A dense cloud of darkness was hovering around the eyes…..soon the cloud grew vast and the darkness enveloped my entire self, transforming into a murky pit in which the mind and body seemed sinking- upside down, like probably the soul must be falling into death.
Witnessing once more, bereavement in the family, the curse of death as ultimate fate of life was cramming the mind…
Being the hand of the artist, it did not fail to mark the dark pit with acrylic on a small canvas, ever ready to be used, on the drawing table. The eye stayed caught in the depth of the pit for quite some while. However, before too long, the fingers of the artist, naturally urging for more space to spread colour, instinctively moved to touch the titanium white empty space of the canvas. The contrast of the pitch dark acrylic spot with the fine, matte whiteness of the canvas caught deep attention… the subconscious was in process of comparing white around the pitch dark dot of death to the vastness of life. The jaw dropped in awe with thought that if the mere spot is the death and the rest of the canvas is life, then how much of it have I lived? And, if this white can be painted gold…
Those moments of realisation about the mortality of life were thus followed by the realisation of life lived dejectedly, in limitation of thoughts and emotions. Wasn’t the possibility of engaging in it, absorbing it and breathing it extended through the vast space of sheet and probably beyond…?
The hand had again reached the canvas and drew a circle in gold around the dot, thinking, maybe that’s what my state of existence ought to be if I have to cherish life before death a desire flashed in a mind not so ambitious, nor too desirous but a little inquisitive to sense self and the moments more closely than ever…
The space between the circle and the dot seemed gross and uncomfortable there was something in that space which was hindering my being to advance from the dot to the golden circle of seemingly more alive moments of life… A deep, constant and perpetual self-speculation helped reveal and make the mind accept various fears and habits which were apparently hindering the cherishing of present moments and were paralysing capacity or desire to execute the required tasks within them. To document this realisation, the burnt umber was thrown in between the dot and the golden circle…. Thin beams of gold slinked in the burnt umber… those seemed like rays of hope with the idea that clicked mind that overcoming the realised fears and habits was the path to joie de vivre as simple as that.
It’s a known fact that fears are nothing but preconceptions formed through known and unknown factors, which if overlooked or ignored can disperse. Fixing mind in framework of this idea recreated mode of interaction with the outer world it became a silent struggle against various limitations – against dismay of routines which seemed to have bound the time in restricted activities and thoughts, against interference and opinions of people who had intentionally or unintentionally bogged down my desire to grow and against pangs of regret about past incidents/present circumstances which had blown out the spark of life…. Overcoming fears was a task; and new ones kept arising as further questions and problems….to be resolved again and again, now and then.
It was understood that if I had to cross the ocean from the dot to the circle, various fears and habits would keep surfacing like sharks and I had to either swim below or beyond them, or to shoot them. Often I would draw designs in the dark patches of circles as steps to jump across the sharks between the circle and the dot – the new desire to live a fulfilled life for once, kept me going on. In the meantime, various other desires had to be discarded for they seemed more of hindrances to growth than a boost…It was like constantly clearing the web of confusion and dilemmas in mind and just moving ahead , totally focused on the islet to reach. The major push was willingness to do so. In a bit, that was the first time I put an art show, something I had wanted to experience since long, but couldn’t till now. That was a real moment of living, joy and bliss. That was my first conscious encounter with life moments.
The aspiration had been achieved, the goodness of which became a motivation….. It was time to draw yet another circle beyond the first one, but this time between the first and the second circle, I drew a few lotus petals and some spirals crossing the new circle in rationale that the waters to cross maybe filthy but I have to cross them not fighting with sharks in agitation, but while receiving hindrances in grace – in beauty of the bridges in shape of the petals and in love which connotes the pink of the lotus. The mind felt transformation of personal nature – having grown more patient and calm; mind was adamant to undo the disincentives and grew confident in finding inspirations from within ever surfacing deterrents too. The journey to the outer world seemed to have become more beautiful and for one moment soul felt the awe at the idea of unimaginable extent of beauty that could be existing or could be created in the further space to live… The second circle was stretched…
The second circle sketched, surged in mind the fade images of mandalas. It was a eureka moment the moment of discernment of the meaning of Mandalas , till now known to me merely in their literal meaning in Sanskrit language as ‘circles’, and in simple awareness that they were used as a spiritual tools of meditation in Hinduism, as much in few other cultures like Buddhism, but with no clue as to how…
The drawing had revealed the sense in said connotation of the mandalas as ‘essence’ of the being by uncovering the state of the inner being in connection to the outer world, connecting the conscious to subconscious; the whole diagram of the innermost to the exterior space of an individual…. Voilà, there it was – the cosmos!
‘Since then, as an individual, it has been interesting to practice creating mandalas as a tool to self-discovery, reaching most latent personal thoughts, healing unwanted habits and developing more inspirational and constructive practices, planning of the next day/s/ or planning and executing projects, setting of goals and attaining them and so on; but most significant of all, as a methodology of consciously going through a thought process to discover most latent ideas to create works of art.’
As an artist, it has been an extremely successful and interesting experience to have held workshops around the idea of mandalas with school students, convicts, aged and even with more wiser than myself individuals at various private and government setups. It has been interesting for most to comply with the mandala machinery and yield good results from it discovering self and balancing personal shortcomings and strengths to move ahead in life more consciously and systematically.
One valid reason for emphatic acceptance and effectiveness of the exercise probably comes from the fact that the form, interpretation and analysis of mandalas as circular designs and spirals with symmetrical geometry is a quasi-replica of the basic design of all natural world: From the very fundamental bricks of existence of the being the atoms and chromosomes to the universe and beyond, seen and unseen, all goes in circles and spirals holding various objects, items, frequencies in a movement identical to development and design of mandalas. Mandalas represent designs of natural patterns which have taken into trance any mind which has focused to meditate upon them. In everyday life, each mind has now and then been captivated by the intricate interplay of shapes and patterns of , for example, circles in the citrus fruits or spider webs, spirals in shells, and such very visible nature forms.
Circles and spirals are the patterns which dock an individual at various levels of existence. All frequencies enabling and developing physical being and all random thoughts go in circles, and spirals, ever connecting past to future. Merely creating the mandalas through various forms and colours enables to catch an ever fugitive present moment, to sense and live the reality at a deeper level, creates a conscious effort and willingness to move beyond from any grade of indolence to a more vivid level of living.
Knowing, creating and meditating upon mandalas has been a realisation that life is capable of moving in full circles, of opening into spirals of infinite time and space…..that life is capable of living…
