Protect the Dream Seeds and Trust...

The dream is planted in my Heart 
It grows and flourishes 
Nurtured by great Love 
Like the passing seasons 
My mind gets caught up 
In storms and moods 
I lose sight of this garden 
Become numb to its delight 
Pay more attention to wanting: 
Wanting to measure its growth 
Wanting to taste its fruits 
Wanting to increase its treasures 
Wanting repeated assurance 
That it will always be there 
My hands fill up with wanting- 
Wanting to possess 
My eyes fill with wanting- 
Wanting to see everything before believing 
My senses fill with wanting- 
Wanting only pleasure’s fulfillment 
This wanting begins to dig a hole 
Of increasing pain and emptiness 
My heart cries out for Grace 
She appears and pulls me inward again 
Humility brings me back to the Garden 
Where one immortal message echoes 
 “Love plants the dream unconditionally… 
Never dig up the seeds” 

 © Ganga Fondan, 2012 

 Journal Entry: October 19th,2012 

 Every time I forget this precious lesson, my mind takes a nose dive towards a dark abyss and all clarity disappears. For years, my mind grapples with the concept of Infinity. If something never ends nor begins, then there is no separation between its parts. Then past and present and future become one. Just when it seems that my mind understands this, the measuring starts again. The Heart relies on Grace to keep it open and trusting. In remarkable moments my mind catches glimpses of a greater unfolding. A feeling guides me back to romance in life without certainties. One by one the opportunities present themselves again for my greatest growth. The imagination expands and the inner soul expressions well up again to rejoice and overflow. Today's entry marks another journey milestone of this celebration. 

 Today's Ancient Secrets quote: 

 "That is Infinite. This is Infinite. From that Infinite arises this Infinite. this Infinite is brought forth from that Infinite and that Infinite remains Infinite." 
- Isha Unpanishad

Love Never Fails...

We Live in a World Made of Love

I go to the woods to listen
My Heart explodes in a thousand themes
As each leaf lands
Life ends
Life leaps 
Falling to
Falling from
Sounds are the same
What is free will
If not free love
Pieces come together
The answer doesn't matter
The brain shuts off
The feeling is alive and free
The woods sing me this song
I Am a tree in jubilation

Journal Entry October 8, 2012

Happy Thanksgiving.

This day is another chance to see the new and choose the life of my Heart.  This day coaxes me to spend time in nature, to journal new ideas, to review the navigational wisdom gifted to me.  Today is another opportunity to strengthen the bond with those who ache to fly and dream the great dream within.  Today is another chance to bow to Creation Itself and feel breath entering in and exiting the body.  Today my arms raise to the unlimited sky and proclaim "I Am That!!  I Am That".

Ancient Secrets Affirmation:

"My Individual Consciousness is the same as Universal Consciousness.
My whole Being is saturated with this feeling.
I vision with an unlimited mind
and physically manifest my Vision with certainty.
I know my Power and ask the Power,
And the Power will give unfailingly."

Stretch Your Self and Feel the "Intoxication of Imagination" :

Dive unafraid into the Ocean of Consciousness
Know that every single thing 
Sings alive this WaterSong
Drown deeper and deeper into Trust
From every point in space
The resurrecting Power comes
Gives all that ever was
Or will ever be
Unconditionally
Not until our old skin loses its hold
Can something Divine and Profound
Arise
Dance free of the world of conditions
Embrace a New and Bolder Life
Than was ever known
Or ever imagined before


© Ganga Fondan, 2012

Journal Entry, July 29, 2012

You See Things; and You Say, 'Why?' But I Dream Things That Never Were; and I Say, "Why Not?"  - George Bernard Shaw, "Back to Methuselah"

All the things that can be explained in a world of rules remain limited.  If we believe in Eternity or Infinity, then how much stretching from beyond our mediocre daily thoughts does it take to truly feel free?  Yesterday   while trying to justify my art journey, (which one never needs to do BTW) I realized the most excruciating and exhilarating moments of my life are those in which individualized creativity dances in sync  with the Infinite Universal Creativity.  When a song or a piece of art glorifies that conscious connection, I feel turned on and "goosebumped", tears come to my eyes and there is for that time a complete feeling of utter Peace.  My Teacher used to call this feeling the "Intoxication of Imagination."  

