♪ ♪
Morgan Freeman: Every morning starts the same.
Coffee and crossword.
And every day things seem to get worse.
Religious conflict.
Climate change.
It all seems so apocalyptic.
None of this is new, however.
We've been predicting the end of the world for
thousands of years.
- From nostradamus - all the way back to the
book of revelation.
Something about the drama of
annihilation seems to grip us.
Is it just human nature to worry and wonder about
the end of days?
Or is it really coming?
I'm setting off on a journey to find out why
so many religions predict an apocalypse.
- Kim Haines-eitzen: This - beast has a human name,
it's number is...
666.
Morgan Freeman: To discover
the roots of judgment day.
- Jodi magness: The suns - of light shall battle the
suns of darkness.
Morgan Freeman: Our ancient prophecies...
Yoram hazony: There's no peace
between us and our neighbors.
Morgan Freeman:
Reverberate today.
Maajid nawaz: If these guys ever came to power,
it would be hell on earth.
Morgan Freeman: And to
ask whether the end is really what we imagine...
Or if it's all just in our minds.
♪ ♪
My first destination is Jerusalem.
The spiritual set of the
Jews, christians and muslims.
All three of those fates predicted Jerusalem
will play a role in the end of the world.
It has long been a flash
point for religious tensions.
I've come here to meet yoram hazony,
an expert in the politics and theology of judaism.
I want to know why the end of days is so closely
tied to this city.
Yoram hazony: You're looking at the absolute
epicenter of the monotheistic world.
Right over there, that's the dome of the rock,
which according to islamic tradition,
Muhammad descended to heaven from right that spot,
and over there, the... Of the mount of
olives and gethsemane below where Jesus and his
disciples used to meet, and of course down here
is the western wall Plaza, the holiest shrine,
prayer location for all of
the Jewish people in judaism.
This whole area is called the temple mount.
- Morgan Freeman: - This is the temple mount?
Yoram hazony: The temple was
a building seven stories high, stood on top of
this temple mount, on top of that flat area
where those trees are.
Morgan Freeman: In 20 BC, king herod the great,
build a temple where Jews could worship their god.
It was designed to last forever.
Yoram hazony: Herod says
we're going to create the most
spectacular physical structure
in the entire middle east,
maybe in the entire world.
You can see these gigantic stones at the bottom,
those are called herodian stones.
The Jewish temple to the one
god stood on top of that mount before there was
islam or christianity.
Morgan Freeman:
But, in the year 70ad, the romans sacked Jerusalem
and demolished the temple.
In the centuries since, Jews have come to
pray at it's remains, the western or wailing wall.
It was almost 1900 years
before the site returned to
direct Jewish control in 1967.
We are about 70 years into the new Israel,
why hasn't the temple been rebuilt?
Yoram hazony: Two reasons.
One is cause the Jews aren't ready and the other
is cause the muslims aren't ready.
- The state of - Israel militarily, politically
controls this whole area, but the state of Israel
gave the temple mount area
on the top to the muslims.
Morgan Freeman: While the top of the mount is
off limits to Jewish religious rights,
there are sacred spaces underground,
which yoram says will help me understand the
Jewish vision for end times.
Yoram hazony: This is it.
We've come to the closest
that a human being can come
to the holy of holies, the
most sacred spot in the world.
That's the room in the temple that one human being
would enter once a year, the high priest,
on yom kippur on the holiest day of the year and
he would say god's name.
Morgan Freeman: Orthodox
Jews believe that without this
temple, their religious rights are incomplete.
So they await the day when
their temple is rebuilt.
Is there a Messiah?
Yoram hazony: In judaism?
Morgan Freeman: In judaism?
Yoram hazony: Judaism invented the Messiah,
but it's not the same Messiah
that most people think about.
Morgan Freeman: Okay.
- Yoram hazony: 'Cause when - christians think of the
- Messiah, they think of - someone who's divine.
Morgan Freeman: Yeah.
- Yoram hazony: - They think of, you know,
the end of days.
- What we have for - the Messiah is a man,
a king of this earth was
going to bring peace among
the nations in this world.
- Morgan Freeman: And - he will not be divine.
Yoram hazony: He will not be divine.
Morgan Freeman: And yoram
tells me this mortal Messiah has a very
specific to do list.
- Yoram hazony: - According to Jewish tradition,
- he has three things - he is supposed to do.
