Get genial. Go to army. Blow your chance with the love of your life. Get sex, get married, get kids and social "respectability". Work in a well reputed scientific research institute.
After such an impressive "carreer", start seeking your soul. To get it, leave everything behind and get to the monastery to become a monk. For some,(the weaker minded I would like to believe) this is a gift from god: the "illumination" ! as simple as that.
For others, I believe the meaning is the failure of a genius to be a "social beast" and find happiness this way among his fellow people. As once Kant (?) said, the superior being (man) is self-sufficient to himself. He can find peace only in the defiance of secluding himself in a monastery in a country ruled by a communist regime.
Excellent movie, more actual and dangerous than anything in these materialistic days of our modern society. No wonder you can't find a copy to buy anywhere in the US.