When I feel worried about something or someone, again I turn to my understanding of what is Limitlessness.  In Love and Trust, a new image can be shaped and held in mind.  Though the old self wriggles and struggles and craves to find a solution in its memory bank, a New Self embraces courage and draws from a much larger canvas or sings ideals beyond any previously held aspiration.  My Teacher once asked us if we have ever seen a snake shed its skin.  It writhes around and thrashes about while desperately  rubbing itself against anything that will tear away the old and dying layer.  Underneath awaits a new life of resilience and rejuvenation.  

I meet so many people who feel trapped in their set ways.  Years of routine and judgments have closed their imagination to all great possibilities of how life can be.  I see the pain in their faces, hear their self-abnegation and feel their lack luster lives.  Maybe a loved once is sick, or a relationship is souring, maybe finances have bottomed out or failing health is a concern.  We all go through tremendous challenges.  How do we go beyond these?  If we can be courageous enough to sacrifice our limiting arena of thinking and look up at the infinite number of stars above and see ourselves not as one star, but as all of them at once.  Then we get an inkling of how great and mighty the Universal Possibilities can be.  Only then can we start to image the life we really want to design for ourselves.  Then, as my Teacher repeated to us over and over:

"We can think the thoughts we truly want to think and not the thoughts we don't want to think."  

"Truth integrates My World As a Living Member" - Schopenhauer

Through the illuminated voice of a child
Or a man
Or a woman
It may happen
Full throated and perfect
While every cell of the body stretches
Leaps high
Shakes every nerve awake
The Self
Wide-eyed and open
Feels At-One-Ment
With all humility
Ask That
Your heart may feel It:
This Joy
Once It finds you
Takes residence
When anxious thought flees
Back to a world of information
This Truth Song finds a heart to enter
And is at once at Home

© Ganga Fondan, 2012

Journal Entry July 24, 2012

"A truth is a million times more valuable when you discover it for yourself, even if it has already been revealed in a thousand books." - Arthur Schopenhauer

This latest art journey revealed many shapes and images before I could see the chamber of the heart.  At first came the shape of a huge multicolored jar containing a butterfly being with majestic colored wings.  Two figures stood outside of the jar looking in.  Both were colorless and seemingly free and the butterfly was not.  I could feel a sense of wonder from the creature in the jar.  There was no panic although I could feel it wanted to get out.  Then a shape of a Being, the sound of music and serenity, the two figures outside of the jar disappeared.  I went to my notebook and asked for guidance in this lesson. Arthur Schopenhauer's words guided me back to the digital art again.  The value of the personal experience is what creates the metamorphosis within us.  We become That.  No source outside of ourselves can create this kind of transcending.  My message is to go deeper again.  Look inside again.  Let go of what makes sense to do but cultivate that which feels right.  As in art so in life.  The message is clearly stated in Schopenhauer's third quote from the same notebook page from June 16:


"Merely let authorities confirm what you already know."       

Another Song Journey to the Sun King...

Once more a journey to the Sun King
This time there is no fear of the Blaze
Only a heavy longing lingers
To question again where its all going
The Sun King listens attentively
With a touch on the head 
Activates the memory of an old ache to express
Reveals the once bottled pain that now feels free
Unveils the sowing of the first seed
A whisper into every cell of Being
Beyond sound
Beyond elation
Beyond expression
It pours in and through
And then these words:
“There will never be another exactly like you”
Endless images of beauty flash and shine:   
“There will never be a life exactly like mine”
Then joy comes spilling over into song
Melodies pour forth
From a distance the radiant Sun King adds:
“Savor every drop”