Number one, he's gonna reconstitute the Jewish
kingdom of the Jewish today.
Number two, he's gonna bring
peace with the neighbors.
And number three, he's gonna rebuild that temple.
- Morgan Freeman: - Rebuild the temple.
Here we are, this is 2015,
what are you gonna do now?
What is contemporary
Jewish position on the temple?
Yoram hazony: The Jews think
of the world in terms of this
dream that once existed in
the world that was taken away,
- the Jews want to bring - back into the world.
- Morgan Freeman: That is the - reconstruction of the temple?
- Yoram hazony: The - reconstruction of the temple
as the crowning symbol of
this era of justice and peace
that we're supposed to be assisting to bring back
into the world.
Morgan Freeman: Judaism is
just one of many religions
that envisions the coming of world peace one day.
But, looking at this place, where so many
religions intersect...
It's hard to imagine peace coming.
Rebuilding the temple now
would almost certainly not herald an age of peace.
It would obliterate some of
the holiest sights in islam.
In fact, it might even
trigger an apocalyptic battle.
But, the idea of a violent
end of the world is not new.
2000 years ago, not all Jews anticipated the
coming age of peace.
One Jewish sect fervently anticipated
the bloody apocalypse.
Archaeologist, Jodi magness
has taken me to the shores of the dead sea, where
their ancient prophecies were
miraculously preserved.
- Jodi magness: - Welcome to qumran.
Morgan Freeman: Qumran?
- Right, right, this is where - the scrolls were found, right?
Jodi magness: That's right.
The dead sea scrolls were
found in eleven caves in the
cliffs surrounding qumran.
- Morgan Freeman: How - did they get up there?
Jodi magness: Well, they were
deposited in the caves by the people who lived at
qumran who were members of a Jewish sect
called the essenes.
Morgan Freeman: Essenes?
Jodi magness: Uh huh.
Morgan Freeman: So, why, why come here?
- Jodi magness: They came out - here to the desert because
they wanted to live in isolation apart
from everyone else.
Morgan Freeman: Jody tells
me that the essenes settled
here at qumran around 100bc.
They believed an epic battle was coming.
One that would bring on the end of the world.
Thanks to the incredibly dry climate here,
their apocalyptic writings have been preserved
for more than 2,000 years.
- Jodi magness: Looking over - the edge of the cliff here,
look at what we see below us.
Morgan Freeman: Holy cow!
Jodi magness: This cave is very important.
Approximately 700 different
scrolls were found in this cave including
fragments of the war scroll.
- Morgan Freeman: - The war scrolls,
what now, what is that?
Jodi magness: That's the scroll that describes a
40 year long apocalyptic war
and one of the famous lines from this scroll says,
"there shall be a war of terrible carnage.
The suns of light shall
battle the suns of darkness and it shall end in
eternal redemption."
- Morgan Freeman: This war - that they're talking about,
is that like a call to revolution?
Or is it more like mythological expectation?
- Jodi magness: When you - read the war scroll,
one of the interesting
things is that it interweaves real and then what
seems to us to be fantasy.
- That the people were - leading them into battle are
priests who are dressed in priestly outfits,
the fact that they talk
about angels fighting in their
midst, but the soldiers
are equipped in the way that soldiers at that
time were equipped, so you have a combination of
what seems to be very real,
combined with things that
to us seem to be imaginary.
Morgan Freeman: Like many doomsday cults,
the essenes believe the end was imminent.
And took precautions to be ready to meet god
at any moment.
Jodi magness: This is one of the ritual baths
here at qumran.
They literally believed
that god's presence dwelled in their midst.
According to biblical Jewish law,
- if you enter the - presence of the god of Israel,
you have to be in a state of ritual purity.
So all of these pools were
filled by the flash flood
waters, but water was not
replenished over the course of the year, so it
got pretty gross.
Nevertheless, it was still considered pure for the
purposes of ritual immersion.
- Morgan Freeman: You - could probably come close to
walking on it.
- Jodi magness: Yeah, you - could probably cut it with
a knife at that point.
Morgan Freeman: So they were all here preparing
- themselves for - the apocalypse?
Jodi magness: That's right.
Morgan Freeman: What happened?
- Jodi magness: Well, the - apocalypse sort of did arrive,
but not the kind of apocalypse
that they anticipated.
Morgan Freeman: In 68ad,
their battle with the suns of darkness took place.
