“the path of mystery leads inwards”-Novalis
(A part of my english project written two years back. And though the initial chapters are missing, this one talks about Romanticism, with which I quite indentify. The project dealt with my interpretation with philosophy and psychology and with self analysis. I have included some pictures that I have taken overtime to represent how I see nature.)
I have always been interested in psychology and philosophy. As I have been a nature lover. I have an unspoken intimacy with the wild nature. As I have with beauty. Also I am prey to imagination and ideas which keep flitting about in my head. I write especially poetry. And I love art- music, painting, literature, culture etc.; anything creative and aesthetic is an art form for me. As is cooking, like making new dishes. I myself indulge in all of these whenever I am prone to my creative outbursts – when I have to create something new… a poem, or a drawing, any dish, whatever. A restless energy flows through me which when I create, flows out of me into the creation.
And then there exists the way I perceive the world … as energy infinite. I have always tried to use logic to answer my questions. Some of them have been philosophical and psychological. I also realize that psychology and philosophy do merge at one point. And so I started reading on the subject and I did gain a lot of interesting ideas to mull upon. Philosophy whenever tries to propound its ideas, it give pure logic behind and it’s scientific. You can apply them in your lives and feel that they are true and not some highly conceptual theory. It also helps people to get a better understanding of them and of the human behavior. And it was reading up on the subject that made me realize that I was a romantic. My self-synthesized ideas and beliefs have always been the core ideas of romanticism. And I am a bit awed how ideas independently reproduce themselves at different points of time.
Romantics are those who identify themselves with the world. For them, even the non living or the nature has an “ego”. The natural and the spiritual merge into one and a world spirit flows through all. The non living is also said to possess a slumbering intelligence according to this train of thought. And I believe so too. It’s pretty evident for anyone who has read the first few chapters that I believe that everything has energy at the core and energy shields around. They also hold the infinity and one can know about the whole universe by penetrating into its energy shield and working up inside. I have extensively also tried to explain how by trying to reach the soul one can gain the eternal truth, thereby explaining “the path of mystery leads inwards”. Novalis was a noted romantic philosopher and as was Schelling who propounded the “slumbering intelligence”. I believe so from ages and its fascinating how they repeat in an isolated mind. For me energy from the infinite to the infinitetesimal, all carry the same recipe of truth. Like for example, the solar system to the atom, planets or electrons both are revolving following the almost same principles of physics around the nucleus or the sun. Even science for me is just the energy imprints of creation. The hidden clues to the eternal truth manifest themselves in the rules of designing the world, science. The forests, trees, a tiny flower, a puppy with brown eyes and a passive ocean all have a superego. They have such impressive fields and the world spirit flows through them such that they affect and impress us. They make us realize that they too are there and in the case of nonliving, seemingly passive and but the underlying activity is for us to feel. And we do feel our mother earth breathing through winds, tempests, clouds and thunderstorms. And we do have the oceans with the sprays and whirlpools. Even the serenity by the sea side is telling us of her calm and the millions of lives she nurtures within. The mighty sun setting is not for just visual delight and has a deeper meaning. It may be a different reality for all but everybody interprets the colours of nature in their own hues and shades. They connect with the world spirit at different points of their conscious and of time. And this world spirit for me identifies with the cosmic energy which encompasses the big and small and is the eternal energy only in a slightly different form. There is also a slightly different form of spirit called the national spirit. The national spirit identifies with the locality. It is the soul of the language, the culture, the cuisine, the dances, the folklore, ad of the people. It flows through the mysticism, the traditions and the spirit of cultural gatherings. It also lives in the stories recounted by the elders of the group and the cultural and natural history of an area. It’s a spirit that binds people and makes them one identifiable body that lives socially and united for each other.
