When did you get out of the game, or when did you reach the proverbial turning point?

In a group session with friends and Native Americans in 2009 in Mexico in Xochitecatl. I told of a powerful meditation I had experienced the previous day under an obsidian mountain, but without them. I was sorry they were not there, even though in my vision they were. During the telling, unfortunately, one tiny puppy that the Toltecs brought in for healing did not survive. From the narrative and the words came strong feelings of physical vibrations on my own body, the Czech faded, everything changed. I spoke a different language. I had gone back in time thousands of years emotionally, I had come to know who I was. I experienced the same thing in a few days in Tula, Mexico, and later on other trips to Peru, Hawaii, North America, or at home in Prague’s Vinohrady. Who I was and am, if that is the case, is not important. I have been reminded of this more than once in different situations. What matters is what you are doing at the moment. But I observe everything carefully, because everything is connected toeverything else. This has been clearly shown many times. Every moment is important, even a moment from many years ago. Of course, even across lifetimes. I have felt that the world is made up of frequencies and vibrations, and that understanding has come back repeatedly without the use of any supporting substances. I have been looking at everything differently since then. 

Can you be more specific?

You realize that this game can only be changed if you are participating in it in a physical form, and it is in its physical visible form that you are changing it. So if you want to change something in our shared cosmic dream, the game, you must be physically present for the changes to occur. Just born. That is why one is always looking for the incarnation of the one who is to be born and can change the cycle of history in a significant way. Intangible movers always need representatives in matter who will write the intention into reality, our dream. Each has a unique role and power. Maybe you just plant a tree, hug a loved one. It’s enough to change many things. In our imagination, the effect is smaller, more important, but the power of the physical hug is greater. It’s important to inscribe our dreams into the reality we know. A tree actually planted is simply more real than one planted in imagination. Only what is manifested in reality is valid, not in a flood of words.

One thing is unexpected limit experiences and another is experiences as intent. What’s in the latter category for you?

Intentional testing and exploration certainly includes fifty days without food, or eleven days in the dark, temazcals, rituals, meditation, vivid dreams, regression therapy, constellations, holotropic breathing, but also hardening in frozen streams, saunas, seven years of barefoot walking, walking on hot coals, roofs and all kinds of things. While in the dark, I discovered that the laws of physics do not exist entirely as we know them. From the first day I actually saw, I spent eleven days in light and discovery. Darkness is not determinative of the perception of reality. Everything passes, everything changes, new challenges come and open new and new doors. Veganism doesn’t have to be the last step either. I keep looking and I keep being surprised. I try to discover everything the world has to offer. I’m vegan, I’ve lived without alcohol for twenty years, too grounding. I don’t shy away from exploring in full consciousness and in any form to know what people are talking about. I have recently tried some shamanic ritual paths after all conscious paths to know as much as I can about the universe and our existence. The most important thing then is to stay in reality and write the best into our common dream, i.e. harmony. Each step is about a certain courage. Suffering can awaken understanding, harmony then there is no need to suffer.

What about inharmonious and other states?

When you are on the path, reality reflects other experiences to you. In lucid dreams, you can know what it is like to be in hell and then wake up in terror and stay in it to understand what it looks like, how everything smells of blood, what the emotions are. You’ll find out what people experience in the low vibrations. You are in them and you don’t judge. Then behind everything is just forgiveness, compassion, love and understanding. Reality connects with dreams, the unconscious, other vibrations. You can see a UFO a few feet away in broad daylight, which is what happened to me. For you can project into your dream all that the akasha, consciousness and memory of humanity has to offer. Every thought is creative, just like a word. Everything we experience is just some form of dream, or reality, depending on what we call it. Materialization of ideas is pervasive, I believe everything from levitation to a total paradigm shift. I believe the next blueprint for humanity will lead to a higher vibration, love and compassion. Disharmony doesn’t interest me much anymore, I respect it because I know it is ever present and what it looks like. In order to change yourself, the world, you have to accept all that has been created and not reject anything, just accept it and not turn your back on the fact that it is not. And then in that consciousness keep your vibration and love high. That is the art. To open the heart. I’m on a journey and learning, I’m still getting to know the inharmonious states and looking forward to what I learn about myself.

Besides the ones mentioned, is there any other form that has changed you, perhaps from ordinary life?

All my life I have been undergoing very important trials of relationships, humility, relevance, forgiveness, sharing, respect, self-centeredness, patience, truth, and especially embracing new knowledge of how to be consistently as close as possible to God, harmony, and oneness. I am on a journey like anyone else. It was a beautiful test when I lost the Czech Lion in 2014, after twenty years of existence, of work, of striving. The Czech Lion is and was the Czech version of the American Oscar. The neighboring states took an example from us. It was figuratively speaking my baby at the time, my energy, after years of building it up with a certain prestige, but some filmmakers from the Academy, which I myself founded and was its executive director for eighteen years, summed it all up in one sentence. It was formulated by Oscar-winning director and producer Jan Svěrák: “Peter, you have the misfortune to have built a prestigious national award, and you cannot own it as an individual. So give it over.” Well, there was a contradiction, alienation, a kind of nationalization, and I am grateful to everyone today that the presidium of that time took it away from me. If they hadn’t done that, I probably wouldn’t be doing this interview today, making this film, having these experiences. But for every problem in a relationship, there are at least two. And I also had my share of it, because I wanted freedom, fun, creation, and the other side wanted moderation, importance, just to make everything more serious, more serious, more dignified.

