Art + Yoga

https://www.amazon.com/Knowing-Loving-Similarities-Raja-Yoga-ebook/dp/B00E1SP6BK

Art and Yoga

An artist who wishes to make a good painting from nature is like an individual who wishes to know themselves. The artist learns to look comprehensively, use colors to the limit of pigments, and find themselves in the process.  Anyone who wishes to make good use of their life through yoga will learn to think comprehensively, use the mind to the limits of its abilities, and find oneself in the process.

I want to show how Classical Yoga and art are similar. Yoga in general has postures as one element in a system devised to help someone on their spiritual journey. A life in art is itself a spiritual journey.

"Self Portrait, Moab Utah" Pastel on handmade surface, 18x22 inches

Anything that can be seen is associated in some way with everything else.  We would not have cups if there were not fingers, liquids, gravity, or thirst. Ideas require context for their meaning.

 The actual objects that can be before us are limited in number but an idea is connected with every other idea contained in our mind.  When an idea is considered all ideas are implied.

Observation of nature is the grist for painting.  Observation of ideas with dispassion is grist for self-study, self-discipline, purification, and devotion to the truth which is the basis of Classical Yoga.  (II.1)

Most objects on a stage are invisible to the viewer because the viewer’s attention is elsewhere. When they are noticed they suddenly burst into view and play their part.  “If it udda been a snake it udda bit ya.”

The things that are not noticed can be lumped together and considered one thing called the undifferentiated potential.  Everything that is not noticed is the undifferentiated potential even those things a person could not notice because of proximity.  When something is noticed it is differentiated and particularized. (II,19) Comparing particularized elements is the study of relationships.  Visual elements such as shapes, textures, tones, and colors noticed by the artist supply the crucial underpinning for organizing a painting.  Color relationships are particularly interesting to study because colors appear differently when seen with different colors.

Once something appears out of the undifferentiated potential, the artist can perceive it as an idea and begin to think about it, or compare it to the other things seen and find a relationship. The artist reacts to a new idea with either inertia, activity, or rhythm. (II.18)

Impressionism was the last great school of realism.  Because it is based in verifiable visual truths it will continue to renew itself in artists of every generation.  As Impressionists in France were seeing relationships as the core of a new way to see and paint, the Existentialist philosophers were writing about the relationship of man to the environment.  Musicians had always known that notes sounded differently in relationship with various other notes.  The physicists were starting to see the world as relationships instead of absolute quantities.  The Theory of Relativity ushered in the age of relationships in the history of Man.  Advancements in philosophy art and physics were made about relationships.  The modern era is defined by the acceptance of relationships and of a changing dynamic instead of static and mundane absolutes.  Unlike a spectroscope or other mechanical device, a color has no absolute value to the mind. 

 Groupings of colors however do have an absolute value in relation to other groupings of color.  That is how we can call it accurate color.

Looking for relationships is a necessary practice when painting impressionistically. After a while it becomes second nature and the scene itself becomes a unit of observation rather than a conglomeration of elements.  You see everything at once.  The light is visible as an object itself at this point and form dissolves.  The Impressionists codified the visible effects of light to a large degree and discovered the main issues involved in depicting it in pigments.

 In “Yoga Sutra”, Patanjali codified the abilities and mechanisms of the mind and outlined a procedure for living a life in truth rather than ignorance. 

One learns to look in a general sense to see the entire scene or a grouping of colors.  The tendency is to look at specific colors.  Seeing the entire painting one is working on is seeing in a general sense and seeing the part one is working on by itself is seeing in a specific sense.

Light is fascinating and draws one’s attention.  Lighting though, is sometimes hard to notice.  Early movie makers would routinely mix up scenes from different takes that had different lighting.  It was widely known among directors that people would not notice light coming from different directions in an edited scene. The movie goer follows the story and much is left unnoticed falling into the undifferentiated potential.

The artist learns to see different kinds of light in addition to the direction of the light.  The color of daylight varies from dawn to dusk.  The color changes from saturated warm colors in the morning losing intensity of color to intensity of contrast at midday.  The light is starker at midday with bright lights and deep dark shadows. The saturation of all the color diminishes as the light washes out the scene.

