Uit het begeleidingsmateriaal van de stichting Om-Shanti hebben we een heel klein stukje tekst overgenomen, omdat het woorden geeft aan waarom we kunst, cultuur en inspiratie zo belangrijk vinden.
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Het is een van de onderwerpen via welke mensen soms een glimp kunnen opvangen van het wonder van Gods voortdurende proces van schepping. Het onverwachts diep in je Hart geraakt worden als je je openstelt voor een creatieve ingeving, die je vorm wilt geven in de tijdelijke en materiële werkelijkheid, komt omdat deze altijd verwijst naar een mystieke en spirituele Oorsprong waaruit ze is voortgekomen.
Elke echte kunstenaar(es) weet dat het een vorm van genade is als je mag (blijven) putten uit deze oneindige Bron van Liefde en creativiteit; het is in essentie een onuitputtelijke bron van scheppende energie. En deze energie zou bij voorkeur dus niet alleen je gevoel moeten raken, maar juist het Hart en zo voorbij gaan aan teveel subjectieve persoonlijke en rationele beleving. Er bestaan universele processen waarin we elkaar ontmoeten omdat ze ons Hart openen, ver voorbij het gekende van het intellect en nooit aan tijd en plaats gebonden. Elke echte cultuur bevat deze uitingsvormen van creativiteit die ons doet beseffen dat we z’n taal gemakkelijk kunnen verstaan.
Ten onrechte wordt in deze tijd vaak alleen maar teruggegrepen op de “oude kunst en cultuur vormen”, een voorbeeld van iemand die ik heb gekend is Joni Mitchell, ook bij haar zie je, na tientallen LP’s, CD’s en DVD’s en honderden schilderijen, dat haar toegang tot deze Bron nog niet is verstoord en ontstaan er nog steeds creatieve uitingen. Deze mogelijkheid is ook binnen de wereld van muzikanten en schilders een uitzondering, meestal heeft men maar een beperkt aantal jaren toegang tot de Bron.
In onze Westerse cultuur wordt kunst vooral gekwalificeerd en daardoor soms ook vooral gewaardeerd, door er een financiële waarde aan toe te kennen, dit in tegenstelling tot het Oosten, waar kunst veel meer verbonden is met spiritualiteit en als zodanig meestal de mens raakt in z’n Hart en minder in z’n gevoel. In deze tijd van materialisme en overconsumptie is er duidelijk minder belangstelling bij de jeugd voor de diepere en spirituele betekenis van een kunstuiting. Kunst is veel meer een wegwerpartikel geworden, dat de zinnen even moet bevredigen, in plaats dat het de tijd krijgt om het Hart te bereiken en een “boodschap” achter te laten.
Het zelf creëren van “kunst” is een van de unieke mogelijkheden van de mens om uitdrukking te geven aan een dimensie in en buiten hemzelf, die eigenlijk op geen andere wijze mogelijk is. Het bevat daarom ook een universele taal die we gelukkig allemaal kunnen verstaan, maar het vraagt soms nog wel wat oefening en ontwikkeling, maar in potentie bezit iedereen het vermogen om te communiceren via de taal van de kunst en het Hart.
Het zich openstellen voor kunstzinnige uitingen brengt ons even buiten het normale denkpatroon en het ego-voelen, het raakt iets in ons aan dat we moeten koesteren, omdat het een natuurlijke mogelijkheid is om uit te stijgen boven het individuele dat voor de meeste mensen het belangrijkste is in hun leven. Echter het geraakt kunnen worden door kunst is een teken dat we de ander (even) begrijpen en verstaan en dat zijn boodschap niet verloren gaat, omdat wij deze herkennen in ons Hart.
Het zelf creëren van kunst is daarom ook een activiteit die je spiritualiteit stimuleert en je vermogen tot ontvankelijkheid ontwikkelt, het wachten op een ingeving leert je welke blokkades wij zelf vaak (onbewust) creëren, waardoor we niet geïnspireerd zijn. Probeer op welke wijze dan ook, iets te doen met “kunst en creativiteit” in je leven en je zult ontdekken dat het je goed zal doen in elk opzicht.
