The Presence | Works on Paper | 2021 - 23
Artist statement
The Presence is palpable. Years of mark making and realising that there is an all pervasive ‘Presence’ within which the world of dynamic names and forms exists, The ‘Avadhuta’ or the Presence as we call it becomes experiential reality for me. Blessed to be in this moment of realisation.
The timeless conversation speaks of a silence & emptiness which is devoid of pain, judgement, arrogance and fear. There is a silencing of the chatter and the confusion of the mind.
This beautiful space is full of spontaneous existence and synchronicity.
The dance of existence is felt. The eternal word is heard.
It is here that silence speaks of the sprouting of the seeds of awakening, and the word and message is everywhere.
Pilgrims are seen crossing over and resting in their emptiness, the boat that carries them across, the paths which are carved to take them to the house of being, the prayers flags beckoning them to rest in the lap of the eternal space.
The house of being exists within all of us where our reality is forever free.
The seeking and search took me also to read masters like Rumi, Ramana Maharishi, Dattatreya, Mooji to name a few. Recently Carl Gustav Jung a scientist and psychologist caught my attention hugely and I realised the science is not apart from the spiritual and the creative conscious. Jung spoke about the collective unconsciousness , which is the emptiness and the silence, within which exists the collective dynamic consciousness and further researched and presented the archetypes and synchronicity. The same has been realised by several sages and saints over the centuries.
A note on : Dattatreya’s ‘Song of the Avadhuta.’
Dattatreya was a yogi and a master of Sanskrit verse in the 9th or 10th centuries of our current era. His song has had many forerunners and many affirmations, but none so eloquent and compelling as this.
He says:
‘The Avadhut lives alone in an empty hut:
With a pure, even mind, he is always content.
He moves about, naked, and free,
Aware that all this is only ‘Self’
The Avadhut engages and non-engages in a ‘timeless conversation’, where everything is experienced as the self alone. No bondage or liberation exists in him. The Self remains forever ‘One’. There is no duality It is clear!
Beyond all speech, beyond all forms, the ‘Presence’ appears in him, in the subtlest of all subtle things: Beyond mind, intellect, and the five senses.
A simultaneous within and without, it cannot be limited or divided in parts.
The dance of existence appears and disappears simultaneously in its never-ending flow!
The message is everywhere, there are seeds of awakening perpetually being planted as well as growing. The belly of the Universe holding timeless knowledge gives of itself relentlessly and in continuum, nurturing everything without distinction.
