“Infinite Potential:” Film Review

“We are all in this together. May each of us, as a member of the human family, respond to the moral obligation to make collaboration of science and spiritual possible. This is my heartfelt plea.” ~ His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama

“ Infinite Potential ” is the most important documentary made since “An Inconvenient Truth.” It highlights the revolutionary theories of the maverick physicist David Bohm, an explorer of human consciousness who gained insights from J. Krishnamurti and other great Eastern thinkers to develop groundbreaking scientific proof for the interconnectedness of the universe and how each person relates to it. Essentially, Bohm offered formulas that prove Dharma. Einstein called Bohm “his spiritual son.”

On a purely technical level “Infinite Potential” quickly reveals that Paul Howard is a master filmmaker who seamlessly interweaves vintage photos and clips with contemporary interviews of people who knew Bohm. The film is a mesmerizing visual tapestry accompanied by a luscious soundtrack. However, what is more interesting to me is that Mister Howard was completely unfamiliar with Bohm until 2012 and approaches his subject with a childlike sense of wonder.

In 1941 David Bohm was invited to CAL Berkeley by Robert Oppenheimer who then left to develop the atom bomb. Due to a short-term affiliation with the Communist Party for which he appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee, Bohm was essentially exiled from the American physics community and departed for Brazil, then Israel, and then finally England.

It was in England he met Indian philosopher Krishnamurti, whose influence upon him was so profound that he considered abandoning the pursuit of physics completely in order to follow him. Instead, Bohm achieved the impossible: melding different paradigms to unveil infinite potentials.

I had the privilege of chatting with director Paul Howard who told me that he “made the film in order to share with as many people as possible Bohm’s extraordinary insights into the fundamental levels of reality. I felt that it may reawaken in people the possibility of a realignment to the source of production and harmony with nature, to a sense of belonging, to regain a sense of oneness and wholeness and connection and the possibility that exists for personal and societal transformation. Out of the Quantum Potential, we get Non-Locality, meaning that particles, of which you, me, the universe and everything are made up of, can communicate with one another instantaneously no matter how far apart, from one end of the universe to the other without any signal passing between them. This gives rise to the profound idea that we are all interconnected, meaning we are all ONE and bound together by ONENESS, an idea that the mystical traditions of the east have known about for millennia. The OBSERVER is THE OBSERVED. Western science is catching up. And Bohm is largely responsible for this. This idea should inspire people to realize, that since we are all so interconnected, it should logically follow that we should take better care of ourselves, each other, our planet and even try and re-imagine our world, our political, economic, spiritual and social structures to that they become much more WHOLE and equitable.”

For millennia spiritual people have been discussing the fact that our apparent reality emerges from a much deeper reality. Quantum Potential was proposed 70 years ago by Bohm and explains the field underlying all observable phenomena that unites us all.

To be frank, I’ve spent many many years watching documentaries at my desk while eating meals and intermittently (yet frequently) checking social media, email, etc. After a few minutes of “Infinite Potential,” I pushed my dinner aside, stop checking my phone or anything else, and watched the film until the end. Then I hit “review” and I watched it a second time.

Trust me: your life will be impoverished if you do not watch this film. This is the most important documentary ever made. If everyone watched “Infinite Potential” there would be no more war, no more crime, no more harming planet earth; if everyone was convinced that we are interconnected then we could realize our infinite potentials.