About 25 years ago, I started painting.
And from the very beginning, I was mesmerized
by something I couldn't explain.
I could simply smear paint onto a canvas, move it
around, let it flow—and somehow, completely
unexpected scenes would appear.
Not once.
Not occasionally.
Each and every time.
I never really knew how I was doing it.
In fact, I didn't feel as though I was doing it at all.
I had no particular scene in my head that I was
trying to reproduce.
I wasn't working from carefully constructed
drawings or following
traditional rules of composition.
I would simply begin, move the paint, and watch.
And somehow, something appeared.
For years, I considered this simply my way of
painting.
I called it "Painting strictly from the soul with no
filter."
I had no idea that I was also painting my way
toward something else.
Then I discovered Advaita Vedanta.
My spiritual seeking eventually led me to the
philosophy of Advaita Vedanta.
And when I encountered it, something very
strange happened.
I didn't feel as though I had discovered a new
philosophy.
I felt as though I had recognized something I
already knew.
It was one of those exhilarating moments on a
spiritual path when you realize:
I didn't learn this.
I recognize this.
Advaita Vedanta is a non-dual philosophy that
points toward the idea that our true nature is not
the separate individual we ordinarily take
ourselves to be, but pure consciousness—and that
the constantly changing world of appearances,
traditionally described as Maya, does not alter
that underlying reality.
And suddenly, I began to see something I had
completely missed.
I had apparently been painting this idea for years.
I just didn't have the vocabulary for it.
When I look back now, the artwork I created over
the last couple of decades feels almost like a trail
of breadcrumbs.
They were leading me somewhere.
I just didn't know where.
The paintings came first.
The philosophy came later.
And yet, when I finally encountered Advaita
Vedanta, the connection felt immediate.
It was as though my paintings had been saying
something to me for years that I was only now
learning how to hear.
And yet, when I look at the language and
ideas surrounding my artwork, I can see how
closely they resonate with what I would
eventually encounter in Advaita.
Apparently, I was following the map before I knew
the map existed.
Maya on a Canvas
One of the ideas that suddenly became incredibly
clear to me is the way Advaita describes Maya - an
illusionary world of projected energy - projected
by pure consciousness which is who you truly
are.
Imagine a screen.
Images can move across the screen.
Colors can change.
Shapes can appear and disappear.
Beautiful scenes can unfold.
Terrifying scenes can unfold.
The entire picture can change in an instant.
And yet the screen itself remains untouched.
The screen is who you truly are -pure aware
consciousness.
The movie is projected energy.
That image suddenly reminded me of my
paintings.
I was taking fluid paint, transparent layers, light
and color and allowing forms to emerge.
In Advaita there are no boundaries because
physical form is an illusion.
The non-duality shows up perfectly in my
paintings as they are all open forms morphing
and changing into other forms.
They are only pure consciousness, pure energy
projecting onto the screen as form.
And you are the projector of your own life
in the same way I project my own energy onto the
canvas.
Making what was once invisible energy, visible
energy is the purpose of life.
The universe appears to be filled with constantly
changing forms, while consciousness itself
remains the unchanging background in which all
of those appearances arise.
Maya is the illusion - the movie -the software.
Pure consciousness is the screen, which in my
case is the canvas.
And what always fascinated me about my own
painting becomes immediately apparent to me.
I wasn't trying to create a picture.
For years, one of the strangest things about my
painting process was that - I couldn't really decide
what I was going to paint and then accurately
reproduce it.
I didn't work that way.
It could not work that way for me as I have zero
ability to draw.
We are talking stick figures here.
I would start with paint.
I would smear it.
Move it.
Layer it.
Add more.
And somewhere along the way, something would
begin to emerge.
Looking back through an Advaita lens, I now see
why the idea of not being the "doer" became so
interesting to me.
Because the painting wasn't something I was
imposing upon the canvas from the outside.
I was simply participating in a process of letting
the painting emerge from within my own energy
field.
I wasn't consciously manufacturing the image.
I was watching it appear.
This was always mind-blowing to me.
Instead of constructing geometric relationships
with the paint itself , I could interact with forms,
light, symmetry and structure intuitively.
I could play.
And for that reason all of my paintings are infused
with that joy, no energy of hard work or trying -
just the joy of pure energetic manipulation of color
and form.
And what I discovered was that beneath what
initially looked chaotic, there was always an
extraordinary coherence.
The energetic universe might not look coherent to
us, as it is invisible in most forms to us, but my
paintings display the fact that energy is very
coherent and structure in the Maya is very real.
Very real in the illusional world, not so much in
the world of pure consciousness.
The Cosmic Loop
The artwork I created 25 years ago.
The spiritual ideas I discovered a year or two ago.
The images and objects surrounding me now.
The way I intuitively work with color, light, form
and energy.
Suddenly they didn't feel like separate things
anymore.
They felt like different expressions of the same
underlying realization.
The loop had closed.
I haven't changed paths.
I have finally recognized the path I had already
been walking.
Pure consciousness is where the magic happens.
That is why this realization feels so exhilarating to
me.
Now I will leave you with some tablets.
