by Professor Phillip Rubinov-Jacobson
Just a few years ago, the Tate Gallery in London once again held its annual Turner Prize Awards, a cultural event that supposedly presents what is considered to be the highest and the 'very latest ', what is on the cutting edge of the contemporary art scene. The exhibition consisted of works composed of bones, blood and guts, absurd assemblages and installations of garbage, virtually all of it vile and grotesque. However, there was one major difference that year. For the first time, the public gathered outside the museum and enraged about the curatorial selection of a vacant and vile art, demonstrated against the exhibition. The museums' rhetoric that was used was the same as always; a common 'formula' of words that is an attempt to come to the rescue of a weak and often vacant art. The weaker and more vacant art is, the more 'words' are used to enamel and fill in the emptiness of the visual experience. It's an old tactic, an old "fairy tale" still in practice today. The fairy tale of The Emperor's New Clothes by Hans Christian Anderson lives on and remains very effective, so effective in fact, that many people have given up on even going to modern museums or contemporary galleries altogether. Like the tailors' scam in the fairy tale, people were afraid of looking stupid by declaring the emperor bare as he paraded naked before the crowds, so too with the modern tailors, the curators, drawing the public into the con-game. They also know that the public does not want to appear stupid and uncultured in such a sanctified and quiet church-like space where art is being displayed.
This is not to say that there aren't some modern exhibitions that are truly inspiring, there are at times, but they are indeed rare and hard to find. I must confess that, for me, after walking through most modern art museums and contemporary galleries today, I come out drained of my energy. I am anti-inspired, disappointed, depressed and pissed-off. I am not alone in that response and the numbers are growing. But why don't I feel inspired and invigorated in the contemporary art museums I have walked into all over the world? Why do I leave an exhibition of contemporary art feeling totally drained instead of uplifted and inspired? Well, I have given it some thought. The esthetic experience is a receptive one and involves surrender. But adequate yielding of the self is possible only through a controlled and 'awakened' activity. In much of the intercourse with our surroundings we withdraw, if only of expending unduly our store of energy and sometimes simply from preoccupation with other matters, or for others, simply from fear. Perception is an act of the going-out of energy in order to receive, not a withholding of energy. To steep ourselves in subject matter we have first to plunge and plug into it. When we are only passive to a scene, it overwhelms us and, for lack of answering activity, we do not perceive that which bears us down. We must summon energy and pitch it out at a responsive key in order to take in. And therein lays the key. Art is a two-way dialogue between the object and the responder.
If the art we experience is dead, we become exhausted by expending so much energy pitching out, while nothing comes back to us. If we try even harder, try to infuse the 'object of art' with some feeling, notion, or any number of esthetic elements - we are simply draining ourselves even more, because nothing is there. It is un-enlivened matter and not an object of art embodying and transmitting esthetic energies. Just because there is an object placed in a museum, it does not mean it is genuinely 'art'. If there isn't any dialogue possible, if there is nothing coming back, we are talking to ourselves twice over and that is very draining and exhausting. The museum curator would profess that we are simply ignorant, too stupid to understand what we are seeing, which is simply not true.
For me, it takes an extraordinary amount of energy to take in dead-art, that is, art that is vacant of feeling. All attempts to resurrect a dead work of art, fail. I think Jesus Christ would have an easier time resurrecting a deceased human being than enlivening a dead work of art. I leave the museum depleted of my energy, uninspired, much like the dead art I had just tried to communicate with, enliven and resurrect. Now one can feel tired after walking through a museum of the old masters too, or even a show of contemporary visionaries as well, especially after seeing hundreds of masterpieces and being in a 'true dialogue' for an entire afternoon, or a whole day. The difference is, that it took a whole day and I may be tired, or more likely, over-stimulated from the genuine conversations that I had, as if speaking with several hundred people, each in an individualized and unique intercourse. However, in the typical modern art museum, I am exhausted in less than an hour, sometimes in minutes, sometimes even the moment I walk through the front door and scan the exhibit
Experiment for yourself, the next time you view art in a large modern art gallery or museum, watch and notice how you approach the painting or object. Notice your energy at first reaching out, infusing the work with your own soul, the tentacles of your being moving toward the work to embrace it, speak and commune with it. See how you are pitching your energy toward the object. Then notice what kind of energy; feelings, thoughts or just state of being comes back and/or arises within you; nourishes you. Notice the dialogue that is going on…or not. Notice what is evoked within you, or not. Just be honest with yourself, you are not stupid; you are not an ignorant and uncultured person, just trust your own feelings when you look at art. After all, in the end, with art, it is only our feelings that are real. The most beautiful things in life even transcend the greatest works of art, for they cannot be seen, heard or even touched, they must be felt with the heart. But, art ignites such flames of feeling. So on the next visit to a museum of modern art; really pay attention to what you might be experiencing, if what you are looking at does not at least move you in thought or feeling, then it is, in fact, lifeless. If the art you are seeing does not evoke some feeling, (aside from the general easy ones like disgust, nausea, anger or boredom) it is likely bad art or not art at all.
