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Ajapa Japa – Breath & Mantra Meditation

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October 14, 2015

“If we can repeat this mantra constantly until it becomes integrated within our consciousness and is always present in the mind, we will realize our oneness with god.” ~ The Yoga Book, Kriyananda Swami

Meditation is like ploughing the mind field to make it compatible for sowing seeds of wisdom that will reproduce flowers of cosmic awareness, oneness and tranquility. Practice of meditation comes in various forms, types and duration.

To name a few, we have Yoga Nidra, Chakra Shuddhi, Antar Mouna, Ajapa japa, trataka etc. This article will throw light on Ajapa Japa or Mantra meditation, an ancient Tantric practice of pratyahara (withdrawal of senses).

What is Ajapa Japa Meditation?

Swami Satyananda Saraswati said, “When the name is uttered from the mouth, it is called japa; when it is uttered from the heart, it is called ajapa.”

Japa also refers to conscious chanting of a mantra, and when the mantra is in sync with the breath and meditation, the mantra flows without exertion. This practice is called ajapa japa, or effortless repetition. It is a combination of pranayama and meditation that brings about harmony in the mind, body and soul of the practitioner and has powerful effects both on the conscious and subconscious mind.

Healing the Mind - Ajapa Japa Stage 1

Swami Satyananda played a simple game for us to realize what Ajapa Japa does. He asked, “where is your consciousness right now? Think carefully. Where is it? Is it with you, or is it somewhere else?”

Most of us would answer I don’t know. According to Satyananda our consciousness is extroverted and dissipated, so we cannot locate it. With the help of Ajapa Japa meditation, our consciousness can be located and brought inwards, where it belongs.

This meditation requires the practitioner to chant the mantra and merge it with the breath. As the breath moves from the base of the spine to the top of the head, the inner space of the mind is filled with its sound. The mantra becomes rooted in the root chakra and moves till the third eye chakra, getting embedded in the consciousness. But this occurs only after considerable practice with a mantra.

Kriyananda Swami said, “In practice of Ajapa Japa the awareness of the natural flow of the breath, is integrated with the mantra So-ham, (I am he). Soham is a Vedantic mantra found in Isa-Upanishad…. The letters s and h in the mantra soham are the consonants, which represents the names and forms of the universe. If we remove s and h, we are left with oam or om, the only true reality, the soul of your breath.”

Practising Ajapa Japa Meditation

“In Ajapa Japa the three important points are: deep breathing, relaxation and total awareness. During the practice you must maintain complete and unceasing awareness of what you are doing. Not a single breath should go unnoticed. There should be no automatic breathing. You must have unceasing awareness of every ingoing and outgoing breath,” said Swami Satyananda.

Be seated with eyes closed in a meditative pose. You can choose any comfortable posture, like easy pose, thunderbolt pose, lotus pose etc. If needed you can take the support of the wall as well. Keep your head, neck and back straight, while the hands are placed on the knees, palms facing downwards. Feel completely relaxed, physically and mentally for a few minutes, before starting the practice.

Inhale deeply and start by chanting ‘OM’ once with a deep, slow exhalation. Now, bring all your awareness to your breath. Feel the breath moving up and down, in and out, touching various parts of the body. Moving from the nose to the navel and back from the navel to the nose. The breath should be taken softly, that the sound of the breath is inaudible to the practitioner himself.

Notice how breathing is an effortless process. Give up all the effort and just experience the complete liberation gained in the process. Softer, longer, gentler and freer, that should be the way to breathe every day.

Keep the neck and shoulder in a line, the back straight and consciously prepare for the practice of Ajapa Japa.

Now, start breathing with Ujjayi breath. It requires the practitioner to contract the throat muscles as they breath in and release with breathing out. An oceanic wave like sound will come from the throat, signifying the contraction of the throat muscles. This breathing intensifies the calming effect by stimulating & soothing the nervous system. The flow of the breath is experienced from the nostril to the navel and back.

As you go deeper into the awareness of breath with Ujjayi breathing technique, chant the mantra ‘So-Ham’ or any mantra that resonates with you. In case of doubt. So-Ham is the best choice but if you have a guru mantra, nothing like it.

Now as you inhale, the air descends from the nostrils to the navel chant ‘So’. As you exhale, the air ascends from the navel to the nose, chant ‘Ham’.

