works in progress...

I hate showing unfinished work. But then again it might be a very good treatment for my ego to show those ugly beginnings... ;-)

This one has a story that will have to be told when it is finished...

Appeal to the Muse...

Seems like my inspiration and output in painting has been lessened lately. And I remember Elisabeth Gilberts (in her TED talk) suggesting that we shouldn't beat ourselves up and put that much demand on our little Self. She reminds us of the Muse that used to visit artists in the old ages. Well, I haven't heard anything from my Muse for a long time and, since I have his email address, send him a reminder ;-)

Here is my appeal to the Muse, who specifically asked to be mentioned by his real name, Safai...

I wish I knew what you wanted.

You block the road and won't give me rest.

You pull my lead-rope one way, then the other.

You act cold, my darling!

Do you hear what I say?

Will this night of talking ever end?

Why am I still embarrassed and timid

about you? You are thousands.

You are one.

Quiet, but most articulate.

Your name is Spring.

Your name is wine.

Your name is the nausea

that comes from wine!

You are my doubting

and the lightpoints

in my eyes.

You are every image, and yet

I'm homesick for you.

Can I get there?

Where the deer pounces on the lion,

where the one I'm after's

after me?

This drum and these words keep pounding!

Let them both smash through their coverings

into silence.

(Rumi, in a Version by Coleman Barks, from a translation by A.J. Arberry)

Maybe this creatively quite time is just a means of entering into that silence. Or it could be the silence itself, if I'd just shut up. Or, while the pendulum is swinging sometimes this way sometimes that way, if we learn to focus our attention in the center we'd stop getting nauseated. When in the highest sense there is only One, where is the 'you' and the 'I' where is the 'down' time or the 'up' time?

No one else to blame! Nowhere to go!

June gloom...

June gloom weather... makes me wanna just crawl into my 'cave' and meditate... trying to escape uncertainty... being the only constant unchanging feature in life... it dawns on me that the only way out aint pretty or any less painful than where I am right now ;-)

It's probably going to be more like Mirabai (the most renowned woman poet saint of India, her songs sung by Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs alike) writes, funny and to the point...

Is all that God stuff real?

Girls, think twice before inviting God near.

His charms will turn you into a slave––– are you ready for such

a wonderful bondage?

What if your human lover is just about ready to insert

a pulsating mass into your forest

and rain there;

what if just as he/she enters

––– your hear His flute

calling.

could you run outside in a second, naked, and ready for

the world to make fun of you;

for who can really see Him.

Everyone would think you are worshiping a mirage.

And what if He asked you to give all your gold bangles

and fine clothes to the next

beggar you see?

Giving him our clay (our body) to shape is one thing,

for this can excite us,

but when our jewelry and silk are at risk

surely it is time to seriously ask

is all this God stuff––––

real?

(Daniel Ladinsky, "Love poems from God")

Untitled 14

So far...
but it still needs some more 'fine tuning' :-)

"I work, therefore I work."

Gelassenheit means "releasement" or "letting go." The term is an old one in German intellectual history, from the theologizing of Meister Eckhart (1260-1327) to the religious thought of Reform Anabaptists and early modern mystics, to its 20th-century revival in the philosophy of Martin Heidegger.

"Make a start with yourself, and abandon yourself. Truly, if you do not begin by getting away from yourself, wherever you run to, you will find obstacles and trouble wherever it may be. People who seek peace in external things -- be it in places or ways of life or people or activities or solitude or poverty or degradation -- however great such a thing may be or whatever it may be, still it is all nothing and gives no peace."

"If anyone were to ask a truthful man who works out of his own ground: "Why are you performing your works?" and if he were to give a straight answer, he would say nothing else than: "I work, therefore I work."
source: Gelassenheit (releasement) in Meister Eckhart

...letting nothing stand in our way.

Still reveling in Meister Eckhart's words: "To be right, a person must do one of two things; either he must learn to have God in his work and hold fast to him there, or he must give up his work altogether. Since however, man cannot live without activities that are both human and various, we must learn to keep God in everything we do, and whatever the job or place, keep it with him, letting nothing stand in our way."

Misunderstanding

"When there is misunderstanding; when misunderstanding is manifested all over the world, misunderstanding everywhere.
The remedy is in my hands, that brute has nothing to do with that. The remedy is in his [Gods] hands, he is watching that.
This misunderstanding, he creates that misunderstanding, he manifests that misunderstanding. Then by his own free choice, at the same time, he destroys that misunderstanding; then there is no misunderstanding.

To Him nothing has happened, if there is pralaya (destruction) nothing has happened; it is your own will.
Actually with the whole, when you vasten your vision beyond time, beyond space, beyond form, then you will come to this conclusion that it is all perfect, everywhere, every time."
(Swami Lakshmanjoo, Paramarthasara verse 39)

In your hand

Something was still missing ;-)

acrylic on canvas,
18 x 18 inch (46 x 46 cm)

Untitled 13

acrylic on canvas,
18 x 18 inch (46 x 46 cm)

Timely reading: Meister Eckhart, the importance of silence

Timely reading: Meister Eckhart in German, which I should have read a long time ago. Brilliantly put in words, clear, and filled of the highest monistic thought (like Kashmir Shaivism), and with a wonderful touch of down to earth-ness. And the first thing in one of the books (Meister Eckhart Mystische Schriften and with original Mittelhochdeutsch) is him stressing "the importance of silence": to look inside, see the darkness without fear ("Truly, it is in darkness that one finds the light, so when we are in sorrow, then this light is nearest of all to us."), turn oneself inside out and examine what does not belong there; empty oneself of all that is not God.

He also writes that, one can not imagine or think this readiness for God or desire for it unless there is God already before it... and when one is empty, God has no choice as to fill one with his grace and love, just as the sun does not have a choice but to shine when the sky is clear (no cloud ;-)).

Likewise Swamiji says that the worse sin one can commit is to think that one is not God. He says that there is not that much distance (and he is touching his thumb to his index finger) between us and God. God is as close to us as our own breath.

And when looking at all the stuff inside long enough, and turning it all inside out and upside down, it becomes clear that it is nothing but God too, because what is it that he has not created. The only problem we have is our attachment to it. Eckhart says (in "das Buch der göttlichen Tröstung"), that pain and sorrow is only possible when we have mistakenly put our attention on the images instead of the spirit that lives in them. If we can keep our focus on God and just let everything and everyone that comes into our life or minds come in and float away without any attachment, then there is no problem.
As my yoga teacher keeps reminding, "let the thoughts come and go like clouds in the sky."
They'll stand no chance once the 'sun' comes out ;-)

Only drawback is that with all this reading and looking inside I have been neglecting the paintings.
Oh well, they'll come back, as do the clouds ;-)