Every age has its own collective neurosis, and every age needs its own art to cope with it. The massive neurosis of the present time can be described as both a form of narcissism and personal form of nihilism; for both can be defined as the contention that being has no meaning. Only an art that it is integral can free itself from this state of affairs and not be influenced by the contemporary trends of the collective neurosis. Art that is non-integral merely reflects a symptom of the mass neurosis rather than play a role in the possible cure. Non-integral art, which is the pervasive works filling the contemporary art world offers a caricature rather than a true picture of humanity in its wholeness. For the responder to art, all this really means is learning to trust one's own experience with art; to let go of the disenchantment with what has been seen over and over again in all the exhibits that have been replaying the same tape-reel. Outside the walls of the contemporary museums there is truly an art available, even if hard to find, that genuinely expresses and dignifies the human spirit.
Museums could also serve to house an art that contributes to positive change by the inspirational forces and guidance art provides. Art can express and inspire the uniting of man by elevating responders to that level of consciousness wherein they can behold with a clarified vision the workings of harmony, truth, beauty and goodness in the universe. In the pursuit of philosophy and art, in searching to become stationed in illumination, it is wise to exercise an especially liberated intelligence in which the human mind is set free and the spirit can soar. Untrammeled by limitations of the temporal and the particular, art recognizes no laws save those that govern its own reasoning, or created reality. This disinterested activity in which the quest of the freely functioning mind explores, is a tremendous good, it opens the doors of inspiration, and is among the greatest experiences a human being can gain and enjoy. This is the activity of the modern creative mystic and should be the collaborative association of our cultural institutions.
Art is a noble skill, an offspring of the material mind of mortal man, inspired by a cosmic loom that carries the fabric on which the self, the small 'i' weaves the patterns of universal character with the supreme self, the capital 'I', and holds enduring values and spiritual expression. Artists serve as humanities' eyes of the soul. In so far as the evolving being becomes permeated by the truth, beauty, and goodness as Plotinus layed down as the value-realization of an illumined consciousness, and this applies to each and every one of us, not just 'artists', such a resultant being can become a force of indestructible love. If a soul does not seek eternal values and love, then mortal existence is without meaning and life itself, becomes an inescapable and tragic illusion. Integral artists work for Love and in service to the One without a second, to Illumination and to illuminating the Mystery.
Most galleries, contemporary museums and artists today are not concerned with such spiritual directions. Instead, commercial endeavors and economic success provide the pervasive goal. The contemporary art scene is simply motivated to support and produce artistic profits not prophets, generating countless fly-by-night gimmicks, fads, trends and commercial venues. Nevertheless, genuine integral artists continue to expand and produce. An irrepressible spirit charges them, but because these works do not usually meet with the current trends and motives of the market, they seldom find their way into the public eye. It appears, on the surface, at least, that the art movements over the last hundred years have 'almost' de-mystified and deconstructed the dimension of art. The postmodern era is devoid of any artistic standards. The role of art has not been truly defined in our time and artists and students of art rarely gather anymore to examine and discuss their "calling", nor do they even see themselves as 'being called'. The art schools are not concerned with the spirit of art. Quite the contrary, most art schools still systematically indoctrinate aspiring artists into the deconstructionist absurdity promoted by the museums and the art-market machine's 'wheel of fortune'. For most, the outcome of artists and the experience of the audience is a dizzying ride, with frequently shifting gears and no sense of direction, or noble intention. The destructive and disorienting effects of shallow 'shock-value' productions leave the artists and the masses in a contemporary wilderness of art that just feels negative, depressing, confusing, vacant and valueless.
