Lee & Gandhi, Gandhi & Lee (Benefits of Hero Worship)
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Thanks to Bruce Lee fans on this forum & elsewhere who buy non-pirated B.L. DVD's, T-shirts, posters, etc., who write, speak, and think about Bruce and thereby keep him alive to some extent. These people also contribute to the Bruce Lee Estate and help finance the spreading of information on a great person and role model.
I also thank the Bruce Lee UK Fan Club for allowing the discourse of ideas.
In the movie "RoboCop 3", after learning that a Eurasian girl's parents were deceased RoboCop said to this girl:
"Your parents, so you remember them...if you remember them, then they're not really gone" ---RoboCop 3
As long as Bruce is in our hearts and minds, he continues to live, he continues to be an inspiration to us all.
A book B.L. had in his large home library was Think & Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. To paraphrase N. Hill, "Hero worship is a good thing, provided that the hero you worship is a good one..." Bruce Lee is a good hero.
On the set of the Great Escape, Sir Richard Attenborough must have mentioned Gandhi as his role model to James Coburn & Steve McQueen. Attenborough must have been at University in 1938, one of the major heights of Gandhi's career and fame. Gandhi must have been the spiritual, political, religious talk of all British Universities at the time.
To quote Gandhi when he was asked about "passive resistance", Gandhi said, "I've never advocated "passive" anything. Gandhi perferred to use the term "non-cooperation"--which is just the same as inaction being a form of action (or much like Bruce's philosophy, "Fighthing without fighting".
Gandhi was an attorney or barrister, who by trade and nature, are fighters, fighters for a just cause--their weapons--words.
We know Bruce was highly influenced by the East Indian philosopher, Jidda Krishnamurti, and Jidda's insistence that the truth could not be found when it was assembled or organized into many schools of thought. (No Styles Concept--Bruce Lee)
How much was Bruce influenced by Gandhi? We know that like Gandhi, he had a philosophical mind, yet like Gandhi who used logic and tremendous powers of speech, he had a scientific or analytical mind.
How much was Attenborough, who portrayed Squad Leader, Bartlett in The Great Escape influenced by the teacher of his fellow actors, Coburn and McQueen--that teacher being the young JKD instructor, Bruce Lee? I think Attenborough must have been influenced by Bruce Lee to some degree when he produced the epic movie "Gandhi" in the 1980's.
Attenborough produced Gandhi in the early 1980's. I believe Attenborough hero-worshipped Gandhi.
All these are interesting things to consider.
What's also interesting to think about was what I call, The Seattle Superstars, Bruce Lee and Jimi Hendrix. Both lived in Seattle. There's evidence that Bruce and Hendrix "chilled" or hung out together as friends. "Bruce Lee used to come down and chill with us." --" (from Jimi Hendrix's friend) Jimi Hendrix, The Uncut Story" (DVD) Both died in a woman's apartment. Was God trying to show an example of Samson & Delilah to us all?
In Hendrix's case, the woman, a German woman, ended up committing suicide. Was she guilty for not calling the ambulance fast enough in order to conceal Hendrix's drugs?
I think one of the main things Betty Ting Pei was guilty of was only being a femme fatale, a seductive actress by trade and having a married man like Bruce alone in her apartment and then this married man die in her apartment.
She sacrificied her reputation by saying that she was the one who gave Bruce the equagensic pill which "killed him".
I don't think she had anything to do with Bruce's death, otherwise, the guilt would have been too unbearable.
I can't wait until she publishes her latest book or memoirs in which I'm told that she mentions the potent Nepali hashish Bruce used.
Take care friends,
May 10, 2008 Saturday will be the 35th anniversary of Bruce's first gradual movement from the mortal world into another better level. You can look at it with somber eyes and consider it being a somber day. You can also use it as an impetus to quit tobacco smoking or any other harmful vice like gambling or adultery. You can use it to support a belief that death from the mortal world is only temporary sadness because the soul moves into a better level, whether it be waiting in a purgatory stage or the release from material wants, desires, or other worries.
God Bless you all....
Michael
Posted on May 7, 2008, 6:13 PM from IP address 24.193.245.190