Seven Little Known Birds of the Inner Eye

by Mulk Raj Anand

  In the changed conditions of the modern world, when people look for excitement, vibrations and rhythms in paintings and sculptures, the engulfing experience of pure contemplation with a view to "spiritual" release in nirvana (enlightenment or liberation) has given place to sensationalism. So it is difficult to approach creative works in the manner prescribed by the Buddhist texts. But in texts for Buddhist craftsmen, the stages of awareness, as they may be stimulated by creative works, had already been worked out.

  I think the word "spiritual" frightens most people and sends them off to the more superficial impulses of hedonism. But if we refuse to use the vague word "spiritual" (which we only invoke for want of a better and less hackneyed word), if we refuse to take a shortcut to the inner life, even as we reject our hostility to the senses, and go deeper with the rhythm bird, across the spine', into the body-soul, we may achieve a more real dialectical relation within the autonomic nervous system, which, in Western anatomy, shows the six plexuses of the sympathetic and the course of the vagus nerve.

  The inner world is revealed to be more complex than the how-to-do-it texts would permit us to believe.

  But modern man should really want to derive his satisfaction from art works seen without blinkers and by looking his gift horses in the mouth. It is now known that the products of art are essentially different from those of exact knowledge, scientific or metaphysical. And all the canons of symmetry, equilibrium and form, as the ideals of art, break down before many actual works, which may charm us with their formlessness, or with the beauty of their ugliness, or which may suggest vibrations through intellectual and geometrical combinations, as in some abstract pictures, or which may create ecstasy of release through the putting together of apparently irreconcilable materials.

  Let me quote an angry Indian experimentalist, Francis Newton Souza:

  I hate the smell of paint, painting for me is not beautiful. It is as ugly as a reptile, I attack it. It coils and recoils, making fascinating patterns. It is the serpent in the grass that is really fascinating. Poisoned fangs and cold hatred. Slimy as squeezed paint. Green hood, white belly. . . . Careful not to put your foot on it: treacherous as Satan and yet beautiful like him. Strength is not contained in muscles. Power is not purchasing power or bombs. . . . An apple somehow contains several truths. There is Adam's apple, Newton's apple, Berkeley's apple, Cezanne's apple. Painting contains all these and more accumulated truths, that of form, illusion, gravity and tension, sublimation or guilt, colour and geometric structure and subtlety of a serpent, the diabolic beauty of a Satan, the wrapped mystery of a living foetus.11

  All these coloured images, all these genuine, febrile, deep sensations, all these passionate glimpses, certainly confirm for us the complexity of the creative process in both artist and onlooker and the difficulties of tracking it down to its sources.

  And yet—though painting is not for transmitting information or knowledge, which often gets into the artwork—for a sensitive eye, whose optic nerves end in a thinking brain, the alliance with the bird of rhythm in the unconscious is necessary, if only in answer to the inexorable forces of latent curiosity or body-soul search. The search is, perhaps, the expression of the life force itself, subtly feeding on experience to renew itself, extending its awareness to know itself, stretching out to higher and higher consciousness.

  The course of the rhythm bird is not a straight linear glide. From the thalamus it goes quickly up to the ventricular cavity in the brain. Drifting as a vibration in the narrow space at the lower end of the fourth ventricle in the cerebrum, it descends across the brain channel, which connects itself to the spinal cord and the subarachnoid space, above the kanda, or, as it has been called, muladhara (sacrum), which is situated in the lower part of the body above the anus. There, one hazards the guess, the rhythm bird is either able to touch the vitals and stir the sleeping kundalini into awakening, or it gets lost in the diffused coils of the dormant serpent. Nevertheless, the rhythmic responses linger in the muladhara, or spinal cord, often going back for support to the brain. The rhythm bird is thus always shuttling between the brain and the thalamus, the brain and the sacrum. Occasionally it may reach the inert kula-kundali which rests quietly on the lower end of the spinal canal, or it may touch sahasrara, the upper gateway of the brain, across the cerebrospinal fluid called the "stream of ambrosia." Either way, the rhythm bird is seeking to awaken into action the dormant or semiconscious forces. If the flight is caused by a vital original impact from a work of art, then all kinds of vasanas (energies) are released, which open up the field of vision like Krishna's nervous reactions in the form of flowers (Fig. 40), The reactions range from the touching of the cord of desire to the release of desire to understanding of the whole complex of emotions through the individual's total self-mastery.