It was the romans.
As part of that campaign
to crush the Jewish revolt
against their rule, they
wiped qumran and the essenes off the map.
So the romans, armies just were sweeping past here
when all of these people were in the way,
just get rid of them?
- Jodi magness: - That's exactly right.
The romans were basically
subduing the entire area.
- Morgan Freeman: But the idea - of an apocalyptic battle with
the forces of darkness did
not die with the essenes.
It crept into another faith.
One that was just being born.
All roads lead to Rome.
That's were I want to
uncover how the Christian idea
of the end of days began.
It's most famous book of prophecy, revelation,
written around 100ad, foretells an impending
battle with the antichrist.
"Let anyone with understanding calculate
the number of the beast, for
it is the number of a person.
It's number is 666."
I want to know if I can calculate the number
of the beast.
I've come to the biblioteca
casanatense near the Vatican to meet an expert in
early christianity.
Kim Haines-eitzen.
She tells me she has compelling evidence that
reveals the identity of the beast.
Good morning.
So, what exactly do we have here?
Kim Haines-eitzen: Well, I've
been looking at some fragments
of the book of revelation.
- Morgan Freeman: The - book of revelation?
- Kim Haines-eitzen: - That's right.
- Morgan Freeman: The - book of the end of days.
- Kim Haines-eitzen: - The end of days,
the apocalypse.
It's a prophetic book,
it's got loads of symbolism,
but it's also very much a
political book and making a political claim
about the cause of evil.
- Morgan Freeman: - The cause of evil.
Kim Haines-eitzen: Or who's responsible for evil.
- Morgan Freeman: So tell me - about this coding because as I
understand it, the antichrist
was given a code so they would
never call his name, they
would just say it by code.
Kim Haines-eitzen: Well,
there has been a lot of debate about what this
number, in particular, 666, who it refers to.
There has also been a strong argument made for 666
referring to nero.
Morgan Freeman: Nero was emperor of Rome from
54 to 68ad.
Around the time when the first christians began to
arrive in Rome.
So how do you make 666 translate to nero?
Kim Haines-eitzen: When you
apply numerical values to the
name, kaisar neron and you add up those numbers,
you come to 666.
Morgan Freeman: In ancient Greek and Hebrew,
every letter had a corresponding number.
If you add up the letters of
the name for emperor nero, written in Hebrew,
kaisar neron, the total comes to 666.
But nero is just one of many
names that can add up to 666.
Kim believes a later copy of
the book of revelation found in an archaeological
dig in Egypt confirms the beast is nero.
Kim Haines-eitzen: One of the
interesting things about these
fragments is that we've got two different numbers.
- Morgan Freeman: What - are those letters?
Kim Haines-eitzen:
A chi is the 600, xi 60, sigma a six.
666.
This one over here, we have a chi yota sigma,
616 with a line over the top.
- Morgan Freeman: - Why is it different?
Kim Haines-eitzen: You
might think that this number
destroys the possibility that it could be nero.
Morgan Freeman: Yes.
Kim Haines-eitzen: What's
striking about this is that
it may help to confirm the
identity of nero because this
will be the number that we would get if we spelled
nero according to the Latin spelling.
Nero kaiser.
Without the n, the letter n represented 50,
the number 50, so 666 minus 50...
Morgan Freeman: 616.
- Kim Haines-eitzen: 616, - so we've just gone...
Morgan Freeman: So we just
subtract and we time up with
616 and we have the same guy?
- Kim Haines-eitzen: - That's right.
Morgan Freeman: I'm so clever!
♪ ♪
But why might early christians have called nero
the antichrist?
Kim brings me to the very heart of the Vatican.
St Peter's square to show me the answer.
So we know that the code, 666 refers to
the emperor, nero.
Why?
Kim Haines-eitzen: Emperor
nero was despised for many things including
persecuting christians.
Now, in the square here,
you can see an obelisk that
he arranged to stand at the
turning point in his circus.
- Morgan Freeman: - Circus Maximus.
Kim Haines-eitzen:
The circus neroeus.
Morgan Freeman: Neroneus?
Kim Haines-eitzen: Yeah, the circus stood here and
was a place for chariot races, games,
but he also used it then
for persecuting christians.
So in 64, there was a major
fire in Rome and much of the
city was destroyed, nero
wound up blaming christians and
he executed them in great
numbers as far as we can tell,
right here in this circus.
