It’s a harsh reality that man has been living in sorrow since the time immemorial. He wants to lead a life of happiness but it has remained only a dream for him. The main cause of all his sorrow is his ceaseless striving to create his identity with the help of caste, creed, religion and other false things. These very things have divided the mankind into innumerable groups that have been fighting against one another. Though we are all one, the absence of the knowledge is the sole cause of all our sufferings. But the moment man realizes this truth and knows what he really is, he will be free from all his sorrow. He has been craving something unknown which is Magnificent, Blissful and Beautiful. He thinks that That Something is far away and beyond his reach. But the Chandogya Upanishad is exhorting him to accept, “Tat Tvam Asi” which means “That Thou Art”. It reveals the universal truth that the Blissful and Beautiful is not far away from the man and that it is the very innermost part, nay existence of him. I think that my paintings are the spontaneous manifestation of the same innermost Blissful and Beautiful reality. Now a question arises as to what exactly this Blissful or Beautiful something is. It is something which makes us thoughtless or empty. When we come across something beautiful, we become empty of all kinds of thoughts, don’t we?
The sight makes us spellbound; rather, we are driven to nothingness. Let me admit, I feel the same when I make my painting. Nobody is there when a creation is coming into existence. The very thought, that I am creating something, withers away. Only a painting is there and nothing else. For me, this sense of nothingness prevails.
I think, for the viewers too, their experience is not much different from that of me. That they are watching a painting, is perhaps the last thought in their mind. It is immediately followed by thoughtlessness or a sort of nothingness. I think, there and there only the judging stops and the Blissfulness begins and for a moment or two, we are all that we should be. Suddenly we are brought home to the realization of “Tat Tvam Asi” or “That Thou Art”, the innermost truth of our existence.
