Annihilation and transcendence
"To go beyond the Self. To die before your death. To discover something permanent"
Contemporary art is an abomination to our human psyche—causing malice within our soul. Truly leading us to death by a thousand cuts. Most of them are empty of meaning. Stuck between photorealism and conceptual art like ‘The Comedian’, a banana duck-taped to a wall. Their goal is to stir a strong emotion by shocking our senses. These kinds of art are a form of soft bigotry of low expectations. They presuppose that we’re too stupid to apprehend anything beyond our senses. That, really, we’re no different than wild beasts. So artists and their artwork function only to jolt our senses like a farm animal to incite a reaction.
I can’t stand this patronizing attitude which assumes that people aren’t capable of transcending toward the infinite through art. For centuries art initiated people into union with the Divine until suddenly, because our technology improves, we think we’re no longer in need of beautiful art.
Beautiful art expresses truths and ideas that words cannot adequately describe. We could articulate the different aspects and symbolism within the art (as I will do shortly for this artwork) but it’s not only their rationality but their intuition which glimpses into the vastness of the infinite.1
With this, I unveil ‘Transcendence’. This painting begins a collection exploring the theme of dying to ourselves, transcending our ego, seeking wisdom and beauty, and uniting with the One—the Ultimate Reality—in the Eternal Garden.
‘Transcendence’
Prints are available here.
‘Transcendence’ sets the tone for the series by capturing the bloody struggle and ultimate liberation (moksha) found in annihilating our ego through wisdom.
The painting features a woman wearing a traditional Tangkhul garment called a Haora shawl. The Haora shawl frames her face and is the focal point of this piece. She gazes directly at us through her emerald eyes with an intense yet serene expression.
She wears a maang tikka, a traditional Indian headpiece worn by brides. Maang tikka is an ornament that consists of a chain and a pendant that sits on the forehead. Every painting in this series features a variation of these two elements.
In the background, there’s a surreal element: a portal where a figure is seen walking toward a glowing golden-hued garden. This is the Eternal Garden where we are united with the One. You’ll notice that the figure is without a head, and the figure’s head is lying above the woman’s right shoulder in a pool of blood.
The contrast between the detailed realism of the woman and the more abstract, otherworldly scene in the background creates a sense of depth and points to the impossible task of describing the union with Infinite, Divine, Ipsum Esse Subsistens, Ultimate Reality, the One.
Who is the Headless Figure?
The head symbolizes our ego. The part of us which believes we are better than others, caught in the cycle of competition and external validation from the world, and unable to follow the two commandments from Christ:
‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.2
It’s precisely our ego that halts our union with the One, to enter the cloud of unknowing, to walk the Sufi path of fana (annihilation of the egoic-self). Ultimately, we transcend beyond our ignorance and rationality towards the Eternal Garden through love. We must cut off the head, as it houses our arrogance. The aspect of us that believes we can attain union with the One through our knowledge and information hoarding. But this is impossible. As the anonymous English author of The Cloud of Unknowing rightly points out when speaking about God:
For He can well be loved, but he cannot be thought. By love he can be grasped and held, but by thought, neither grasped nor held.3
Love is the only path through which we enter the Eternal Garden and peer into the cloud of unknowing.
So the headless figure represents those who have transcended their ego. Those who have courageously accepted the call to annihilate the egoic self. Hence their ego lies in a pool of blood over the woman’s shoulder.
The woman calls us to kill our ego before we die. As the Sufi master Hasan Shushud says:
“To go beyond the Self. To die before your death. To discover something permanent.”4
We must see beyond the illusion that this world is permanent. To see reality as such: Our life is temporary, our homes will crumble, our possessions will rot, and our children will die. We are only here for a short period. All that we see, feel, and touch is transient. So we must wake up from this dream, and seek union with the One through the annihilation of our ego. This is the only path.
But this journey of killing our ego is filled with suffering and tribulation. For suffering is the searing fire of contrition that purifies our soul.
We must remember that many are called, yet few accept the calling.
This scene, however, captures the final moments before an individual is united with the One in the Eternal Garden.
Who is the Woman?
The woman represents the feminine aspect of reality. Though our society has collapsed all distinctions between masculine and feminine by mixing the Ying and Ying and turning it a pool of grey. Nonetheless, these aspects are a true and real part of existence..
Every human exists because a mother carried them in her womb. For nine months we existed in darkness, protected from the outside world, nurtured only by our mother’s body and blood.
When ready, we emerged from our mothers’ womb. We travelled through the birth canal into the world. We went from darkness to light. And just as there is pain involved in childbirth which is quickly overshadowed by the immense joy of holding her child, so too there is tremendous pain in cleansing our impurities, but this is quickly forgotten when entering the Eternal Garden.