Morgan Freeman: Tradition says
nero even executed the man
many considered to be the
founder of the church in Rome.
Peter.
- Kim Haines-eitzen: The story - about Peter was that he was
crucified upside down, some
of them were lit on fire.
Morgan Freeman: Burning?
To light the place.
Kim Haines-eitzen: It explains
why they despised him so much.
So now we have the basilica
of St. Peter standing here
commemorating his death.
Morgan Freeman: So the
irony that this is where Peter founded the church.
Kim Haines-eitzen:
Yeah, it's pretty dramatic.
- Morgan Freeman: The - crucifix on which Peter died
could have been just yards from where I stand now.
Obviously, the christians hated nero.
He was the antichrist.
Even after his suicide, it
appeared that he had the power
to come back and rule,
which is why it was safer to refer to him
in a secret code.
But, the christians living
under the conditions that
they were living, judgment
day couldn't come too soon.
The Christian idea of
apocalypse took hold under the oppression of Rome.
This evil empire had destroyed Jerusalem and
persecuted the early followers of Jesus.
But, the idea has since
spread to a different faith.
It targets a different evil empire.
And threatens to engulf us all in the apocalypse.
- Morgan Freeman: I'm traveling - the world to find out why
billions of people believe in the end of days.
My journey has brought me to islam.
Islam is an arabic word that means surrender.
Submission to god's will.
The same god the Jews and Christian worship.
Meeting muslims face to face,
I've learned that islam aims
for people to live in peace.
But watching the news today, you'd be forgiven
for not knowing that.
A tiny percentage of muslims are waging war
against the west.
Isis and other religious
extremist groups believe the
apocalypse has already begun.
To understand why, I've come to New York.
To meet a man who was once a high level recruiter
for an apocalyptic islamist group.
Maajid nawaz was radicalized
as a teenager in the uk.
Please tell me about that radicalization.
- Maajid nawaz: I think it's - important just to distinguish
between islamism and islam, a religion.
What I mean by islamism
is the desire to impose any
version of islam over society.
Although ideology was sold to me as if it was the
religion of islam and that's what I adopted.
I grew up facing a very, very
severe form of violent racism,
domestically within the uk.
I'm talking hammer attacks, machete attacks by
Neo-Nazi skinheads, thugs.
On many occasions I had to
watch as my friends were stabbed before my
eyes as a 15 year old.
I began seeing myself as separate from the rest of
society and an islamist recruiter found me in that
state as a young, angry teenager and it was
very easy for that recruiter.
I joined a group called hizb ut-tahrir and that's
the group I spent 13 years of my leadership on.
Morgan Freeman: Is that the precursor to al-qaeda?
Maajid nawaz: Yes, it's the
first islamist organization
that was responsible for
popularizing the notion of resurrecting a modern
day theocratic caliphate, as we now see that
Isis has laid claim to.
But, my former group, they were the first ones to
popularize that term.
I ended up in Egypt where I continued to recruit
people to this cause.
I was eventually arrested on 1st march in 2002.
- Maajid nawaz: I was taken - to the headquarters of the
state security in Cairo, down underground in
their torture dungeons.
I was blindfolded and that's when they,
the worst ordeal began.
Morgan Freeman: Torture?
Maajid nawaz: They began electrocuting everyone.
Morgan Freeman: You served four years in prison?
- Maajid nawaz: - Four years, yeah.
Morgan Freeman: And then
you came out not so radical.
- Maajid nawaz: I - am still a Muslim,
but I am now liberal.
Now, when I was in prison
and I was living with the
who's who of the jihadist terrorist movements and
islamist movements,
- we had a leader of - the Muslim brotherhood.
When I saw him I thought, "my god, if these guys
ever came to power and declared a caliphate,
it would be hell on earth."
- Of course, when Isis - eventually did declare the
caliphate, that utopian dream
that we all used to share has become that dystopic
nightmare that we see now.
[Explosions and [automatic gunfire]
Morgan Freeman: So, lets talk
a little bit about Isis and
the apocalyptic prophecies of
Muhammad and how they're using
that for their purposes.
- Maajid nawaz: Yeah, so there - were a lot prophecies that
most muslims share in common with each other.
The difference is what Isis
has done is it's manipulated those prophecies to
serve its own political and ideological ends.
So as an example of this
end of times battle that Isis
believes is going to take place in a small village
called dabiq in Syria.