Creative mystics restore a spiritual dignity and purpose to the age-old practice of art. The art world today is a visual dumping ground full of images of despair, fear, mechanized madness, decadence; a landfill of nonsense and noise reverberating and adding more matter to the mountain of the collective neurosis. The art of our time seems to be self-mutilating, often angry without reason, and only widens the gap and distrust between creative workers and responders. The eye of the artist has turned to the exterior, to the mundane market place, aimless, and thus we have art that moves further and further away from our true nature, our spirit. We have an overload of superficial concepts or mere decoration instead of inspiration; an art that ends up commenting on itself or simply exhibits the absence of esthetic feeling. Thus our cultural and educational institutions are just raising another crop-generation of artists that are simply 'money snorters' and repeating artistic acts already performed by the Dadaists ninety years ago, or by the performance artist Joseph Beuys, the Abstract artists and others more than fifty years ago. In their time, they had something to say and did so in a unique way. Art has become empty of spirit whereupon the creative mystic is driven to restore its soul and uplift it from its wretched and stinking apathy, its aimless anarchy, and its utter lack of human feeling and force of inspiration.
I no longer wonder as to what extent Western spirituality itself has also contributed to the diminution of the poetic and spiritual imagination. I have, at the very least, seen its effects. Twentieth century scholars as diverse as the sociologist Max Weber and Mircea Eliade, a master of shamanic studies, have suggested that there is something at the core of the Judeo-Christian view of the world which is directly implicated in the neglect, or abuse of the chain of being, which has been such a disfiguring feature of recent Western culture and artistic production. In a crucial sense, the shamanic spirit of the creative mystic over the last hundred years has had to do battle, not just with the recent manifestations of a techno-mechanistic and materialistic view of life, but also with the much older spiritual framework within which that view of life first came into a birth of contradictions and duality. The relations between the growth of both the capitalist work ethic and modern bureaucracy to Christian - and in particular, Protestant - beliefs about the utterly transcendent nature of divinity were thoroughly investigated by Max Weber. For Weber, modern man had become trapped and still remains, in an iron cage of secular and rationalist activity. The cage had been long in the making; ironically enough, it had been forged out of principles once associated with true transcendence and divinity.
Weber traced the growth of the modern and un-magical world, (which so distressed artists like the Dadaists, and those that followed), back to the disenchantment with the flesh and the world - which Christian asceticism had proclaimed. Weber also delineated behavioral effects on art and culture as associated with the growth of 'rational patterns' of living and 'time keeping' in the medieval era. Having gradually stripped the earth of the many protective layers of sacred significance which had once been revealed to the pagan mind, Christianity's eventual Protestant projection of spirituality into an increasingly distant, transcendent male realm was scarcely able to offer much resistance to the de-sacralising ideology of industrialization. And the Christian development of the Judaic concept of time, whereby it is conceived as linear and historical, rather than cyclical, had long ago prepared people to neglect the present tense - what the East refers to as the eternal now - of life. Instead of seeing life in terms of the recurrent richness within cycles of activity, we are taught to relish - or even fear - a future that by the very nature of our approach to time lies forever beyond our grasp. Such a view cripples the innate visionary nature within us, posits us as victims instead of stewards of our time and we lose our ability to envision what we may become.