Toward late afternoon the atmosphere is warm getting cooler (the opposite of the morning light) and the progression of hues where the light strikes grows yellower, then orange, and finally rose. The shadows get more blue or blue green as the light from the blue sky gets stronger in relation to the light from the setting sun. There is a beautiful point where the relationship of light to dark is dominated by a peach in the light and turquoise in the shadows.

There is an axiom at the basis of perceiving the relationship between the light and shade in sunlight.

  Black in the sunlight is lighter than white in the shadow.  If this is followed then all the shadows will be a recognizable group when compared to the light. 

The harmonies of color in the morning and afternoon affect the human spirit in a natural way and are considered beautiful. And, unlike midday light, they are paintable. Well **** ****

So artists paint early and late when the contrast is low. It is good for the artist to be out at these times to absorb the natural colors.  Long walks are advised when painting is impossible.

The artist also learns to see the light disappear around an object as it turns away from the light source.  The chroma of the color of the rounded object begins to grey, the hues become bluer, and the value of course darkens.

The light source itself does not need to be lit by another light to be painted.  There is no shadow cast by a light source so there is no relationship of the light to the dark to inspect.  The hue changes that depict a light source have the progression from yellow to orange to rose.

 Consciousness itself is like a light source. It illuminates without needing to be illuminated. (IV,18-20) 

To paraphrase Shankaracharya, ‘the eye sees the bird, so the eye is subject and the bird is object.  The mind knows the eye sees the bird, so the mind is subject and the eye is object.  The consciousness illuminates the mind knowing the eye sees the bird, so the consciousness is subject and the mind is object.  There is nothing to see the consciousness, so consciousness can only be subject and eternally unobserved.’

 Color progressions lead to a light source even as object-subject discrimination leads to consciousness.

Light is a very special thing.  Like life or consciousness, there is nothing else like it.  It is described perceptually by color relationships but light itself is an absolute and no ideas describe it.  For the growth of truth, and visual truth is the experience about which   the artist is the most curious, it is important to differentiate between the absolute and the relative.

Artists can only paint what they notice.  Noticing is a part of being in the moment.  You are SUPPOSED to stop and smell the roses, like the yogi. (III,52)

 Being an artist has satisfying advantages.  You get to think about what you see and how you as a unique person might show it to others.

To paint requires focus.  Focusing on one task (which may be doing many tasks at once) and doing it well is being in the zone.  When in the moment, however, things  are noticed, potentially bringing one out of the zone.  In the moment things are seen with a sense of newness, seen through the eyes of a babe.  Painting relationships that one observes requires the artist to be in the zone and in the moment, if not at the same time then alternately.

Life presents us with moments when something leaps out of the visual undifferentiated potential, and becomes a picture. It will make a painting.  It is the same with ideas. An idea or a visual that carries the sense of newness creates a new picture for the artist. This is inspiration.

Sometimes inspiration comes like a flood, one picture after another, and sometimes none is around.  

What is inspiring to one may not be to another.  Everyone is unique and layered with conjunctions of tendencies in a stream of consciousness which is linear and unable to hold onto a thought for long.  Stream of consciousness is syntax oriented and requires a subject, verb, and modifiers.  Pictures by contrast are not dominated by time or syntax.  The entire picture can be seen as one thing and it may simply instigate a mood.  The syntax for a picture is in the form of composition which moves the viewer around the picture, supplies a focal point where the eye rests, and an endpoint or visual device to make the viewer want to stay in the picture.  These sequences should be new and engaging.  Pictures are non-temporal, not requiring a span of time to ingest, and inspire in a way unique to the art form.

A perceptual filter is a habit or tendency that can change perception.  It is like being elated and thinking a cup is half full, or depressed and seeing it as half empty.  Anger often covers embarrassment.  Shyness can cover romantic feelings.  Arrogance can cover insufficiency. (II.4) We are tempted to notice the greys when moody and the yellows and oranges when excited.  