Now this village, has
absolutely no strategic value,
militarily whatsoever.
Has hardly any economic strategic value either.
But Isis has nevertheless committed resources to
conquering this small village called dabiq.
They believe that the international community and
the coalition must somehow be driven to come
and meet them in dabiq
and engage in a final battle.
Morgan Freeman: Would
that be part of the apocalypse
that America would fall?
Maajid nawaz: Yeah.
- Now there's a - prophecy of the prophet,
Muhammad that says that
constantinople will fall first
and then Rome will, so Isis
has interpreted this piece of
scripture that because constantinople has already
fallen to muslims, that
the next big battle will be
against the west and the
west will eventually fall.
The idea would be that actually in fact,
- that America today - represents Rome.
Morgan Freeman: Ah-ha.
Maajid nawaz: You know, a
continuation of the western
- civilization as represented - by the Roman empire.
Morgan Freeman: Why do you think the idea of the
apocalypse is so appealing, particularly to so
many young people?
- Maajid nawaz: When - you feel powerless,
- when you feel that - you don't actually control
your own destiny, when you feel that
you have absolutely no voice, then it's incredibly
tempting, though wrong, to feel like you're
becoming an agent of destiny.
- To suddenly feel like - you do have a voice,
that you are shaping history.
Morgan Freeman: Maajid now
runs the quilliam foundation,
whose goal is to prevent
Isis and groups like them from
recruiting people in the west.
He produces counter-propaganda videos like this.
Maajid nawaz: So we're taking
real examples of people who
have become disillusioned and
we put them to actors voices and actually put out
some of those stories.
Thank you.
Morgan Freeman: Thank you.
Most informative and I'm glad you're here.
Maajid nawaz:
Thank you, a pleasure.
Morgan Freeman: It's probably
natural that the apocalypse is appealing to the
disenfranchised.
They have the most to gain
and the least to fear from
overturning the status quo.
But it's more widespread than that.
Culturally, we seem to have a morbid attraction
to the apocalypse.
It's almost as if we draw some comfort from it.
At the university of Illinois at Chicago,
psychology professor, Stewart Shankman is studying
our subconscious belief in the apocalypse.
He thinks it may be hard wired into our brains.
- Professor Shankman: So the - gist of what we're doing today
- is we're looking at - people's different response to
different kinds of threats.
Morgan Freeman: Since this is
a lab experiment that relies on volunteers, the
catastrophe is survivable.
A sudden noise combined with
a mild shock to the wrist.
A skull cap of electrodes and
sensors on the subjects face
capture the raw data of fear, of brain activity
and her stress levels.
Together, they measure the
size of the startle response.
- Professor Shankman: - And the first condition is
- called shock at - anytime and during that,
you might receive it when
the countdown reaches one,
- you might receive it in the - middle of the countdowns,
- you might receive it in - between your countdowns,
you might not receive it at all.
- Look, there's a - bit startle for the
unpredictable condition.
- When people are in the - unpredictable condition,
- they don't know when - this bad thing is coming.
They're gonna show a greater activity in their
brain and pupil dilation.
- Their heart - rate's gonna increase.
Morgan Freeman: Now, Stuart changes to a
different condition.
A predictable shock.
- Professor Shankman: - Called shock at one and
you will get a shock at the end of the countdowns.
Morgan Freeman: Your reaction to this painful,
but foreseeable shock is different.
Surprisingly so.
- Professor Shankman: - When people are in the
- unpredictable condition, - their startle response is much
higher than when they're in
the predictable condition.
Knowing when the bad thing is gonna come creates a
qualitatively different emotional experience
than not knowing.
So, whatever we can do to try to make something
- as unpredictable, - predictable,
that's gonna give us a little bit of solace.
- Morgan Freeman: This metal - mechanism could explain why so
many of us believe in an impending apocalypse.
But, it may also explain the morbid appeal
of doomsday cults.
Marshall applewhite: I'll
tell you about a kingdom level beyond here and if
you want to go there, then you have to follow me.
This is the end of the age.
Morgan Freeman: But is it
possible to predict the end?
A few years back, many people thought they had.
According to popular legend,
the ancient Maya thought
the apocalypse would arrive on a specific date.
December 21st, 2012.
I want to know if this is really true,
so I've traveled to their ancient capital,
tikal in Guatemala.
I'm meeting Stanley guenter,
who's a world leading decoder
of Mayan inscriptions.
