Silence speaks the depth of still waters- where manifestation requires no action. The story of my favourite abstract painting.

Silence Speaks the Depth of Still Waters, Where Manifestation Requires No Action

The above image of my all time favourite watercolour painting is reproduced in high resolution here as my gift to you. Feel free to copy it, paste it, print it, keep it for yourself or share it... Though I painted it back in 2009, I still get a little bubble of excitement whenever I see it, because for me this abstract piece is more than just a picture; it's a manifestation of the times of change that swept me on a journey into the greatest blessings of my life. This blog post tells the story:

Four years before painting this piece, I moved to Vancouver to attend the Emily Carr University of Art and Design. At the time of my move, something felt a little off, though I couldn't quite put my finger on why. Of course, I loved art, and I instantly fell in love with the city of Vancouver, with it's futuristic cityscape juxtaposed against a backdrop of mountains and sea... To the outside observer, it may have appeared that I had achieved my dream: I was accepted into what was then Canada's most prestigious and exclusive art school, I lived in the city of my dreams, and by luck, I had managed to score a private but affordable apartment of my own in a beautiful neighbourhood. Inside, though, I was feeling like my life was pulling me along in the wrong direction; something big was missing, and I didn't know what it was or where to find it.

During my first week of school, I went to see a Tarot card reader, whose shop was on my daily route. Something compelled me to go in and see what she might have to say. Her name was Elspeth, and she was an elderly British lady who spoke with a lilting accent, dressed in a style reminiscent of Mrs. Trelawney in the Harry Potter series. Her fee was pretty high, but I didn't let that deter me. Since I was on a student budget, I opted for a 15 minute reading, and in that quarter of an hour, Elspeth revealed for me what felt like a treasure trove of information. Though she had no logical way of knowing anything about me, she blew my mind the moment she started to describe my cards, saying, "I can see by this combination that you believe you've come here to attend art school, but you've actually come to Vancouver to discover your spiritual path." She went on to tell me that I had the same gift she has. When I asked if that was something she told everyone, she replied, "No, it's something I've never before told anyone. And I can see very clearly, in five years time, you'll be doing the same work that I do now."

Her words haunted me in the best possible way over the next few years; I wondered how it would come to pass that I would be doing the same kind of work she did, when nobody, other than her, knew that I read Tarot cards. I didn't consider myself capable of giving other people advice, because my own life was a mess. (Yes, this may come as a surprise to you, if you're one of my YouTube viewers, or if you've seen me on stage introducing Swamiji on the first day of the Inner Awakening program, but surely, there was a time- and not too long ago- when I felt like my life was doomed!)

What was going wrong with me? Now, looking back, I can see exactly where I was off course. Everything about my life that felt like a trap was a cage of my own making; a manifestation of my own inner space of victim mentality. About a year into my studies at Emily Carr, my then boyfriend came to join me in Vancouver. He and I had dated in my home town from the time I was seventeen, and maintained a long distance relationship when I moved. This might have been a good thing in some people's lives, but in mine, it was horrific. He was not a good guy. I'm sure he was depressed, possibly suffering with some undiagnosed psychological disorder. I later came to know he was hiding a severe addiction to cocaine, which explained his erratic, passive aggressive, manic depressive behaviour. He would yell some days, mope around others; he would criticize me, call me names, tell me I was useless, pick fist fights with strangers, tell me that I was useless but that I wouldn't survive without him, which I sadly believed. Of course, I wasn't just a victim in all this; when he yelled at me, I yelled back; when he picked me apart, naming all the qualifies he hated about me most, I'd do the same to him.

Okay, I didn't set out to make this blog into a downer, so let's flash forward again, to the events of 2009. One night, this guy went out with his friends. I was sitting alone in our tiny mess of an apartment, feeling a combination of gratitude to have the place to myself for once, and dread that at some point, maybe that night, maybe the next morning, he would come back. If you've ever been in a toxic relationship, you know exactly what I mean. To shake this feeling, I did something I rarely did: I went for a long walk to watch the sunset. Somehow, something inside me shifted... I looked up into the sky and saw a beautiful sight: as if painted against the backdrop of yellow daytime haze blending into the blue of coming twilight, a cloud stretched it's wings in a huge, beyond realistic form of a flying eagle. It was the most awe inspiring sight I had ever seen! It was like Existence Itself was giving me a message, telling me that everything would be alright, that freedom was possible.

