Consciousness, Literature and the Arts
Archive
Volume 4 Number 1, April 2003
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By
The interrelations of rational and emotional aspects of creativity, the role of well-developed symbolic thinking are discussed. The considered examples pertain to mathematics, medieval architecture, painting of Renaissance, and religion.
Introduction
Descartes
said : « Cogito ergo sum »
« I think therefore I am »,
but is this reality ? From the Indian philosopher Inayat Khan we
can read : « Reason is the illusion of reality » (Khan, 1974).
Here are some more questions : Are animals unreal because they cannot
apparently think ? Are plants and all the surrounding world unreal ?
Is suffering unreal ? What is reality ? What is illusion ?
We
do not actually know, except that we have in common a feeling that the world
we are living in gives us the illusion of being real. So from our vantage
point we live in a real world, and in this so- called real world creation is
permanent. We are integrated in
the endless cycles of the universe metamorphosis. As a matter of fact as soon as simple or compound elements appear there is either
repulsion or attraction, fight or love and as a result, there is death for
many, and union and multiplication for many others. Besides we notice that out
of death, through the chemical process of decomposition other bodies appear
and all this forms a chain that goes on and on...
Creation
in our world is permanent.
Now,
what do creation and creativity have in common and what makes them
different ? For creation as well as for creativity one needs at least two
elements to create something new, and the bigger the number of connected
elements, the more elaborate the creation is.
But
for creativity we need more. First, we have to be conscious of what we are
doing, then we have to be aware that what we are elaborating did not
exist before and feel that it should exist now.
Can
we achieve all this out of reason, out of the studies dealing with
consequences and effects ?
To
my mind, this is not enough, there must also be a strong appeal that has
nothing to do with logic, that has something to do with a part of our being
for which there is neither shape nor form, for which, no precise definition
can be given. This appeal seems to be at the same time, basic and
transcendental. Basic because it is vital and creativity like creation is
permanent, but also transcendental because we feel that what we are doing should be perfect. Unfortunately very often by lack of means,
possibilities, energy and so on… we are far from reaching that perfection
and here doubt comes. Yet there are moments when emotion arises like a
tuning-in with the sound-post of the Great Universal Cosmic Soul, and then,
all of a sudden, a gift, an illumination may invade us.
When
this occurs, why not consider it, on the one hand, as the fruit of all
our former studies and knowledge, and on the other hand, as the result of this
wonderful emotion ?
A / Pascal’s
triangle
To begin with, I will try to
represent this through Pascal’s arithmetic triangle. But a question could
arise, why a triangle ? As a matter of fact, everyone knows that
parallels join in the infinite and from this virtual connection point an
infinity of triangles can spring forth like the rays of the sun.
In
his « Thoughts » Pascal wrote that Man is between two abysses : Infinity and Void, he also added :
« All the visible world is but an
imperceptible dot in Nature’s Spacious Bosom. No idea can approach it. No
matter how much we inflate our concepts, we only give birth to atoms compared
with the reality of things. It is a sphere whose center is everywhere, whose
circumference is nowhere... Therefore let us know our limits ; we are
something, we are not everything ».
Keeping
this in mind, we may nevertheless, at our level, imagine that this infinity of
infinite centers converge towards The
Center which could be the Principle
of All. Let us call this point ALPHA
and choose one of the possible triangles.
Pascal
with his arithmetic triangle defined a table in which every number is worth
the sum of the one preceding it on the same line and of the one above it in
the same column.
If
we represent this under the shape of an isoceles triangle we notice that :
1/
if for every new number on each side of the triangle we draw a parallel to the
other side, as the triangle gets bigger, the numbers inside get bigger and
bigger too ;
2/
the biggest numbers are to be found at the converging points which are right
under the summit of the triangle ;
3/
if we join two equidistant points situated on the two sides of the triangle,
for example B and C, we create two new triangles B Alpha C and B Béta C,
B
Béta C being
the exact replica of B Alpha C.
We
can then deduce that all the elements contained in the second triangle are
already included in the first one, in other words, the principle of unity is
infinitely repeated in its elements in General and in Particular.
In
a more colloquial language we would say that all the elements of the sea are
contained in a drop of water, although a drop of water is not all the sea.
Now,
as I said before, the biggest numbers are to be found at the converging points
which are right under Alpha, that is
to say under the top of the triangle. This
is most important. On the one hand, these new numbers are the sum of the
two preceding numbers which themselves are the biggest ever met up to that
moment, and we may say that they are the result of a long series of deductions
made at least on two different sides ; but, on the other hand, as they
are on direct line with point Alpha,
we may also say that suddenly a direct connection has been made with this
point and something which had not been seen before suddenly appears like a
flash of lightning.
