The Spheres

The Deity from whom Proceed the Nine Spheres

There are seven main chakras within the body. There are also two centres above the crown chakra. This makes a total of nine centres. Each of the chakras has a left, centre and right aspect. In each aspect dwells a different angelic aspect of the Divine.

El Greco

Fabula, El Greco, c. 1600

This wonderful painting is incredibly modern for 1600. The Self-realised painter El Greco depicts a youth blowing on an ember in order to light a candle, overlooked by a monkey and a fool. Perhaps the monkey on the youth's right side represents the quickness and agility, but waywardness, of rajas; while the fool on the youth's left represents the dullness of tamas.

Giving Self-realisation is like one candle lighting another.

The Self realises itself. There is no source of enlightenment beyond the Self. Indeed there is no thing beyond the Self. However, one Self-realised person may ignite Self-realisation in an "other".

In the Sufi tradition, Self-realisation is believed to be transmitted through generations of Sufi masters. This transmission is called Baraka.

Matisse

Henri Matisse, Sur la Terrace

"It seems to me that the way art may be said to imitate nature is by the life that the creative worker infuses into that work of art; the work will then appear as fertile and as possessed of the same power to thrill, the same resplendent beauty that we find in the works of nature. Great love is needed to achieve that patient striving towards truth, that flowing warmth and an analytic profundity that accompanies the birth of any work of art; but is not love the origin of all creation?"
Henri Matisse, "Matisse on Art", Jack D. Flam (Phaidon 1978)

Happy Christmas

Persian Miniature painting,

Mary and infant Jesus with aura.

Visshuddhi

Fra Angelico
Angels Leading the Blessed into Heaven.

This image communicates a sense of the Visshuddhi Chakra quality of collectivity. The angel's wings are an extension of the Visshuddhi from the shoulders. The Visshuddhi governs the arms and hands - used for communication through gestures. Here they are shown joined together. The expensive blue colour used by medieval artists -made from ground semiprecious stone -was used to symbolise the heavens. The Visshuddhi is blue in colour.

Mooladhara - Picasso

Picasso, Mother and Child by the Sea

Picasso is amazing in that he painted in so many different styles but his work is always recognisable. Art critics often seem to expect artists to stick to a certain style for life, but Picasso was much too playful and experimental for that. He once said that with each painting he painted he discovered another aspect of himself.

This work is from a period in which he was rediscovering the monumental classical art of the past, The style suggests a mood of reverence for the maternal. The simplicity of the image suits the subject matter - the innocent bond between mother and child. The backdrop of the peaceful sea suggests depth of feeling and eternity.

Picasso seems to have spent his life searching for innocence. This is why he was fascinated with so-called primitive art.

Kundalini - Grail

Dante Rosetti - Damsel of the Sanct Grail, 1874

The Holy Grail is a symbol of the Kundalini, the residual energy in the sacrum at the base of the spinal column. In India it is symbolised by the Kumbha, or pot.

Rosetti has included a white dove - symbol of the Holy Spirit - thus he has associated the Grail with the Holy Spirit.