Stanley guenter: So this
is the temple of the masks.
And on the other side, the temple of
the giant Jaguar.
This would have been the early center of the
ancient city of tikal.
Morgan Freeman: What about those headstone
looking things, there?
Stanley guenter: Those are what we call stelae.
Stelae.
Morgan Freeman: Stelae.
- Stanley guenter: And - they commemorate periods
in the Mayan calendar.
So we see that they would have been dedicated
to periods of time, such as every 20 years,
every 10 years and especially
every about 400 years, the ending of the
great b'ak'tun cycles.
- Morgan Freeman: The - festival to mark the end of
a b'ak'tun cycle would have culminated in the
king sacrificing the captive.
Does that go to say that the
Mayans felt that 2012 would be
- the end of time, - the apocalypse?
- Stanley guenter: So we - heard a few years ago,
about 2012 when people said
the end of the 13th b'ak'tun
was going to be the end of the world predicted by
- the Maya and there's a - monument down here,
- I think we should - take a look at that would
help explain that.
This is stela 10 and you can see we've got a king,
there is his head, big headdress full of feathers.
His shoulders, all of his jewelry,
down to his feet.
And if you look down below, we can actually
see we have a captive.
We can see his head, we
have his hands and even down to his legs.
He's all tied up for sacrifice.
Morgan Freeman: So now, what did this have to do
with the apocalypse?
- Stanley guenter: Well, - we have to go around the
other side, here.
Morgan Freeman: Okay.
- Stanley guenter: We have a - date that gives us a specific
point in time, we have eleven years and 360 days.
Then we have three katuns,
that's about 20 years each,
so we've got another 60 and then here we have nine
b'ak'tuns because this is a date of about 525ad,
so if you remember, we had
13 b'ak'tuns ended in 2012.
- But the really interesting - thing is this monument
doesn't stop there.
It goes on and tells us there
were 19 of the higher unit,
the piktun and even higher, we have eleven of
the next unit and so on.
Each one of those units is
20 times larger than the previous, so what we see
on this monument then, is that 13 b'ak'tuns wasn't
the end of any calendar, it was simply the end of
one cycle within a whole series of nested cycles,
each one larger than the other.
- Morgan Freeman: Just - as we mark the start of a
new millennium, the Maya marked
December 21st, 2012 as a
major event on their calendar.
The ending of another 400 year cycle.
There would have been
parades, music and sacrifice.
If the ancient Maya were still here,
they'd have had a huge party.
No apocalypse.
- Stanley guenter: - No apocalypse.
- Morgan Freeman: - Just a beginning.
Another beginning.
- Stanley guenter: And - another one and another one
that would go on for almost eternity.
Morgan Freeman:
Why not eternity?
- Stanley guenter: We've never - found the end for the Maya,
- and we'll still have - to keep searching.
Morgan Freeman: Okay.
Thinking about the way the
Maya saw time makes me realize
that the idea of an end we have in christianity,
judaism and islam are not universal.
For these religions, the
ultimate hope is that god will intervene in
the world of men, pass judgment and right the
wrongs that we see around us.
But there are billions of
believers out there who don't
see the world that way at all.
For them, time moves in cycles, perhaps forever.
I'm headed to India to understand what the
apocalypse could mean... In a world without end.
- Morgan Freeman: - India is the birthplace of
two great religions.
Hinduism.
And buddhism.
Hindus believe an apocalypse
comes every few billion years.
But every end leads to a new beginning and the
world starts again.
Buddhists don't imagine a violent end of days.
To them, the word apocalypse
does not mean a revelation of god's
judgment to the world.
It's a personal revelation of truth in the mind.
It's called enlightenment.
To find out what that means,
I've come to sarnath, India to
meet one of the world's
most revered Buddhist lamas.
His holiness, gyalwang karmapa.
Tibetan Buddhists believe that karmapa is the
17th reincarnation of a great teacher who lived
900 years ago.
Good morning.
Gyalwang karmapa: I think you should wear this.
Morgan Freeman: I should?
- Gyalwang karmapa: - Yeah, thank you.
Thank you.
Morgan Freeman: Thank you.
Can we walk?
Gyalwang karmapa: Yeah.
Morgan Freeman: In 1992, a
holy commission hunted for the new karmapa and
found ogyen trinley dorje,
a seven year old son of a nomadic family in
eastern Tibet.