Let
us remember Archimedes when all of a sudden, he cried « Eurêka »,
or this spiritual man who said talking about God : « He was there and I did not know it »
So,
here we have the connection of two different sorts of knowledge : rational knowledge and let us say spiritual-emotional-knowledge.
B / Solomon’s seal
The
idea of a triangle is found in the Christian religion where God is often
represented as a triangle ; it is also to be found in the Jewish
religion, in Solomon’s seal, but this time there are two triangles instead
of one.
Those
two triangles are like the two opposite triangles B
Alpha C and B Béta C
that we drew before, except that part of the upper triangle goes down
into the lower one, and part of the lower triangle goes up into the upper one.
Here
is a representation of that seal where we can very clearly see that the
triangle is the image of God ; the upper triangle being the God
of Light, and the lower one its reflection, the God of Illusion.
These
two triangles are framed within a circle (the snake biting its own tail)
symbolizing eternity.
It
is really interesting to look carefully at this picture. The god of illusion
seems to be the exact reflection of the god of light, and yet there are
important differences :
-
Both gods are crowned, but for the god of light, on top of his crown we
can see a cross, there is not such a cross on top of the crown for the god of
illusion.
-
One has a white face and black clothes, the other has a dark face and
white clothes ; that could be compared with the two sides of the same
medal or with an exoteric reading and an esoteric one.
-
The most striking difference comes from the look. The god of light’s
look is perfectly clear and wilful, whereas the god of illusion has a lost and
wild look. All this reminds me of Saint John of the Cross who, when talking
about our life on earth, used to say that it was a «
dark night ».
Then
the question shall arise, in such a context can there be « Hope » ?
Let
us now look at the picture again and this time let us examine the gods’
beards. They are very long with a main branch and two thinner branches and
they precisely join on the demarcation line between the two worlds : the
world of light and the world of illusion.
There,
a Cross appears, symbolizing the
junction between the two worlds, first a vertical junction which, once
achieved, spreads out horizontally. This cross-junction may be considered as
the tuning-in with the Great Universal
Soul.
When,
among the infinity of infinite possibilities, a junction has been made, it
does not any longer belong to the person who did it, but spreads out all over
and belongs to all.
C / The triangle, the circle and the arts :
a)
Da Vinci’s Holy Family
Here,
springing forth from a point alpha, we
have at the same time, a number of triangles and a number of circles that give
us the feeling that we are not in a two dimensional world but in a three
dimensional one, and this could be the structure of something existing in our
universe.
In
fact this geometrical figure was used by Leonardo da Vinci to represent « the Holy Family ». If you remember or if you look at
that masterpiece, you will notice that in fact the painting is inside a
triangle whose invisible summit could be refered to as point alpha.From
alpha the principle of all, was born Saint
Anne, the Virgin's mother, and from the Virgin, was born her son,
Jesus .
You
will see one by one the faces inscribed
in the different circles, the two women looking at the child, and the child
looking at his mother and grand-mother. You will
admire the wonderful circular movements and positions of everyone and
marvel at the splendid structure of the painting, at the extraodinary artistic
and scientific knowledge of the painter. I could give you many other reasons to
admire this work, but in fact, this is not really necessary, because without
referring to all this, we are all immediately stricken by the Beauty
of the work, by the pure and loving expressions of the women and child. This
painting is like a musical symphony whose Beauty
reaches perfection, a perfection which is suddenly part of our being. In
fact the emotion that we feel at
looking at this painting is but the echo of our permanent thirst for Beauty and Perfection. Da
Vinci’s work and illumination has become ours as soon as we lovingly look at
it.
b)
Stained-glass windows in Medieval Cathedrals
If
Da Vinci used triangles and circles to represent the Holy Family, that use was
not something new. One of the most interesting and beautiful examples is to be
found in the rose windows of medieval cathedrals.
Medieval
cathedrals of the XIIIth century are like cosmic vessels navigating in the sky
ocean. This is quite obvious if we
look at Notre Dame de Paris in the City Island. Notre Dame is a long vessel
oriented eastwards and anchored in the earth. As soon as we penetrate into the
cathedral vessel, we feel attracted by the lights of the choir lancet windows
and we automatically start walking eastwards, towards sunrise ; doing so,
we participate in the great cosmic navigation of the earth.
