Kalā of Art

Art as Yoga

Art at its Highest

Art as the basis of education has been Sri Rabindranath Tagore's clarion call, and similarly, but from the perspective of Yoga, this has been expounded in detail by Sri Aurobindo, where he lauds Art in its broadest transformative sense, beyond the aesthetic & illustrative. 

Art and the Mind

It's a classic Yogic mind-shifting technique, to conceive of something so broad that it forces the Mind to go into ever deeper states of enquiry, until the concept becomes so deeply personal it transforms us from within.

It is thus that such a deep conceptualization of Art is Transformative.

When we hear the word Transformation, the one associated word that immediately springs up is Yoga.

In Yoga/Vedānta, Brh-man literally translates from Sanskrit as a broad-mind, bereft of all psychological bias, and thus the ability to see things as they actually are, without the filter of any dogma. 

We can see the parallels between what Sri Aurobindo suggests about Art and its analogue in the universal Cosmic Being of Brhman.

Both are Infinity conceptualized, viewed in two different ways.

The issue with the English word Art is that it does not communicate depth, to the extent of its equivalent in Sanskrit.

Kalā

An apt Sanskrit word for Art is Kalā - which, more than visual beauty, also indicates skill in action.

Beauty

The unique characteristic of Kalā is to cultivate the ability to reveal Beauty in creative endeavors.

Be it song, dance, poetry, lovemaking, painting, sculpture, pottery, and even engineering, coding, organization, selling - whatever field we passionately embrace with skill, expressing creative Beauty in action, this is Kalā - else, it is just a mere technical skill.

As they say, Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder and, in the theory of Kalā, this communication of the essence of Beauty from what is beheld is called Rasa, and one who experiences it is called a Rasika.

Yoga to Kalā

Without Kalā, Yoga is limited to individual transformation, and cannot be experienced in society.

When a Yogi cultivates skill of action in a creative pursuit, this becomes an expression of Kalā.

When such a creative pursuit is in the domain of legendary storytelling, then such a Yogi becomes a Rishi, a fabled storyteller from the stars, guiding humanity with the light of inspired prescience - the main thesis of this site.

Yoga and Kalā

The parallels between Yoga and Kalā are more than just in their capabilities of vast expression.

At a very physiological level, both cultivate a state of sensitivity:

• Kalā, of its sense of external perception, and hence the communication of the joy of Rasa to the Rasika.

• Yoga, directly, of the inner nervous system, and the generation of Ānanda, the nectar of bliss, within the Yogi.

The Yogi's skill, in any type of action, shows up in this shloka of the Bhagavad Gita: 

बुद्धियुक्तो जहातीह उभे सुकृतदुष्कृते |

तस्माद्योगाय युज्यस्व योग: कर्मसु कौशलम्

Meaning, with intelligence, when we transcend duality in happiness & sorrow, then engaged in Yoga it becomes skill in action.

To paraphrase Yogah-karmasu-kaushalam - Yoga as skill-in-action

• thus, Kalā-yogeshu-soundaryam - Kalā is beauty-in-yoga

Notice that since Karmasu is plural (in all actions), hence Yogeshu is used - indicating "all Yoga's". Of course, ultimately there is only one Yoga, but for poetic license we admit there are many, and the meta-purpose of Yoga is to integrate these various flavors into one Yoga.

Together, Yoga and Kalā is sheer brilliance - get the dualistic reference here - intelligence is brilliant, and beauty shines in its revealed brilliance.

यथा योगः कर्मसु कौशलम्
तथैव कला योगेषु सौन्दर्यम् ।

(यदा मिलित्वा)

जीवनम् संयक् कृतम्
तदैव सृष्टिः संस्कृतम् ।।