image: Shinjan Patra
words: Debarati Ray
When reality becomes unbearable and you`re having no option to move beyond, try to remember one thing that your secret self where your imagination resides, has always a special plan for you. She`ll never let you feel alone, rather always inspire you to move beyond this tangible world of mechanical reality and allow your being to embrace that higher truth not to enjoy any momentary recluse but to evolve yourself, true to your existence, true to that creative spark of nature that your soul had been longing for, since eternity. In this connection, I would like to share with you a poem that once I`ve written in a trance like state as I engaged myself to find out some unresolved answers. On that night, something happened out of the world and quite unexpectedly this poem came into my mind like a sudden flash of lightening.
I was still in that trance like state but an unknown muse, continually helping me to descend down into my depth and create those words in order to find the answers of those unresolved conflicts, I had been searching, for a long. Those expressions were like;
“A total darkness it was/ as he descended down into the depths/ there were still no valleys, no meadows to shape/ there was nothing to be found, no one to sound/ only a void where one may wander, round and round/ but a sudden spark comes in His mind/ letting His heart to speak again/ to spring up with a newer shine/ the sky was still alone as a clean slate/ but He paints some clouds on her/ letting her to shine again/ to shine with all her favorite mates/ He lights up the stars at once, just to bring some colors/ this time the fresher ones/ on that immortal frame/ to make her feel the divinity, she always longed for/ since the time she came/ since the time, eternity came/ with all its magic, all its grace!”
When Imagination sparks, Creativity blazes itself, out of nothing:
Do you want to know from where did that imagination come into my mind on that night? Here in this section, I would like to invite you into that world of unseen reality. It is that state of your mind that cannot be defined in any logical sense of linearity. It`s not that energy that you may have in a tangible sense. But all on a sudden you may feel that, out of nowhere and quite miraculously it may lead you towards another dimension of reality that has a mysterious power of imagining something out of the box and creating something greater that you`ve never experienced in this mundane world.
It also, helps you to descend down into the depths of your being where you may find nothing, but only some dark mazes to confront. You may be overwhelmed on a first place, finding no passageways to discover yourself, to have that reflection. But here in lies the depth, the value of your imagination that may help you to expand your consciousness to that state of transcendental perception from where life cannot be viewed as an ordinary experience to confront, rather as an extraordinary existence, inspiring your artistic self to create an wonder out of a full void, out of a total darkness where once you got stuck for a long period of time. Then suddenly that mysterious force, inside stirs you for once and pushes you forward to light some candles of your imagination on the canvas of that total void. Then you may feel that you`ve nothing to do but to surrender yourself to that mysterious force and dedicate your being into the creation of something new. And when this happens, you may find nothing, but only the creation of a wonderful art as a blessed outcome that your soul may feel. As the very nature of your soul is creative and she moves beyond any restrains of tangibility, she also allows the gift of your imagination to embark on a newer journey in order to enter into the new world of infinite possibilities where creativity is not something to enjoy for a momentary recluse but something to evolve yourself in a newer way. And there eternity will speak the last word for your creation, for your existence as well.
When Creative Imagination serves to inspire and recreate your Destiny
You may feel that this gift of creative imagination is only applicable for those who are artistic in nature or have the capacity to see the world in a different way. In that sense, this is for those who are poets, artists or the ones who are spiritually gifted. Though you`re right to some extent, as really they`re that I personally believe. But at the same time you may be surprised to learn that we all possess within, this inherent quality of creation but never allow us to peep inside. This imagination not only helps you to break all the traditional, linear forms of thought patterns but also allows your consciousness to flow in a natural way in order to be who you truly are. And in the course of this emergence with all your newer colors, you can feel a more mature sense of growth within, a growth that may always prompt you to evolve even in the midst of any crisis that you`re experiencing. It always leads you to believe on an unseen world of reality, yet at the same time bringing you back to your true self, more in a constructive way for creating something new, for molding a newer shape on that sculpture that once your artistic energy aspired to create.
