Peace at Twilight Print on Canvas by Nayaswami Jyotish

This painting is about light. Light and consciousness. The central practice of meditation is to try to interiorize the life-force, bringing it into the inner spine and up to the spiritual eye. Many meditators, even beginners, can see light in the forehead as they meditate. Fewer, however, are able to feel the energy in the spine. If we are very calm, we can see the spiritual eye, a golden ring surrounding a deep blue field in the center of which is a five-pointed silvery-white star. While this is difficult to behold, many people are able to see shifting, opalescent colors, in the forehead.

The challenge is how to bring this experience to the canvas. In this painting, I have depicted a golden stream which represents the energy in the spine. It moves through a (spinal) channel, represented by the trees, and into the light at the end. You will observe this theme in many of my paintings. Try to be aware of the flow of energy moving from bottom to top, from kundalini to kutastha.

Art by Jyotish is meditation-born art using vivid colors that bridge the gap between the material world and the astral or heavenly worlds of heightened awareness. Yogananda, author of Autobiography of a Yogi, is often depicted in Jyotish’s paintings as a symbol of enlightened consciousness.