Tijdens de Yoga-therapie van Om-Shanti maken we gebruik van allerlei verschillende vormen van creativiteit om zo mensen in contact te brengen met hun diepere lagen van emoties. Hier bevinden zich vaak blokkades en “verhalen” die om aandacht vragen en een start kunnen bewerkstelligen om zicht te krijgen op de onbewuste “belasting” die we allemaal met ons mee dragen.
De authentieke Yoga die we beoefenen helpt je hierbij en we zien dan ook regelmatig dat kunstenaars die weinig inspiratie hebben, na een intensieve periode van Om-Shanti Yoga weer ontvankelijk zijn voor de ingevingen die zij kunnen omzetten in de verschillenden vormen van “kunst”.
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Poëzie
Waarom is er zoveel kunst en vooral poëzie, vroeg iemand me ooit eens, binnen de verschillende spirituele tradities, en met name binnen de Indiase-Yoga-traditie. Het antwoord is simpel, de werkelijkheid laat zich niet in directe feitelijkheden verwoorden, er wordt dan veel te veel gebruik gemaakt van de informatie die in je referentiekader aanwezig is en wordt beheerst door het Ego. Hierdoor ontstaat er vrijwel altijd een cliché van de werkelijkheid.
Poëzie vertelt je iets waardoor in jou een proces van zoeken naar de niet uitgesproken woorden en dimensies start. Met als gevolg dat, indien je de boodschap verstaat, je deze leest in je “eigen boek”, in je eigen Zelf. Daarom kan kunst de mens zo diep en wezenlijk ontroeren, omdat het bij uitstek een hulpmiddel is, om over iets wezenlijks te communiceren en in verbinding te treden met de essentie ervan.
Met weinig woorden zoveel vertellen
Een liedje dat je eens zou kunnen beluisteren is “inspiratie” van Mathilde Santing; je vindt het in diverse uitvoeringen op YouTube; de tekst zie je hier beneden, tevens zijn er teksten van Joni Mitchell en diverse andere artiesten en poëten opgenomen.
Inspiratie
Hoe komt een idee ooit tot stand
Kan zo'n gedachte ontstaan
Waar komt dat helder ogenblik
Dat inzicht toch vandaan
Dat komt door ons, zin voor zin
Gaven wij die woorden in
Die fluisterden wij toe
Hoe kreeg jij ooit een idee
Vroeg jij je dat nooit eens af
Het was de stem van een van ons
Die jou het inzicht gaf
De stem van iemand als wij
Onzichtbaar aan je zij
Zo luisterde jij toe
Je noemde het inspiratie
Adem van de geest
Inspiratie
Maar wij zijn het steeds geweest
Zo krijgt het kind een idee
Zo vindt de man wat hij zoekt
Zo wordt de sterveling een held
Zo wordt vooruitgang geboekt
Dat komt door iemand van hier
de mens bereikt op die manier
Het hogere niveau
Ooh noemde het inspiratie
Adem van de geest
Inspiratie
Maar wij zijn het steeds geweest
Noem het inspiratie
Zo noemt men het meest
En dat is het ook
De ingeblazen adem
Van de geest
Mathilde Santing
The Circle Game
Yesterday a child came out to wonder
Caught a dragonfly inside a jar
Fearful when the sky was full of thunder
And tearful at the falling of a star
Then the child moved ten times round the seasons
Skated over ten clear frozen streams
Words like when you're older must appease him
And promises of someday make his dreams
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game *
Sixteen springs and sixteen summers gone now
Cartwheels turn to car wheels thru the town
And they tell him take your time it won't be long now
Till you drag your feet to slow the circles down
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game
So the years spin by and now the boy is twenty
Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true
There'll be new dreams maybe better dreams and plenty
Before the last revolving year is through
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game
Joni Mitchell
Sound of Silence
Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence
In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence
And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never shared
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence
"Fools" said I, "You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But my words, like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence
And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
Then the sign said, "The words on the prophets
Are written on the subway walls
In tenement halls"
And whispered in the sound of silence”
Paul Simon
Hejira
I'm traveling in some vehicle
I'm sitting in some cafe
A defector from the petty wars
That shell shocked love away
There's comfort in melancholy
When there's no need to explain
It's just as natural as the weather
In this moody sky today
In our possessive coupling
So much could not be expressed
So now I am returning to myself
These things that you and I suppressed
I see something of myself in everyone
Just at this moment of the world
As snow gathers like bolts of lace
Waltzing on a ballroom girl
You know it never has been easy
Whether you do or you do not resign
Whether you travel the breadth of extremities
Or stick to some straighter line
Now here's a man and a woman sitting on a rock