- You were kind of - young for this station?
Gyalwang karmapa: Yes.
- Morgan Freeman: - Okay, so what is it like,
- how do you, - is it all right?
- Gyalwang karmapa: - One way it's meaningful,
one way is a little bit heavy.
People have lots of expectation.
Morgan Freeman: The expectation is heavy for a
30 year old man.
The karmapa must teach how to find enlightenment
while still working to find it for himself.
Gyalwang karmapa: This is
the start of the site that the Buddha's give
first teaching.
- Morgan Freeman: - This is the place then,
- where he had his - first sermon after
he reached enlightenment?
Gyalwang karmapa: Yes, yes.
Morgan Freeman: Right.
- Talk to me - just a little bit,
your holiness about enlightenment.
How does one even begin to
go about trying to obtain that?
Gyalwang karmapa: Wow!
- Morgan Freeman: - Big question isn't it?
Gyalwang karmapa: Yes.
- Morgan Freeman: - Huge challenge.
Gyalwang karmapa: Huge, yeah,
maybe I think the first part is maybe you need to
recognize yourself like,
where you're from, come from.
Morgan Freeman: Why am I here?
Gyalwang karmapa: Yeah.
Morgan Freeman: So I would
like to get some instruction about enlightenment.
- Gyalwang karmapa: - I will try, I will try.
Yeah, okay.
Morgan Freeman: Okay.
Gyalwang karmapa: I will try.
Thank you.
- Morgan Freeman: The - karmapa tells me meditation
is the key to enlightenment.
If the apocalypse is the
revelation of the true will of
god, meditation aims to
reveal the true will of me.
- Gyalwang karmapa: They - have lots of different
ways to meditate, but the simple
one is to focus your breath.
- Morgan Freeman: - That's the one I know.
Gyalwang karmapa:
You relax your mind.
And don't follow the past,
don't anticipate future, just relax at the moment.
Just focus your breathing and that's all.
Yeah, we should try.
[Chanting].
- Morgan Freeman: It's a lot - of work to move past
all the memories, thoughts and emotions...
To just concentrate on being...
To see what's left when all the noise has gone.
[Chanting].
Gyalwang karmapa: Okay?
Morgan Freeman: Beautiful.
Gyalwang karmapa: Good?
Morgan Freeman: Yes.
Gyalwang karmapa: Thank you.
- Morgan Freeman: Can I ask - you a philosophical question?
Gyalwang karmapa:
Philosophical?
I will try.
Morgan Freeman: It's about the westerners idea...
Gyalwang karmapa: Yeah.
Morgan Freeman: Of apocalypse.
The end of time, the end of being.
Is there such a thing in buddhism?
If when everything stops and every...
The world comes to an end and mankind is judged.
Gyalwang karmapa: We believe that every day is
somewhere one universe it's like...
Morgan Freeman: Ending.
- Gyalwang karmapa: - Ending one it's...
Both: Beginning.
Gyalwang karmapa:
But it's not like a... This kind of judge, how
do I say, judge things.
- Morgan Freeman: - No judgment day?
- Gyalwang karmapa: - No, not judgment day.
This is maybe a little bit different.
Morgan Freeman: So actually, what you're saying
I think is that... There is no end, only change?
- Gyalwang karmapa: - Yeah, change, yes.
- Morgan Freeman: - One thing ends, another begins.
- Gyalwang karmapa: - Yeah, maybe it's,
there are not absolute sort of ending, yeah.
Thank you.
Morgan Freeman: Thank you.
Gyalwang karmapa: Thank you.
Morgan Freeman: When you
meet someone like his holiness,
the karmapa, I guess the thing that stands out
most is his humility.
Karmapa doesn't give you
the impression that he thinks
of himself as greater than you, higher than you,
better in any way than you.
He's here like the rest of us on this quest,
trying to understand why we're here,
seeking to unveil the
truth, seeking enlightenment.
But the truth isn't always revealed in a moment
of calm reflection.
[Water rushing [and whipping wind]
♪ ♪
August, 2005.
Hurricane Katrina slammed into Louisiana.
A catastrophe of historic proportions.
Some even thought the end was
happening here in New Orleans.
Man: New Orleans had a level of sin that was
offensive to god and I believe
that the hurricant Katrina was,
in fact, punishment against
the city of New Orleans.
Man 2: Katrina was a judgement from god.