To keep from eating poison berries and discern danger, people need the ability to see the color of an object, its local color.  We have to educate ourselves to ignore the local color of the object and see colors by comparing them with each other.  The color of an object changes when viewed in a relationship with other colors.  Surprisingly it changes a lot, even becoming the opposite color in many cases.

Tendencies that filter perception and observation of oneself come from culturally inherited biases, excessive hormonal flows from good and bad experiences in the world, likes and dislikes, self-preservation, ignorance, and false insights brought forward from a younger age. (II.3)  Devotion to the truth, compassion, and gladness in the heart will overcome the filters. Consciously establishing an opposite tendency will neutralize a filter over time. (II.33)  There are disciplines and mental devices that help develop a clean mind.  They rely largely on visualization. One can overcome procrastination by imagining a string tied between one’s heart and to the event one is avoiding, then making the string shorter each time one thinks about it.

 Or one can eliminate an annoying recurring memory by taking the time to imagine it on a leaf that floats away on a stream.    If avoided several times in this way, the memory will stop occurring.  Sometimes in a day many annoying memories can be avoided, interrupting the cycles.  The mind clears significantly when useful thought is not interrupted by recurring memories.

There is a way to supply energy to these visualizations to make them more effective.  To do this, imagine energy, coming up the spine, starting just below where the heart corresponds to the spine. The shiver shakes the body as it quickly rises. It finishes in the back of the head with a feeling of satisfaction. When successful, a sigh or a yawn issues involuntarily. This technique of supplying energy for stabilizing visualization should not be underestimated.  It can also overcome fatigue and drunkenness.  

 In the world where only ideas exist, the mental or abstract world, there is an ideal art that cannot be defined with concepts.  We point to its existence by showing concrete artworks.  Art has a presence that defies description.  It must be seen.

  The abstract and concrete are easily confounded. It is a good thing for the artist to be involved in finding good art to appreciate and remember that ideals are not concrete.  Art is always concrete and must not be confused with the ideal of art. That would be confusing the road with or the map. Even though in this case art is a representation, an abstraction, of something concrete, the object itself is concrete.

  Problems become difficult when we confound the abstract and the concrete, the general and the specific, and the relative and the absolute.  Shifting back and forth invites a sense of certainty about issues we want to prove to ourselves or others when in fact we are mistaken.  Racism for instance is confounding the general with the specific, as if an individual always carries the traits of others in their group, when in fact the human being is the most individual thing on the planet.  It is common to confound the abstract, the idea of something, with the concrete, its referent.  The absolute and relative issues that confuse can come from the fact that ideas change when in different contexts, such as a general or specific context.  An idea by itself has no absolute value, only a relative value in context with a message.  One can overcome these confounding tendencies by noticing them and not using them to erroneously convince others of one’s personal agenda.  These tendencies disappear by practicing seeing them and not benefiting from them.  A clear mind is the jewel of the universe and far more valuable than comfort provided by greed.

Several amazing movements in Western Art from the early Renaissance to the Impressionists have essentially taught the human race to see more accurately.  Artists have shown people how to look more completely and evolve visually.

Yoga has taught people to evolve mentally.

Distance was shown more clearly in paintings with use of linear perspective created in the fifteenth century. It must have been an epiphany for people of that era to see art that created a three dimensional illusion on a two dimensional canvas by making people and things smaller in the distance in a convincing way.  Painting small people in paintings had previously meant they were mortals, and the large people were special and hence larger. Or perhaps it felt dishonest to show people different sizes. The pictorial abstraction seemed wrong to the viewer expecting to see a concrete depiction.  

But for art and vision to evolve the artists needed to depict people as they were seen relatively instead of how they were thought of absolutely. 

