Very few realize the artist’s path is a spiritual one in its
essence- for art is a talent to express one’s most personal, vulnerable
thoughts, feelings and perception of life.
If art is not vulnerable and true, then it can be anything but art; and
the audience feel it, they can only relate to what is genuine, what is
uncensored. Any fake or unoriginal art no matter how skillful it is will fail
to reach the hearts and minds of
audience.
The artistic process is
itself an organic one. How many times
did we try to impose a certain process or to reach a certain destination only
to find ourselves heading towards a different one ? I have a story to share from the last Artistic
Meditation Retreat organized by Peace Revolution in Thailand last August. In the first week, I was forcing myself to
write using certain techniques, I wanted to impress myself and others, and I
started forcing ideas down on paper, but every time I started working on an
idea, I felt blocked, as if this is not the path. After trying out so many
times, I finally surrendered and decided that whenever it happens will be the
right time. I remember that day when I went for a long siesta, and then I woke
up in the middle of the day, and without thinking, I grabbed my small red
notebook and pen and walked out of my bungalow into the woods. The words started
flowing out onto the paper while walking. I found myself singing them , feeling
them and writing them down. It was a spiritual experience for me as it required
patience, solitude and faith in the process. The next step was to share what
I’ve written with others, and this required
having a safe space where you feel secure enough to share a piece of yourself
with others.
True art is also life
changing. It changes the life of the artist before it can change the life of
the audience. I still remember how the process of writing a short story about a
Crow’s life made me revert to a vegetarian diet, just because I felt so
connected to the crow, putting myself in his skin, and sharing his emotions,
his being. I’m sure many of us can still remember this one movie or one story we
read when we were children that changed our life and made us pursue a certain
life dream.
Another feature of true
art is being egoless. It might be
challenging to explain this one but I’ll try. Have you ever felt that there is
a force inside of you that needs to come out either on paper as a poem, or on a
canvas as a painting or in a piece of music or a dance maybe…? This force is
inside of you, yet it is somehow greater than your ego. Sometimes the ego will
actually resist the emission of this force because it might make you look
vulnerable or expose you in front of the whole world. Maybe you will resist and
go forward with your life, or maybe you won’t be able to resist it any longer
and decide to surrender, and when you do, the most amazing and breathtaking
form of art will emerge out of you.
Now the persisting
question is how to find that organic, life changing and egoless path in a world
full of lies, egocentrism and meaningless distractions? How to free our souls from peer pressure, and
the continuous need to be praised by others to confirm our self-worthy? I can’t give you the answer,
for the answer is inside of you. It is in the center of your body which is the
purest, truest place inside of you. It is a place free from the power of the
ego and distractions of the outside world. It is a pilgrimage you need to go on
to connect with your purest form before you can express this form in whatever
way you desire. It’s a journey that requires no transportation or money, only a
desire to find that sacred space within yourself. Just go to a quite place
where you can find solitude and silence, sit in a comfortable position and
close your eyes and be still. The mind be too distracted with thoughts at first,
but your only weapon is to wait and be
still, don’t resist and focus on your center, you will surely get there.
Living in a busy city
like Cairo and being brought up in a culture that believes the value of a human
lies only in what s/he is doing, I had never heard before about meditation and
the Dhamma- the plain truth. Only
through Peace Revolution, I got introduced to the meditation practice through
the 42-days online development program, through which I learnt a great deal
about meditation and the five acts of self-discipline.
I then applied to the
Artistic Meditation retreat taking place at Thailand on August 2015, and got
selected. I can easily say it was a transformative and intense journey of self-
discovery and connection with the truth that lies inside of me. It was not an
easy process and I faced lots of tribulations and doubts, but it was true and
pure, and that was enough.
And now, going back to
Cairo I face the real challenge of keeping the connection with my center and
feeling Sabai all the time. However, I keep reminding myself that when
everything around me gets so chaotic and noisy, I just need to close my eyes
and go to that peaceful place inside of me—my sanctuary, my center.
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