That vision in the sky gave me more hope than I had had in a long time! As I gazed up at the eagle even my then agnostic mind had decided God must have painted just for me, I said an inward prayer:

"Whoever You are, thank You for this sign! Please, let me have freedom! Give me the strength to break free! Give me whatever I need to end this horrible period of my life! Let me become who I'm supposed to be!"

Once the eagle had flown away as wisps and swirls of greyscale, and the yellow and blues of the sky had darkened to the deep indigo of night, I walked back home. Curious about the sign I had seen, I turned on the computer, ready to do a Google search for the key words "eagle, cloud, message, freedom."

When the computer screen came alight, though, something miraculous happened: the guy had left his Facebook inbox open, and there, without snooping or searching for anything, I discovered pages of conversations he was having with girls he was trying to pick up, some of which went into elaborate detail about their kissing and fooling around; other chats were obviously with girls with whom he was clearly trying to score. Amazingly, these didn't make me feel sad or angry; I felt intensely relieved. Thanks to the Gods! It was exactly what I needed, and what I had prayed for: a fool proof reason to leave him, which nobody could argue with, not even him. It was my ticket to freedom.

I called his number, almost giddy, and chirped into the phone, "Don't come home tonight. Have fun with your friends. It's over between us; thanks for leaving your Facebook inbox open." 

On the other end of the phone was total silence, then the words, "oh, fuck," and then an attempted explanation and apology. Even that didn't bother me. 

I said, "No need to apologize. We're wrong for each other. I'm letting you go; you let me go. Do whatever you want, just don't come home tonight."

I then called one of his guy friends, told him what had happened, and asked him to babysit for me that night, which he very kindly agreed to do. He told me not to worry; that he didn't know about the cheating, but that he had thought for a long time that I was being mistreated and could do better. He wished me luck, and apologized for not speaking up sooner about the cruelty he had witnessed. I thanked him, and wished him luck in life, as well. (Now, looking back, it's pretty telling that the friends of the guy I left had sided with me, not him...)

After making these calls, I turned off the computer. I didn't need to search for the word "eagles" or "cloud meanings" or anything else; I knew for a fact that what I had seen in the sky was truly a harbinger of my freedom, and without knowing how I knew it, I knew exactly what I had to do. I turned off my cell phone, locked the door and pushed against it and under the knob and sat down on the bed. I closed my eyes, put my hands on my knees, and prayed. 

"Goddess," I inwardly said, "Diving Mother, You have revealed Yourself to me in visions and dreams. You have shown me possibilities for myself that I could never have imagined. You have shown me what it is to be One with You. I want to offer You this body, this life. Take it. I don't deserve to live here; I have done nothing good for the world. You could do so much if You were alive and in form. Take my body; take my life; whatever is mine is Yours."

All night I sat there, desperately trying to invoke the Goddess whom I had first seen at the age of 13, when She appeared to me as Kali, and whom I experienced in dreams off and on forever more, but who remained elusive that night as I called out to Her. The next morning, as I showered and prepared for my day at work, I realized something: my body and my life were not worthy offerings for Her! Why would the Divine Mother want a body that was out of shape? Why would she want to take over a life that was falling apart? It was my aha moment; I knew I had to make myself a worthy instrument for her. I skipped my usual breakfast of sugary cereal with sweetened soy milk, and decided not to take the bus to work; instead, I walked, and on the way, picked up some fresh fruit and raw nuts. If I was offering my body to the Goddess, I had to make it healthy for Her, first.

When I got to work, I joyfully told my co-workers the good news. "I dumped him! He's cheating on me!"