  Like a musical thrill, the rhythm bird takes wing, gliding across the silent areas, rippling as a ray of light on the surface of the waves, dipping its head beneath the surface of the waters, before it soars across the horizon of consciousness. Stirred by its own momentum, after the first impulses given by the thalamus bird, the memory bird and the dickeybird, respectively, it lingers in unbroken flight in the underworld till the relatively inert matter of the body-soul is moved by the vasanas into the dynamic blood heat, and each limb is charged, so that it becomes alert, intent and activated.

  The rhythm bird seeks the energised tracks after it has flown across the pictorial surface. Through its alliance with other birds, which are the communicating means of expression, it dissolves into the thin air of the insubstantial world, and starts the vibrations across the contours of the intangible moods; in fact, the rhythm bird tears the inner world substantially into shreds, multiplies the further vibrations and suggested responses into the deeper self and sets the rhythms going across the whole body-soul.

  40. Krishna's nervous reactions.

  At this stage, when the rhythm bird moves across the elastic terrain of the underworld, the bird of the heart takes over from the rhythm bird, which is still soaring across the human system, evoking complementary responses from all the nerves and blood vessels, and from the eyes, ears, brain and spinal cord.

  5: The Bird of the Heart

  41. Union of hearts.

  THE BIRD of the heart flies off from the core of life, which is the centre of the process of human breath.

  Although we are normally not very conscious of the fact that we owe our whole existence to the functioning of the heart, which pumps blood into our system, we cannot take it for granted if we wish to understand the propulsion of the body by the ventricles and the auricles.

  From ancient Egypt, in the seminaries around the temples of Heliopolis, Sais and Thebes, have been handed down certain papyri which contain important insights about the functioning of the body.1 In the Edwin Smith Papyrus and Ebers Papyrus, treatises on the functions of the heart point out how the heart speaks in various parts of the body, so that the physician may be able to measure the influence of the heart on those parts of the organism. As both these papyri were compiled during the period of the Old Kingdom, around 2800 B.C., it would seem that the organic connection of the heart and the various parts of the body was considered important very early in human history.

  These observations came to be further analysed by several Greek medicine men, by Ptolemy, and by the seminarians of Alexandria.

  The poetical metaphors which trace the pain of love to the broken heart of the lover when he is jilted, or in separation from the beloved, wove themselves into literature in all parts of the world. The male and female union is always conceived as a union of hearts, (Fig. 41).

  The familiar literary idea of death from a broken heart may have some basis in reality. A research paper by three British physicians, published in the British Medical Journal and reported in the Times of London (March 22, 1969), concludes that grief over bereavement might well account for heart-disease fatalities among widowers. The paper, according to the Times report, was based on a study of nearly
5,000 widowers. It indicated that "one in twenty died within six months of his bereavement and nearly half those deaths were from heart disease." The authors, Drs. C. Murray Parkes, R. Benjamin and R. G. Fitzgerald, noted that psychological factors had long been considered important in coronary disease, and that blood pressure, blood clotting and pulse rate were known to be affected by emotional stress. Thus their statistical findings suggested that grief can kill, and that "a broken heart" is much more than a poetic phrase.

  42. The heart bird.

  Actually, the physical tempo of the heart, or the heartbeat, expresses not the pleasure or pain caused to a human being but a certain equilibrium or disequilibrium. In the mood of pleasure the heart beats faster and in the mood of displeasure it slows down. Sometimes pleasure and pain cause the same symptoms, as when a mother weeps out of happiness to see her son returned from war. And there are many subtle variations in the pumping of the blood and the consequent exuberance in the response to different stimuli. William Blake traces creativeness to this kind of response when he says: "Exuberance is Beauty." And Rabindranath Tagore confirms this when he refers to poetry as "abundance" or "exuberance." The heart bird flies off with open wings (Fig. 42).

  If the hypotheses of aesthetic experience must be based on interpretations of the outside world in terms of the functions of our body-soul, it will help us to remember that it is for the well being, growth and continuous evolution of the human organism that all activity, including creative activity, has become necessary. And the balance of the central organ of the heart is the very source of our lives.