On
entering the cathedral we can only see the windows of the choir and we have to
walk up to the transept to discover the two huge North and South
rose windows of the transept and the Western rose window of the nave, and
there, we marvel at their Beauty. These
three rose windows of the cathedral are like paddle-wheels that give the vessel
necessary light energy to keep on navigating. From outside the roses let us only
see their structure, it is to say, a circular hole from which a number of stone
rays spring forth like as many isoceles triangles coming from and converging
towards what is called the « eye »
of the window. Outside the structure looks white, the windows look black.
But
as soon as we are inside, the structure looks black and the windows are
sparkling with wonderful colours.
Considering
the Western rose. We can see in the very center Virgin Mary holding her son on
her lab, and around in the quadrifolled circles the twelve apostles. In the
upper part of the rose there is « the
moral miror » with, in the inner circle the vices which are mastered
by the vertues of the outer circle ; whereas in the lower part, there is « the
nature miror » with the signs of the zodiac in the inner circle facing
the farm works of the year in the outer circle. It is as if the material and the
spiritual worlds were all moved by the love of Virgin Mother and her son. In
other roses, in the «eye » of
the window there is the Apocalypse Christ who is also the symbol of love and
eternal life.
The
artists who made the roses were conducted by a glass-master called « the Adept ». The adept did not only know all the
symbols, but he had to master all the secrets to make coloured glass as
sparkling and as pure as possible.
For stained-glass-windows he had to work with the four
elements :
Fire – Earth – Air and
Water
Fire :
to melt the earth constituted of sand,
ashes and oxydes
Air :
to blow and give shape to the melting glass
Water :
to cool down workers, tools and wood moulds.
To
become an adept , one had to travel
for years through Europe and Middle-East, know all the chemical process to make
coloured glass, but the future adept also
had to make a spiritual quest because his work could only be perfect if it was
pure alchemy.
For
the adept glass becomes light-water that never stops flowing in and out of the stone eye.
The rose window is a pure light-symphony always changing colours according to
the clouds, the sun and the sky light ; it is a treasure of many
different-sparkling-coloured-jewels, it has become a permanent treasure for
everybody .
Today
thanks to expert-systems and a more and more powerful technology, we have
increased our material power in a way that had never been reached before. But
what about our spiritual quest ? We have created the world-wide-web, we can
investigate the Cosmos and we can dive deep into the micro-world.
Like
« Little Prince » in Saint-Exupéry’s book, we are responsible for
our planet and we have to keep it alive.
R.W.
Emerson wrote : « We successively live trough divisions, parts,
atoms. However in man lies the Whole Soul…
We see our world piece by piece, but the Whole,
whose objects are the bright parts, is the Soul. The Soul is not an
organ but it gives life to them all ».
Every
time we create something which is in harmony with the Great
Whole, we give birth to Beauty and
create a new energy that makes the Universal Cosmic Soul vibrate and sound.
Pascal
wrote : “ All the visible world is but an imperceptible dot in
Nature’s Spacious Bosom. No idea can approach it. No matter how much we
inflate our concepts, we only give birth to atoms compared with the reality of
things ”.
So
we know very little about “ reality ”, therefore we may believe
that we live in “ a world of illusion ”. And yet, this world where
we are living in seems to be real to us, all the more so that creation is
permanent. Unceasingly new simple or compound bodies appear, expand and finally
die, but through the chemical process of decomposition other bodies appear and
all this forms a chain that goes on and on...
For
any creation a minimum of two elements is needed, and it is through the
connection of these elements that something new appears. This is what happens in
Nature for the mineral, vegetable, animal, and human world.
Creativity,
which could be called mental creation, is completely different since one has to
be conscious of what he is doing. Yet, here again, at least two elements are
needed to create something new. Now the bigger the number of connected elements,
the more elaborate the creation is.
Man
like nature is in a state of permanent creation, creating is a basic need that
fascinates everyone, but as soon as someone wants to achieve a work of art,
whatever could be the field of his art, artistic, scientific, economic or
other... he needs something else. Let us call this something else : “ Intuition ”,
but it is difficult to give this word a definition. In fact, to be in touch with
this intuition, there should be an attempt to perfection which could be
reached by listening to the echo of something which is beyond logics, which is
not action but rather a tuning-in with the sound-post of the Great Human Soul.
Here I think is the way to touch Beauty. When the two elements,
logics and intuition, reach the highest perfection, one achieves a
masterpiece that will for ever be a treasure for the whole humanity.
Now
whether we live in a world of illusion or in a world of reality, what is
important is that there seems to be no limits to man’s creativity. Then it is
up to us to make our world beautiful or not, and that depends on our thirst for Beauty.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
B.
Tirtiaux : « Le
Passeur de Lumière » - ed. Denoël 1993
R.W.
Emerson : « Essays »
Pictures :
ed.
« Guy » Paris