And how do you look at it today, years later?

I love all the academy members for that experience and I thank them. Even those who fought vehemently for that alienation. Years ago I met Honza Svěrák, we hugged and he whispered in my ear, “Brother…”. At the moment our children were performing at a concert together, on a common stage. Experience above all. In the end, everything that seems bad at the beginning has a beautiful ending and denouement. I was fired to continue my perhaps more important promise to the universe. Every experience that doesn’t kill me makes me stronger. I forgave them all a long time ago, and I hope they forgive me. My role model was our dog, who quickly forgave within moments and was able to rejoice the rest of the day. He inspired me even in this situation to continue living a happy life quickly.

In relation to your film that you are finishing, the question is, do you consider film as a possible form of transforming the perception of reality?

Every film we see then creates our past in the present and shapes us. It becomes part of us. Every film has in it the essence of change, of healing transformation. I believe that The Meaning and Mystery of Life will heal, that it will be another beginning of change. I believe it will be the foundation of the known knowledge of the depths of our souls. Everything we experience is a part of our lives, and maybe someday it will all come together in one film. There will be no difference between the screen and life.

Let us now go into more detail about the Meaning and Mystery of Life. How did the initial idea to make the film come about?

I guess the basic impulse was the experience with my friends and the Native Americans in 2009 in Mexico in Xochitecatl. Suddenly I was identified with the life of the past and then there was a context that just confirmed everything. It was and is not so much about identification with history as it is about what one is doing right now, who one is in the present, and what one will do for one’s future and the future of others. First and foremost, I am helping myself. If I can do that, I can help others. My dream is of harmony without suffering. How many people and beings will join in is another matter. I didn’t want to tell it all myself, so I got a lot of people together so that everything could be heard from different mouths. 

It’s a very demanding project from a production point of view in the Czech Republic. How did you manage to secure enough funding for it?

Everything was originally supposed to be a documentary that I was preparing with Ctirad Hemelík, who was looking for guests to film, asking them questions, but then I backed out of that and started working on the script and the film. At the very beginning, it was financially supported by a billionaire, philanthropist and open-minded person, Karel Janeček. The film took off, but the funding soon ran out. Donors have helped and are helping, I sell what I have built before, I give it my all, I don’t limit myself, some miracle always happens, and more money appears that I wouldn’t have expected, but it is there. Put God in the first place and then the energy will come. That has been my experience. You can replace God in this case with the joy of the work, the intention, the conviction that it is worthwhile and don’t think about the benefits. Then miracles will begin to happen. The cosmic game we live in is watching our every move. It gives and takes, it follows flawless rules.

Why and how did you come to the decision to blend several cinematic forms? 

I never think in old paradigms. I’m only interested in how I see and feel. Of course, I am limited by the experiences of this world, but I try to expand them, to enrich them, not to bind myself, and I know that everything is connected to everything. So different art forms and genres help to blend.

Many personalities, celebrities of the world of spiritual growth speak in the film. What did meeting them mean to you?

Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len, promoter of the Hawaiian technique of Ho’oponopono, healing through forgiveness, recounted an experience in prison where he worked for four years as a psychologist with mentally ill criminals. He did not ask why the prisoners were in solitary confinement, but asked what he  himself was doing there, what he had to atone for being there. He was addressing himself, not the prisoners. Later he noticed that the situation around him had improved, and the condition of the prisoners who were no longer in solitary confinement. Eventually, he too got out of prison as a doctor. In the same way, I no longer deal with the people around me, but I observe why things happen around me. Everything outside is inside me. What I see is me. Every respondent has brought me something, enriched me. This was just an example. Everyone has enriched me. 

Are we to understand that the audience will see themselves in your film?

Yes. All of life is a film that we make and we project it ourselves. As long as my projector is in order, I’m “clean”. There is no way I can screen a film where there will be violence or conflict if I am OK. Reality is a reflection of my karma, my journey, my present state. After all, how would I know myself if I never had the opportunity to see my face? No mirrors, no photos, no reflections? What I see in front of me, what I project, is me. I project myself as I am. Whoever sees this film, as well as any other films, will see themselves. I believe that this time they will see themselves in the deepest form that they are.

What day in the many years of making the film do you consider the most important?

Every day is the most important day of your life. Everything is connected to everything. Every moment mirrors the future and the past that we are creating right now. I saw my own written messages from the past as they relate to today and tomorrow. I laughed about it. The bottom line is that the most important thing is relationships with people, animals, nature and ourselves. Life is a cosmic game that is played over and over again without end. The principle of uroboros. As the most famous Christian prayer, the Lord’s Prayer, says, “For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.” The game is just disjointed and we live it in oblivion endlessly. Only the scenery changes gradually. A very important day was whenever I saw the birth of my children and witnessed that life goes on.

What will happen after The Meaning and Mystery of Life? Is it true that the film is far from the end of this topic for you?

That’s the question. Anyway, I would like to write a book that develops the ideas in the film. I also have a TV series in mind, if I can find enough energy, money and time. I would like to give more space to the interviewees who appear in the film. I’m thinking of a sequel where I’d like to go more into depth of knowledge. I’m also thinking about a completely different film that would mirror where we’ve come over the last millennium. It’s a lot of things. We’ll see where the universe takes me, what’s next. Maybe there will be a film about respect for animals, for nature, veganism. I’m looking for a way to make the film acceptable to everyone and to shift our understanding.