So here the woman calls us to be born again. To enter a metaphorical womb in which we develop our virtues, cultivate universal love, and finally cut off our egos. And through this, finally enter the portal towards the light.
When looking at the woman’s face some things become obvious. Her eyes are almond-shaped, her face and nose are narrow, and her skin colour is golden. I did this for a specific reason. In Byzantine iconography, the narrowness indicates that Dvine has sanctified the person whom the artist is “writing” of; their passions have been mastered. In ‘Transcendence’ the woman’s narrow features allude to the task ahead of overcoming our unconstrained passions, of the cleansing that must occur.
Her skin colour is golden, quite unnatural compared to a real-life person. This symbolizes the sun's radiant light and divine wisdom, pointing to the golden hue emanating from the Eternal Garden.
The woman’s gaze is intense yet calm. Her eyes draw us. She calls us to contemplate our mortality—to see this life is ephemeral—to die before we die. What’s most important is to eradicate our pride, envy, greed, lust, sloth, selfishness. Only then can we see the truth.
The emerald in her eyes symbolizes the new life that awaits those who embrace love and kill their ego.
Significance of the Haora Shawl
Traditionally, only men wear the Haora shawl. But in the painting, the woman wears it to represent the harmony between opposites—the unification of the masculine and feminine, the ying and yang—to underscore that the call for annihilating the ego is for all of us. Most importantly the call is from the Divine.
The second reason for the Haora shawl is that crimson represents the figurative blood of all those who have successfully entered the Eternal Garden—the saints who have walked the path of annihilation. And it’s their blood beckoning us from beyond to join them.
There’s only one way and it’s through love. So we must embody love, and in so doing kill our arrogance especially that part that believes we are different from each other. When we do this we see that the you are not you, and I am not me. But you are me, and I am you. Because we are imago dei.
As Nevit Ergin beautifully sums up:
“Mysticism without annihilation is like a bird without wings; it will stay on the ground.”5
If we are to speak of flying, we must first fly. So too we can’t speak of love if we’ve never truly loved God. Just as we can’t speak of love if we’ve never truly loved the other.
The blue undershirt visible on her left arm symbolizes divinity and infinity, representing the permanence found through union with the One.
Why the maang tikka?
In Indian mythology, the maang tikka she’s adorned with represents the eye of wisdom. It symbolizes knowledge and the ability to perceive evil.
The woman wears a maang tikka because to attain enlightenment we must first gain wisdom by awakening the eye of wisdom.
For ultimately wisdom is the Logos (λόγος), the Dao (道), the Word, Chokmah (חָכְמָה), Om (ॐ). It’s that which is stitched into the fabric of reality itself—the One that makes all things real.
The maang tikka on her forehead is a red, large gemstone surrounded by three smaller stones. The large one signifies the unchanging, everlasting Absolute Reality. The three smaller ones symbolize the Godhead. In the Godhead the paradox of transcendence and immanence is harmonized.
As John writes:
In the beginning was the Word (λόγος), and the Word (λόγος) was with God, and the Word (λόγος) was God.6
Wisdom is the underlying principle for the existence of all things in the cosmos. It’s why the acorn becomes an oak tree without anyone telling it to grow; it’s why the petals of a flower bloom rhythmically without external guidance; it’s why a human embryo becomes a fetus which becomes an adult. All without a single external instruction.
Heraclitus understanding this said:
Wisdom is the oneness of mind that guides and permeates all things.7
Behind the multiplicities we experience in our daily lives, there’s a permanent, everlasting, eternal unity that holds all things together. Wisdom allows us grasp this profound insight.
Lao Tzu seeing this truth expresses:
The great Tao floods and flows in every direction. Everything in existence depends on it, and it doesn’t deny them… Everything in existence is clothed and nourished by it, but it doesn’t lord over anything.8
Contemplation
‘Transcendence’ is intentionally a contemplative and initiatory work which calls us to ascend towards beauty and wisdom through the path of fana and love.
This original painting is available for purchase. I’m also doing a limited number of giclée paper prints (museum-quality) for those who want a poignant reminder of this calling in their home. If you're feeling a strong connection to it and would like this piece or a print, please reply or leave a comment.
Till next week!
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Thank you to all those who are supporting my work.
See my discussion on raiska (intuitive experiencer) and rasajna (analytic knower) in Beyond Modern Nihilism: The Revival of Symbolism and Beauty in Art.
Mark (Bible. New Testament. Mark).
Anonymous, The Cloud of Unknowing.
Nevit O. Ergin, The Sufi Path of Annihilation.
Ergin, The Sufi Path of Annihilation.
John (Bible. New Testament. John).
Heraclitus, Fragments.
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching.