 Iron Man, the film that single-handedly kickstarted the MCU and brought us nearly 20 movies in only 10 years. What's more curious, that while the movie may feature flashy egocentric concepts of luxury, explosions, random sex, and Tony's pompous attitude, under its surface is a film with a depth of hidden spiritual concepts. Perhaps one of the most fundamental of these concepts would be the ascension of Tony from the lower centers into the higher ones. The basic idea here being that the lower centers are governed by survival, sex, and willpower, where the higher ones are more about love, expression, and seeing the bigger picture. From the very beginning, Tony is epitomized by these root traits, which we see this over and over in how he treats, basically everyone, from Rody, to Pepper, to Obadiah, and of course, Christine Everhart from Vanity Fair. To him, people are just things that he can use to feel better about himself, or to do the things for him that he doesn't want to do so that he can focus on whatever he wants. His mindset is demonstrated clearly by one of his opening lines, sure, I love peace, I'd be out of a job with peace, showing how little he disregards for concepts such as peace, or what that really means. However, his transformation or ascension is also given context and relationship to the subtle line, give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and he hands Caesar the trophy in the casino, a line of Jesus about money and value. While Tony in the line may be simply dismissive in the moment, the scene is indicative of Tony's spiritual death and resurrection to come into a man with a heart. But now, everything changes when he's on his trip to Afghanistan, showing off his latest weapon, the Jericho missile. Now interestingly, the use of the name Jericho here is a reference to a mighty power of God from a biblical story. In the Bible, the Battle of Jericho is a story of the Israelites who, in conquering the Canaan, marched around the city of Jericho every day for seven days, and on the seventh day of marching, they completed their rounds and sounded their horn, and the walls of Jericho fell all at once, and the Israelites then slaughtered almost everyone, including all of the animals. However, Joshua, the leader of the Israelites, was then cursed to have to rebuild the walls of Jericho, and we see this referenced in Iron Man in three ways. The first is that the power of the Jericho missile is so mighty that it metaphorically brings down the enemy's walls instantly. Secondly, Tony is soon punished to rebuild the missile for terrorists, just like Joshua rebuilding the walls. And third, that Joshua rebuilding the walls of a peaceful city is also likened to Tony coming to realize that he had to make the world peaceful after causing so much destruction. Now, Tony's transformation or ascension into a higher kind of human really begins when his convoy is attacked by terrorists, and Tony has a bunch of shrapnel embedded in his chest, and we meet Jensen, who attaches an electromagnet to his chest to save his life, keeping the shrapnel from going into his heart. For Tony, Jensen is one of the most vital characters. Through their times in the caves together, we get to see some deeper emotional character building, and Jensen learns that Tony really has no family, and that he's rather alone in the world. Now, Jensen's full name is Ho Jensen. Ho means goodness, and Jensen literally translates to the best friend ever. See, in a way, Jensen is a bit like Tony's guide or mentor into a higher consciousness. He is gentle, calm, but most of all, he is caring, and shows Tony a kind of friendship that he's never had before. At one point, Tony falls into despair and says, uh, you know, they're gonna kill me or I'll just be dead in a week anyways, to which Jensen very simply responds, well this must be a very important week for you then, isn't it? Sparking this powerful courage in Tony to do something about his situation. Tony builds for himself the first edition of the miniature arc reactor, a powerful technology embedded into his chest glowing with radiant light. While this is physically a great asset and tool for Tony, both keeping him alive and powering his suit technology, it also stands as a great metaphor for the expansion and brightness of Tony's heart. His own arc chakra. I mean, heart reactor. I mean, well, you get the idea. And so, moving from the lower centers into the higher ones is a transition from a self-centered mentality into a more protective and caring state of being. For Tony, not only is he graced with the awareness on how his technology is being used and the destruction and chaos that it's causing, but he also gets a glimpse through his friendship with Jensen about what a higher meaning of life can be. As Jensen lay dying, Tony thanks his new friend for saving his life. And Jensen responds, don't waste it, don't waste your life son. These words, along with the other bits of wisdom and truth bombs that Jensen drops throughout their time together, is what really elevates Tony into a new paradigm, giving him the courage to save himself from this disaster and create something new in his life. And his first act in this higher paradigm is one that we all must do on the spiritual path, which is the destruction of the old way. In his escape, he destroys all of the terrorists' weapons. And then upon arriving home, he announces that he's had his eyes opened, sees that he's become comfortable with a system with no accountability, and shuts down the weapons manufacturing division of Stark Industries. From here, Tony's next step is upgrading his arc reactor, which seems to be a movement from his lower heart into his higher heart, another spiritual device used to explain the difference between general love and true compassion. There's a scene where Tony calls upon Pepper to help him switch his arc reactors, and he tells her that she is the most capable, qualified, and most trustworthy person he knows. And basically he entrusts her with, at least metaphorically, handling his heart. This is a very special moment, signifying him beginning to let someone else in deeper than his mostly superficial relationships that he's had in his life, another important step in the awakening process, and the discovery of what love is all about. This is a state of true vulnerability with someone else, a surrender to trust. This ultimately leads to Pepper later gifting him back his original arc reactor, framed with the words, proof that Tony Stark has a heart. Now, of course, all of this leads to the creation of the Iron Man suit. It might be worth mentioning that Iron in Alchemy was known as the Medal of Mars, the symbol of human strength, honor, courage, fortitude, tenacity, confidence, and power. Mars, of course, was known as the God of the Divine Masculine, opposing Venus, the Goddess of the Feminine. And this characterizes another aspect of Tony, not only in this movie, but throughout the entire MCU. Tony's journey is learning the whole Divine Masculine paradigm until completion. First what it means to be a man, then what it means to be a brother, a lover, a teammate, a mentor, and a father. For the Iron Man suit itself, it is colored red and gold. Red is the color of both Mars and the God of War, and gold mythologically was considered a sacred and incorruptible color representing the eternal and divine powers of God. This is amazing because the colors themselves actually describe Iron Man as a bit of a divine or holy warrior. We also see Tony's burning determination through the process of upgrading himself. From making the arc reactor to his entire suit, he dedicates himself exclusively to building these new technologies to do great things with, rebuilding and restructuring himself to be the highest expression of himself that he can possibly be. And when his work was all said and done, he was actually able to physically fly. Now, the latter half of the movie is largely centered around the betrayal of Obadiah, who bears the archetype of the evil businessman who will destroy the world for profit. It's a fairly general archetype and stereotype, although most certainly people like this do exist in the world. People without a heart and with way too much power for their own good. The general message of the movie then becomes about using one's own spiritual awakening and powers to protect those that we love, and to face evil when it comes after us. In one scene in the movie, we see Obi playing the piano. He's playing Largetto by Salieri. Salieri is often known as the rival enemy of Mozart, which foreshadows the coming rivalry between Tony and Obadiah. The film ends with a climactic final fight after which Tony reveals to the world that he is Iron Man, indicating that even though he has moved into his heart and gone up to the higher centers, he's also come back around and returns to a bit of a state of egotism, which sets up some bigger life lessons to follow in Iron Man 2. But overall, Iron Man is centered around the process of awakening. You see a man transform from self-centered egoism to an awakened being for the betterment of humanity. This seems to be a popular theme throughout most films and literature, perhaps because deep down we all resonate with the process of awakening within us, and we all want to go there even if it comes with greater responsibilities too. Ultimately, Tony Stark is an amazing model to show us that no matter how good or bad we seem to have things, there is always more to learn and more that we can become in life. By the way, we have a bunch of these episodes now in our new series called Hidden Spirituality, so if you like this and want to see more, check out our playlist and don't forget to subscribe for more updates.