©Ganga Fondan, 2012 

Journal Entry July 2, 2012

What does it mean to be an individual?  How do we embrace this life experience in such a way that honors the gift, the giver and that which is given?  There are so many aspects which remain mysterious as to who we are and why we are here.  Yet what is clearer to me now is that there will never be anyone with the same perspective on life, with the same desire to express, with the same adoration for music and poetry in the way that my heart thrives and feels bliss in expressing.  The songs and the artwork are wonderful to share and to pass on.  Others may bask in the light of something we have discovered.  It may help them to find their own light.  If the intention to create begins with wanting to show others the way, something vital and life-giving can be lost.  First and foremost a communication between the Universal and the Self opens up.  In that beauty a song blossoms or an exploration into color and form initiates on canvas or a poem seed bursts forth.  This conversation with the Creator or Creative Force opens us up to be awake on our journey.  The more we live in Consciousness, the more this innovation comes.  

Meditation on the 4 Principles reminds me over and over that we are not separate from the Divine, but an active agent of Consciousness and Creation.  With every outpouring, my life has more to offer in all of its undertakings.  The mysterious and miraculous remain constants in my day to day living.  This posting is a moment of questioning.  A moment of pause and wondering if I'm wasting my time and energy?  Can this life be better spent in other endeavors?  Before rolling out of bed this morning, these questions buzzed around my brain.  Later upon reflection, the answer came : I am a miracle of nature.  My toes, hair, knees, chin and elbows are nowhere else but on this body and so this goes on for a while...until I ask to keep this feeling as a reminder.  Six hours later, my fingers type these words...   

"...Imagination Creates Reality" - Richard Wagner

In children’s games the wave splashes
Shrieks of joy announce complete detachment
Out of broken sandcastles
Out of ripped up shreds of paper
Out of paint pots spilled over
Another kingdom comes
The will to create fills the cup
Again and again
When Self is redeemed and dives 
Uninhibited
Into endless possibilities
The Water of Life replenishes
The dead and unused parts 
To generate once more
Acts of courage
Express new rapture


© Ganga Fondan, 2012

Journal Entry June 27, 2012

What Richard Wagner actually said in context was:

“One Supreme Fact Which I Have Discovered is that it is not Willpower, but Fantasy – Imagination that creates.  Imagination is the Creative Force.  Imagination Creates Reality.” 

Staring deeply into this image, it is easier to identify thinking into linear and fluid states.  I wonder sometimes where the wave of fluidity begins and ends in the continuing cycle of creating, preserving and destroying(renewing).  While working on this piece, I thought about birth and death many times.  What if leaving our body is actually a renewal of imagination?  A starting over on a new canvas?  Since my dad left this world almost 2 years ago, I have the feeling of a dolphin jumping freely through wave after wave.  I never had that feeling when he was here nor did I feel that when my husband left this world.  Without any form my late husband's presence remains only in rapturous joy which flows directly through my Being.  Of course when my thoughts become too solid again, I miss him and I feel a sense of separation.  This is the eternal play of the mind and this romance continues in various forms in many aspects of my creative life.    After the first draft of the image was done, an urge to create the liquid area on the right continued my journey.  Have you ever drawn a picture on a sandy beach only to be washed away by a giant watery wave?  That is what I feel when I see this image now.  My life is part of that wave coming in and also a part of that writing on the beach.  Two lovers unite and mingle the natural forces in a new way.  Imagination opens up new possibilities.

My Teacher often emphasized the idea that Imagination is more important than simply knowing information.  He said that if we wanted to create powerful lives we first had to rid ourselves of all those ideas which still suffocate our ability to Vision what we really want for ourselves.  He often said:

“We must be able to think freely before we can vision freely.”

In so many ways, day after day, I sense this opening up within my thinking.  At times, during meditation I feel so surprised that many small and limiting ideas still linger in my perceptions.  Now I can simply observe them and let them go.  The ways of "Ancient Secrets of Success for Today's World" continue to inspire and lead me onward.