People began to understand distance better with the discovery of aerial perspective.  This does not mean a view from an airplane.  Aerial perspective is showing distance by observing the effects of an increasing volume of air between the viewer and object.  Contrast diminishes because of the volume of air and humidity, and bright colors get progressively grayer.  Rembrandt used this truth with great talent and informed people of its importance with the veracity of his art. His unrepentant use of aerial perspective in a world ignorant of it made his life into a legend.  He showed people farther away or in the periphery with less detail.  His patrons demanded that group portraits ignore this principle so each person in the group had an equal status.  He would not abandon his signature contribution to the understanding of vision and bow down to them on that issue and he lost the patrons he deserved.  Bitter poverty ensued.

Light and shade are seen more clearly because of the efforts of Caravaggio and others who created dynamic and powerful compositions by using directional light, but the most dramatic change in vision occurred with the Impressionists and the discovery that color relationships govern the depiction of light itself.  Rembrandt and Caravaggio may have discovered this if they had had the pigments of a full spectrum of color to use like the Impressionists had. What happened here

The artist is generally pictured as an impassioned person, easily excitable and impetuous.  About having a good time, this is undoubtedly true.  But about art, dispassion is a more likely characteristic.  Paintings are created in large part, especially at the end, by deliberate strokes.  Learning dispassion can be hard, but it is worthwhile. (I.12) Don’t get caught up in the beauty you are seeing and creating.  A project degenerates when grandiose thoughts of oneself intrude.

Thoughts can be afflicted. (I.5) There are five afflictions: attraction, aversion, will to live, stupidity (of which there are four types: dormant, covered, active, and restrained, (II.4)), and I amness. (II.3)   

When an artist’s work goes well the thoughts can go into self-aggrandizement.  This conceit is self-defeating and is countered by remembering that it connects one to the lower forms of thought not conducive to the higher functions needed for art. (II.33) This affliction is ‘I amness’.

 But the sense of I amness is also a doorway to the real self.   As an idea about oneself in the world I amness leads to egotism, but it is also the Aham Vritti, the real sense of being in the moment. (II.17)

When observing a subject, the artist will look at it from many angles trying to understand its characteristics, what its purpose is, what its constituents are, where it has been, where it is going, and how it fits into the world.

Dispassion lets one see different sides of an issue more clearly.  The artist will be methodical until the right time to let the passions go.  Holding the reins of the passions for a piece of art is a good practice for life.

Starting a work can be hard.  Some of the distractions which can ruin the mood for an artist are: bad vibes from others, anger, sickness, apathy, intrusion of outside authority, intimidation, self-pity, brooding, ineffectiveness, fatigue, and misinformation. (I.30) Love of art, compassion, and gladness in your heart is an effective shield against these distractions. (I.33) The problem with distractions is that they recur on a regular basis.  Any recurring distraction can be eliminated by establishing and practicing its opposite.  Apathy or inertia cannot stop you if you practice caring. 

It would be a mistake to think any of the distractions are a personality trait.  The personality should be founded on the perennial virtues: non-harming, truthfulness, non-stealing, faithfullness, greedlessness, purity, contentment, austerity, self-study, and devotion to the truth. (II.30-32) Even if imperfect in attaining these virtues, trying helps one see the world as it is.

 My teacher for learning to see color was Henry Hensche.  He came one day to class as I was painting a still life study.  It was coming out well.  I was doing a gray day, cloudy day, study of a couple of colored wood blocks on an old plywood table with a gourd that had seen ten years too much service.  It was not a beautiful still life.  He could read me well though because his advice was not to get too caught up in the beauty of the scene.  He was right.  I was caught up in the beauty of the light on the objects. I was not being alert in making comparisons between the colors and I was doodling instead of painting.  I was distracted from being in the zone by daydreaming about how good I am. Appreciation of beauty is not the creation of it.

The artist is naturally curious.  Curiosity is a program for searching. It is the search engine of the mind.   Searching involves openness to new things and looking in areas that are known as well as looking outside familiar boxes.  Van Gogh believed that an old pair of boots made a painting and people ever since have thought the same thing. 

The mind-set of a person searching is different than someone who is doing.  Searching is glorious.  Instead of dwelling on being lost as to what to paint, the artist should take a sketchpad and with gladness in the heart, revel in the search for the next inspiration.