They're either going to thaw out or freeze
Listen, strains of Benny Goodman
Coming through' the snow and the pinewood trees
I'm porous with travel fever
But you know I'm so glad to be on my own
Still somehow the slightest touch of a stranger
Can set up trembling in my bones
I know, no one's going to show me everything
We all come and go unknown
Each so deep and superficial
Between the forceps and the stone
Well, I looked at the granite markers
Those tributes to finality, to eternity
And then I looked at myself here
Chicken scratching for my immortality
In the church, they light the candles
And the wax rolls down like tears
There is the hope and the hopelessness
I've witnessed thirty years
We're only particles of change I know, I know
Orbiting around the sun
But how can I have that point of view
When I'm always bound and tied to someone
White flags of winter chimneys
Wave truce against the moon
In the mirrors of a modern bank
From the window of a hotel room
I'm traveling in some vehicle
I'm sitting in some cafe
A defector from the petty wars
Until love sucks me back that way
Joni Mitchell
The Right Moment
Spinning on another wheel, goin' round in slow motion
Caught up in another dream, driftin' on a blue ocean
When are you gonna reach out, only you can turn your world around
When will you surrender, and wake up to the real
But you don't want to start out just yet, you watch the seasons come and go
You remember and then you forget, all along the way.
You can make a better life, you're just waitin' for the right moment
You can find another way, you're just waitin' for the right moment
When are you gonna let go, and forget about the life you knew
When will you surrender, and wake up to the real
Now you know that it's all borrowed time, and still you waste another day
But you watch and you wait for a sign all along the way
Gerry Rafferty
As Wise as a Serpent
Well we sit in empty rooms and dream our lives away
While the spirits come and go without a sound
And just like you and me, they're tryin' to find a way
Find a way, find a way home
There's a full moon in the sky, but that don't worry me
I don't ever hang my soul out on the line
When the witchin' hour comes, I always fly away
Fly away, fly away home
There's a light in the city, that comes down from above
Leavin' you as wise as a serpent, harmless as a dove
Don't blow your tomorrows, don't throw away your love
You've got to be as wise as a serpent, harmless as a dove
Now you once asked me why we can't communicate
But it doesn't always pay to tell the truth
If I told you right now, you'd only run away
Run away, run away home
So, we sit in empty rooms and dream our lives away
While the spirits come and go without a sound
Yeah, just like you and me, they're tryin' to find a way
Find a way, find a way home
There's a light in the city, that comes down from above
Leavin' you as wise as a serpent, harmless as a dove
Don't blow your tomorrows, don't throw away your love
You've got to be as wise as a serpent, harmless as a dove
Gerry Rafferty
Still In Denial
You got a problem you won't admit
You got a habit that you can't kick
You're still in denial
Your wife is gone and you've grown old
The money's spent and the house is sold
You're still in denial
You've been living in a drunkard's dream
On a lost weekend, in a silent scream
I saw your picture in a photograph
You think it's funny but I still can't laugh, no
You gotta get it through your fucked up head
You gotta stop it or you'll drop down dead
You're still in denial
That love is something you don't understand
You won't accept a helping hand
Right now you're sinking in quicksand
You're still playing in a one-man band
You've been living in a drunkard's dream
On a lost weekend, in a silent scream
I saw your picture in a photograph
You think it's funny but I still can't laugh, no
You got a problem you won't admit
You got a habit that you can't kick
You're still in denial
Still in denial
That love is something you don't understand
Still in denial
You won't accept a helping hand
Still in denial
Right now you're sinking in quicksand
Still in denial
You're still playing in a one-man band
That love is something you don't understand
You won't accept a helping hand
Right now you're sinking in quicksand
You're still playing in a one-man band
Yeah, you're gonna have to face it
You're still in denial
Gerry Rafferty
Over de ouderdom
It’s not the crow’s feet under your eyes that make you old
or the grey in your hair I am told
but when your mind makes a contract
your body can’t fill
You are over the hill brother, you are over the hill
Father of Ram Dass
The limitations and distortions of our core vision of what it means to be a person in our culture become starkly evident in old age .... if to be an old person is to suffer abandonment, disappointment and humiliation. This is not a “geriatric problem”. It is the disproof of our whole shaky-pudding technology, science and all. If our old people are empty, our vision of life is empty.