Weber did not fall prey to such a conditioned view of life. He was heartened by various indications of a return to the values of what he called a 'cosmic religion'. In that, soul and spirit are to be found and celebrated throughout the world, rather than being regarded as the means by which we transcend the ground on which we stand, the water we drink, or the air we breathe. In such a perennial and philosophical view, the sacred is revealed through that which binds our mind, body, soul and our localized daily experience to the cosmos itself, and not solely through a dominating Father-God who is Lord of Time, History, Fate and Future. A new integral art is called for. The artists' model of the rugged, isolated individual is ineffective now and a more collaborative approach between both artist and community is essential and must be initiated and first between the artists themselves. Integral artists who have bridged and reconciled their interior experience with the outer world through spiritual practice, have now positioned themselves as potential 'points of inspiration' for creative community development and therefore for the community at large. On the other hand, one would also be surprised to find how few of these artists really exist, who genuinely practice what they preach and paint, even among the hordes of creative workers that label themselves 'spiritual', or as vehicles of Spirit. The highest role of the artist is to INSPIRE, rather than make autonomous decisions, or merely negative art commenting on negative events and negative conditions, without any sort of positive vision, or creative solution, feeling of hope, or upliftment in its stead. Unveiling political and worldly wrong doing through art is certainly a noble use of skill, but would be more complete with an offer of creative solution, even if only in the form of pure inspiration, expressing higher ideals or vision. Certainly there is room in all of our art museums to include such an integral art, and yet, we almost never see it. Through a newly formed cooperative relationship between community and creative worker, the function of the artist-planner expands and the integral-minded 'political artist' can take on a more positive and constructive role. New approaches for and by the community would allow for innovative work and solutions to emerge, unhampered by previous limitations self-imposed by a community unfamiliar with direct creative experience and power. Whereas the communities of our time negate artistic talent coupled with spiritual vision, they would, instead, incorporate and partner with these creative agents of transformation.
The true cyclical history of art is that artists have contributed to and expressed the deepest and highest achievements of a people; they have expressed the essence of a culture. We only know the intimate characteristics of ancient civilizations and who and what has preceded us, by what the artists left behind. They painted for the people, they made music for the people, they designed buildings and plazas for the people, they danced for the people, they wrote plays for the people, and they became the political and social conscience of the people. They have illustrated and interpreted the world's sacred texts for the people while also envisioning a future as psychic navigators of what could be and can be done. They have revealed invisible worlds behind the veil of the visible. They have given us images of God and Satan, Heaven and Hell; which are still used today, and increasingly, over cyclical time, a more genuinely clear and untainted vision of perennial truths. Artists can also reinvigorate their role as educators and empower those open to creative inspiration, expanding awareness of the inherent creative qualities in all of us.
Due to an industrialized education within the military-corporate-complex and the disempowerment of creativity in individual thinking, in order to produce and feed workers to an ever-expanding technocratic industry and philosophy of scientism, a schism of spirit and matter has resulted all around us. This dichotomy is found between the act of art and the act of life; between control and communication; between 'artists' and 'non-artists', between makers and the made for. This does not exist among today's pre-school children who do not differentiate between the act of symbolizing and life itself, nor in some existing cultures today, such as is found in Bali, where there isn't a word for 'art', as all is done 'artfully'. While addressing this dichotomy, we must reemphasize and reinvigorate the resonance and wonder that can occur from individual artist to individual responder, we must keep that, include that, but incorporate yet another mode of communication that is designed for creative empowerment of all people through community experience and enlistment. We need to become clearer on the roles and demands of the responder as well as the artist. The responders, or audience, too, need to restore trust in their own eyes, to know when they want to simply be responsive, or when the idea of genuine involvement, contribution and participation is natural.
The mutual relationship and trust between responders and artists must be healed, as well as between the museums and those that would like to attend them and see something that is truly inspirational and rejuvenating. We can refer to this as an ecological endeavor in the broadest sense of the term and could very well be cultivated. If the true function of the soul-artist is to act as an energy thrust, an aesthetic conduit and transpersonal catalyst evoking peak experiences of awareness and output within the community, then he or she also functions as an essential ingredient in an ongoing chain of energy-consciousness, moving toward the highest potential of their ecological system. What I am describing here is a symbiotic rather than a dependent, or if strongly stated - parasitic relationship, resulting from a creative-sociological dichotomy. The creative worker becomes, literally, both 'artist and community'. Through the resultant understanding the artist becomes aware of h/her interior life and then can understand the larger exterior life of the community, responding to both individual and collective needs and truly re-emerges as an integral artist. In this way, the artist takes responsibility for h/her actions, and through their increased visibility, the community takes responsibility in integrating artists instead of exiling them to the status of outsiders. Obviously, an artist aspiring to become integral has more of a chance to achieve that in a community that integrates the artist. Can we accuse the artist with an anti-social and imbalanced nature for being that way in a culture that rarely integrates, appreciates or acknowledges their potential, practical and visionary artistic contributions in the first place?
