Spiritual Amnesia

I just finished watching a Netflix show in which the main character wakes up to discover that she cannot remember the last few months of her life. She has amnesia. Amnesia is a very rare condition in real life, but it is a common theme in films. Some of the best movies on the subject are The Bourne Identity, Total Recall, and Paycheck. Two of those are based on stories by one of my favorite authors Philip K Dick. Other films on the topic are The Majestic, The Long Kiss Goodnight, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Memento. There are a lot of books on the theme also. This fascination with amnesia makes you wonder why it is so popular.

I think it is popular because at some level we recognize that this is our condition. It reminds us that we have forgotten the basic truth about our existence. We have forgotten who we are. We know we are not these fictitious characters that we have spent our lives creating. We are something more. We spend our lives trying to remember our original identity. That is what the spiritual search is all about.