View The Human Experience on You Tube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9m6RuJi4m4

E.K. Schafhauser
BIOGRAPHY

“The Human Experience” film


It was the time in history when we as a nation were dealing
with the conflicts of The Cuban Missile crisis, The Vietnam War,
race riots, women’s rights issues, the environmental movement,
and fearing a communist in every neighborhood, that I awoke.
I awoke to the notion that we all have a commonality,
and that commonality is in our being human despite our differences.
This was a fact deep in my heart and mind yet I experienced from
what was happening around me that this fact was being
challenged every day in human existence.

I knew at that time that somewhere in my future when
the technology, the personal resources, and the fire of intention
in my heart converged, I would address that commonality.
My vision over the course of 35 years was that the thing
I would present to the world would be entitled, “The Human Experience”,
and that this presentation would be a photographic essay that would
draw it’s energy from a place that was of myself and yet beyond myself

And so the convergence happened in the year of 2001-2002 when I was
challenged by my 2-year graduate program in Spiritual Psychology at
the University of Santa Monica, to look deep into my heart and pull
from it a project that inspired and ignited the gift that I wanted
to give to the world.

What resulted over two years of personal growth was the gift that
I had been gestating for over 35 years. And thus the film essay,
“The Human Experience” was born.

The film was presented to my graduating class of over 200 fellow humans.
At that time, after the applause and standing ovation died down I vowed
to my class that this was only my prototype film. My continuation of
this project was now to create a photo essay that was truly multi-cultural.
In the time period that I created this original photo essay I was
only able to travel to the Los Angeles area, and my local area to take
photographs. I now knew that in order to truly create a multi-cultural
film that a large gamut of peoples could relate to, I would want to travel
the world and photograph peoples of a variety of nationalities, religions,
ethnicities, and social status. In so doing I would further my own personal
human experience each day.

I carry with me on my travels the script and a copy of the video,
“The Human Experience”. At present I have shared the script and sometimes
the video with Jain monks, Hindus, Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Buddhist monks,
asking a simple question of each that have been so kind and interested in
this endeavor I have to relate the commonalities of the human experience.
The question asked is, “Can you tell me if the concepts in this film hold a
commonality to your religion, or beliefs?” As of yet, after two years of travel
I have had the response that yes, this does describe the essence of their religion.
In India, a Hindu told me with excitement that the words of the script are
what he knows of the Gita Sar. I understood this to be the essence of
the holy book the Bhagvad Gita. Atheists have also agreed with the concepts

although the pretense of the film is outside the realm of the five senses
that Atheists base their beliefs upon. Being a scientist myself, I was open
to creating a dialogue in the film that answers the question of what it is
to be human without identifying with any specific religion or philosophy.
Even the concept of God is addressed in non-religious terms.

I do believe we are at a turning point in history. That turning point has a
spiritual nature that has manifested itself in the physical world. The physical
world presents us with horrors that have been created by human actions and
reactions. If we do not reflect within ourselves the oneness of the
human experience, we are condemned to continue those horrors upon each
other and the environment. We have the potential to heal ourselves through
the universal love that all spiritual teachings propose and decent people of

no religious affiliation adhere to. The turning point is now here, where
those of us on this planet and its future generations step into a new era of
awareness that we truly are one body.

We as humans, we as in all living beings, we as in all of creation, are united
beyond the physical realm. A realm that is more common than even the same
molecules that make up our physical existence. It is the realm of the spirit

that we are united without separation. When each one of us experiences that
essence of commonality, a touch of divinity can be felt. I dare say that
even an atheist can feel it but just name it differently.

I have found the most profound experience of love; that touch of divinity in the
moments that I have opened myself to the larger Self we are all connected to.
And in that experience I have come to know the spirit in all things. When the
“I” experiences oneness in all things with no sense of otherness and when time
does not exist but in the Now. That is the moment that evokes the touch of divinity.

“We are not humans having a spiritual experience, we are spirits having a human experience.”

Ellen Kay Schafhuaser