I am still envisioning what this new symbiotic role for artists and community could be like. The intention of community participation will vary with the art form but this new artistic-social-political and spiritual relationship can have universal implications. In theater it may energize and reveal archetypal experiences. In community development it is to allow people to contribute in the design, architecture, development and life of their own community, education, cultural activities, business and ultimately their lifestyle - which would become sensitized and broadened through the creative and envisioning process of participation. Why would and should those things happen? Because it is a way for people to become spiritually FREE, and freedom always includes CREATIVITY and creativity always includes RESPONSIBILITY, and all this raises the collective consciousness by truly merging creative learning experiences with living life itself. It encompasses that which happens to us and what we can make happen. Instead, in our present situation we have a political-corporate enslavement to a technocracy bent on nipple-feeding people who have lost their creative courage through the crunch of an industrialized education and political indoctrination. And we have a society that has become complacent, content on sucking on that artificial nipple and its milk; sometimes poisoned milk, being fed to them through the lies, mind-set, the marketing, the political, military and economic agendas and the use of nationalism for negative activities. I am talking about returning creative freedom and responsibility to the individual and community as an integrated partnership.
The integral artist endowed with an awareness refined by introspective skills, an innate connection with the forms of creative process, and driven by a mysterious and compassionate force, has the demanding task of making the act of community participation part of their creative process - of making it deeply meaningful for the community and at the same time a spiritually liberating force for the individualized self. This is not to imply that community participation in the creative process guarantees, in and of itself, an artistic outcome; it may not, especially in the beginning. This depends, in very large measure on the creative guide-member to inspire, lead and create breakthrough experiences that evoke an uplifting collective awareness. The modern creative mystic reminds us that our power to destroy never outweighs our power to create. If we are to survive and thrive as a race, then it is not only political dissension, but also religious discord and scientific arrogance that must cease. How can this concord be brought about through the aid of art? How can art heal the world? Isn't art just for fun? Isn't art just for 'entertainment' and not something powerful and certainly not something to be taken seriously? Well, art is not a fix-it pill, but it surely is a universal force that can inspire and awaken the best of what human beings can be. It is a force that can break the sociological, religious, political and cultural barriers that so often divide and separate, instead of unifying us. Art, as a universal language is not restricted to the barriers of foreign language and religious belief systems.
In order to act for the greater good, some creative workers deflect the mantle of fame and obsessive need for artistic glory by giving a broader purpose to their making. Their humility elevates the offering in their work and enables a strategy that gives common purpose to contemporary art making. In light of this, we can also look at the final stage of the divine trajectory and the collective mission of art as an act of redemption. Redemption, as an integral vision, is the passive form of receiving that becomes the active form of giving. As the ancient mystics warned, it requires skill and knowledge to turn the spheres from evil to good. Art is not only a matter of inspiration and intuition, but of humility and deep introspection. If we can share our knowledge, experience and expression, art will once again become reinstated as the language of the soul and integrated within the community at large. In truth, art has never forgotten its sacred mission, never lost its inspirational powers, even if the world has neglected to recognize and integrate them in its most sublime forms and spiritual service.
It is the idea of the struggle to exalt existence, to invoke the mysterious totality of life, which links the seemingly disparate worlds of the human condition, contemporary art and the creative mystic. The shamans of pre-industrial cultures often had to suffer personal illness and psychic breakdown as part of their preparation for an eventual breakthrough to transpersonal levels of wisdom and healing; first individually and then communally. Equally, like many people today, modern creative mystics have experienced the crisis of 'meaning' in today's techno-industrial society with the sort of painful intensity which has prepared them for the struggle to respond to the late-nineteenth-century call of Nietzche's "Zarathustra": 'Truly, the earth shall yet become a house of healing!' 1 The creative mystic strives to 'see', feel and understand this while searching for meaning. Their vision becomes non-ordinary. Ordinary vision is nothing more than the physical encounter of the eye with the illusion of matter that strikes it. To live and dwell only in the state of ordinary vision is like walking around with snow on our heads, our imaginations frozen, our intuition and soul on ice. To the creative mystic that has awakened to the Reality of the Spiritual Imagination behind the Illusion of Matter, the Invisible behind the Visible; life is not only arranged in the Basin of Space - but is married to Light and Love, the Daughter of the Eternal, the Son of the Infinite. The noble mission of art is to serve and inspire illumination in self and others through an integrating and inherent living force that suspends the mind, causing the ego to temporarily lose its grip on its limited identification. I am speaking of an art that leaves us momentarily breathless, and carries us to the depths of our soul, or uplifts our spirits to lofty states in which we are dignified as human beings.
