Shangri-La - Lost Horizon Found!

By David Berg, May 1973

"LOOK AT THE WORLD TODAY. Is there anything more pitiful? What madness there is. What blindness. What unintelligent leadership. A furiously racing mass of bewildered humanity, strengthening, not in wisdom but in vulgar passions, crashing headlong into each other, motivated by greed and propelled into brutality. The time must come when evil will destroy itself.

"WHEN THE DAY COMES THAT THE WORLD BEGINS TO LOOK FOR A NEW LIFE, it is our hope they may find it here in Shangri-La. Here we shall be with our way of life based on one simple rule--love. And it is our hope that Shangri-La's brotherly love will then spread throughout the world. And when the strong have devoured each other, then at last the meek shall inherit the Earth."

AS MODERNIZED BY LARRY KRAMER FROM THE HILTON NOVEL, "Lost Horizon" tells the dramatic adventures of a noted British diplomat who attempts to evacuate a small group of people from a revolution in Southern Asia and unwittingly leads them into a kidnapping, a plane crash and a trek through storm-swept Himalayan mountains to the mystical, magical Valley of the Blue Moon and the lamasery of Shangri-La, where the art, the culture and the accumulated knowledge of the world are treasured against the day when an all-out war will destroy civilization. The clash of the severe ethnology of the outer world with the serene life style of Shangri-La is a key factor in the drama that unfolds.--So says the beautiful brochure on "Lost Horizon."

BUT IT IS THE DEEPER SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE of the film that is really most important: Its mountain valley of Shangri-La, a beautiful Paradise Lost in fancy amongst the tops of the distant and nearly impregnable Himalayas, is really the spiritual haven sought by every heart that longs for truth, beauty, peace, love and eternal contentment!

IT IS GUARDED BY AN ALMOST IMPASSABLE BARRIER of ice and snow and seemingly limitless distances in total isolation from the outside world. It is a Heavenly refuge of the soul from the horrors and torments, confusions and violence of modern man's present-day hell on earth! Only the most persevering that seek it find it at great cost and personal sacrifice, and they must forsake all and leave the world behind them in order to enter in through its narrow protected passageway in order to view its Heavenly delights, join its beautiful people and enjoy its Utopian pleasures of loving kindness and everlasting happiness!

AS JESUS SAID TO HIS OWN DISCIPLES, YE ARE IN THE WORLD BUT NOT OF THE WORLD, THEREFORE THE WORLD HATETH YOU. If ye were of the world, the world would love its own. No wonder “God's Dropouts” can see so many parallels to themselves in these recent inspired films! In the "Man of La Mancha" the well meaning mad Don Quixote expects and accomplishes the impossible! In "Brother Sun, Sister Moon" they can easily see themselves in the pitiful self-denying and persecuted followers of St. Francis, sharing similar experiences. In "Pope Joan" they see one of their flaming female young leaders leading the hungry hippie-like dropouts of Rome!

THE DISASTROUS FATE OF SHANGRI-LA'S DESERTERS could be compared to some of our own, and the final warning message of the judgments of God on a wicked world in the end where the strong shall destroy the strong and only the meek inherit the earth, gives promise of a new world rising from the ruins of the old through the message of peace and love and the preservation of life and truth in the isolated Colonies of these pioneers of the spirit!--Our Lost Horizon Found! Long live Shangri-La!

Copyright (c) The Family International

James 3: 16-18 For the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.

Shangri-La - Lost Horizon Found!