larger truth. And we pray.

Watch Dr. Marc Gafni's Teaching which includes 10 second fragments of Don't Look Up movie clips.

You can find the full relevant Don't Look Up movie clips related to this episode right below this video. 

Don't Look Up Movie Clips in this Episode:

Below is a compilation of all the Don't Look Up-scenes used in this episode

All PARTS Combined:
Don’t Look Up: What They Got Right, Wrong, and Why it Matters
A Deep Look at First Principles and First Values

In this deep-dive sense-making series, Dr. Marc Gafni unveils the hidden secrets of the movie Don't Look Up that haven't been discussed anywhere else.  We are engaging in the spiritual/political practice of reading a text of culture, which is the same spiritual practice as sensemaking.

Is it an evolutionary story? Is it an important story? What's right about the story? What's off about the story? What does the movie "Dont Look Up" tell us and not tell us about facing Existential Risk?

Watch the full 6 hour series of Dr. Marc Gafni's teachings, which includes 10 second fragments of Don't Look Up movie clips.

Sign up DLU
REGISTER FOR FREE WEEKLY BROADCAST
ONE MOUNTAIN
LIVE BROADCAST

SUNDAY 10:00AM PT Weekly

ONE MOUNTAIN, MANY PATHS

One Mountain is a weekly transmission of timeless and evolutionary wisdom, aggregated through the ages, distilled for today’s great, and terrible realities.

 

We must drink deeply from the most relevant sacred insights about our human and spiritual nature in order to wake up and grow up into our own maturation and greatness as individuals.  From here we can show up collectively to embody the new era of humanity and unlock our most thriving future. 

Dr. Marc Gafni and the late Barbara Marx Hubbard have devoted their lives to articulating the most precise, impactful integrations of sacred teachings throughout history so we can each show up to One Mountain and leave enthralled by our oneness, purpose and potential! 

 

While there are many paths up ‘the Mountain’, 'One Mountain, Many Pathsis devoted to revealing the mountain itself and this leads to profound, transformational insights that will leave you more empowered to step into your personal purpose as a creator.

That's why we always say in our services:

We are a church, a synagogue, a mosque, a temple, a zendo...we’re all of it. No one is excluded, everyone is included… and we come together to attune to the evolutionary impulse awakening within us… WELCOME HOME!!

About Dr. Marc Gafni

Gafni is a visionary thinker, social activist and passionate philosopher. He is known for his "source code teachings”, including Unique Self theory and the Five Selves, the Amorous Cosmos, A Politics of Evolutionary Love, A Return to Eros and Digital Intimacy.

He is author of twenty five books, of which the first ten have been published, including the award-winning Your Unique Self: The Radical Path to Personal Enlightenment.

He holds his doctorate in philosophy from Oxford University, as well as Orthodox rabbinic ordination.

Gafni is playing a pivotal role in evolving a new ‘dharma,’ or meta-theory of meaning overflowing with heart - a new set of distinctions, that is helping to re-shape key pivoting points in global consciousness and culture.

He teaches on the cutting edge of philosophy and spirit in the West, with the aim of participating in the articulation of what Dr. Gafni together with Dr. Zak Stein and colleagues are calling CosmoErotic Humanism.

 

At the core of CosmoErotic Humanism is what Dr. Gafni and Dr. Stein are calling  ‘First Principles and First Values’, Anthro-Ontology, and a “Universal Grammar of Value”.

This is the ground of a new shared universe story and a new narrative of identity for the new human and the new humanity. This is what they are calling the emergence from Homo sapiens to Homo Amor.

This shared story rooted in First Principles and First Values can then serve as the matrix for a global ethos for a global civilization. 

ONE MOUNTAIN PARTNERSHIP

This work highly depends on the support of our community! 

 

If this labor of love has made your own life more Good, True and Beautiful, and you desire for Outrageous Love to reach more and more people, please consider aiding its sustenance with a one-time or loyal donation. Your support makes all the difference.

As you bless, so are you blessed. As you gift, so are you gifted.

Thank you!

bottom of page