Chant your guru mantra or personal mantra in a similar manner. Until this step we are consciously chanting the mantra. After chanting for 10 minutes or more, it is time to shift to ajapa.

If your mantra is ‘Om Namah Shivaya’, you can chant the mantra as you inhale and repeat the mantra as you breath out as well. Synchronize the mantra with the breath and listen with awareness to the sound of the mantra, moving from the root chakra to the third eye and vice versa. The fusion of breath and mantra makes your concentration stable, reducing the mind’s tendency to wander.

Next, let go of the breath and focus your attention on the sound of the mantra alone. Breathe smoothly and let your awareness settle in the mantra.

As the mantra gains momentum, the sound of the mantra will naturally begin to pulse more effortlessly. Feel the vibrations of the mantra manifesting, as it flows subtly through your mind, centering your heart. Stay here for as long as you like.

For ending the process, slowly become aware of yourself and your surroundings. Chant Om three times and slowly open your eyes.

With regular practice, your concentration will deepen and repetition of the mantra will occur with an effortless momentum in your mind.

Benefits of Ajapa Japa Meditation

A study published in International Journal Of Creative Research Thoughts, June 2013 stated that Ajapa Japa played a significant role in stress level reduction, increase body awareness and coordination between mind & body.

Ajapa japa meditation helps one to withdraw the senses and awaken self-awareness. It removes the impurities of the mind, build unwavering concentration, enhances ability to access areas of consciousness, which are otherwise locked away. It also balances Ida and Pingala thus making it possible for sushumna to function.

Chanting and meditation is a powerful exercise to transform consciousness.

As Gandhi said, “The mantra becomes one’s staff of life and carries one through every ordeal. Each repetition has a new meaning, carrying you nearer and nearer to God.”

Ajapa Japa - Tantra Meditation Technique

References

orjap
Yoga book
Mantra meditation

Image Source

Meditation
Mantra meditation mala

Understanding the Three Gunas, the Primary Forces of Existence

Spirituality

Sonali Bansal

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October 12, 2015

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Understanding the Three Gunas, the Primary Forces of Existence

“Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas, — these Gunas, O mighty-armed, born of Prakriti, bind fast in the body the indestructible embodied one.” ~ Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 14, Verse 5

All material nature is an interplay of three fundamental forces or “gunas” – sattva, rajas, and tamas. This is the law of prakriti or nature, where gunas are a part of prakriti.

And it is the nature of everything – from atom to element, plant to animal and living to non-living, all that can be known in this world, tangible and intangible, is a manifestation of the gunas in their various forms.

The degree of concentration and combination may differ, defining our nature, behavior, attitude towards life and the choices we make. But it is impossible for anything to exist in the material world without the gunas.

“The gunas are primary constituents of the Prakriti and are the base of all substances. They are said to be attributes or qualities inherent in the substances. The three gunas bind the soul to the body.” ~ Mahesh B. Sharma stated in his book, Bhagavad Gita: A Journey From The Body To The Soul.

Each of these gunas has its own characteristics, which influence our lives in many ways.

Have you faced a day when you have been on the go from morning till night, then found it hard to stop? This is an excess of the energy called rajas, or activity.

Or there have been times when you can’t wake up from sleep, feel unmotivated and drag yourself through the day? This is an excess of the energy called tamas, or inertia.

There will be days when you feel calm and clear and is perfectly in the flow? This is the balance of the energy called sattva, or harmony.

While the state of enlightenment can only be achieved when one rises above the three gunas, it is important for mankind to understand the three dimensions, and progress towards Sattva (balance) and gradually leave all three for eternal assimilation.

Tamas

Tamas originally translates to dullness, inertia and darkness. It is a state of delusion which stems from ignorance and leads us astray. Our ability to challenge the right and wrong, good and bad, is taken over by sloth and sleep. It possesses a downward motion that causes decay and disintegration. It weakens our power of perception and leads to insensitivity.

Lectures on three gunas by the Vedanta Vision Society stated, “When you are in the state of Tamas, you are in the state of sleep. You are asleep to your potential, you are asleep to your talent, and you are asleep to the world. You are definitely asleep to what is beyond the world.”

In this state, the energy will lie dormant, and the only thing that will give gratification is sleeping and eating. The reason for the increase in the Tamasic nature can be due to food like meats, chemically processed food, refined food, etc. Even the act of thinking negatively, lying, killing, anger, resentment, and laziness can increase Tamasic attitude.

