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| Jim Carrey's Commencement Address at the 2014 MUM Graduation |
Jim Carrey's Commencement Address at the 2014 MUM Graduation
Please welcome to speak to us the funniest man
on Earth, a performer of legendary comic genius, a children's book author of
profound depth, an individual of enormous compassion who is doing so much to
make our world a better place, the great Jim Carrey *applause* Thank you.
*applause* What are you sitting down for? I was gonna milk that for a while.
You guys can stretch that out in post production right? To make that longer in
the edit. Thank you Bevan. Thank you all. Jai Guru Dev *applause* I brought one
of my paintings to show you today. Hope you guys gonna be able to see it okay.
*laughter* It's not one of my bigger pieces so you might wanna move down front
to get a good look at it. Faculty, parents, friends, dignified guests,
graduating class of 2014, *applause* and all the dead baseball players coming
out in the corn to be with us today. *Laughter and applause* After the harvest
there's no place for them too hide. Fields are empty. There's no cover there.
*laughter* I'm here to plant a seed today, a seed that will inspire you to move
forward in life with enthusiastic hearts and a clear sense of wholeness the
question is will that seed have a chance to take root or will I be sued by
Monsanto *laughter* and forced to use their seed? *applause* Which may not be
totally Ayurveda. *laughter* Excuse me if I seem a little bit low energy
tonight, today, whatever this is. *laughter* I slept with my head to the north
last night. *laughter* Huh huh oh man Oh man You know how that is right kids?
*laughter* Yeah Woke up right in the middle of PITA. Couldn't get back to sleep
till VATS rolled around Crazy *applause* Wooo! *Jim Carrey noises* But I didn't
freak out you know. I use that time to eat a large meal, *laughter* connect
with someone special on Tinder. *laughter* Because 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. You know, it's just letting each other know
we're here, reminding each other that we're part of a larger self. I used to
think Jim Carrey is all that I was. Just a flickering light. A dancing shadow.
The great nothing masquerading as something you can name. *laughter* Seeking
shelter in caves and fox holes. Dugout hastily. An archer searching for
histarget in the mirror. Wounded only by my own arrows. Begging to be enslaved.
Pleading for my chains Blinded by longing And tripping over paradise.
*applause* CAN I GET AN AMEN? *amen* *applause* You didn't think I could be
serious did ya? I don't think you understand who you're dealing with. *laughter*
I have no limits. *laughter* *applause* I cannot be contained because I'm the
container. *applause* You can't contain the container man! You can't contain
the container. I used to believe that who I was ended at the edge my skin. That
I had been given this little vehicle called a body from which you experience
creation. Though I couldn't have asked for a sportier model. *laughter* It was
after all a loaner and would have to be returned *laughter* then I learned that
everything outside the vehicle was part of me too. And now I drive a
convertible. *laughter* *applause* Yeah man! Top down, wind in my hair.
*applause* Woohoo! I am elated and truly, truly, truly excited to be present
and fully connected to you at this important moment in your journey I hope you
are ready to open the roof and take it all in. *silence* Okay, four more years
then. *laughter* They're obviously not ready. sneezesumorecutting Nah uh, I
want to thank the Trustees, the Administrators, the Faculty of M.U.M. for
creating an institution worthy of Maharishi's ideals of education. 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, to slack off twice a day for an hour
and a half. *applause* Don't think you're fooling me. But I guess it has some
benefits. It does allow you to separate who you truly are and what's real from
the stories that run through your head. You have given that them 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. *laughter* That may sound like no big deal but
many never learned that distinction. *laughter* And they spend a great deal of
their lives living in fight or flight response. I'd like to acknowledge all of
you wonderful parents. Way to go! *applause* What a fantastic job you've done
*applause* For your tireless dedication, your love your support. Most of all
for the attention the you pay to your children. I have a saying "beware
the unloved because they will eventually hurt themselves or me”. *laughter* But
when I look at this group here, you know, I feel really safe. *laughter* I do.
*applause* I'm just gonna say it: My room is not locked. My room is not locked.