- Morgan Freeman: - I'm in New Orleans to meet
Katrina survivors.
To learn how they dealt with the end and
how it changed them.
So right now, we are in flood country?
Ernest: Yes, sir.
- Morgan Freeman: This is - where the water actually...
Ernest: Yes, this is actually the 9th ward.
- Morgan Freeman: You - were here during Katrina,
is that right?
Ernest: Yes, I was.
- I was in an apartment building - and I was on the first floor
and I got eight feet of water
and I lost everything I owned.
Morgan Freeman: Did you
have a feeling at some point that this was like
the end of it all?
Ernest: It did seem like the end to me.
Morgan Freeman:
Ernest was far from alone.
New Orleans residents Charles
and Angela marsalis came to
their local church, a shelter
in the time of the storm.
We're in the carrolton Avenue church of Christ,
this is, you spent a little
time here during the storm.
How did you wind up here?
Angela marsalis: We were gonna
lodge here for the night and then we were gonna go
home the next day and there was a night we could
hear the wind rushing in.
It's just really, really loud.
I mean, at that time it was
really scary and I just began
to kneel down and pray.
We could actually, you know,
see the water rising and we
thought it'd be stopped, but it just kept rising.
Morgan Freeman: The marsalis
family was completely cut off.
More than a hundred billion
gallons of water had surged through broken levees.
Three days passed before
the red cross evacuated them to a marooned bridge
full of desperate survivors.
- Angela marsalis: It was like, - pitch black dark.
Everything in that water,
alligator, snakes, everything.
I mean, they had sick people,
they had women in wheelchairs.
Charles marsalis: We saw the
guys having drugs over here,
selling drugs, guns, I felt
that the devil was at work.
- Angela marsalis: It - was really a dark time.
It was really dark, yeah.
- Morgan Freeman: Now this, - these are dire circumstances
and dire circumstances can bring out the best and
the worst in people.
Charles marsalis: Yes, yes.
- Morgan Freeman: How did - you function through that?
- Charles marsalis: Well, - I'm a minister and you got
children of god sitting here, so I told me wife,
it's time for us to get busy,
we got to do something.
And so we just started singing and, and then the
next thing we know in the darkness,
you can hear people saying, sing this song,
sing that song.
And how long, can't remember,
how long did we sing?
Angela marsalis: All night.
[Laughs].
- Angela marsalis: We - just knew that god would get
us out of there.
- Charles marsalis: Not even - Katrina could shake that faith
of god, no way.
♪ Angela marsalis: Jesus is
a rock in a weary land, ♪
♪ a weary land, a weary land. ♪
- ♪ Jesus is a - rock in a... ♪♪
Morgan Freeman: Charles and
Angela did get out in the end.
A year later they returned to New Orleans and
rebuilt their lives.
The experience of getting so close to the end and
so close to god drove them
to start their own church.
Charles marsalis: Well, how
many out here remember Katrina?
Y'all remember the storm?
I remember that.
Some folk even said that that's
god punishment on New Orleans.
And I had to tell them folk, no!
God allowed it to happen.
- Angela marsalis: You know, - a lot of people had their
eyes on New Orleans, but they saw something
good that could come out of something bad.
- Charles marsalis: Had it - not been for the storm,
we wouldn't be here at this building, probably.
We wouldn't have met some of these people that
you seen in here today.
I believe if it wasn't for that storm.
- Morgan Freeman: - You know, Charles,
that's very Buddhist.
Charles marsalis: Yeah?
Morgan Freeman: Yeah, the Buddhist say every
ending is a beginning.
Charles marsalis:
It's god's will.
God saw this before we saw this.
We just got to allow ourself
to be willing to let god
use us in part of that will.
Morgan Freeman: Katrina didn't
wash New Orleans of its sin.
It didn't come as divine punishment.
It caused suffering, yes.
But it also opened people's eyes,
to Cherish what they had left and to work together
to build something better.
I set out to understand what the apocalypse means
to people of many different faiths.
I had always thought of it
as a all destroying doomsday.
But I've discovered that some people yearn
for the apocalypse.
They want to be free of injustice.
They want to escape suffering.
They want a better world.
Apocalypse.
It's a Greek word meaning lifting the veil.
It's not about war, it's about enlightenment.
It's not about death.
It's a state of mind and heart that helps us
see the truth.
Not some far off day of judgment.
It's here, it's now.