Rajas

Rajas is the state where the mind is brimming with energy, action & movement. A rajasic mind would be attached to material possessions and that person would perpetually feel chaos & confusion, as he seeks happiness from the outside world.

It might be stimulating in the short term, but in the long run it leads to distress and conflicts due to its unbalanced nature. Thus rajas binds us to attachment, to the fruits of action, and to sensory pleasures of every kind.

Lectures on three gunas by the Vedanta Vision Society added, “In the state of rajas, there is partial awakening. You are aware of yourself. You are aware of your environment. But that vision is very myopic & very restrictive.”

According to the Bhagavad Gita, when a person dies in a rajasic mindset – full of unfulfilled desires, excitement, fears, and sorrows – he/she is reborn into who the womb of who is similarly driven. Rajasic nature is induced with overexcitement, overeating, overworking, eating fried or spicy food, loud music or overthinking.

Sattva

Sattva is a state of harmony, equilibrium & purity where the mind is neither rajasic nor tamasic. This luminous state is all about reflecting on the consciousness. It possesses an inward and upward motion and brings about the awakening of the soul. A sattvic person would always resonate on a positive frequency, full of energy and mental harmony.

When pure Sattva prevails in our consciousness we transcend time and space and discover our eternal Self.

“Sattva is where you have a totality view of things… in the state of sattva your mind is totally calm, your intellect is creative, thinking clearly and therefore you come up with solutions and your body comes put with perfect action,” mentioned in the Lectures on three gunas by Vedanta Vision Society.

But according to Bhagavad Gita, Sattvic, even though good, is still a state of attachment, and he/she is not free from the circle of life and death. For this reason we must develop pure Sattva, which does not cling to its own qualities.

Therefore, we should aim to attain freedom from all the three gunas, but that is a later stage, first one has to be in balance to dissolve into nothingness.

Ways to balance the three Gunas

Yoga

The practice of yoga and pranayama revolves around the concept of promoting sattvic lifestyle. With the help of poses and circulation of breath in the right direction, one can create equilibrium, a condition necessary for Sattva to exist.

By removing Tamas (sloth) and rajas (restlessness), a harmony can be achieved in the mind, body and soul.

The proportion of the gunas keeps fluctuating in the body. Different yoga poses can be chosen in accordance to the understanding of the current dominant guna. For example, if one is feeling an excess of thought and stress due to overworking, they can choose the easy poses that brings calm and composure and vice-a versa if they are feeling Tamasic in that moment.

Meditation

The mind is where it all lies, and the only way to curb, control and create a balance in the mind is through meditation. With the ability to balance the current situation, meditation can become a great tool in dealing with lethargy, self doubts, tension, stress, over thinking, negative thoughts etc. All the conditions of both Rajas and Tamas can be improved with meditation.

Food

We are what we eat holds true especially in the sense of the gunas. Any or each of the gunas varies in accordance to what you consume. Eating dense or heavy food can lead to tamasic mentally and physicality. It leads to lethargy, sleeping, and fixation over rest.

Similarly, rajasic food like ginger, garlic, food high in sugar, things hot in nature, or too spicy, can lead to imbalance as well. Therefore, opt for foods that are sattvic, like fresh vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, honey, nuts, etc. These promote balance, easy digestion, and lightness in the body.

It is only us, human beings who have the ability to change the levels of gunas through lifestyle choices & practices. At the same we need all three qualities in our life.

Tamas makes us stop and rest, we need rajas to get us going in the morning, we need sattva to understand and get clarity and wisdom. Appreciate the process of life as it unfolds. Don’t become attached and obsessed to be a certain way. Simply observe and be present.

Bhagavad Gita CH 14 The Three Gunas Part 1 01

Bhagavad Gita CH 14 The Three Gunas Part 2 01

References & Image Source

Bhagavad Gita: A Journey from the Body to the Soul
Gunas
Yin yang

Three Reasons Why Having Faith Makes you Happier

Life

Nikki Sapp

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October 10, 2015

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Three Reasons Why Having Faith Makes you Happier

“I am realistic… I expect miracles.” ~ Wayne Dyer

Whether we realize it or not we all have faith in something. Even if our faith is in that there is nothing that exists that we cannot sense with our five senses or that hasn’t been scientifically proven, that is still faith in something.

