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Manipura
USA
870 Posts |
 Posted - Jul 15 2009 : 5:03:05 PM
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I'm an artist and the conceptual basis of my work is my spiritual journey. My work is based in self-inquiry, which has led me to Jnana yoga and advaita. I have an art blog that speaks to all of this, and if you're inclined to read and/or comment, I'd appreciate it. I'm not sure where it's leading me, but I have the desire to share my art and ideas about the link between the creative process and spirituality, and the art blog seemed a good place to start. It links to my website, if you're interested in seeing my work.
www.meghitchcock.blogspot.com
For a description of my creative process (which is kind of important, in order to 'get' it), plz go here: http://meghitchcock.blogspot.com/20...ination.html
Thanks. I hope to get a few comments here and there, just so it doesn't feel like a perpetual monologue. Also, if you're an artist who also uses your creativity as a spiritual exercise, I'd be interested in seeing your work and hearing about your process. |
Edited by - Manipura on Jul 15 2009 5:22:00 PM |
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Yonatan
Israel
849 Posts |
Posted - Jul 15 2009 : 7:00:20 PM
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Hi Meg,
Thanks for sharing your passion, your art is very unique 
I'm not really an artist, though I drew a lot (mainly cartoonish characters) all throughout my childhood an teen years.. somewhere in my teens I had some tough time and my passion for drawing diminished and hasn't come back, though if it came back I think I would be thrilled.
I really appreciate art though and especially spiritual art when I see it,
So Thanks.
Hope your path will open up in amazing ways!
Love,
Yonatan |
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grihastha
USA
184 Posts |
Posted - Jul 16 2009 : 08:48:47 AM
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Meg, I love your blog.
It's peculiar, but we appear to be on parallel paths: my whole sense of what Tantra means as an experience is informed by 'Nausea' and right now I'm in a full-on investigation of the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra and the Yoga Spandakarikas (using the Daniel Odier book, which is extremely good). Having experienced pretty heavy existential horror before (one memorable time on a London tube train), which was a profoundly disorientating sensation, I now find myself trying to recreate it under less forbidding circumstances. Mahamudra between Acton Town and Earl's Court? Dunno, but it was scary and significant.
AYP has actually led me away from kundalini and towards mahamudra and/or dzogchen and so to Buddhism, which is surprising in itself. Seems like I'm not the only one! |
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Manipura
USA
870 Posts |
Posted - Jul 16 2009 : 09:58:53 AM
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Thanks for the responses.
Gri, I love the Spandakarika (I've also seen it spelled Spandarika?) This is a piece that I did on it, using the Daniel Odier translation: http://www.meghitchcock.com/m&m/texts_01.html It's an incredibly moving piece of writing. Interesting that you're led away from yoga and toward Buddhism - the opposite of my direction. But the Void is the Void, whether it's Bhairava or Mahamudra or the dark night of the soul or existential despair or a bad day on the Tube. |
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grihastha
USA
184 Posts |
Posted - Jul 16 2009 : 10:31:26 AM
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Meg, thanks for the link - there's an incredible strength to your work. What's more powerful, finally, than black ink on a white page (the Void manifest)? Of course as a writer I would say that, wouldn't I?
I think I'm drawn not to Buddhism but to the teachers - particularly Yeshe Tsogyal, Machig Labdron, Padmasambhava and the Mahasiddhas. A lot of core Buddhism leaves me a bit cold - it pushes the same mental buttons as Protestantism, and I just can't help finding the Noble Truths a bit... Calvinist. But there again there is no possible way that Vajrayogini can exist in any context that's remotely Calvinist... Nah, confusion is building like thunder-heads. Hopefully I'll be able to harness the energy somehow, though. Meanwhile I'm going to see Daniel Odier first chance I get.
Love!
gri |
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Kirtanman
USA
1651 Posts |
Posted - Jul 17 2009 : 11:17:22 PM
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Hi Meg, Gri & All,
Possibly of interest -- some excerpts from the overview of the Spandakarika, on Daniel Odier's web site (below).
Summary: Spandakarika *is* Mahamudra; Mahamudra *is* Spandakarika.
And, by the way: Daniel Odier realized via studying one-as-one  for several months with one of the last living female gurus of the Kashmiri Shaivite/Advaita Shaiva lineage, Sri Lalita Devi (as documented in Odier's amazing book, Tantric Quest - An Encounter With Absolute Love), after studying with the famous Vajrayana Buddhist guru from the non-dual Tibetan Kagyu school, Kalu Rinpoche Kalu Rinpoche.
And (by the way), on the (same) web page linked at the bottom of this post, after the article on Spandakarika/Mahamudra, is the entire English text (of the Spandakarika) used by Daniel Odier in his book (Yoga Spandakarika), which is actually the unpublished English text written by his guru (Lalita Devi), who was an English teacher in India, before she became a teacher/guru/realized sage.
Excerpt from the Spandakarika article on Daniel Odier's web site:
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The Spandakarika , or “Song of the Sacred Tremor,” is one of the essential texts of Kashmiri Shaivism.
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In his commentary, Ksemaraja stresses the fact that the Song of the Sacred Tremor is a presentation of Mahamudra, which would go on to become famous through the Tibetan lineage of transmission, and which is the ultimate teaching of the Kagyu school.
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Mahamudra, often translated as “the Great Seal,” referring to the secret of this teaching and to the fact that it seals all that preceded it, is translated by the Kashmiris as “the Great Cosmic Movement” because its realization is linked to the yoga transmitted by Matsyendranath, who is at the source of the Kashmiri lineages.
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This yoga, the teaching of which has almost completely disappeared, is very profound. It seems to have been the form that preceded hatha yoga. Its very simplicity is what makes it so difficult. The most ancient masters of the tradition had come to the realization that all is movement in the universe. They saw everything, including matter, as consciousness, and they invented a yoga that fit this realization.
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This tradition – so simple, so subtle – has gradually fallen into oblivion and been replaced by the more spectacular hatha yoga.
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The Spandakarika presents the philosophy that was born of this practice, and all the yoga does is keep bringing us back to the source of this fundamental realization.
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Source: http://www.danielodier.com/ENGLISH/entree_e.html
(Click on Texts, and then on Spandakarika, for the full article; there doesn't seem to be a direct link.)
And, by the way, as I've mentioned elsewhere in the AYP Forum, Kashmir Shaivism/Advaita Shaiva has been very helpful in the unfolding of non-dual realization in (my) experience.
What interested me in Kashmir Shaivism, originally?
Daniel Odier.
Heart Is Where The *Song* Is; The Song Is Spandakarika.
Kirtanman
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