Movies to Learn From

Excerpts from a Teaching by Wisdom Master Maticintin

The Four Feathers

A brief summary of the movie

The Four Feathers is a 2002 movie adaptation of a novel by the same name. The events in the movie take place in 1884 during the British expedition to the Sudan. It is about a man’s quest to redeem himself after making a major life choice that leads to his being labeled a coward. British army officer, Harry Feversham, has the full respect of his best friends, who are also his military peers, but, when orders are received to ship out to the Sudan, Harry has misgivings about going to war, about senselessly fighting in a country he has no interest in. He’s engaged to be married, and he knows that if he goes to war, he and his fiancée may never marry and go on to live their lives together. Therefore, he chooses to accept the consequences of abandoning his position, and the day before shipping out, resigns his commission.

Harry’s friends feel betrayed and brand him a coward by presenting him with three white feathers. Harry’s father, a prominent general, also shuns Harry for betraying his duty and honor. Harry finds that his fiancée, too, feels the community’s resentment towards him, and she also gives him a white feather, leaving him stunned. He has his life, but seems doomed to live the remainder of it burdened with the label of coward.

Seeing no other recourse, he sails off to the Sudan, unbeknownst to anyone, and decides to secretly aid his friends. He is befriended by an African warrior named Abou, who finds Harry near death in the desert. Through incredibly difficult and dangerous circumstances, Harry gives everything of himself to save his friends’ lives, displaying true selflessness. In the process, he proves to himself and the others that he is not a coward. Upon his return home, he is a changed man. He now lives his life with new-found confidence and trust.

Commentary

This is a powerful movie!...We don’t have to be in the same situation as Harry; that’s not the point. But, we should take a stand, keep our attention off self, and follow through with what we set out to do….It does require that for enlightenment. To wake up spiritually is no little feat. It takes all of us. It takes our total oneness with where we are focused. Harry didn’t attain enlightenment, but he became strong and focused. He’ll build with that. He had tremendous spirit and it takes tremendous spirit to awaken spiritually. We have no concern whether our feelings get hurt; we just go towards what we want, if indeed, we want that awakening….It takes forgetting about self, forgetting about emoting about this and that. That’s only anger, lust, greed, vanity, and attachment….The only way we can get beyond the karmic realm is to stop living in a karmic way….It has to do with our focus, our concentration, and our openness to that. Because we are completely open, we can receive the strength….That’s relying on our divinity to see us through.

Relying on our divinity to see us through doesn’t mean that we are frightened. Harry was not really frightened. He felt tremors in his body from the deeds that he did. He was constantly going into the unknown, constantly putting his body in danger, but he was doing it to help his friends, to stand at their side during the war….He had to; he did not want to go there, but society would have wiped him off the list as a coward. He would have lived many lifetimes downtrodden after that had he made a choice to run away from it, but he didn’t. He stood strong and followed through with what he knew he had to do.…From then on, such a person starts living in a much higher order. He is soaring upward….Harry’s energy was fused with what he knew he had to do in life, and look what a good humble man he was. He was willing to give up anything that people said that they needed to have, even to the point of giving up his woman to his friend….He was not going to stand in their way, no jealousy, no games.

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