When the Sufi in his robe whirls, with one hand raised to the sky and the other pointing to the earth, he is bringing down the cosmic energies to the earth.
Nothing in the world is still. Not the earth, not the sun, not the planets, not the solar system, not the ocean, nothing in the sky or our bodies, the cells are ever-changing, the blood pumping, the heart beating, and especially not our minds. Everything is in a state of flux, yet we look for stillness and peace, often thinking they are synonymous or at least closely related. There is no such thing as stillness, it is an illusion. The churn is real, the movement is eternal in the sufi dance.
The Sufi whirling dancing is about being at peace with the churning, pulsating, moving cosmos. It’s not going to stand still for anyone, it never has. What we consider stillness is harmony, sync and resonance. Herein lies peace. When sync and alignment happen, the heart bursts, stars fall in and the cosmos floods through. When the Sufi in his robe whirls, with one hand raised to the sky and the other hand pointing to the earth, he is bringing down the cosmic energies to the earth. A holographic, multi-dimensional exchange happens, beyond the linear mind, in a stupendous sufi dance.
How do you point to such a phenomenon without words? How does such an experience or feeling become color, texture, strokes, form, and composition? When I painted ‘The Sufi Heartbeat’ I knew the importance of the blur, the movement and energy in the swish and swirl. Not to have a definite outline, not even of the body, because where is the individual body in this experience? Yet, all is body, a cosmic body.
I paint the Sufi in the ecstasy of the dance. It speaks to me and it speaks of me. The colors I choose, the shades of blue, a flash of white, a light touch of magenta-pink, like the last touch of sunset before it merges into the twilight. The Sufi whirls with this and in this. How does the midnight of the soul look on canvas? I choose the colors of the night, of mystery, of the yin energy. Dark and deep. The night is not a contrast to the light, but a companion, the way the root is a companion to the stem and flower. That which you do not see and is hidden below the soil. The night is the soil of the day. The colors of the night sky – shades of blue – feather soft sky blue, cobalt and Prussian, a touch of faraway violet, a hint of indigo, encompassing and making the Sufi’s swirl.
Harvinder Kaur opens her heart and mind, sharing the inner alchemy that led to the creation of her evocative painting (acrylic on canvas), ‘The Sufi Heartbeat’.
Traditionally, Sufis wore black robes made of ‘suf’ or wool. The Sufi poet Baba Farid writes, “Farida kale mainde kapre kala mainda ves, gun he parya main firan lok kahen darvesh” (My clothes are black, my appearance dark and dirty, I’m full of vices, yet people call me a holy man). In my painting, the Sufi wraps the robe of the night, a shade of melting blue, a layer of twilight sewn in before it metamorphosizes into a deeper, darker blueness of experience. Why? Because this is the space I’ve touched.
I wanted to depict a moment of resonance of the individual heart with the cosmic heart. It is a moment of sync and alignment with the vast living cosmos, a moment we all crave that takes us beyond the identity with the small ‘I’, an experience however, brief, leaves us changed, transformed, and often bewildered. This is where the stars stream into the Sufi’s heart and stars start streaming out in the effulgence of love. The hands are like antennae that draw the cosmic energy down to the earth through this. The Sufi’s swirl embroiders the cosmic threads on the skin of the earth. How else, except through the Sufi spirit in us can one weave together the sky and earth into one canvas of consciousness? A dancing spirit that finds peace, joy, and ecstasy, through the dance that holds the cosmic vibe.
I have always vibed with the all-embracing Sufi philosophy that cannot be boxed in by calcified dogma, or the iron cage of the human mind that says ‘only’ this in the name of some ‘ism’. The way Walt Whitman expresses his mystical experience in Leaves of Grass,
‘I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”
All mystical, spiritual, cosmic experience touches a pulse, that pulsates throughout the cosmic fabric. The pain that surfaces in me is not entirely mine, the joy that radiates from me is not all bursting from me, it bounces off, it sieves through. So, I paint the Sufi’s heart exploding with the stardust of love in the sufi dance.
I painted the Sufi in the ecstasy of the dance. I knew the importance of the blur, the movement and energy in the swish and swirl. Not to have a definite outline, not even of the body, because where is the individual body in this experience? Yet, all is body, a cosmic body.
How does an infinitesimal spec such as the human, experience the heartbeat of the vast cosmos? In the same way a drop experiences the ocean. There is no microcosm or macrocosm because the melting is a moment of pure love, where both disappear. There is one beat, one swirl, one ecstasy. Can you see it in the swirl? In the cobalt that winks, the turquoise that hides, the magenta that smiles, the deep blue that holds its breath, the sparkle of white, cosmic dust falling into and exploding from the Sufi’s heart, all in a divine blur? The blurring swirl hints at the blurring, dissolving ‘I’. The swirl is important, it is dynamic, a movement beyond time and space. The absence of rigid lines hints at the merging, the depth, and the beyond-ness.
Sufis whirl with their eyes open. I find that utterly beautiful. When the inwardness is not at the cost of outwardness, but beyond, holding and encompassing it. They are like poets who meditate with their eyes open. Tagore writes in Gitanjali, “Deliverance is not for me in renunciation. I feel the embrace of freedom in a thousand bonds of delight.” A divine delight dances! The vastness, the mystery, the insights, the rising are all there, but what flows over all these is the utter ecstasy of being. An ecstasy that flows from the confluence of the individual and cosmic heart. A celebration of effulgence happens and what else can you do but join the cosmic dance with your eyes open? The Sufi’s heart is bursting when the small flame inside meets the stars that fall from above and all light is One. So, the cosmic sparkle happens, and that is the Sufi moment of resonance. The Sufi Heartbeat.