 The search for patterns and continuities is a habit for the artist. The search for the right color that brings a composition together is a deliberate act of feeling. 

The creation of a piece of art rests with the willingness to really search for something new combined with the confidence in your own spirit to find.  There is no bad piece of art, only unfinished pieces.  The artist is curious what the finished piece will be and searches diligently for the missing element.

 We are curious about the things we like and dislike, why things go wrong, our future, and we are curious about ourselves (II.3), what will happen to me next?

The energy that supplies this curiosity comes from the urge to be useful.  People crave art whether it is dance, theatre, literature, music, architecture, sculpture, composition, or painting.  It is a craving that artists feed.  Art is a way of connecting and being useful to others.

The most basic urge in the universe is the urge to be useful.  Everything in nature, even the smallest atom, knows what to do.  People must figure it out.  The great angst of young people is about how they will fit into the world.  Each person is tasked with the problem of taking up a role in the world.

Being useful means having a purpose.  When our purpose is clear a mission emerges from the undifferentiated potential.  Skills lie dormant until the mission is revealed and the skills should then be honed.  What we have done to prepare ourselves will predict our usefulness.  Our personality begins to form around utilizing our skills for our mission.  The artist plays to his strong suit.  Do art that uses your greatest skills, whether those skills are mental, emotional, or physical, and search for a new way to use them! 

The truth comes to one as an answer, a problem solved.  Reason and logic seem to provide answers.  The brain can sift through a lot of options and find one that feels right.  That is, it has a statistically better chance at working. 

Yoga supplies another way to look at how answers occur.  It is because higher beings help people with inspiration.  Ishvara is special in these higher beings because he was never incarnated and his answers are pure.  His perfection of existence, never having created an act of bad karma, makes him the best answerer. (I.24-29) 

The sense of certainty is a false impression, a misconception.  (I.6)   Something is right when other circumstances validate it.  If an answer comes, be thankful.  The alternative is to take the credit, congratulate oneself and have the thought current degenerate into an egotistical state non-conducive to getting more answers.  (III.51) 

The glue that creates a society is co-operation.  Making life easier for others is the opposite of greed and avarice.

True power is the power to build. 

False power disassembles.  The ancient god Shiva was the destroyer and adherents claim it is good to destroy something so that something better can replace it.  They point to bad personality traits as an example.  In these cases destroying is actually building a space for something new. 

Things built with true power become an element of a useful structure. 

Completeness and satisfaction accompany the real power of being useful as an artist and a friend.  Co-operation is friendliness.  Friendliness, gladness, and compassion overcome any obstacle. (I.33, II.23) Acting friendly when you don’t feel friendly is good practice.

 Competition stimulates individuals to achieve more.  Co-operation creates a matrix to compete within.  Children should be taught as many facets of co-operation as possible.

The act of painting is rewarded by becoming a better painter.  The occasional good painting is a reward also.

Painting is being alert.  It is a meditation that becomes contemplation on a theme. (II.29)  

Painting is not linear.  It is a non-temporal art form. As stated earlier, music or literature, require a span of time for a piece to take form. Since a painting is seen all at once, contradictions can be found by looking at it.  The structure keeps building veracity the more contradictions are eliminated. 

Seeing contradictions in one’s own painting is aided by being that way in all matters of life.  Some people do this by intuition at first and amplify the ability with self-study.

Ten Sleep Creek, Wyoming

The artist builds the painting toward a “look” eliminating anything that takes away from it and finding new ways to make the “look” more evolved.

The sense of self creates a dualism.  That is, there are two things to consider, the self and the universe over there.  The sense of self is dominated by another mysterious dualism: being (life), and non-being (death).  Being implies both the body and the mind but in the mind there is another dualism: the shade and the persona. The things we don’t care to see about ourselves form the Shade and the things we are willing to notice about ourselves is called the Personna.  The creation of a “look” or a “style” goes beyond physical skill, alertness of mind, or building something.  It is more about being expansive and loving the new.  The style one chooses should reflect the Shade and Personna both and that way it is about discovery rather than repetition.

