Higher Self: thirty Brazilians on who we are and what it means to be happy

Why is there something rather than nothing? Eu Maior (Higher Self), a Brazilian documentary released in 2013, opens with one of the oldest questions humanity has ever asked. Over 89 minutes, the film does not try to answer it. It prefers to listen to how thirty very different people live with it.

The directors are brothers Fernando and Paulo Schultz, who trained in film in the United States. The project belongs to Associação Dobem, a nonprofit they founded, and much of the budget came from crowdfunding: 208,000 reais donated by 630 people, according to the official site. Among the co-producers is Marco Schultz, who runs a yoga study program and leads courses and retreats. A book from publisher Sextante followed the film. The channel offers English subtitles (turn on CC in the player).

From the physicist to the clown

The cast is the film's strength. Buddhist nun Monja Coen, philosopher Mario Sergio Cortella and physicist Marcelo Gleiser share the screen with an 89-year-old yoga master, a mountaineer who reached the summit of K2 only on his third attempt, a woman who works on the self-esteem of farm workers in the backlands of Pernambuco, an actor who describes clowning as the art of failing, and a person who recalls how the family reacted when they took on another identity. Gleiser offers one of the clearest images: human knowledge as an island that, as it grows, also lengthens its shoreline with the unknown.

Happiness, pain and the path

The film is built around a handful of questions: who am I, what is life for, what is happiness. The answers range from inner peace to contact with nature, from family to silence. One point recurs in almost every voice: the search never ends, and crisis tends to be more useful than comfortable. Cortella sums up the idea that no one comes finished: "we are born unfinished and go on making ourselves."

What to keep in mind

Eu Maior is a film of testimonies, not of investigation. Spiritual views, such as the idea that life exists for the evolution of the spirit or that there is a level of consciousness beyond the mind, sit side by side with a scientist's remarks, and the film does not separate belief from established knowledge. Nor is there a skeptical counterpoint.

Why watch

For the range of Brazilian voices, rarely gathered in one place, and for its tone: unhurried, free of self-help formulas and with room for humor. It is a good starting point for anyone who wants to think about self-knowledge without being told what the right answer is.