  The magical intentions of early man were expressed in myth, and the various outer energies through the heart. The bards of the Rig Veda humanised the world of lovely dawns, violent storms, thunder, lightning, sky, earth, sun, moon, fire, by symbolising the energies of the universe as nature gods, according to the reactions of their emotions, supposedly located in the heart. In fact, even creation and destruction were given the shape of supermen and super-women, with multiple limbs to show greater power. The Greeks constructed a mythology in which the handsomest men appear as gods and the loveliest women are goddesses, obviously from the instinctive feelings which the heart expresses. Even the sentimental film song says: "My heart broke into a thousand pieces: some fell here and some fell there," And all of us invest every object with powers like those latent in our own breathing, which sustains the even beat of the heart.

  The yoga philosophy discusses the goal-seeking aspirations of the body-soul and prescribes various disciplines, such as breathing exercises to create balance in the organism. As breathing is the main activity through which the heart pumps blood into the nervous system, the yoga system of Patanjali and after has given much attention to this process, with a view to utilising control of breath for the release of latent powers of the human personality.

  Of course, it is common knowledge that we inhale a certain amount of energy from the atmosphere during ordinary respiration. During an early morning walk one breathes in ozone, which is health-giving, and during a suffocating journey, in the crowded compartment of a train, or in a lift full of people, one breathes carbon dioxide, which is injurious to health. That is why the merits of fresh air are always extolled to a civilisation nearly asphyxiated by the fumes of too many motor cars, badly distributed industries and slums which are like sewers. The good air, charged with energy, is absorbed by the blood and transferred to the nerves by involuntary motion. Ordinarily, respiration is an involuntary act, though it can be made voluntary, as when we wish deliberately to speak, laugh or cry.

  To do controlled breathing we have to begin, according to yoga, by correcting our normal breathing. So certain exercises are enjoined, which not only help to make us aware of our breathing, but also help us to acquire more energy by a different kind of inhale-exhale process from the ordinary. Consciousness of our breathing will prompt us to take deeper breaths and make us absorb larger quantities of atmospheric energy, to stimulate the nervous system.

  Now, I am not suggesting that the visitor to a museum or gallery must perform yogic exercises to appreciate works of art, but I am inclined to believe that those who are drunk, and don't breathe evenly, are impatient with pictures, and those whose physique is sluggish from the life of routine as well as from the bad air of technologically advanced countries, or the fetid slum atmosphere of underdeveloped societies, cannot bring a vital personality to the "seeing" of pictorial or plastic expression. (It is useless to ask for a "leisure society" for the enjoyment of culture when the basic amenities of life are not available to nine-tenths of mankind.)

  If we can go beyond the superficial "high breathing" or "collarbone breathing," which is intercostal, to "low breathing" in which we can deliberately fill the lower and middle parts of the lungs, we can learn to breathe evenly and regulate our respiration to a certain rhythm, which is not directly useful for physical health but which sharpens the vision.

  And it may even be possible to acquire intensity by the practice of yogic breathing in ordinary life, so that the lungs, from the apex to the base, are entirely filled with air at each inspiration and one can absorb the maximum quantity of prana (energy). If we can learn to give equal importance to the three parts of the respiratory action, inhaling, retention and exhaling, in a one-to-one ratio, then this control is the real rhythm of breathing. As complete mastery over the rhythm is obtained and full expression of the lungs becomes possible, prana can be willed into any part of the body. In the course of time, it is possible to acquire the capacity to respond to many vibrations beyond those in the workaday world of daily existence. One can perceive, in the condition of equilibrium, one's relationship to a whole "universe of discourse," in spite of the ever-changing phenomena, and achieve the utmost form of "the flame which flickers not" that the Buddha spoke of.

  Our stream of consciousness is disturbed by so many pressures from the fast tempo of our technological civilisation that we tend to bring an agitated heart to art galleries. As our eyes roam about we seem to prefer sensationalism and all the superficial art works which accost our sensibilities with noise, pornography, scatology and novelty. The fear reactions registered in the graph of a cat's cardiogram show what excited humans feel as well (Fig. 43).

  43. Heartbeat of a cat, showing effect of fear.

  Those who have learnt to exercise a certain control over their senses, and who can at will do away with the things that convulse the mind, may he in a position to receive deeper underlayers of feeling and shades and nuances of expression. The constant practice of cultivating calm, balance, or equipoise (the Indian proverb says, "before going on a journey, sit down, drink, a glass of water and then go") steadies the personality, clears it of the debris of false sentiments, excitement and bias, opens it, beyond disturbances, to the condition of accepting what is to be absorbed.