They tried to comfort me, and were a bit perplexed when I told them that I didn't need to be comforted- that I had prayed to get out of that relationship, and felt relieved to discover his infidelity. I told them there was only one thing I needed help with: finding a new apartment. When none of them had any leads, I remembered the eagle in the sky, and once again spoke to that same Power, simply asking to let me find whatever I needed to find in order to move out. Within minutes of that silent prayer, my phone rang. It was a friend who had met the guys the night before; she told me she had heard my news, and congratulated me! (That was the reaction I was looking for!) Then, in a beautiful turn of events, she told me she had just broken up with her boyfriend, too, and had a spare room in her condo that she was ready to rent out. It was half of what I had been paying before, and much more beautiful. I jumped at the chance!

This was in June of 2009, and on the first day of July, I moved in to the new place.

Just as I thought everything was going perfectly... everything got even better! One evening, my mom called with some interesting news; she had met an Indian lady in the mountain town of Waterton Lakes National Park. The lady gave her a quick little note and a crystal, telling her to wait until the time was right to give it to me. (That note, my friends, will have to wait for my next blog post...) She then told my mother to tell me something very specific: she told me to meet with a Tarot card reader on Granville Island. When this was revealed, I asked my mother if she had told this lady from India that I lived in Vancouver, and worked on Granville Island. As surprised as I was, my mom said no- she hadn't told her anything about me at all.

The next day, while I was at work in a mystical shop called Dragonspace, on Granville Island, I glanced outside just in time to see a woman standing in the doorway, affixing a flyer to our community bulletin board. I recognized her immediately as Denise, the owner of a small studio called The Tarot Room. I rushed out the door without so much as a nod to my co-workers, and excitedly asked her, "Do you know an Indian lady who works in Waterton?"

She looked at me with wide eyes, and said, "No... but I've seen you in my dreams every night for the past week! Do you read Tarot cards?" 

I said, "Yes! Yes, I do."

"Great," she replied. "You're hired. You can come to The Tarot Room during your next break to pick up the key and we can work out your schedule."

I asked her if she was serious, and she explained that she was hoping to cut her hours back to four days a week, and needed someone to sit in her place for the other three. Just like that, without an interview, or a reference check, or a test of any kind, she gave me a key to her store, and told me to charge the same price she did.

"Don't tell anybody you're new," she advised me. "I know who you are, and you're worth every penny." Since I was building up my clientele from scratch, she gave me an amazing gift: she charged me rent for the shop only on days when I did more than break even. (Which happily turned out to be every day.)

For about a week, I was in total awe and wonder. I loved my life and woke up excited every morning, like a little kid. I loved my bedroom in my friend's condo; I loved my jobs; I loved being single and free! Even more, I knew there was some higher power taking care of me, and trusted that some day, somehow, I would know who that higher power was. 

One fine morning, though the distance was far, I decided to walk to work. My walk just happened to take me past an art supply shop. Since taking on shifts at The Tarot Room, and getting lucky with $300 a month rent, (yes... that was a miracle,) I actually had some money to spend, so I treated myself to fancy watercolour paints, brushes and paper. That day, between clients at the Tarot Room, I contemplated the miracles that happen in life when we finally just ask Existence for help, and painted this abstract painting. I didn't think about what I was putting down on the paper; I didn't specifically add any symbols or representational elements; I just let my joy come through as lines and shapes and colours. I worked on this a little bit every day, and once it was finished, I quickly signed it, dated it, (July - August meaning that it spanned the end of July into the first few days of August,) and scribbled, in lieu of a title, the first words that popped into my head:

Silence Speaks the depth of still waters - where manifestation requires no action. 

Amidst all the miracles that were happening in my life on a daily basis, this painting emerged. Every day, people came to me with questions, and somehow, without knowing the source of the answers, words would flow through me, sparked by randomly drawn cards, that genuinely helped them and guided them. Every day, I skipped to work feeling inspired, then danced back home again, feeling grateful that Existence had blessed me with this gift of intuition. Magic was happening. For example, every time I drew a card from one particular deck, the same card came up: it featured a picture of an Indian man with a turban, and was captioned, "Babaji," with an accompanying message of Yoga. (More on that in my next blog post!)

