Here are some key quotes from Jim Carrey’s 2014 Commencement speech at Maharishi University of Management, an institution that reflects Maharishi’s ideals of education. In Jim Carrey’s words: “A place that teaches knowledge and experience, the knowledge and experience necessary to be productive in life, as well as enabling the students through transcendental meditation and ancient Vedic knowledge…”
Full video: https://youtu.be/V80-gPkpH6M
1. Life doesn’t happen to you. It happens for you.
How do I know this? I don’t, but I’m making sound and that’s the important thing. That’s what I’m here to do. Sometimes I think that’s the only thing that’s important really, is just letting each other know we’re here. Reminding each other that we’re part of a larger self.
2. It [meditation] does allow you to separate who you truly are. And what’s real from the stories that run through your head.
…the ability to walk behind the mind’s elaborate set decoration and to see that there’s a huge difference between a dog that is going to eat you in your mind and an actual dog that is going to eat you…many never learned that distinction. And they spend a great deal of their lives living in fight or flight response.
3. Now fear is going to be a player in your life, but you get to decide how much.
You can spend your whole life imagining ghosts, worrying about the pathway to the future, but all there will ever be is what’s happening here, and the decisions we make in this moment, which are based in either love or fear.
So many of us choose our path out of fear disguised as practicality.
What we really want seems impossibly out of reach and ridiculous to expect.
So we never dare to ask the universe for it. I’m saying I’m the proof that you can ask the universe for it. Please.
4. My father could have been a great comedian, but he didn’t believe that that was possible for him.
And so he made a conservative choice. Instead, he got a safe job as an accountant.
And when I was 12 years old, he was let go from that safe job and our family had to do whatever we could to survive.
I learned many great lessons from my father, not the least of which was that you can fail at what you don’t want so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.
When I was about 28, after a decade as a professional comedian, I realized one night in LA that the purpose of my life had always been to free people from concern, just like my dad.
And when I realized this, I dubbed my new devotion the Church of Freedom From Concern, the Church of FFC.
And I dedicated myself to that ministry. What’s yours? How will you serve the world?
What do they need that your talent can provide?
That’s all you have to figure out.
5. I can tell you from experience the effect you have on others is the most valuable currency there is. Because everything you gain in life will rot and fall apart, and all that will be left of you is what was in your heart. My choosing to free people, my choosing to free people from concern got me to the top of a mountain. Look where I am, look what I get to do. Everywhere I go… I’m going to get emotional because when I tap into this, it really is extraordinary to me. I did something that made people present their best selves to me, wherever I go.
6. I am the top of the mountain, and I was. And the only one I hadn’t freed was myself, and that’s when my search for identity deepened. I wondered who I’d be without my fame. Who would I be if I said things that people didn’t want to hear, or if I defied their expectations of me? And that peace, that peace that we’re after lies somewhere beyond personality, beyond the perception of others, beyond invention and disguise. Even beyond effort itself. You can join the game, fight the wars, play with form all you want, but to find real peace you have to let the armor go. Your need for acceptance can make you invisible in this world.
Don’t let anything stand in the way of the light that shines through this form.
Risk being seen in all of your glory. Even those who are closest to you and most in love with you, the people you love most in the world will find clarity confronting at times.
7. Painting is one of the ways I free myself from concern.
A way to stop the world through total mental, spiritual, and physical involvement.
But even with that comes a feeling of divine dissatisfaction, because ultimately we’re not the avatars we create. We’re not the pictures on the film stock. We are the light that shines through. All else is just smoke and mirrors, distracting but not truly compelling.
I’ve often said that I wish people could realize all their dreams and wealth and fame so that they could see that it’s not where you’re going to find your sense of completion. Like many of you, I was concerned about going out into the world and doing something bigger than myself, until someone smarter than myself made me realize that there is nothing bigger than myself. My soul is not contained within the limits of my body.
My body is contained within the limitlessness of my soul. One unified field. One unified field of nothing dancing for no particular reason, except maybe to comfort and entertain itself. As that shift happens in you, you won’t be feeling the world, you’ll be felt by it.
You’ll be embraced by it. Now I’m always at the beginning, I have a reset button and I ride that button constantly. Once that button is functioning in your life, there’s no story that the mind could create that will be as compelling. The imagination is always manufacturing scenarios, both good and bad. And the ego tries to keep you trapped in the multiplex of the mind. Our eyes are not viewers. They’re also projectors that are running a second story over the picture that we see in front of us all the time. Fear is writing that script, and the working title is I’ll Never be Enough. And you’re going to look at a person like me and say, “How could we ever hope to reach those kinds of heights, Jim?” How can we make a painting that’s too big for our home? How do you fly so high without a special breathing apparatus? This is the voice of the ego. And if you listen to it, there will always be someone who’s doing better than you. No matter what you gain, ego will not let you rest.
He will tell you that you cannot stop until you’ve left an indelible mark on the earth, until you’ve achieved immortality. How tricky is this ego that it would tempt us with a promise of something we already possess? So I just want you to relax. That’s my job. Relax and dream up a good life.
8. I went home and I prayed for one [a bike] and I promised I would recite the rosary every night in exchange. Broke it. Broke that promise. But two weeks later, I got home from school to find a brand new Mustang bike with a banana seat and easy rider handlebars. Yeah. From fool to cool. My family informed me that I had won the bike in a raffle that a friend of mine had entered my name in without my knowledge whatsoever. So that type of thing has been happening to me ever since. As far as I can tell, it’s just about letting the universe know what you want and working toward it while letting go of how it comes to pass. Your job is not to figure out how it’s going to happen for you, but to open the door in your head. And when the door opens in real life, just walk through it. And don’t worry if you miss your cue because there’s always doors opening. They keep opening. And when I say, “Life doesn’t happen to you, it happens for you.” I really don’t know if that’s true. I’m just making a conscious choice to perceive challenges as something beneficial so that I can deal with them in the most productive way. You’ll come up with your own style. That’s part of the fun.
9. Oh, and why not take a chance on faith as well? Take a chance on faith, not religion, but faith. Not hope, but faith. I don’t believe in hope. Hope is a beggar. Hope walks through the fire and faith leaps over it. You are ready and able to do beautiful things in this world.
And after you walk through those doors today, you will only ever have two choices, love or fear. Choose love, and don’t ever let fear turn you against your playful heart.
Pete's Lost & Found 