Transcendental Art as a Spiritual Practice
by Harold H. Bloomfield, M.D.
www.haroldbloomfield.com

Transcendental art transports both the artist and the viewer beyond form to the formless. It also has been called sacred, meditative, shamanic, spiritual, contemplative, channeled and integral. This art form seeks to express the Divine because we are divine. It is our essential nature, the part of our identity “created in the image and likeness of God.”

Transcendental art evokes our memory of Oneness. It is the creative expression of the spiritually sublime, God-consciousness, self-realization, enlightenment (whatever name used to describe the nameless).

Imagine you are in an art museum with galleries of classical, expressionist, impressionist and other paintings. As you view the wide array of art, each with a different subject matter—tragic, romantic, surreal, whimsical—you are having sensory experiences and feelings that are highly variable. When you contemplate or meditate upon transcendental art all sensory and perceptual experience is transcended. The chatter of the mind, the feelings, perceptions and sensations that normally grip our awareness as we move through the “galleries” of our life—are left behind. What remains is pure light, timeless silence and the artist’s subtlest shimmering image. This sublime perception has been called celestial, numinous and ecstatic. The poet Alfred Lord Tennyson described it as: “The clearest of the clear, the surest of the sure, utterly beyond words.”

Transcendental art derives from and evokes a unique state of consciousness characterized by discernible physiological markers. Scientists in the emerging field of neurotheology have begun to map out what occurs in the brain during transcendental absorption. The findings indicate that as thought and sensory awareness dissolve, the areas of the brain that gives us our sense of ego boundaries and orient us in time and space essentially switch off. This leaves us with a sense of boundlessness in which the self is endless and intimately interwoven with everyone and everything. We are free to experience the web of existence, the true quantum-nature of life; contemplating transcendental art becomes spiritual practice.

Transcendental artists aspire to channel, of course, the Creator Supreme. They approach God primarily through joy and awe, love and devotion. Amidst the bliss and blisters, the comedy and pathos, their soul-revealing art teaches us to feel the Divine shining through. We are bolstered on our path to live with passion and compassion; to act upon the spiritual beauty we cherish.

The well-known transcendental artist Elle Nicolaï, for example, enters a state of deep meditation before channeling her subtle, sublime visions to canvas. She portrays with elegance and simplicity God’s jewel-like handiwork. Her passion for beauty dives beneath the conflict and chaos on the surface of life to the unity at the depths. Elle rejoices in the sacred geometry of wholeness. Her abstractions refine our perception, leading us to pools of deep peace. Elle Nicolaï’s works can be meditated upon as mystical, timeless yantras, the finest matter emerging from unbounded light.

The refinement of perception, however, is not automatic. We get from transcendental art only what we bring to it. If we’re dull with fatigue consumed by problems, ruminating about the past or pondering the future, we cannot receive the full glory of what is being offered. For the art piece to be a doorway from the immanent to the transcendent, we need to approach it with mindful, meditative, silent attention. When you look, just look—and really see. If you feel yourself distracted by the babble of the mind, redirect your attention by grounding yourself one-pointedly in the art; notice the consciousness that it evokes.

“Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light,” wrote Feodor Dostoyevsky. “Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will comprehend it better every day, and you will come, at last, to love the whole world with an embracing love.” Love is the key that unlocks the door to the transcendental art gallery. With love we are able to appreciate the objects of creation at their most glorious, where the sublime artistry of the Creator is revealed fresh and anew.

The ability to see not only with what metaphysicians have called the “material eye,” or with the “conceptual eye” of abstract ideas, but also with the “eye of spirit,” is not entirely a matter of spontaneous grace. Just as microscopes and telescopes can be used to extend the range of perception, transcendental art opens our extra-sensory awareness to the infinite. This art modality is a delicious respite for the soul. Lover, beloved and the process of loving unite in this spiritually intimate art.

 

Parts of this essay are adapted from Making Peace with God by Harold H. Bloomfield, M.D. and Philip Goldberg, Ph.D. Putnam-Penguin: New York, 2003.