Consciousness always exists “in the moment”. It is felt as the sense of “newness”.  The self is at the most basic level, consciousness.  People are most themselves when experiencing something new and the sense of now accompanies the new thing. 

  Art is new. Create something new and someone, somewhere, will someday have their craving for art appeased.  

Arches National Park, Utah

Perception is a big word in painting.  It includes what you see in nature including human nature and social nature, along with perception of your work in progress. Ignorance is overcome when one perceives something.  Ignorance is the not knowing of something, and perception does away with it. 

Depicting the color of the light falling on objects in a painting is a great advancement to depicting the local color of each object individually.  The first impulse in painting is to paint the color of the object.  This results in making up the painting piecemeal, one object at a time.  The human eye and mind are capable of doing this.  In fact it is the common way to see.  To see relatively one must learn to compare colors, groupings of colors, and eventually see the whole scene as a unit.

The artist who paints relatively compares colors by looking at them simultaneously, especially neutral darks in the shadows.  One shadow may appear redder than the others and another may appear blue when compared.  It is hard to see the color of a shadow by itself but when compared with others the shadow relationship gives the color of each an identity.  Light is more clear when seen in connection to shadows.  Comparison of two darks or three darks leads to seeing the relationships of the darks to the lights. 

If all the reds on the stage are seen at the same time it is easy to see which is brighter, duller, more orange or more rose. 

If the bright colors are seen simultaneously with any neutrals around them, the neutrals can be seen as colors.  In fact the neutral becomes the opposite of the bright color.  This is explained by the “Law of Simultaneous Contrast”.  Neutrals become the opposite or complement of bright colors seen with them.  This effect only occurs though when colors and neutrals are perceived together instead of individually.  It is part of seeing relationships.  Painting this perception helps produce the effect of light.  Everything becomes relative to everything else in the painting only brighter with more intensity.  Relative color was the historical gift of the Impressionists to the human race.

First Monday Trades Day, Canton Texas

Great paintings have been made with contrast in the lights and darks along with good modeling. A rudimentary effect of light and can be quite poetic.  Add relative color to it and you have the opportunity to create color arrangements in harmony with the nature of light.  Soaking oneself in this effort creates balance, reducing prejudice.  It allows perception in the moment to notice what ordinarily would be ignored, the light itself.

Keeping oneself from the common act of looking at things one at a time is restrained ignorance (II.4) and allows more effects of light to be felt in a painting.

This aspect of painting one’s color perceptions has the potential for contributing to one’s well-being in an unexpected way.

Light consists of value, hue, and chroma.  Value is how light or dark something is and is seen by everyone without effort.

Hue is the name of the color; red, blue, etc.  Hues of objects change with the color of the light.  Also neutrals and semi-neutrals become the opposite or complement of a bright color next to them. 

Chroma is the brightness or dullness of a color. 

Here is where it gets interesting.

As already noted, when neutrals and semi-neutrals are seen correctly, that is, simultaneously with any bright colors around them, they cease being a neutral and become a color, the complement or opposite, of the bright color.  These mutable colors can be quite bright, like a hand gesturing and moving in front of a bright red shirt becomes a brilliant green. 

The increased saturation of color from making a neutral into a color, adds to the overall luminosity of the scene.  More light is sensed.  More light is transmitted to the brain because one of the constituents of light, chroma, is increased.  The visual truth of the hues in correct alignment produces an organized presentation of the increased chroma to a brain that is accustomed to being satisfied with simple newness.

The amount of light channeled to the brain is increased both in quantity and quality when perception is enhanced by willful, conscious application of relative color.  More light comes in the eye and to the brain.

The Grand Tetons, Sunset. Jackson Wyoming

 If people deprived of light become depressed, it follows that more color would be beneficial to people.  There would be a happier more alert race of human beings if relative color were taught from an early age.  If these principles had been utilized since they were discovered one hundred and fifty years ago things would have to be better than they currently are.  The race has not benefited from the Impressionist movement to the degree it someday will.