Creative capability is at the very foundation of communication. In our troubled world, which often feels like a hopeless situation to many of us, communication may be the singular force that could eventually unite our world through identification with a global-consciousness and a life of "meaning", on both individual and communal levels. The most powerful force in the realm of communication of the feeling levels of "meaning" is inherent in the image. When "knowing and feeling" merge, one experiences the wisdom of meaning as it pertains to their own life and therefore to all of life itself. Through this one attains true freedom. As previously stated, every age has its own collective neurosis, and every age has its own art to not only cope but to aid its transformation, movement and transcendence. The existential vacuum which is the mass neurosis of this present time can be described as a private and personal form of nihilism; for nihilism can be defined as the contention that "being" has no meaning. As for the impact of art on this state of affairs on a mass scale, it remains impotent, as long as artists remain affected by the impact and influence of the contemporary trends of a nihilistic neurosis. Otherwise art continues to only represent the symptoms of the mass neurosis as opposed to an elixir for its transformation.
First of all, there is a danger inherent in the perception of man's "nothing but-this," the idea that man is nothing but the result of biological, psychological and sociological conditions, or the product of heredity and environment alone. Such a view, and particularly coming from a creative worker, only reinforces the collective neurosis and the individuals' belief that we are only a pawn and victim of our outer influences and circumstances. This neurotic fatalism is fostered and strengthened by a political philosophy of scientism, art and psychotherapies which deny that 'man is free'. To be sure, a human being is a finite thing, particularly if stripped of the experience and knowledge of 'spirit' and his freedom is restricted. It is not freedom from conditions, but it is freedom to take a stand and action toward the conditions, that is key in this discussion. As one who is involved in the scholarship, research and practice of several fields I am fully aware of the extent to which man is subject to biological, sociological and psychological conditions. But in addition to this, as a survivor of a life of creative-risk taking, violence and a number of near-death events - I also bear witness to the capability of not only defying and braving awful conditions, but even reaping positive and inspiring forces from them. The view of man which disregards his capacity to take a stand toward any conditions whatsoever is utterly fatalistic and dis-empowering and simply; untrue. The human being is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines him or herself whether he or she gives in to conditions or stands up to them. In other words, the human being is self-determining. Man does not simply exist but also decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment.
Every human being has the freedom to change at any instant and every creative worker has the freedom to create objects of 'transformation' that inspire change. We can, therefore, only predict his future within the large framework of a statistical survey referring to a whole group; the individual personality, however, remains essentially unpredictable. The basis for any predictions would be represented by biological, psychological and sociological conditions. Yet one of the main features of human existence is the capacity to rise above such conditions, to grow beyond them. The human being is capable of changing the world for the better if possible, and of changing himself for the better if necessary. We may predict the movements of a machine, of an automaton; more than this, we may even try to predict the mechanisms or dynamics of the human psyche as well. But man is more than psyche. The human being is also spirit and an integral part of Spirit with a capital "S", and from this inspiration is born and delivered into the world. Inspiration is the force of Creation; in man; creativity leads to Freedom, but freedom, however, is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half of the Truth. Freedom is but one aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is Responsibility. A human being is not one thing among others; things determine each other, but man is ultimately self-determining. What he is and what he may become - within the limits of endowment and environment - he has made out of himself. Human beings can behave like a swine or a saint, both potentialities exist within them; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions. We have seen that man is that being that invented and used gas chambers in Auschwitz; however we have also seen that he has invented the arts, politics, instruments and medicines that inspire, heal and uplift the human condition. Certain 'advances' in both the arts and technology can aid in this uplifting transformation.