However, the faith I am speaking about in this article is in something that has not been “proven” by scientists…yet. It is something that is way more powerful than us. You could call it a higher intelligence, a higher self, God, the universe, or pretty much anything that you want to. It is something that is deep within us, in the core of our souls.

It is something that we can sense on an intuitive level but not necessarily something that we can explain easily. When we think about it our heart perks up, feels “curious” if nothing else, and at the deepest level of our being we feel a tinge of yearning. We yearn because we know that this is the answer, this is what “home” feels like, and we long to feel the complete safety that this thing provides us when we are in connection to it.

This higher self is inside every single one of us and when our soul connects with something that we can feel as “the truth”, we know that there is something to all of this spirituality stuff. Even if on a logical, mind based level we have no idea how it could be possible, our soul knows it doesn’t need to “know”, it only needs to feel it.

However, the term “faith” has been tainted. Religious fanatics have over used and misused the term to the point that the mere mention of it makes people immediately shut off. It now seems to be being associated with the “sheep”, “still asleep”, or the logical realists who refuse to associate with anything that can’t be scientifically proven.

It has become a term that is associated with the infantile and ignorant minds of those who need something to believe in. What many people may not realize is that having faith in this unseen force actually makes us happier, less stressed and more peaceful.

And while it’s completely understandable that some people are still operating from the perspective that there couldn’t possibly exist something that is more powerful and smart than, GASP… us and our logical based minds, for those who have begun their spiritual awakening process having a faith in a force that is much greater than our small minds can comprehend sounds completely logical.

When our souls begin to awaken to higher state of consciousness wisdom that is on a more metaphysical level becomes something that we just instinctively “know” versus something that we just “believe in.”

Below are three ways that having faith makes you a happier person –

1) You realize that you are not alone

“We are not alone in the universe. If you look deep into the psychology of the people who say it is impossible, you find that this knowledge disturbs the fragile human ego.” ~ Gray Scott

This is perhaps the most important and most comforting that faith provides us with. As our spiritual self blossoms it becomes apparent that love is the ultimate truth of the universe. When we believe that there is a force that loves us even more than we love ourselves, that there is something that wants our happiness as much as we want it and something that is helping guide us through life’s trials and tribulations, a sense of peace overtakes us.

We haven’t been abandoned here to just fend for ourselves, although sometimes it may feel like that. Not only is this higher intelligence always with us, we actually are it, therefore we can never truly be apart from it. It won’t let us fall, unless falling is part of the plan that is.

2) You realize that there is a reason for everything

“Your journey has molded you for your greater good, and it was exactly what it needed to be. Don’t think that you’ve lost time. It took each and every situation you have encountered to bring you to the now. And now is right on time.” ~ Asha Tyson

So from where we are standing we can’t see the bigger picture of our lives. We don’t know why things happen the way they do, in the timing it does, but through faith we see that there is always a reason behind the circumstances of our lives.

When we operate from the standpoint that life is giving us whatever situation that is going to help us grow and evolve in the quickest manner possible, we see that everything that happens to us is ultimately helping us. When our faith is only in ourselves and our conscious minds, life can seem like one problem after another.

Through the eyes of faith we go from asking, “why is this happening to me?” to “how is this here to help me?” Next time you are faced with a strenuous circumstance instead of throwing your hands in the air in utter defeat and hopelessness, go internally and ask your higher wisdom how this situation is ultimately helping you. You may be surprised how approaching all adverse circumstances from this perspective actually moves you through things much quicker and with a new found wisdom than ever before.

3) You realize that you are only the vessel in which the universe experiences itself

“Life is the universe experiencing itself in endless variety.” ~ Alan Watts

The ironic thing that happens is that on one level of understanding faith comforts us by letting us know that we are not an “accident” and neither is anything that life brings us to. However, from an even higher level of understanding we realize that there really is no purpose to all of it.

Yes, life brings us to situations that are meant to guide us back into our most unconditionally loving part of our being, but it’s all simply done so that this higher being can experience itself through us. From this level of consciousness there are no “wrong” or “right” emotions.

There are no “right” or “wrong” people, or belief systems, or ways to experience the all that is. Everything just is, and all is part of a perfectly orchestrated divine plan. When we are completely free to feel any thought or feeling that arises within us without judging these things as “bad”, we reach a point of even deeper faith that everything is perfect, everything is unfolding exactly as it is supposed to and we are merely the space in which all things are experienced.

Faith in the utter perfection of everything is when we begin to see the beauty and joy of every circumstance, even if it is a circumstance we do not prefer.