Perception of a work in progress is important also.  The first color applied reacts to the white of the canvas or the neutral of the toned canvas, whichever is used.  As more colors are added and the white of the canvas disappears, alterations to the colors must be made because the relationships are in flux.  At some point later in the painting, still just using the broad colors, the scene on the canvas appears to be lit.  The painting should be looked at as a whole, the way the stage scene is seen as a whole.  While the colors are still in broad shapes it is easier to see how to change each to make the light in the painting as true as possible.  Once the broad colors are accurate, smaller variations within each may be made that will be in correct relationship with the smaller variations in all the other broad colors. 

Now it gets really interesting.

This pragmatic approach produces a rapidly produced impression with color truth.  Color truth is known by the sense of harmony it induces in people. It is similar to hearing a melody as opposed to cacophony.

 If harmonic colors are used with a sense of proportion the effect is amplified.  The quantity of blue in the painting, for example, may need to be changed to effect harmony. The artist has that option.

The Grand Tetons, Sunrise Jackson Wyoming

Remember that according to simultaneous contrast, neutrals become the opposite, the complement, of a bright color seen with them.  This means that neutrals are changeable or mutable.  The obvious way they are changed is into the opposite of the bright color next to it.  But if several bright colors are next to a neutral then a choice is available. 

The mind can change the mutable neutral colors in a way that produces harmony.   The person who searches for harmony in their overall life has a habit that automatically makes their mind change the neutrals to produce harmonies.  The mind, in seeking to find patterns, finds a color in one of the mutable neutrals that is the missing note needed to complete the harmony.  

Harmonies of color make paintings that “sing”.  The actual depiction of this with paints requires knowledge of available pigments.  Painting to the limit of pigments is a body of knowledge that can be acquired by the diligent.   Learning to mix colors should be practiced like practicing to learn a musical instrument.  Make a plan which includes making color charts where every pigment in your palette mixes with every other pigment.  Add white to each variation to see the tints available.  Harmony in color is worth the effort.

This harmony is vastly more deleterious to depression and more helpful to the quality of life than the mere absorption of light discussed already.  Relative color becomes a gift from nature to the artist who practices restrained ignorance.  A world of beauty opens with the unfolding color sense.  It is hoped there is some equally pragmatic way to overcome one’s social ignorance, seeing in an uncommon way the motives of others. 

High quality perception requires looking for comparisons and relationships.

Of all the things we know about, we are the only things that can change our own characteristics.  What that means is: at our most basic level we have no characteristics that define us, not the way rocks or clouds or fire or dogs do.  We are colorless and odorless, a continual clean slate.  It is the “world” that insists we have characteristics and have a role.

Consciousness of now carries a sense of newness.  Deja vu produces the sense that something has happened before and it carries with it the sense of the newness. The sense of  I or of “being here” is strong during deja vu. 

Prakriti is the Sanskrit word for existence without thought.  It means nature in one sense, but in the most practical meaning as pertains to understanding ourselves, it means the physical universe, us included, but not thoughts.  Prakriti is the entirety of the physical universe before segmentation or differentiation by the mind.  It is the word meaning the Undifferentiated Potential.

The “world” by contrast, is a set of interlocking ideas that people share.  It is thoughts.  It is a construct in the mind of each person. It is the continuum in one’s mind of a story with oneself at the center.  As in a novel, ideas are presented in a linear fashion one at a time.  One idea implies all ideas because of their interconnectedness.  

The yogi practices slowing thoughts or ideas.  When ideas are slowed they can be noted by recognizing what type of thought it is.  There are four types: memory, valid cognition, misconception, and imagination. (I.6)  Each thought can be afflicted which will cause  a thought chain to degrade in a direction according to the particular affliction.  The five categories of afflictions are: attraction, aversion, I am-ness, the will to live, and stupidity. (II.3)  All the afflictions are caused by ignorance stemming from a misidentification of the sense of self. (II.5)  They are stopped by involution. (II.10)   Involution is the returning to the state of oneness. (IV.27)

To cease the ongoing current of the “world” by stopping thought means becoming one with everything, to not separate oneself from the universe.