No doubt some of you will turn out to be crooks. *laughter* But white collar
stuff you know, Wall Street that type of thing, you know. Crimes committed by people
with self-esteem. *laughter* Stuff parents can still be proud of in a weird
way. And to the graduating class of 2017, minus three. *laughter* Ya didn't let
me finish. *laughter* Congratulations! Yes! Give yourself a round of applause,
please. *applause* You are the vanguard of knowledge and consciousness, a new
wave in a vast ocean of possibilities. On the other side of that door there's a
world starving for new ideas, new leadership. I've been out there for thirty
years. She's a wildcat! *laughter* Oh, she'll rub up against a leg and purr
until you pick her up and start petting her. And then, out of nowhere, she'll
swat you in the face! *laughter* It can be rough out there. But that's okay
because they're soft serve ice cream, *laughter* with sprinkles. I guess that's
what I'm really trying to say here today. Sometimes it's okay to eat your
feelings. *laughter* Now fear is going to be a player in your life you get to
decide how much. You could spend your whole life imagining ghosts, worrying
about the pathway to the future but all there will ever be is what's happening
here in 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 dared ask the universe for it. I'm saying I'm the proof that you can ask
the universe for it. Please! *applause* And if it doesn't happen for you right
away it's only because the universe is so busy fulfilling my order. *laughter*
Party size! 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. *applause* It's not the only thing he taught me though. You
know. I watched the affect of my father's love and humor and how it altered the
world around me and I thought that's something to do. That's something worth my
time. It wasn't long before I started acting up you know, people would come
over the house and they would be greeted by a seven-year-old throwing himself
down a large flight of stairs. They would say: what happened? And I would say I
don't know let's check the replay. I would go back to the top of the stairs and
come back down in slow motion. *Jim Carrey noises* It was a very strange
household. My father used to brag that I wasn't a ham. I was the whole pig.
*laughter* And he treated my talent as if it was his second chance. When I was
about 28, after a decade as a professional comedian, I realize one night in LA
that the purpose of my life had always been to free people from concern, just
like my dad. When I realized this I dubbed my new devotion: "The Church of
Freedom From Concern" the Church of FFC. *applause* 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. As someone
who's done what you're about to go and do, I can tell you from experience the
effect you have on others is the most valuable currency there is. *applause*
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 gonna get motional
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. *applause* I am
at 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 wanna hear or if I
defied their expectations of me. What if I showed up to the party without my
Mardi Gras mask and refused to flash my breasts for a handful of beads? I'll
give you a moment to wipe that image out of your mind. But you guys are so ahead
of the game. You already know who you are. And that piece, that piece that were
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. *applause* It's not
big enough. This painting is big for a reason. It's called high visibility.
It's about picking up the light and daring to be seen. Here's the tricky part,
everyone is attracted to the light. The party host up at the top who thinks
unconsciousness is bliss and is always offering to drink from the bottles that
empty you. Misery, below her, despises the light, can't stand when you're doing
well, wishes you nothing but the worst. The queen of diamonds under him needs a
king to build her house of cards. And the Hollow one down bottom there will
cling to your leg and say please don't leave me behind for I have abandoned
myself. 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. This
painting took me thousands of hours to complete. And when I was finished.
*applause* Thank you. Thousands of hours. Yes. I'll never get them back. I'll
never get them back. I worked on this for so long. I was weeks and weeks like a
mad man alone on a scaffolding and when I was finished one of my friends said
this would be a cool black light painting. *laughter* So I started over.
*laughter* *applause* WOOO! Welcome to Burning Man. Some pretty crazy
characters up there but better up there than in here. You know. Painting is one
of the ways. Thank you. 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 be 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 in 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 realized that there is
nothing bigger than myself. *applause* My soul is not contained within the
limits of my body. My body is contained within the limitlessness of my soul.
One unified field! *applause* One Unified Field of nothing, dancing for no
particular reason, except maybe to comfort and entertain itself. *applause* As
that shift happens in you, you won't be feeling the world, you will 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 can create that will be as compelling.
Imagination is always manufacturing scenarios both good and bad and the ego
tries to keep you trapped in the multi-plex of the mind. *applause* 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.” *applause* Are you
going to look at a person like me and say: how could we ever hope to reach
those kinda 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 is
doing better than you. No matter what you gain, ego will not let you rest. It
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 the promise of something we already possess. *applause* So, I
just want you to relax. You know. That's my job. Relax and dream up a good
life. I had a substitute teacher from Ireland in the second grade that told my
class during morning prayer that when she wants something, anything at all, she
prays for it and promises something in return and she always gets what she
wants. I'm sitting in the back of the classroom, you know, thinking, well, my
family can't afford a bike, you know. So, I went home and I prayed for it and I
promised I will 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. *applause* 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 any 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. *yeah* *applause*
Your job is not to figure out how it's gonna happen for you but to open the
door in your head and when the door opens in real life just walk through it.
*applause* 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 am 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. Oh and why not take a chance on faith as well? *applause* 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.
*applause* 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. Thank you so much. Jai Guru Dev I am so honored. Thank you. *applause* I
love you
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