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As a movie, The Love Guru is pretty much standard Mike Myers fare. Half of the male characters have names reminiscent of the male anatomy, the majority of the movie's jokes have to do with the male anatomy, and every plate of food resembles the male anatomy. The laughs are immature and the story is ridiculous at best; but at the same time, in a world where hundreds of new self-help books come out every year and we pretty much worship Oprah as if she is a god, the movie is also an interesting exploration to ponder.

Essentially, The Love Guru is about His Holiness Guru Pitka (Mike Myers), a renowned self-help expert. In the field of self-healing and relational reconciliation, he is second only to Deepak Chopra. He holds retreats in his ashram attended by hundreds. His bestselling books include titles such as: If You're Happy and You Know It, Think Again, Does It Hurt When You Do That? Don't Do That, and Eight Days to Happiness in Six Weeks. His DRAMA (Distraction, Regression, Adjustment, Maturation, and Action) system for healing emotional pain is practiced around the world. And when the Toronto Leafs find the Stanley Cup hanging in the balance because their star player Darren Roanoke (Romany Malco) is having marital issues, it is none other than Guru Pitka who they bring in to return both Darren's marriage and his game to their proper balance.

Through Guru Pitka's work with Roanoke as well as his blossoming romance with The Leafs' beautiful young owner, Jane Ballard (Jessica Alba), he shares more of his philosophies with them as well as us. Central to his own personal struggles as well as his teachings is the simple idea of loving yourself. "If you can't love yourself, you can't love others," he tells his followers. "People may say bad things about you, but you should never say bad things about yourself," he tells Jane. And Intimacy = Into Me I See.

As much as I would probably be a bit creeped out if I went into my shrink's office and found Guru Pitka sitting in the chair across from me, all in all, most of his teachings actually ring true. Some of them are pretty much as obvious as the "remove plastic before eating" warning on a Fruit Roll-Up. A lot of them are just one gigantic yellow bird away from being perfect Sesame Street material. But nonetheless, their message of loving yourself for who you are and seeing your value as something that does not depend on your achievements is an important one.

But as The Love Guru came to an end with one of several sitar remixes of the best American pop has to offer, the thing about it that struck me the most was its strange yet familiar story of spirituality so tightly bound to popular culture, they might as well have been the same thing.

As much as Guru Pitka genuinely seems to want to help those people who look to him for guidance, what he does is also undeniably both a business enterprise and very real part of American popular culture. Whether they flash across the big screen or come out of his mouth, every single one of his sayings is followed by a TM even more conspicuous as an air quote. Throughout the story, his mission to reunite Roanoke and his wife runs concurrently with his desire to get on Oprah and beat out Deepak Chopra as the #1 Guru on the market. He is being paid no less than $2 million dollars for his services. And at the end of it all, he is just about as big a name as every Hollywood celebrity he stands next to in paparazzi photographs, splatter-painted across pretty much the entirety of American media (just check out his myspace, facebook, youtube, and beliefnet pages if you don't believe me).

Seem ridiculous? It shouldn't. Because that's pretty much how it goes in the real world, too. Just this month, Oprah topped Forbes "Celebrity 100" list of most powerful celebrities for the second year in a row. Since appearing on her show, Dr. Phil has launched his own self-help empire. More than just a fictional Guru, Deepak Chopra is one of the most recognized spiritual/self-help teachers in the American market. Dr. Laura's radio show continues to be one of the most listened to talk-radio programs on the air. And the inspirational life-path book The Secret has been on the New York Times bestseller list for more than 70 weeks.

Not only does Guru Pitka's empire point to the reality of self-help/spirituality as a huge part of our popular culture, if in a slightly more subtle manner, it also points to popular culture as our new self-help/spirituality. One of the first running gags to hit the table is that Pitka's phrase of blessing/greeting is "Mariska Hargitay." When Mariska Hargitay herself pays a visit, Pitka presents her with the model of the "Special Victims Unit" of his retreat center to be named in her honor. Really, it's as if the "God" in "God Bless" has been replaced with "Mariska Hargitay."

Throughout the movie, Pitka also uses what he describes as a voiceover machine. The voice Pitka chooses whenever he does a voiceover is the voice of Morgan Freeman. Throw in the fact that voiceover is commonly used to emulate the voice of God (or at least the voice of authority), and that Morgan Freeman has played God on several occasions, and I can't help but wonder if when it comes to our search for truth, pop culture (and those in it) may have actually replaced God as the spiritual and philosophical authority in many of our lives.

That said, at HollywoodJesus.com, one of our founding beliefs is that pop culture and spirituality are connected. We believe that movies, TV, books, comics, and videogames can deliver spiritual enlightenment through the stories they tell and the thought processes they begin. But as I watched The Love Guru, it pushed me to remember why I believe that.

As I see it, our pop culture is filled with spirituality because the very creativity out of which it is born comes from God. The stories our pop culture tells are spiritual because they rely on emotions, thoughts, and questions either rooted in seeking God or feeling his absence. But even though we all may have those movies that are the epitome of our entire life philosophy and those songs that are nothing short of a spiritual experience, we need to remember that where their spiritual value comes from is ultimately God. In a world where a new self-help book comes out every week and a single weekend's boxoffice can span pretty much the entire political and religious spectrum, we must be aware that every spiritual message in pop culture cannot possibly be true. We must recognize that when spiritual messages become commodities, their existences as more than just a gimmick is not guaranteed. And even though I very much believe that spiritual truth can be embodied in almost every form of human creativity and expression, I also know that even the most profound thoughts or inspirational examples can never replace a personal relationship with God himself and the deeper truth and understanding that comes only through Him.