The Spiritual-Abstract Nexus

"Visual artists, from the generation born in the 1860s to contemporary times, have turned to a variety of antimaterialist philosophies, with concepts of mysticism or occultism at their core. Terms such as occultism or mysticism should be defined carefully because of the association with the ineffable that surrounds these words and because they are context-specific: art historians and artists use these terms differently than do theologians or sociologists. In the present context mysticism refers to the search for the state of oneness with ultimate reality. Occultism depends upon secret, concealed phenomena that are accessible only to those who have been properly initiated. The occult is mysterious and not readily available to ordinary understanding or scientific reason. 

Several ideas are common to most mystical and occult world views: the universe is a single, living substance; mind and matter also are one; all things evolve in dialectical opposition, thus the universe comprises paired opposites (male-female, light-dark, vertical-horizontal, positive-negative); everything corresponds in a universal analogy, with things above as they are below; imagination is real; and self-realization can come by illumination, accident, or an induced state: the epiphany is suggested by heat, fire or light. The ideas that underlie mystical-occult beliefs were transmitted through books, pamphlets, and diagrams, often augmented by illustrations that, because of the ineffable nature of the ideas discussed, were abstract or emphasized the use of symbols.

...

The five underlying impulses within the spiritual-abstract nexus—cosmic imagery, vibration, synesthesia, duality, sacred geometry—are in fact five structures that refer to underlying forms of thought."

- Maurice Tuchman (1936 - )
“Hidden Meanings in Abstract Art"
in The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1890-1985

The Cosmic Being

"A thousand heads hath Purusha, a thousand eyes, a thousand feet;
On every side pervading, he fills a space ten fingers wide.
This Purusha is all that yet hath been and all that is to be;
The Lord of Immortality which waxes greater still by food.

So mighty is His greatness; yea, greater than this is Purusha.

All creatures are one-fourth of Him, three-fourths eternal life in heaven.

With three-quarters Purusha went up: one-quarter of Him again was here.
...

When they divided Puruṣa how many portions did they make?

What do they call his mouth, his arms? What do they call his thighs and feet?

 The Brahman was his mouth, of both his arms was the Rājanya made.

His thighs became the Vaiśya, from his feet the Śūdra was produced.

The Moon was gendered from his mind, and from his eye the Sun had birth;

Indra and Agni from his mouth were born, and Vāyu from his breath.
 Forth from his navel came mid-air the sky was fashioned from his head

Earth from his feet, and from his car the regions. Thus they formed the worlds,"

- Rg Veda 10.90 - Purusha Sukta (~ 1500 - 1000 BCE)

I Seem to be a Verb

"I live on Earth at present,

and I don't know what I am.

I am not a thing - a noun.

I seem to be a verb,
an evolutionary process -

an integral function

of the universe."

- R. Buckminster Fuller (1895 - 1983)
I Seem to Be A Verb

Silence and Stillness

"When I detect a beauty in any of the recesses of nature, I am reminded, by the serene and retired spirit in which it requires to be contemplated, of the inexpressible privacy of a life - how silent and unambitious it is. The beauty there is in mosses must be considered from the holiest, quietest nook.

...

Silence is the communion of a conscious soul with itself. If the soul attend for a moment to its own infinity, then and there is silence. She is audible to all men, at all times, in all places, and if we will we may always hearken to her admonitions.

...

The gods delight in stillness, they say ’st-’st. My truest - serenest moments are too still for emotion -they have woolen feet. In all our lives we live under the hill, and if we are not gone we live there still."

- Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)

There is No Path to Truth

"The whole point of meditation is not to follow the path laid down by thought to what it considers to be truth, enlightenment or reality. There is no path to truth. The following of any path leads to what thought has already formulated and, however pleasant or satisfying, it is not truth. It is a fallacy to think that a system of meditation, the constant practicing of that system in daily life for a few given moments, or the repetition of it during the day, will bring about clarity or understanding. Meditation lies beyond all this and, like love, cannot be cultivated by thought. As long as the thinker exists to meditate, meditation is merely a part of that self-isolation which is the common movement of one’s everyday life."

- Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895 - 1986)

Stellar Energy

"As the brain of man is the speck of dust in the universe that thinks, so the leaves - the fern and the needled pine and the latticed frond and the seaweed ribbon - perceive the light in a fundamental and constructive sense ... Their leaves see the light, as my eyes can never do ... They impound its stellar energy, and with that force they make life out of the elements."

 - Donald C. Peattie (1898 - 1964)

One Soul

"Constantly regard the universe as one living being, having one substance and one soul; and observe how all things have reference to one perception, the perception of this one living being; and how all things act with one movement; and how all things are the cooperating causes of all things that exist; observe, too, the continuous spinning of the thread and the contexture of the web."

- Marcus Aurelius (121 - 180)
Meditations

"But can anyone doubt today that all the millions of individuals and all the innumerable types and characters constitute an entity, a unit? Though free to think and act, we are are held together, like the stars in the firmament, with ties inseparable."

- Nikola Tesla (1856 - 1943)

"We cannot fathom the marvelous complexity of an organic being; but on the hypothesis here advanced (pangenesis) this complexity is much increased. Each living creature must be looked at as a microcosm - formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute, and as numerous as the stars of heaven."

- Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882)

Made of Pattern

"From the systems point of view, the understanding of life begins with the understanding of pattern ... there has been a tension between two perspectives - the study of matter and the study of form - throughout the history of Western science and philosophy. The study of matter begins with the question, 'What is it made of?'; the study of form asks, 'What is its pattern?' Those are two very different approaches, which have been in competition with one another throughout our scientific and philosophical tradition."

- Fritjof Capra (1939 - ) and Pier Luigi Luisi (1938 - )
The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision

Ordinary Contemplation

"Therefore it is to a practical mysticism that the practical man is here invited: to a training of his latent faculties, a bracing and brightening of his languid consciousness, an emancipation from the fetters of appearance, a turning of his attention to new levels of the world. Thus he may become aware of the universe which the spiritual artist is always trying to disclose to the race. This amount of mystical perception - this 'ordinary contemplation,' as the specialists call it - is possible to all men: without it, they are not wholly conscious, nor wholly alive. It is a natural human activity, no more involving the great powers and sublime experiences of the mystical saints and philosophers than the ordinary enjoyment of music involves the special creative powers of the great musician."

- Evelyn Underhill (1875 - 1941)
Practical Mysticism: A Little Book for Normal People and Abba

Beauty Reigns

"Where the glacier meets the sky,
the land ceases to be earthly, and the
earth becomes one with the heavens;
no sorrows live there anymore, and
therefore joy is not necessary;
beauty alone reigns there,
beyond all demands."

- Halldór Laxness (1902 - 1998)