Becoming a Beacon of Dark in the Blinding Light

Life

Gary Z McGee

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October 7, 2015

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“Any fool can run toward the light. It takes a master with courage to turn and face the darkness and shine his own light there.” ~ Leslie Fieger

The only thing better than becoming a beacon of light in a dark world, is becoming a beacon of dark in the blinding light. This is because it’s easier to shine light than it is to make darkness shine.

Making darkness shine is what Nietzsche meant when he said, “The great epochs in our lives are at the points when we gain the courage to re-baptize our badness into the best in us.” It’s the epitome of transforming demons into diamonds and victims into victors.

If we can discover these “great epochs” in our lives, we can become a beacon of dark within the blinding light and make the passage clearer for others. Too much light can just as easily make the passage unclear.

A beacon of light pierces the dark so that others can find their way home. A beacon of dark dims the light so that others are not blinded along their way toward adventure. Both are necessary, but becoming a beacon of dark in a world that’s becoming more and more blinded by the light, is the more challenging and essential undertaking.

Lost in the blinding light

“You are your own sun. Stop wasting time trying to orbit other stars.” ~ Anonymous

Traditionally a beacon of hope is seen as a lighthouse for “lost” souls. But, as J.R.R Tolkien said, “Not all those who wander are lost.” Contrastingly, not all those who are lost are in the dark. Just as often they are lost in the light. And perhaps even more so within the cultural climate of today. Far too many people are hiding in the blinding light of apathy and indifference, afraid of the darkness that lies within empathy and conscience.

Apathy is all too easy. It just requires us to meander grudgingly along with the status quo. Indifference is all too comfortable. It just necessitates a propensity toward intellectual laziness and spiritual ennui within a system of nine-to-five daily grinds and cog-bop-cog cultural clockwork.

But what happens when the status quo is fundamentally unhealthy and unsustainable? What do we do when inertia, turning a blind eye, and cold indifference are only exacerbating an already unhealthy status quo by inadvertently transforming the molehill of an unhealthy culture into the overwhelming mountain of an unsustainable world? What then?

Compassionate empathy within an unfeeling apathetic world requires a baptizing of our shadow, lest we demonize the shadows of others. This is a personal responsibility. The demonization of the shadow in others shrinks or expands in proportion to our ability to reconcile our own shadow.

Our adaptability to our own shadow make us more adept at negotiating with the shadow in others. The more adept we become at negotiating with the shadow in others, the more compassionate empathy we will have.

Two of the most blinding spotlights on the stage of our apathy are Security and Comfort. They blind us precisely because they make things too easy and painless. But we need the sharpening stone of difficulty and pain in order to build a character sharp enough to cut (whether through the pitch dark or the blinding light).

So let’s not cling to security and comfort. Security provided by a so-called authority, is an illusion at best, and a prison at worst. Let’s be cautious with security and be courageous with our insecurity.

Comfort can be more of an obstacle on our journey than even the obstacles themselves. Let’s cut the cords that are providing the current to the blinding spotlights of comfort and security. Like Farrah Gray said, “Comfort is the enemy of achievement.”

Using the darkness as a guide for spiritual ascent

“There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” ~ C.G. Jung

Making the darkness conscious is no walk in the park. There is much spiritual trepidation and existential angst to resolve. It requires brutal honesty, first with ourselves and then with others.

It requires full-frontal authenticity and a genuineness that will often throw others for a loop and maybe even cause them to shun us because of our ability to slap them with the truth as opposed to kissing them with lies.

But, like Katie Goodman said, “When you are truly genuine, there will invariably be people who do not accept you. And in that case, you must be your own badass self, without apology.”

Beacons of dark are able to surf the wave of that badass courage into their own greatness, as it rip-curls over the woe-is-me, excuse-ridden undertow of sentimentality and shame. Over the security of the shoreline. Over the safety of shallow waters. Over the comfort of the all-too-comfortable.

Being a beacon of dark in the blinding light is being an amoral agent in an immoral world that’s over-filled with overly-moral people clinging to the sidelines in fear. A beacon of dark is the antithesis of fear, piercing through fear just as much as it pierces through the blinding light.

But first comes the embracing of that fear. First comes pain. First comes discomfort. First comes the sting of admitting we’ve been bamboozled by the blinding light of an overreaching aggrandized human civilization.