First Came Art, Then Came Science to Explain Art.- Tulshi Sen

What does my heart yearn for and burn for in the fire of life?
What lush hope still flushes through my mind
in joyous tides of watery imagination?
Will something of this journey continue to shine
long after the dance out of form and flesh?
Shall some soaring thoughts
still ride the winds of moving time
to unleash unanswered questions
in a multitude of songs and stories?
Will some essence of my experience 
continue to thrive on this spinning rock?
Or will my legacy simply be 
bits of bone
fallen petals
shells broken open?


© Ganga Fondan, 2012 


Journal Entry: June 20, 2012

Flipping through a massive book of the life and art of Vasily Kandinsky, waves of delight seared through me as I was no longer at a bookstore, no longer on planet earth and floated somewhere in a globule of colorful paint splashing across the many canvases of a great explorer.  Each page seemed to be the size of my bathroom mirror and I could clearly see a journey into shape form, movement and color.  The further my desire "to express from within" takes me, the more elated I feel to study the ideas of other visionaries.  It pleases me now to read what other artists experienced and to have an opinion and say "I don't agree with that" or "yes I can totally understand that."  Isn't that the whole point of the arts: to first express freely and then hold up our creations against the light and let them speak to us and teach us about ourselves?  Further perusing this fascinating collection of art, Kandinsky's words repeated:

"Everything starts from a dot."

So simply stated, this sentence rolled around in my head walking home, it echoed over and over while cooking my dinner and flashed like a neon light as I was about to close my eyes to sleep.  Turning on the light again, I sat upright and reached for my notebook.  I almost had to laugh as I wrote down the words:

"Everything starts with a .com ..."

I drew a circle under these words and remembered something my Teacher once wrote:

"The center is the cause of the circumference.  Without the center it is impossible to have a circumference.  In the same way, your thoughts will reach out to generate, with all the power that ever was or will be in the Universe, and radiate your thought into manifestation as seen by you in the center, Your Absolute, your In-Visible world."

Every business, every art piece, every song, every life is created from this center dot.  The dot within the dot continues on and on and on. From these dots is woven the fabric of all of our lives. Magnificent blossoming from perfect Law.  Immediately I felt like drawing and playing with my digital canvas.  I thought of Kandinsky and my journey began from a single dot once more.  By the time this piece was finished, the birds were singing in the new day.             

      

A New Star on the Horizon

Her mind gazes into the center of the star

To feel the Christed One

To breathe in the romance of Krishna

To soar into the Buddha’s Peace

To let go of the earthly chains

To find her wings

To kiss the Divine Light

To embrace the epic journey

Of That which breaks her open

To set free the tireless songs

Of Joy and Freedom

Her mind gazes into the center of the star

To become One with the awakening Dream

To see her destiny unfold in all splendor

To witness the timeless and ageless Light

Which ever finds its tender source

In the depth of her own longing

In the beauty of her own Being

© Ganga Fondan, 2009


Journal Entry, June 13th, 2012

A glitch in the upload, placed this post from three years ago.  There are no coincidences.  Thank-you for the reminder of my clarity of purpose.     

To Boldly Go Where Imagination Takes Me...

Journal Entry May 31, 2012

Subtle trepidation begins this piece.  Initially, a simple water glass. (You can see it if you look upside down and notice the stem.)  My Teacher had taught us a beautiful meditation that simply involved dropping an ice cube into a glass and watching it melt.  After a rather intense day, I want that  dissolving feeling in this art piece but first the journey  opens up my imagination to make room for yet another lesson to appear on canvas.  Within the ice cube appears an image of me playing guitar and singing.  Thoughts streamed through my mind as the images of ice cube, water, girl, glass, water droplets all started to liquefy and the image isn't at all heading in the direction I want.  I feel a strong resistance to continue. 