Romantics have a very strong bond with the nature. It forms a very important part of their cognitive “I”. Study of philosophy, nature and poetry merge for many romantics, including me. I have very strong roots with the nature though I may be partial towards the mountains. I used to visit the mountains about twice a year since I was about 6. I was left free to roam the woods alone or with a friend who was a year younger to me. I had learnt falling and getting up as I trekked up and down the slopes with the nature by my side. And also finding my paths through boulders and roots which seemed insurmountable to a child like me. But I enjoyed every minute of it and I remember quite a lot of details too. They have impressed my mind such. Even now ask me where the holiday being planned should be and I would say that it should be in the lap of nature and preferably mountains. I am in love with nature. I used to dig out earthworms from my flower pot and used to study them, taking notes when I was about 9. I nurtured caterpillars, stray dogs, grew a whole lot of plants (I really enjoy gardening) and what not. I didn’t let any chance of getting close to nature pass. It gave me highs and I felt this sense of discovery that urged me on, on such expeditions.
I also write poetry, which one of my major hobbies. Actually it would be wrong to call it a hobby. Poetry is a way I express a lot of feelings not apparent to the world. It’s one of my major creative outlets. Lots of unrecognized ideas get their form through the lines I may pen down as if in a trance. It’s almost as if my soul has suddenly transferred some energy into my subconscious which has sought a way of release through my creativity. And I do emote through my poetry. I realize a lot of things as I have fun when I write. I always learn but. A lot of ideas take form and thought process start that I didn’t know I had somewhere inside my subconscious. I have expressed my love for life and nature as I have expressed my despair and sorrow through a few lines and it does lighten my heart and enlighten my brain.
But talking of creativity brings me to another aspect of romanticism. Romanticism means “imagination”, “feeling”, and “experience”. It means interpreting the world with your reality and truth. It means artistic genius and it means creation and love. Being a romantic is like being a prey to mystery. There is always confusion and a double nature approach to things. By this I mean that a single thing can be interpreted in millions of ways. And it gives us freedom. You can see the world as your reflection as the whole world also constitutes you and lies inside you. Imagination is a tool which makes you what you are. It helps you realize that you are one with the world as the world is one with you. Feeling gives you the access to the reality and helps you read it in your own language. It helps you understand the world spirit. And experience is what you get after imagination and feeling have combined hands. I could say experience is getting a small truth from the subconscious into your conscious, a small step bringing us closer to the final truth. Imagination, feeling and experience have another meaning though, which is vital to every romantic. It’s the artist in every romantic which manifests it’s self because of these. The passion that went into creation reflects in the creation and is another reality bearing the eternal truth for the artist which got lost in the truth itself and realized it fully before creating the reality of his creation. Here the creation means a world itself with the separate reality and the artist is the super creator of this world. He is the eternal truth of this world. He just paints his reality which becomes the core energy of his creation. He therefore is getting closer to his own eternal truth as time he paints some truth, he is drawn closer into his subconscious and nearer to his soul. Here the artist is not just a painter but it could be any art form. Beethoven himself was a romantic and the passion with which he created his music is evident in the Moonlight Sonata as it’s in his other creations. The passion is unmistakable. Also one feels the spirit that flows through his music and that is Beethoven presenting to the world his own truth and spirit that absolves the audience. Wistful souls communicate and we feel moved. Such concentrated spirit of an artist’s creation doesn’t pass without making an impact on us. The artist is the god of his creation, the super creator of his truth that flows and communicates with the world spirit and manifests itself each time it’s admired.
Souls have been equally stirred by paintings and poetry. People do recognize the beauty and the story, idea and feel the energy behind every creation.
Although the romantics identified themselves with the world spirit, it wasn’t as if they didn’t have individuality. Each artist created his own reality. Each romantic read the world in his language. Their methods of approach were different but there realization lay in the same truth.
Often the romantics believed in the ideal genius. Idleness was a virtue in the romantics. They believed that the daily rut was for the common people whom they called the philistines or the enemy. They thought the daily life as too trivial a matter to engage their sensibilities with. They ran after the conceptual to derive and devise new meanings of life. Often they were rebellious, moody and alien spirits. They thought themselves to be different from the rest of the world. I have very similar beliefs. It’s true that a romantic is different because his very approach to life is different altogether. Even I prefer thinking in idleness or doing what I like. The fact that I don’t remember the details which I classify as mundane details of the daily rut is due to my disinterest towards these common matters, that I know now is characteristic of romanticism.