Like Alain De Botton said, “In the gap between who we wish one day to be and who we are at present, must come pain, anxiety, envy and humiliation. We suffer because we cannot spontaneously master the ingredients of fulfillment.”

Mastery has always been a struggle. It always will be. And the ingredients of fulfillment will be different for us all, which just adds to the struggle, because there is no certain course. There is no one right way. There is no set recipe for enlightenment. There is only the struggle of the path. But when we’re truly on the path, when we’re authentically engaged and genuinely present to personal growth, there is nothing more beautiful and fulfilling.

As Nietzsche pinpointed, “Fulfillment was to be reached not by avoiding pain, but by recognizing its role as a natural, inevitable step on the way to reaching anything good.”

This is the epitome of being a beacon of dark: a reminder that pain (darkness) is just as important and constructive as love (light) in getting us through the vicissitudes of life.

A beacon of dark is an unsinkable black gem floating upon white quicksand. It’s a sacred loneliness in a too-busy world that has forgotten the importance of solitude. It’s a wild man, or a wild woman, howling furiously in a city full of sheeple. It’s a quiet wakeup call in a loud room of people who are pretending to be asleep.

It’s the divine instability in an unsustainable system. It’s trickster sincerity mocking the seriousness of so-called good and evil. It’s an artist on a high hill overlooking a world of pale canvas-white, declaring, “Let there be dark!” Indeed. As Anaïs Nin articulated, “Great art was born of great terrors, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them.”

And that’s what it’s all about: balance. That’s what being a beacon of light is about and that’s what being a beacon of dark is about: balance. Fundamental extremism has always been the enemy. Moderation has always been our saving grace.

Whether it’s a pitch dark or a blinding light, either way it’s extreme and it prevents us from seeing clearly. Being a beacon of dark in the blinding light is just as important as being a beacon of light in the pitch dark. And those of us who can manage to be both intermittently, are all the more helpful to those stumbling along the path toward fulfillment or enlightenment or whatever.

As Andrew Harvey wrote in Sacred Activism, “All divine visions are hard to embody. They require hard work. You have to keep looking at your own shadow — and sacred activists have two shadows: they have the shadow of the mystic, longing to escape into the light and leave the world behind; and they have the shadow of the activist, which is full of denunciation and divisiveness and anger. But if you examine those two shadows long enough, something amazing happens: the mystic’s shadow gets purified by the activist’s, and vice versa.”

Image source:

Meditation
Tolkien quote
Osho quote
Shadow shoes

An Interview with Android Jones, the Digital Alchemist

Artwork

Bhavika

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October 7, 2015

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An Interview with Android Jones, the Digital Alchemist

Andrew ‘Android’ Jones is a visionary artist who began studying art at age of 8 and since then has progressed to become a pioneer of digital painting and projection art.

His work is a fusion of evolving technology, elements of nature and his mystical experiences.

In an audio interview with Fractal Enlightenment, Andrew talks about his journey as an artist, his chosen medium – electro-mineralism – his liking for ancient cultural deities, and much more.

When was the moment you wanted to become a visionary artist?

I started drawing when I was pretty young and its stuck with me since then; it was a natural way to interact with the world around me. Its like putting together a series of different experiences and it was something I just fell in love with.

So I did it pretty compulsively, I was raised on a farm so I had a lot of isolation and time to my self.

You describe yourself as an ‘electro-mineralist’ – what does this mean?

Throughout art history, different artists are conventionally defined by the mediums that they use, like oil painters, pastel artists, etc., but in history most of the mediums available to artists have been mostly from elements coming from the vegetable kingdom, whether its papyrus or canvas, grinding up different pigments from earth or plants.

Digital art is not really descriptive of the medium that it really is. I am not painting with digits necessarily.

The tools that we use are an extension of the human consciousness and humans are really good at manipulating the environment around them, so when I look at what is it that I use to create, the main force behind it is electricity – all the digital work is electrical in nature and the technology largely comprises minerals like magnesium and silicon, quartz crystals, copper, iron.

The combination of minerals and electricity together is what makes this amazing possibilities.

Is that the medium you choose from the start and you gradually made the switch to technology?

While growing up I started like how kids start with crayons, finger paints. I evolved to color pencils and markers. There were lot of different phases – I had a big marker phase, I had a strong color pencil phase, I got into water colors for a while.

I kind of take different mediums and get obsessed with them. I also got into acrylic paints and then in the 90s I started working with oil painting and also had a lot of charcoal.