Questions come to mind.  Often in an art journey, the life journey unravels itself.  I think of how much I want to hold on to who I think I am.  More colors swirl in water droplets.  I think about how much I still live in some of my most vivid memories.  What if I lose them?  Do they define me?  More questions.  Then glass is lost.  Girl disappears.  Only liquid  colors swirl on the canvas.  Tears inside ache to connect with the eyes.  Cries inside long to connect with voice.  The inclination to let this one go grows stronger.  Surrender is a hard lesson.  The melting is part of the honesty.

In that same moment new patterns emerge.  An undiscovered land appears.  Color and silence both fill me and my breathing slows down.  A piece of the past disappears and my heart feels lighter.  A feeling of anticipation for something I do not yet clearly see.  Now that the ice cube has melted, the One who thirsts picks up the glass and drinks.  Tonight I feel consumed and grateful and strangely...right on track.   


"Just cultivate your desires and know that your desires activate the infinite energy which you are." - Tulshi Sen

   

               

“Despair is a Sin Against Imagination.” – Innuit Saying

Journal Entry: April 27, 2012

Sitting quietly, I breathe in deeply into my belly button.  Life flows into every part of me and I am renewed and reborn.  Silence. Fully inflated belly.  I am round like the earth.  Bigger than the roundness of earth.  Now the breath flows outward again.  Deflated, the death feeling comes to the body.  Who am I?  Inward again, the momentum draws even a larger circle within.  Who breathes me in?  In that last hour, will I know?  Which "I" will know?  The one leaving or the one staying?  What story will be revealed to me in that mystery?  Will I return to the Garden of Eden?  Will I enter a great mansion?  Will I leave the back of a great turtle?  Whose story will claim my last breath?  Breathing outward, the question disappears.  Continuing to inhale, my body disappears.  My last thought is: How can this feeling be expressed in art?  The story lives on.  It is all I know.  Everything.

“In many shamanic societies, if you came to a medicine person complaining of being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, they would ask one of four questions: When did you stop dancing?  When did you stop singing?  When did you stop being enchanted by stories?  When did you stop finding comfort in the sweet territory of silence?”

- Gabrielle Roth

 

Consciousness Creates My Reality

Tomorrow I will draw another fence around my life
And call it being another year older
As every morning the dogs of self-judgment will snarl
I cannot ever remember waking to a feeling of not dreading
That I might be wasting time
Blinded by my pre-occupations
Totally self-absorbed
But after a while
The critical moment passes
When once again I ask for an abundant day
Guided by ecstatic poets and painters and singers
To leave their mark on my thoughts
For generosity to open the heart
With whispers echoing everywhere
“Follow your bliss”
My head bows at the feet of the Creator
Canvas ready
Guitar poised
Pen in hand
Silence floods my senses
The elation comes
To once again proclaim:
“I Am That I Am”

© Ganga Fondan, 2012

Journal Entry April 24, 2012

It has taken years for me to realize that thoughts can be fine tuned, transformed, deleted out  just like the words on this page.  It is a gift to realize that we are not the mind, but rather the mind is for us to fine-tune like an instrument.  We are something much more than this.  Thoughts come and go.  The world has its shower of thoughts raining over us and when we are aware of this, we can pick and choose what to keep and what to discard.  Thoughts help us to travel with the imagination to places we have never gone to before.  When it becomes overwhelming to deal with the emotions that come with some ideas, then we can slow everything down and focus on a single concept.  There are those ancient sages, musicians, poets, visionaries who have left us their legacies of mastering the mind.  They have taught us that the key to a fulfilling life is not to be found in the mind but in the realm of the heart.  They have guided us to shape words and images toward that purpose of exploring the mysteries of the ennobled feeling heart.  The masters have taught us the essentials are humility and trust in an Intelligence beyond the one we know.  In silence, this Intelligence expands us and guides the mind to accept oneness with the Creator.    