When thought starts after being stopped, the world itself emerges as totally subjective relative to the previous state of absolute aloneness. (II.25, IV.34) That ultimately implies respect to others about how they see things.

So, is beauty created in the world, or does it exist in prakriti prior to the world?

Please consider the idea that life invents the now.  There is no more now for life-forms that die.  Life only exists in the now, only in the moment.  When life ceases now ceases.  Now must be noticed to be and there is no here without me.

Events are in time, so, now becomes not an instant but a duration.  The present moment lasts as long as the event.  Any event is seen differently when it is over than when it is still happening, a sporting event for instance or a romance or making a painting. 

Beauty has a duration.  It is both in the world and in the now.

If beauty is only a response to cultural programing then that would put it purely in the “world”.  For art to be a bridge between the sublime and the mundane we are urged to see beauty as eternal, an eternal bridge, instead of ephemeral and totally relative.

I saw a beautiful photograph showing the Earth from space.  It was breathtaking with the swirling clouds and beautiful blues and browns.  I was emotionally affected and began to mist up.  I projected love for the earth wanting to be a positive force.  Then I realized that the real Earth was beneath my feet.  I did not send my love to the correct physical referent. The photo was a symbol on a piece of paper, and the earth was beneath me actively pulling me to itself, my most omnipresent and most easily ignored friend. The beauty of the symbol of the earth brought me to feel the pull of the planet.

Persephone, New Orleans

If consciousness is recognized as an emotion, it is the sense of belonging.  I recognize the moment as “now” and I belong in it.  I am the now.  It is impossible to imagine there not being a ‘now’.  This sense of belonging is where beauty starts for each of us. 

Newness is a craving.  Art supplies newness to people along with a glimmer of consciousness.  News shows and newspapers have proliferated to satisfy some of the craving for newness.  Newness defines each of us because we are constantly a new thing whenever we are in the moment.  We can feel it.  When not in the moment we can only have the characteristics that we have established that we have.  In the World, we are what we truly believe ourselves to be.  But when we are in the moment, we are consciousness with limitless potential, and that is the real self.

Remembering one’s real self in the moment is dying to the world.  Forgetting one’s real self is being reborn into the world.   This is the death of the ego and its rebirth. Of course, one’s karma follows one into the next “lifetime”.   Horrible acts in a “previous lifetime” make one less inclined to be in the moment. For these people the super ego or conscience makes remembering one’s actions in the moment a hellish proposition.  One is less capable of ego death because of acts for which one does not forgive oneself.  This idea points to a reincarnation of a “soul” after real death by way of the axiom  “as above so below”. 

 “How do I fit into the landscape that I see around me?”  Logic tells me, that everything in the universe is one big thing, me included, but I have the unshakable sense that I am over here and everything else is over there”.  The yogis see the problem but rephrase it as “The World is manufactured in the mind by the interlocking ideas that name everything.”  (IV.34)

Of all the ideas in the world there is one that is bigger than all the rest.  It permeates every other thought.  Without it there is no continuity or even reason for thinking.  Making a mistake about what the referent is for this idea is like planting a virus in every other idea.  Mistakes blossom from that initial mistake.

The mistake is to confuse the idea of me with the actual me.  (II.17, II.5, II.21, I.23, III.53, IV.18) 

Thought requires a thinker.  The yogis call “the thought of me” the aham vritti.

 It is the first thought, and it enables thinking by supplying a subject, me.  It is the last thought before thinking stops.  It is the actual alpha and omega.  The yogis say it burns the brightest of all thoughts because as the last and first thought it is closest to consciousness, the real self.

One wise man asked “Who am I?” invoking a search for the consciousness which (who) cannot become an object.  (IV.25 -Vyasa) This search is a glorious thing.  It drives one into the moment during times when the world is creating stress. 

A work of art stops thought so it is very much like yoga.

Where Are They? Mesa Verde, Colorado