Romanticism also means being deeply involved in emotions. Romanticism is like chasing a golden deer like in Ramayana. You don’t know what you are up against but you feel it or intuitively try to know it. You go on discovering as you travel the path of life. At each step there is this sense of discovery as there is sense of loss. There is a sense of satisfaction but always you are restless and wistful for new challenges. Often it’s based on short term goals but hard work is put into creation of some highly desired creation though it may be a long process. The romantic is also deeply wound into emotions. His experiences, realization etc are always emoted. Logic does play a great part but then the logic is also felt first and then analyzed later on. He is always going through a live connection with his soul and his internal state is always that of a strong breeze. Old ideas are washed away and new ideas are synthesized and given root. A romantic is also very independent. He always understands things via his perspective, a different understanding for everything that may not match with anybody else’s understanding.
And a romantic is always a dreamer. He may remain lost in thought or awe over a trivial flower which is but powerfully beautiful to him. He may hear wisdom in the melody of the songbird. And this because he often gets the glimpses of the infinite in the finite or the macrocosm in the microcosm. At that point of time he suddenly feels the “sampurna shristi” in the “beej tatva”. For a romantic dreams and reality often fuse. He doesn’t draw the line between the dream and the real because the dream itself produces the hidden aspect of reality. He believes in the super conscious and is constantly trying to understand it consciously and unconsciously.
A romantic is a naked soul. He is a person who has cast off the cover of sophistication, the attributes of civilization which tame humans and make them distant to their basic primitive instinct. A romantic does away with all his pretence and amplifies his basic nature. He creates from the conceptual and after he has cast off sophistication, he is closer to his core energy. He identifies himself with the rugged nature nut also the soft maternity of the natural world. I write as I feel. And often my writing is abrupt. Often with too may ideas going through my head I am at a loss of words to express the whole volume which is there in my head and pounding my creative urges for a way of release. Always what I wish to create with my camera, words, paints, or ideas isn’t perfect. Often what is there in my ideas completely reflects in my work. And though that does bring dissatisfaction, on trying again and again its teaching my brain to focus and bringing me closer to the artistic reality of a particular aspect of my work. It also represents my unsophisticated cover which is not perfect. And my love for philosophy shows my yearning for the mystic. But being born in India has really helped as here philosophy has been so highly developed since ages unknown. Indians have always charged the unknown and tried to rationalize the unknown and the truths hidden in the dark. I find the Indian thinking so ripe that I have often used Sanskrit terms in various articles of this collection. A few words are strong enough to have the whole “saar” of the issue in them. India has always been the land of intellectuals but it stagnated as knowledge wasn’t exchanged with the world. In India we have always studied science and philosophy together. They were extensions of each other. We have always discovered high mathematical truths for centuries that the western world recently discovered. Our mathematicians were philosophers also, who wrote in verse form the science of mathematics, also respected as the language of science with its cool logic. Because of these facts I believe, that with the oriental mysticism and the philosophy which believes that the macrocosm is the microcosm and the ideals of beej tatva etc. our philosophy definitely has a romantic shade.
And this brings me to the close of my self analysis which has I hope helped me reach a bit closer to my core energy. And meditation I hope would take me forward as would focus on any goal of mine. Due to the Indian flavour of romantic ideals I have indeed identified with my National Spirit as I have with the Universal Romantic Spirit. They are basically not very different but are flavours of a very same essence.
It will always be a quest for me, life. I know I am very young and lot of people might think I have not enough experience to state whatever I do state right now. But I do realize it from long back. And it’s somehow inherent in my spirit. To rationalize and analyze. I was born with the spirit of a romantic. I may not be the most satisfied person of earth as when I gain something a new quest begins. After all chasing a golden deer is not easy. Its elusive and doesn’t exist except for in my imagination. But I am a romantic and my dream and reality are but one. My golden deer is my eternal truth luring me with a bait of a smaller truth that draws me closer to itself using with bigger and bigger challenges. And that is the quest of a romantic reaching eternal truth. Through forms variant and art will I reach it finally but I will.
“ What if you slept? And what if, in your sleep, you dreamed? And what, if in your dream, you went to heaven and there plucked a strange and beautiful flower? And what if, when you awoke, you had the flower in your hand? Ah, what then?”
I think. Therefore, I am.