  The rhythm of the heart bird certainly brings about greater powers of concentration and develops the inner world of faculty and experience, even bringing about subtle changes in the nervous system. Most of all, it leads to the freedom to stimulate the integral life in the reservoir of the subconscious, which is the genius of the human personality. The subconscious is decisive by virtue of the forceful urges and ultimate directions it gives as part of the permanent collective unconscious. This freedom to stimulate the integral life is already in us, to some extent, through heredity, but it can also be cultivated.

  We ourselves invariably humanise the world, judging it through our own subconscious feelings, which come from previous metabiological alliances. The congested, airless streets of feudal cities create claustrophobia. When a young girl remarked, on arriving in Chandigarh, a well-laid-out township built from a town plan by Le Corbusier, "I like this city because there is breathing space here," she was uttering a profoundly human reaction. The master plan of this new town has provided parks and lakes and open spaces while organising the various structures in relation to one another.

  The modern tendency is to design open-space
areas in town plans to achieve maximum expansion of the life breath. And if someone should say, in the face of one of Albert Gieizes's crowded compositions, for example, "I feel choked," the reaction would be equally understandable, because the details of this artist's paintings are often overwhelming and confuse the viewer. It will be found, therefore, that the aesthetic responses depend to a large extent on the life-giving or the breath-expanding impact of works of art. And we can speculate as to whether or not paintings and sculptures help to give our inhale-exhale process more equilibrium.

  Of course the human perceptions triggered by works that stimulate optical vision, memory and rhythmic exhilaration have to be organised by the brain and passed through the sieve of the imagination before they can supply a total aesthetic experience. And yet the raw material of the various earlier vibrations does enter consciousness through the pleasure-pain or struggle of the heart even before we begin to absorb the work of art. Says Irene Rice Pereira: "The space of a primitive is a space of sensory, tactile and minute action in relation to his surroundings. . . . There is a complete separation between the world he lives in and the great unknown. He accounts for the sky above by myth, superstition, ritual and magic. He has no sense of dimensions. His experience at this point can at best be described as one-dimensional."2

  It is clear that the first dim apprehensions of man in the evolutionary process, beyond the primitive consciousness, have fixed the metaphors through which-he imposes his inner obsessions on outer realities.

  Alice Boner, in her essay "The Symbolic Aspects of Form"3 and her book Principles of Composition in Hindu Sculpture, shows that the horizontal line, which is interpreted as the line of rest in later Indian texts, must be taken to signify "the sleeping posture," The vertical line of the sikhara of a temple, talking to the sky, was obviously derived from the aspiration to touch the big-bearded God seated on the top of the firmament. The curved line of lyrical harmony, which sweeps lovingly down, represented the free movement of spontaneous dance, relaxed when flat, full of tension where the gyrating movements were vital and harmonious. The straight line, which is direct, rigid, insensitive, was perhaps taken from the arrow which goes clearly into space and divides it. (Later this became the symbol of direct perception, of pure consciousness, gnan-shakti.) The triangle which suggests tension like a stretched bow, or an upward-tending involving force, may have begun as the vortex representing the immanent principle, purusha. The cube is "firm, rigid and motionless." The circle revolving around its own centre was probably the chakra instrument of battle, which later came to denote the wheel in Buddhism, the revolution of the year, of time, the cycle of existence, both cosmic and human, from which everything manifests itself and to which everything withdraws. The sphere suggests the metaphor of the egg, as shown in the Cosmic Egg of the Hindus (Fig. 44). Brancusi adumbrates it as a fundamental form, eventually representing cohesion, fullness, unity, radiating centripetal energies when it is drawn into its circumference. And this sphere gave rise to the concept of the spheroid, which is in the process of dividing itself into purusha and prakriti, duality and multiplicity. The cylinder was adapted from the staff to represent the meru-danda, or spinal column, and later changed into the pro-creative lingam (Fig. 45), symbol of Shiva's phallus and the pillar of the law in Buddhism. The spiral coiling inwards was suggested by the conch shell, and later symbolised all the involuting forces, gathering up into themselves like the sesnaga, the eternal serpent. the couch of Vishnu, the all-pervading principle from which universes are created and into which they are reabsorbed (Fig. 46).