As I touched upon, one of the greatest and undoubtedly most far-reaching advances has been that of the communication industry and its movement into cyberspace (internet, the web, etc.). Today an unparalleled expansion of information is occurring, which has thrown many of us into confusion, but which also has brought us numerous practical benefits. Above all, it has reduced the barriers that exist between human beings. Through the mass communication and information media and network, which one could liken to the earth's evolving nervous system, we are in touch with the most remote parts of our planet. In an instant we can learn of the problems and sorrows as well as the triumphs and joys of a people far removed from our own society, culture and personal experience. The present-day communication revolution is effectively bringing humanity together, though there are still many who oppose this powerfully 'free' trend and would like to politically license, control and profit from it. Unfortunately, government and the mass media as yet, fails to appreciate this true potential and its real value, preferring instead to reduce communications-technology to the lowest common denominator and make moves to eliminate the free information available on the worldwide-net, in order to regulate, invade privacy for political power control and make more money, of course.
If computer science and media-technology have triggered a multitude of problems, they are also helping us to free ourselves from the limiting and dogmatic concepts of nation, race, religion and culture that divide humanity. We can no longer see ourselves in merely local terms but must acknowledge the greater world in which we live. Events can no longer, in all honesty, be seen as the problems of someone else. Truth can no longer be seen as the property or prerogative of one group over another. Communications technology and breakthroughs in tapping our creative potential can, together, help to resolve our present dilemma. The point where human consciousness and societal transformation seems to meet in history is in this personal communications breakthrough with still untapped potentials. Few of us doubt that Western society is going through a period of critical change in the form of dilemmas that perplex, daunt, and sometimes threaten to crush us. Yet within us we have a capacity to break through to the kind of insight and resources that can resolve even our greatest difficulties--including the most sobering threat of all, that of self-annihilation.
The old solutions and procedures for dealing with political and social problems no longer appear to work. Hope seems to lie in beginning to seek new creative solutions, new approaches and breakthroughs for the global dilemmas we have created and now face. Our contemporary problems of overpopulation, pollution, ozone depletion, the dwindling of natural resources, threat of nuclear war, terrorism, and so forth are global problems and require that we tackle them together. Many of us--individuals and nations--are still trying to resist this globalization process, but it is inevitable. It is increasingly becoming apparent that the only solution to the present world crisis is to actively build a world civilization, a global governing body, a global responsibility on all levels of commerce and communication, which requires a clearly articulated view of a united humanity. The world is obviously not ready for such a leap in consciousness, the troubles that the newly formed European Union is dealing with clearly demonstrates this. The fears of different cultures of losing their indigenous personality and achievements are not necessary, and in any case, the greatest fear is economic and stemming from the richer nations having to carry the poorer nations; even though such investment and empowerment can lead to a greater good.
There is only one Truth, one Reality, to be discovered by all humanity. There is not a distinct and different God, or Truth for each of the world's religions, any more than there is a different Sun or Moon for astronomers of various nations of the Earth under the stars. To discover that ultimate spiritual Truth, we must approach it with the same rigor that scientists apply to their own experiments and with the same glory of love that the founders of religions demonstrated. To summarize; the evolved art of a creative modern mystic genuinely inspires a unifying and universal perennial vision; whereas science emphasizes reason and experiment, and religion bases itself on faith and dogma. However, there are now more and more thoughtful people who consider the old dichotomy, between art, religion, industry and science as false and unconstructive. They prefer to look at these approaches to reality as complementary. The challenge today is to harmonize, not homogenize art, science and religion, which gives birth to a spiritually sensitive world that combines the objective approach of science to the inner realities of consciousness and the artistic experience and the reverence of religion toward the recognition of the outer world. I am, in no way, suggesting a homogeneous soup, but that the best ingredients of each are used in a unified effort. Such a new view calls for a methodology of introspection that provides direct experiential access to the inner reality of the creative process and consciousness, creative construction and solutions.
The mystical experience of creative flow defies the current notions of conventional psychology and mainstream neuroscience that views consciousness as a singularly select form of awareness controlled by a light switch. Consciousness, instead, comes with a dimmer switch that varies in sweep and intensity from one person to another. The psyche may be wired up by various cultural programs and forces, but it can also plug into a cosmic socket, the voltage varying in degree and depending on one's personal connection to the powerhouse of Godhead; the Absolute or an Illumined Consciousness. A re-wiring can occur in the human being. Although mystical experiences cannot easily be diced up and quantified, they affect a surprisingly large number of people. National surveys in the United States and England find that roughly one-third of adults say that they have had, for example, a moment of sudden religious awakening or felt close to a powerful, spiritual force that seemed to lift them out of themselves.