This painting is an expression of the happiness I felt when I experienced all of this; I loved it so much that I made it into mini prints and gave them to all my clients. It's the culmination of what I wanted when I moved to Vancouver: it's the fine art I thought I had moved there for when I was attending Emily Carr, and was created while doing what a mystic named Elspeth (who, unbeknownst to me at the time, passed away the same week I started reading at The Tarot Room) had told me I would do. It says more than I can say in all the words of this blog; it's the beginning of my spiritual transformation laid down on paper.

As I mentioned, I'll tell more of my story in my next blog... but until then, a little more about this abstract art:

Looking back, after my travels in India and studying about Hinduism, I can see things in this painting that I didn't see at the time it was painted. For example, in the upper right hand corner, I now see something that looks like thee end of a veena, which is the string instrument played by Maa Saraswathi, the aspect of the Divine Mother who blesses us with Art, Music, Wisdom and Creativity.

Since my transformation had started with surrender to the Goddess, I can't help but feel that this symbol popping up in the first painting I made to celebrate my life came as a little gift from Her, letting me know that She is with me, blessing me, guiding me, and accepting my surrender.

I also see tapering green dots reaching up from something like a plant, meeting a series of descending red dots that seem to come from the abstracted end of a veena; the two lines of dots meet in a golden spiral. In the iconography of Vedic art, spirals represent divine energy and the rays of Surya, the god of the sun. Even when I painted this, I felt like those dots meeting from above and below can symbolize an answered prayer; that when we stretch ourselves upwards, Existence will reach down and bless us. (This was later confirmed for me when, in 2010, at a program called Inner Awakening, my Guru revealed to us, "When you take one step in the direction of enlightenment, the whole Existence rushes to fulfill you!")

Besides these, the colours are happy, bright, deliberately chosen to bring some flowery sunshine energy to whoever sees them. 

And as for the title... what do I now think of these spontaneous words that popped into my mind the moment I finished the painting? They mean more to me now than they did then: 

Nithyananda teaches us that manifestation is easy; we are not our past failures, or a collection of mistakes, beliefs or socially imposed labels. We are whatever we intend to be! What we believe we are, that is what we will become. Before June of 2009, I didn't have an intention to be; I felt trapped in a horrible relationship and didn't see any way out. Then on that fateful evening, an eagle of a new dawn (that I can't help but now equate with Garuda, the vehicle of Sri Vishnu,) gave me new hope. I chose a new context for my life, and instead of trying to figure out how to make what I wanted into a reality, I surrendered. I gave up on my limitations and my long held beliefs about myself. I didn't "want" to get in shape; I started to exercise, do yoga and eat better, and just made it happen. I didn't "want" a new job; I decided to be the best self I could be and the best possible job literally just happened for me. I didn't "decide" to take up art again; one sunny day on my way to work, I just spontaneously popped into an art supply shop, bought the materials, and started painting again.

The phrase "Silence Speaks the depth of still waters" is my ode to the saying that still waters run deep; that people whose inner spaces are centred on love and light can't be easily shaken or angered. It's an ode, from someone who then spoke for a living, talking to clients all day, to wordlessness; the non-verbal inner space we experience when lost in the right brain mode know to athletes as "the zone" and artists as the flow of creativity.

"Where manifestation requires no action" doesn't mean that we shouldn't get off our butts and do something; it doesn't mean we'll become experts without studying or that we'll have what we want without taking responsibility to get it. It means, when we shift our inner space, when we choose to be positive instead of negative, whatever we need to take ourselves to the next level will simply become available for us. We'll get the empowerment we need through that my Guru calls Will Persistence, which is always rewarded with sacred synchronicity. We'll attract more and more of what we are. What we believe, that is what we will become. Manifestation requires not action but intention; it's about the space we carry and our choice to be what we want to be.

If you're feeling stuck in life, I hope this inspires you to trust; get outside and enjoy the sunset; pray; meditate; know that you're more than the sum total of whatever has happened in your life so far. As my beloved Guru, about whom I'll share more in upcoming blogs, always tells: You are your intention to be! 

Nithyanandam <3