I went through an academic training in drawing and painting. In 1995-96, computers became more easily available and I went to school to learn computer animation and I started experimenting with photoshop.

Even though they are not anything close to where they are now, just the feeling that there was so much possibility and a look over the past 100 years, not a lot has changed with innovation – oil paints or brushes, animal hair – and I could see how fast technology was evolving. I decided to focus my attention on trying to master these new tools that were available.

I read about you making ‘one self-portrait every day for 1000 days between May 2002 and February 2005’, what was your inspiration behind this?

There were lot of different reasons why I started – I think one was after graduating from a art school in US, which was quite expensive, and I had a lot of debt that I needed to get rid of, so I chose to work in the video game and the film industry for a while. During that time I went through what people refer to as the dark night of the soul in my 20s.

On a personal level I felt that as an artist we all have to make these compromises, sometimes commodifying our creativity and putting a price tag on that.

I wanted to prove to myself that as an artist I still could make time to make art just for the sake of art without trying to sell it or market it or brand it or make anything out of it. Essentially, it was more on idealistic, romantic level, trying to prove that I still had a soul somewhere in there. I made time everyday to put everything else aside and focus on trying to capture what was in front of me.

What started for me as an exercise, became an obsession and as time went on I could see the progression of all the portraits – like a visual diary of my life. When I looked at all at once, 100 at a time or 300 at a time, I saw these patterns emerge.

I could actually look back at the dates and remember what was happening in my life. It was like documenting my different moments and different emotional stages. For example I could see whenever I was in a new relationship, whenever I was falling in love, there would be a big patch of red and warm colors and times that I was depressed, even though I wasn’t consciously making a depressing portrait, the color choices which I thought were spontaneous, in the moment, were kind of narrating a much more consistent story. That was pretty fascinating.

Andrew Jones - 1000 Self Portraits

What is your main inspiration behind your art, will it be a particular event in your life, or the world or your surroundings?

There are works that I do which is in response or reaction to things that are happening in the world, whether its a certain cause or something that is happening in politics. Generally a lot of times when I make art now, I’ve come to the understanding that in the past like the self portrait project that I was working on was just for me.

The older I get I realize that I don’t make art just for myself anymore, I want to make art that serves people, serves the community that I am part of, the species I am part of. Art is an incredibly powerful tool, it creates a lot of reactions, brings about change and inspires people.

I often try to think what are the needs of people, what’s the most important kind of art right now, what kind of art I can make that can uplift humanity, what kind of art that I can make that can glorify God and creation, what kind of art I can make that can catalyze consciousness of different people and a lot of time I really think the power of art is not so much in the piece itself but its in making things that help stimulate ideas, stimulate questions, or conversations.

As an artist I survive, support my family, my team and community through a transaction, exchanging art for some type of a value and I collect a portion of that value back to support myself. But in reality, when someone chooses to invest in a piece of art or put it on their computer, what I am offering is a visual reminder of their most idealized version of themselves or an improvement on themselves.

What about the faces you portray in your work, what does it symbolize?

Dating back to the self-portrait project, I’ve always been attracted to drawing the human face. When I was 15 or 16 one of my first job was as a portrait artist – I worked on the streets, I would draw homeless people and runaway kids. In summer I would support myself drawing tourists. There was a time when I traveled to Europe and I supported myself through portrait drawing.

It is something I’ve always had a deep love for, and I study a lot of human psychology and just within our human brains in our neocortex there is a specific amount of our brain that is allotted towards recognition of the human face. Its something that we really are hardwired, programmed to have a deep and powerful response to.

Using the face is a powerful way to get someone’s attention and connect with, and as an artist I am always trying to find more ways to connect with people. Its like marketing all over the planet, the reasons why magazines have faces on it, because they know that psychologically that face will really draw your attention.

Not that this statement is really about the face, but its a vehicle to get the attention of some one and once you have the attention, then the symbols, colors, composition start to relay a deeper story.

I’ve come to realize that art has the ability to not only convey messages and meanings, sometimes people see what they need to see in a piece. Its nothing to do with what the artist intended to or not, when they look at it, it catalyzes something deep within them, it gives an opportunity to an individual to connect with something deeper in their own subconscious.

Are those also the key elements you tend to capture in your art?

