Bending Spoons

The conversation between Spoon Boy and Neo in the movie the matrix:

Spoon boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That’s impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Spoon boy: There is no spoon.
Neo: There is no spoon?
Spoon boy: Then you’ll see, that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.

In 1983, David Copperfield made the Statue of Liberty disappear in front of an entire studio audience that was positioned in New York City. They were all seated in plain view of the statue, in a wide open space they put up a raised platform so that all could clearly see the Statue of Liberty in plain sight. He then raised a white sheet up, and a few moments later, pulled the sheet down and the statue was gone. He even had a helicopter fly over and go through the area just to prove that they had not just darkened the lights. He then put the sheet back up and a few moments later the statue of liberty was back. The crowd was completely stunned, it was amazing.

What he did was simply move the platform. He had built the platform like a giant lazy susan, so by just slightly moving the platform the statue of liberty was no longer in their view. Because this was a view of the ocean, nothing really changed in their perspective other than the now missing statue. The important point here is that it was not the statue that moved, it was the entire audience.

So the concept behind bending spoons is the same. It is not the spoon that bends, it is you that bends, or at least your perspective. We create the construct by which we live our lives. We create and perpetuate the view, the lens, and the scope of what we experience and see. We are the beholder. If there is something going on that we do not like, then most likely (and this will be very hard to accept) we created the circumstance and authored the environment in which that something is allowed to exist in the first place. If you do not like it, then change your perspective, change your view, and by so doing change your will.

Aligning one’s will to God (or the Universe if that is your thing), is simply accepting a new perspective. I really want that new sports car, from my perspective that is really important. However, from God’s perspective a new sports car is meaningless. Once you accept the perspective of a greater entity you will then realize that you can bend more than just spoons. To the person standing outside of the platform on the night of Copperfield’s magic trick the disappearance of the Statue of Liberty would have been ridiculous. However, of the many people that shrieked in alarm that night that were in the audience, you would have had a hard time convincing them at the time.

Yes indeed, if you had faith like that of a mustard seed you could tell a mountain to move to another place and it would. That is because you would have a new perspective. As Einstein tried to teach us, the concept of relativity can bend space and time. So Spoon Boy was teaching Neo nothing more than the obvious. The way around any problem is to just consider from what perspective is the problem no longer there? If you want the problem to bend to the rule then just imagine a perspective in which the problem no longer exists.

Guy Reams

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