"Be quiet still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice. It will fall in ecstasy at your feet." - Franz Kafka

His Song Will Always Return Home:

Sometimes a song builds a whole world

In a room where everything disappears

A new layer of Creation rises from No-Thing

Where every thing feels real

Shiva appears and touches the forehead

Arouses the faculty of Imagination

In the Great Temple of Peace

The song now expands and rolls like the sea

Drops of liquid music gently pour 

Soaked with the opulence of Immortality

The beginning and end are one

Beyond past

Beyond present

Beyond future

The Great Silence prevails 

Until Shiva touches the forehead again

Returning once more to the ancient Temple

The mind thinks:

“Please don’t let this feeling end”

As Shiva slowly fades into the shadows

Into the familiarity of the apartment 

The heart softly assures :

“His song will always return Home”

© Ganga Fondan, 2012

Journal Entry: April 15, 2012

Whenever I go to visit a particular park in my neighborhood, the walk in always seems so much more ordinary than the walk out of the park. Yesterday was no exception. Although the trees and shrubs are all nearly fully green on my street, the ones in the park were just beginning to change color. Many trees had been cut down and the whole walk seemed so grey and dead at first. Then suddenly I spotted a patch of Skunk Cabbage in a clearing on the left. I leaned over the wooden railing and stared down into the delightful green hue. Yes there was life and celebration in this park. Walking onward I noticed more and more of these green patches and finally in the distance heard the rushing of the stream nearby. Suddenly I looked up to see the first tiny buds on a tree leaning over the wooden walkway. These trees were definitely ready to burst into the new season again. Finally reaching the stream, I leapt onto a large rock in the middle of the water and sat down. After a long silence, I felt the urge to quietly hum a melody that rose within me. There in that stream, with a soft breeze against my face, I could feel Spring itself singing the secrets of nature to me.

Later at home, my thoughts turned to the Hindu God, Shiva. He embodies destruction and renewal. He is the third aspect of life which follows Creation and Preservation. Shiva has always unnerved me a bit because the idea of change has at times frightened me. I often like things to stay the same for a long time. Something in me lately has embraced the idea of change whole-heartedly. It feels easier to invoke new ideas and possibilities. Perhaps Shiva has done His work with me and I feel this renewal now. Perhaps like that beautiful park, my life is ready to dive into an audacious Spring. Lightness of Being envelops me until bursting with songs and artwork my path opens up to show me the way again. Peace shows me the way.


"One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek but a means by which we arrive at that goal." - Martin Luther King 

Enter Into "The Substance of Things Imaged"...

Stepping toward the precipice

I know that Light which holds my hand

Moving toward all that I have never known

Dancing with the images of my heart

Images that ever sing to me

I know the Light which holds my hand

Ready to dissolve into all that ever was

Eager to leap into that which calls me

Disclosing Unity everywhere

I know the Light that radiates within

Holding onto everything I believe

Shaping it into all I will ever believe

I know the Light which holds my hand

It gently leads me to the Real

© Ganga Fondan, 2012

Journal Entry March 31, 2012

What is security? We hear it all around us all the time. Job security, feeling secure in a relationship, "Old Age security"...etc. The other day a young friend of mine was deciding what career she should choose because chances are her husband will die young and she will need money. She is in her mid twenties. For a moment, I felt sad for her and reminded her not to forget what her heart yearns for. Love does not calculate. If we want to live a life of joy and enchantment, then we must not forget the power of love and its possibilities. What is this capacity within us to imagine and get excited about being in love or finding the work of our dreams? The truth is that in all of our calculating and scheming to be secure, we forget the aching inside ourselves to solve this mystery. We forget to listen to our own songs inside. We miss the great masterpieces of poetry that yearn to be released through our own direct experiences. Of course none of these expressions will save us from loss or keep us from experiencing the pain that sometimes comes when we forget who we are...but they will lead us back to something profoundly greater than our limited understanding of the human experience.

"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. When I let go of what I have, I receive what I need." Tao Te Ching

"We get what we are, not what we want." - Tulshi Sen, Mehfil Magazine