I’ve realized how important it is to uplift people, if I looked at my art, over the course of the last 25 years, there have been dark moments, moments of fear and insecurity, and sometimes as an artist its easy to use art as a therapy and work out your own condition.

Its easy to connect with different elements of nature, like the animal kingdom. I use a lot of wings that symbolize freedom, I use a lot of butterflies in my work, that is a universal symbol of transformation and change.

There is a piece I just released called Catch a Tiger by the Swallow Tail, if you look at the face its made up of butterfly wings, and the narrative I was working on this piece is the idea of a powerful, ferocious transformation, not a gentle slow transformation. That picture has elements of water and fire, I like to use contrasting elements together as well, showing dichotomy between things.

How long do you generally take to finish a piece?

Sometimes there are pieces that take me 2-3 days, sometimes pieces take me 6-7 months. Sometimes I start on a piece and I lose interest and put it down for several months and come back later on when the moment is right and finish it again. If I look back how many complete pieces I have made in a year, may be 20-30 pieces.

I am more excited about starting pieces, I have hundreds of unfinished pieces that I lose interest in, the starting is my favorite part because it doesn’t take a lot to start a piece, but I find that I can get may be 80%-90% of the piece done rather quickly, but finishing the final steps, mastering it which is the last 10% of the painting can take majority 90% of the time.

I get the question of time more often than any other question, when someone sees my work people want to know time because time is a universal metric. We all know how an hour feels like, what a minute feels like, but I have also come to realize that time is only relative.

Different consciousness experience time in a totally different way, and I have learnt that its actually less about how much time I can dedicate to a piece, but more about the quality of my attention – how powerful is my focus and concentration.

A lot of your art includes Indian symbolic figures, is there any story associated with that?

There are lot of stories associated with that. India has had a significant effect on my life and my art. The art that I make is just the residue left behind from the life that I’ve lived. I use art as a way to document deeper experiences and understandings that I’ve had.

When I went to India two years ago and for the first time I went to the Kumbh mela. I did these workshops in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. It was a really life-changing experience for me.

I have traveled to lot of different places, but I just really fell in love with India and the people of India. I am more of a trance spiritualist, I study lot of different religions – I was raised Catholic, I carry a Bahá’í prayer book, I am fond of a lot of ancient Gnostic teachings on ways of living and understanding the dynamics of consciousness.

From all the places I have traveled if I were to base the legitimacy of religion based on the soul and happiness of the people I would say Hinduism is doing pretty well. I also really love the culture of Hinduism where art is an element of their spirituality.

Every type of religion is kind of a gateway to the undefinable mystery of God, creator and spirit. I like how specifically, the Indian tradition, uses these very visual symbols and images of each different energies as the aspects of the consciousness of the creator. I find that its really powerful and something that I just feel a deep connection with.

I like to listen to Mantras, and the Shiva image is one of my favorites. It was only after going for the mela and learning about Shiva that I got access to the energy of that aspect of God. I feel the energies that are represented within the Indian culture are more inviting and want to be reinvented. These images act like signposts towards each individual’s personal investigation of truth.

Is there a certain kind of connection that you feel to ancient goddesses

I feel I have a really deep connection with Shiva, if I have to classify myself then I would be much like a Shaivite. Krishna has started to capture my heart now more and more, but that has taken more time, Shiva was immediate.

Each of these gods and goddesses and beings represent different aspects of the divine. I’ve connected with Ganesha, really connected with Hanuman, and largely depends on which ever aspect you have a more intuitive attraction to; that’s telling of where you are and which part of the divine you need to make a connection with.

Any particular artist you look up to or has been an inspiration on your path?

There is an artist in Vienna named Ernst Fuchs – I think he is just a gem within humanity. When you look at the work that he has made, its hard to believe that a human being had access to that quality of inspiration. He is prolific and different.

I get inspired by old masters and classical music, Beethoven and Mozart. But as far as contemporary artist is concerned Tipper, he’s an electronic musician, and I just think he’s a wizard. The type of art that inspires me is like the art of the sublime. There’s a point where its so beautiful that I forget that I am listening to electronic sounds or looking at pixels or paint strokes.

There is a sense of timelessness, and soon as you listen to his song it feels like its been part of your life, its that kind of art. Sometimes you look at a painting, and it looks familiar at the same time. It reminds you of something deep, profound piece of information that I had forgotten but I have always known in my heart, that’s the type of art that really gets me excited.

Tipper & Android Jones at Infrasound 2013