In order to explain it in a lighter way, I would like to share with you a personal experience that I`ve heard from one of my psychologist friends. He loved to deal with his clients in a creative way to lay bare their insights and heal them in a self-cognitive way with the assistance of their souls in a natural way of creating something new that their soul asked them to create. During the course of his treatment, quite unknowingly of themselves the patients get started to believe that they are the healers and the artists of themselves. And during that course they also have in their mind that this task of engaging their depth in a creative work is not only helping to heal themselves but also helping them to create something extraordinary, very much aligned to their soul level and providing them an opportunity to reconcile to their true self that their destiny always yearns to find.
When your Soul finds an eternal solace through Creative Art
As we all know that soul is not something to be touched but something to be felt, within. And that`s why she never understands any linear or logical form of language, rather always prefers to present herself in a nonlinear, symbolical manner, where you may not get puzzled yourself but find a deeper truth, a different dimension of reality, your existence as well. And here in comes the advocacy of art itself that in its beauty of exploring a higher truth always speaks for nurturing your soul in a newer way, in a way when time pauses for a while, and you yourself are not aware of who you are and what you`re doing at that very moment, but simply allow yourself to feel its magic. Art is not something that comes from that logical, exterior part of your conscious self, rather comes from the inner most depth of your soul who knows no boundaries, knows no language and for whom the images and symbols are the only talking personas to converse with. In most of the time of artistic creations, you may feel that you`re surrendering your inner self to a mysterious divine energy that continually inspires your consciousness to reach towards a special dimension where the eternal serenity is waiting for you to make you feel that your existence has a special meaning.
Here in this section, I would like to share another mysterious gift that our soul has within her; this is the gift of healing herself. Whenever she feels trapped inside a dark dungeon of isolation and existential despair, it’s her very nature that inspires her to release all the past burdens. But she cannot do it in a tangible sense of reality. And here at this juncture, creative art comes forward as her only savior and sweeps her off her feet towards a magical world where she can create and evolve herself, once again beyond this mundane world of reality in order to celebrate life with a more deeper feeling that has always been needed to heal herself, to be aligned to her creative potentials, to be with her eternal presence, even at the face of distraught and disequilibrium –
“As the earth seems to collapse
And darkness engulfs your tiny presence
Never feel distraught for a while,
Never feel gloomed again!
Just take a glance of the sky, instead;
There you may also have –
Another site of an earthly heaven
Calling you back to create yourself
But, this time, on a newer canvas
On a newer frame!”
Creative Imagination provides a different insight for a higher revelation
Creative imagination doesn`t serve the purpose of creating something new only, rather it creates a different dimension where your soul can converse with you in an ineffable, yet intuitively perceptible way. Then, you may not be considered as an artist in a literal sense but may be considered as an artist of your life, an artist of your own being where through the process of inner cognition, you`re not only emerging your presence in a newer form before the world but presenting the art of your life as your own creation, very much true to your soul`s purpose. And sometimes true to that dimension of your existence where your destiny always awaits to help you to shed off your outer shell, to bring you back to your true purpose where your heart resides in order to evolve within, not only to shape your sculpture in a newer grace but by recreating your life once again as a true sculptor who himself/ herself knows how to imagine and celebrate the true meaning of life itself.
In this connection, I would like to share with you an extraordinary incident of a lady that I`ve heard from that psychologist friend. It was a miraculous incident of a simple woman who quite unexpectedly decided to be an artist, leaving behind her old career as a banker, simply on an overnight decision. If you go through her reminiscences, you will understand that it was not an overnight decision that readily came into her mind and made her a poet. Here, I would like to bring before you some of her thoughts that she shared with my friend during the days of her consultations. Somehow, she had gone through some traumatic experiences, not only in her working field but also in her personal life that I got to know from my friend. And it was the identity crisis that made her to consult with a psychologist and quite miraculously, she found her entity back to its ideal form in a way of her own creation, where her insight showed her the higher truth of revelation. You must be eager enough to know of what had happened that helped her to get back to her real self. I would like to share that experience in her own words, I`ve heard from my psychologist friend;
“On a very first place when I started to write on your suggestions, it was completely a void for me, I felt…It was utterly impossible for me to ruminate over the past experiences and write about those incidents in a logical way of understanding. At the same time, it was troublesome for me to look forward and leave behind all those pains that I`ve already gone through. At that time poetry was not my cup of tea. But you suggested me to write, if not in a poetic way, then with the help of symbols and images. I tried to do that….during those initial stages I found no words. During the first few days I used to write some gibberish, sometimes, simply allow my heart to talk with me in some forms of painting. The first painting that I pictured was the painting of darkness from where nothing can be figured out. Days passed as silence steps in, in a more intuitive way, I started to feel some mysterious energy, continually throbbing, within to express something. Quite unknowingly of myself, I took my pen and paper and wrote my first piece, one night:
As the silence steps in,
The nocturnal air seems to hover around,
Harking me back, to where?
