HAKUNA MATATA – The Lion King Re-Visited!

I went to watch the Lion King in 3D last week. This was the first time that I understood everything of the movie, because I used to watch it in French as a kid and I didn’t always understand it all. I wasn’t even aware that I didn’t understand some words, I would just look at the pictures and ‘automatically’ try to fill in the gaps with what I thought would make sense.

Anyhow, this is the first time that I understood the entire context of the words ‘Hakuna Matata’. The context of it is: When the world turns your back on you, you turn your back on the world and you go on living without worries while ignoring what is going on behind your back, eg: ignoring the rest of the world.

Those two words (Hakuna Matata) are said to mean ‘no worries’ – but there’s more to it than that. The way in which the words ‘Hakuna Matata’ are lived and presented in the movie, is through ignoring one’s responsibilities. See – Simba is actually the new lion king, which gives him responsibilities towards his fellow lions as well as all the other animals within his kingdom – in making sure a balance and harmony is maintained, so that all animals and species are able to co-exist in relative peace, only hunting and feeding off each other when required and, within that, not endangering the other species.

But instead of facing up to his past: the loss of his father and his own emotions of shame and guilt in believing he is responsbile for his father’s death – he runs away and hides in paradise. Here he is seemingly fulfilled and happy and has ‘all he wants’ – until his past catches up with him. His childhood friend – Nala – finds him, and in hearing what his father’s kingdom ended up like in the hands of his uncle, Scar, he starts seeing that his apparent bliss in paradise, is not valid. After the words of a monkey' saying that one can either run away from their past or face it and learn from it: he decides to leave his life of bliss behind and take responsibility for his kingdom.

And there you have it – the basic principles of how we walk the process of self-forgiveness, self-application, self-responsibility, common sense, best for all: presented in a children’s movie.

Now – as a child I never realised that this is what the movie was about. What I took with me from the movie was:  “I want to live like Timon and Pumba with Hakuna Matata, doing fun things in paradise and not having to worry about ANYTHING - EVER!! YAAAAAY!” – lol. And that’s what we do as children; we feel we can’t handle our reality and we go and hide in imaginary places – creating ‘another’ world for ourselves, in our own minds, where things are ‘better for us’. And what we learned in childhood, we continued doing throughout our lives, as we grew older, all the way into adulthood – spending most of our time in an illusionary world of ‘glimmer’ and ‘bliss’, while completely ignoring the actual reality as it is physically playing out around us.

Let’s manifest a world wherein children don’t feel the need to hide from the world, where children actually feel welcome, where children actually have fun, and where children take responsibility for themselves and their world, because they see that it is worth it.

To do that, we start with ourselves by facing our past, forgiving ourselves for who we were and what we’ve done in our past and learning from the past. As Simba, we cannot hide from our past, from ourselves and from our responsibilities forever. And it is simply a matter of making a decision: to live in ignorance as ‘personal bliss’, or to do what is in the benefit, in the interest of all, to create a world where no-one ever will feel the need to hide in ignorance again.

I am not saying that it is easy – I’m saying that it can be done.

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