Robert Karstenbaum
Maybe so, Maybe not. We’ll see.
There is a Chinese Proverb that goes something like this…...
A farmer and his son had a beloved stallion who helped the family earn a living. One day, the horse ran away and their neighbors exclaimed, “Your horse ran away, what terrible luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”
A few days later, the horse returned home, leading a few wild mares back to the farm as well. The neighbors shouted out, “Your horse has returned, and brought several horses home with him. What great luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”
Later that week, the farmer’s son was trying to break one of the mares and she threw him to the ground, breaking his leg. The villagers cried, “Your son broke his leg, what terrible luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”
A few weeks later, soldiers from the national army marched through town, recruiting all the able-bodied boys for the army. They did not take the farmer’s son, still recovering from his injury. Friends shouted, “Your boy is spared, what tremendous luck!” To which the farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”
The moral of this story, is, of course, that no event, in and of itself, can truly be judged as good or bad, lucky or unlucky, fortunate or unfortunate, but that only time will tell the whole story. Additionally, no one really lives long enough to find out the ‘whole story,’ so it could be considered a great waste of time to judge minor inconveniences as misfortunes or to invest tons of energy into things that look outstanding on the surface, but may not pay off in the end.
The wiser thing, then, is to live life in moderation, keeping as even a temperament as possible, taking all things in stride, whether they originally appear to be ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ Life is much more comfortable and comforting if we merely accept what we’re given and make the best of our life circumstances. Rather than always having to pass judgement on things and declare them as good or bad, it would be better to just sit back and say, “It will be interesting to see what happens.”
“I know a man who gave up smoking, drinking, sex and rich food. He was healthy right up to the time he committed suicide”.
Johnny Carson
I Can't Remember!
Just a line to say I'm living,
that I'm not among the dead,
though I'm getting more forgetful
and mixed up in the head.
I got used to my arthritis,
to my dentures I'm resigned,
I can manage my bifocals
but God I miss my mind,
For sometimes I can't remember,
when I stand at the foot of the stairs,
if I must go up for something,
or have just come down from there.
And before the fridge so often,
my poor mind is filled with doubt,
have I just put food away,
or have I come to take some out?
And there's the time when it is dark
with my nightcap on my head,
I don't know if I'm retiring,
or just getting out of bed.
So if it's my turn to write to you,
there's no need for getting sore,
I may think that I have written
and don't want to be a bore.
So, remember that I love you
and wish that you were near
but now it's nearly mail time
so I must say good-bye dear,
There I stand beside the mailbox
with a face so very red,
instead of mailing you my letter,
I opened it instead!
Author Unknown
Uit: Sailing to Byzantium
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
W. B. Yeats, 1865 - 1939
Uit: Four Quarters - East Coker Lines 370 - 389
Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.
T.S. Eliot
Lack of physical strength keeps me inactive and often silent. They call me senile. Senility is a convenient peg on which to hang nonconformity. A new set of faculties seems to be coming into operation. I seem to be waking to a larger world of wonderment - to catch little glimpses of the immensity and diversity of creation. More than at any other time of my life, I seem to be aware of the beauties of our spinning planet and the sky above. Old age is sharpening my awareness.