Life is difficult for most, but for a creative mystic living in this modern world, it is a challenging road of a different color. It is the Way of Union through an Art of the Spirit, of like calling unto like, of the Deeper calling unto the Deep. It is not an easy way achieved through a paint-by-numbers-art-kit. Nor is it bits and pieces of crap strewn about a museum floor and called an 'installation'. It is not some guy standing in a corner of a museum with a stick in his hand and pointing somewhere, declaring that his absurd behavior is "art", simply because he says it is. It is not bullshit. It is the Royal Road, a way of utter selflessness, of the shedding of every vestige of egocentric self-love, sometimes involving the abandonment of everything, even enduring periods of losing the basic comforts and necessities of life for the sake of a contemplative art. But the supreme loss is the supreme finding. Within the wild wilderness of the naked Godhead is found the divine in which for the soul, all cares, pain and shame are forgiven and forgotten. There one is united to a universe with outstretched arms, which on whose breast the weary soul may rest and love and wisdom is received. Here the path of the modern creative mystic becomes lyrical, warm and glowing and responds to the most intimate longings of the human soul.
While our physical body mingles with the man-made creation of linear time, it can seem an insurmountable task to open ourselves to a communion with the profundities of our own eternal nature. The 'time' of this other life spans from realization to infinity. It begins with understanding, grows with an appreciation of beauty, expands with compassion, its duration is forever, and upon the plane of eternity it is consummated. This then is the integral spiritual practice and the creative and philosophical life-in-action of the creative mystic. Creative mystics (and potentially we are all that, each one of us - an artifex) are not born, nor do they die; for once having achieved the realization of immortality, they are immortal. Having once communed with self, they realize that within, there is an immortal foundation that will not pass away. Upon this living, vibrant base--self--they erect a civilization, or rather commune with the true paradise that endures after the sun, moon and stars have ceased to be and merge with the greater than self. The fool lives but for today; the creative mystic lives today and also forever.
Like master musicians playing an extraordinary piece, integral artists give us a beautiful multi-toned arrangement of the same great ONE source of inspiration. Like a single sound becoming a multitude of musical notes, they all provide invaluable input into the ONE panorama of the great symphony. All inputs are important and should be cherished. The Great ONE could have used only one note for all of music and dance, one color for all of painting and Nature, one stone for all of sculpture and architecture, but ONE chose to use an infinite variety and range of matter; texture, tonal quality, sound and color.
All the masterpieces of art ever created in history are but a multitude of shadowy reflections, infinitesimal mirrors, and reflective points in all directions held up to the cosmic face of the Great ONE. Seemingly separate reflections live only in the eye of disunity. Many of us have our favorite artist and see only the pictures of that one painter, many of us have our favorite musician and hear only that piece of music, and most of us have a belief in, and see only that one aspect, or part of the Truth, or God, or Universe. Our problem is like that of an individual who cannot comprehend a whole symphony and hears only one of the contributing instruments, as if locked in a sound booth and tuned-in to only one of the players in the orchestra. As a world we keep on fighting, persecuting, and hurting each other on personal, local, national, and international levels, in the belief that the single instrument we hear represents the total grandeur of the collective orchestra; that it is unique; that it belongs to us alone; that it is a monopoly, that we are right, correct and justified in our exclusion, criticism and even in the ignoring or destroying of the other players. The truth that we have been hearing and seeing is ONE. All pieces of music, all instruments of a unique sound, all paintings, every scientific discovery, each dance, every mathematical theory and unearthed secret of Nature, and each philosophical insight, indeed, moves us closer to unveiling the universal infinite creation that is camouflaging that same smiling and loving face of the Great ONE, the Absolute, the Grand Symphony.
Philip Rubinov-Jacobson, 2006
1. Thus Spoke Zarathustra (trans. R.J. Hollingdale) Pennguin, Harmondsworth 1967 p.46.
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