The stars may know, but I don`t.
May be towards that way
Where someone is waiting for me,
To bridge a gap that once I made
In the course, of this earthly cacophony!
On that night for the first time, I felt the presence of something special, within me, the presence of something that is beyond this tangible world of reality. It just came in an unexpected way. At that very moment I was not in me, but I felt someone else is writing that piece on behalf of me, I only surrendered to her and she wrote those words. On the next morning, when I shared this experience with you, you only smiled and assured me that it was not me but my intuitive artist that took that pen and paper on behalf of me, on that night! But after some days, in an unexpected manner she went away, leaving me once again as a barren island, I didn`t find any words to console me. In those nights I couldn`t sleep properly. I used to walk on some solitary beaches, sometimes through the labyrinthine turns of some hilly roads. But in vain, she was nowhere! That also made me to cry, to kneel before the vast expansion. Some days later, I could feel her once again. She came to me as a starry sky under which I also felt my presence, not in my human form but in a form of something intangible, beyond this world of mundane reality, something very much attuned to the energy of the universe. That was another painting that she helped me to create that night; the painting of a starry sky, beneath that the resting earth, seemingly revitalizing an inherent truth of eternity and our existence as well. But one thing that I must tell you here that by those days when I was frantically searching for her, wandering over the beaches, quite unexpectedly I started to feel something different that I was not alone, rather an invisible, powerful energy always guiding my entity, making me feel to flourish within, to create what my soul always yearns for. I didn`t know why, but quite surprisingly, during those moments I got a different insight that helped me to prepare myself for a higher revelation. I got to know that I`m not on this planet for being a banker, but I`m destined for something else. I knew in my heart that the journey, I was going through was not only a journey of excruciating pain, but a journey of gaining wisdom, of aligning myself to my true spiritual center that once I lost. I took up the decision to change my life once again, to reciprocate to that higher calling and allowed my inner artist to flow in a natural way. And as a result of that wrote this piece with such feelings that once I used to harness deep in my heart;
Beneath the starry sky
As the earth rests for a while,
The mist casts off her spell —
A tiny creature only looks back,
Back to its insignificance;
Mourns for a while,
Then moves beyond –
Beyond this world of tangibility
Where only art may come with some
Special words; those words of eternity!”
In this connection, I would like to remind you all that this was simply an incident that happened to that lady, in particular. This doesn`t mean that you all have that same poetic feelings, inside that inspires you to be a poet. Because it`s barely possible for you all. But let me assure you one thing. Though you`re not a poet, but remember you all have that creator inside. Never allow that creator to be disheartened. Let`s try to feel what she is trying to tell you intuitively. Because your life itself may not sustain without that creator. She is the source of your imagination, your inspiration, the guiding principle of your being. She is someone like Aladdin`s Genie who always helps you to think beyond, to feel the world not in the way as it is, but the way it may be, or sometimes the way it could be. She will never let you feel alone. Whenever you feel so, she`ll come and whisper into your ears. Let`s pay heed to her gentle whispers. She is still humming around;
“If the world seems to you as a barren one, Why don`t you paint on it? Let`s paint those colors that once you brought from that secret place of your heart, beyond this mundane world once again to paint your shapeless form.”