Francis, a resident in a nursing home
William Shakespeare saw death as a welcome deliverance from life’s countless blows in his “Tired With All These, For Restful Death I Cry.” Other poets view their final years with a kind of Zen-like calm. “Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year, I felt a door opening in me and I entered the clarity of early morning," wrote Czeslaw Milosz in “Late Ripeness.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in his poem “Nature," compares the old to a child who must “leave his broken playthings on the floor” and go to bed:
So Nature deals with us, and takes away
Our playthings one by one, and by the hand
Leads us to rest so gently, that we go
Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay,
Being too full of sleep to understand
How far the unknown transcends the what we know.
Late Ripeness
Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year,
I felt a door opening in me and I entered
the clarity of early morning.
One after another my former lives were departing,
like ships, together with their sorrow.
And the countries, cities, gardens, the bays of seas
assigned to my brush came closer,
ready now to be described better than they were before.
I was not separated from people,
grief and pity joined us.
We forget - I kept saying - that we are all children of the King.
For where we come from there is no division
into Yes and No, into is, was, and will be.
We were miserable, we used no more than a hundredth part
of the gift we received for our long journey.
Moments from yesterday and from centuries ago—
a sword blow, the painting of eyelashes before a mirror
of polished metal, a lethal musket shot, a caravel
staving its hull against a reef—they dwell in us,
waiting for a fulfillment.
I knew, always, that I would be a worker in the vineyard,
as are all men and women living at the same time,
whether they are aware of it or not.
By Czeslaw Milosz - Translated by Robert Hass and Czeslaw Milosz
Nature
As a fond mother, when the day is o'er,
Leads by the hand her little child to bed,
Half willing, half reluctant to be led,
And leave his broken playthings on the floor,
Still gazing at them through the open door,
Nor wholly reassured and comforted
By promises of others in their stead,
Which, though more splendid, may not please him more;
So Nature deals with us, and takes away
Our playthings one by one, and by the hand
Leads us to rest so gently, that we go
Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay,
Being too full of sleep to understand
How far the unknown transcends the what we know.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
When You Are Old
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats
Do not go gentle into that good night
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Dylan Thomas 1914 - 1953
Met mij is er totaal niets aan de hand.
Ik ben nog zo fit van lijf en verstand.
Ja, ik heb artrose in mijn heupen, mijn knie
en als ik buk is het of ik sterretjes zie.
Mijn pols iets te snel, mijn bloeddruk te hoog
maar ik ben nog fantastisch goed, zo op het oog.
Met steunzolen die ik heb gekregen
Loop ik weer buiten lang's Heren wegen.
Kom ik weer in winkels op het plein
wat heerlijk om zo gezond te zijn.
Mijn geheugen is niet meer zo best evenmin mijn ogen.
De rug raakt langzaam wat meer gebogen
de adem wat korter, de keel wat droog.
Maar ik nog fantastisch goed, zo op het oog.
Is het leven niet mooi? Het gaat te snel voorbij.
Als ik kijk naar de foto's van vroeger van mij.
Ik denk terug aan mijn jeugdige jaren.
Ik wilde mooie schoentjes en moest er voor sparen.
Ik ging fijn fietsen en wandelen, overal heen.
En ik kende geen moeheid, zo het scheen.
Nu ik ouder ben, zijn mijn schoenen vaak zwart
en ik loop nu helemaal langzaam, dat is voor mijn hart.
"Houd uw gemak maar" zegt de cardioloog
maar ik ben nog fantastisch goed, zo op het oog.
De ouderdom is goud. Ja ik begrijp het wel.
Maar als ik niet kan slapen en tot honderd tel
dan twijfel ik en vraag me af of het waar is
of dat beeld van goud niet wat dwaas en raar is.
Ik doe nog van alles, maar het gaat wat traag
en na het eten heb ik last van mijn maag.
Maar ik wil niet zeuren. Want dat mag
allemaal komen op onze oude dag.
Corine 2013
