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In Sanskrit, mandala means a circle, a holy circle of life and all creation,
the circle being a symbol of completion, unity and wholeness. In many cultures, mandala therefore represents
a sacred space that reveals deep truths about us and the world. These sacred spaces are
drawn and brought into life by Vanda Omejc and Gabrijela Železnik who, on their rich
spiritual path, have discovered not only the wisdom of mandalas but also the secret to
their depiction.
First, I want to say that mandala is truly
a bridge between the invisible and visible world, between what you can and cannot touch,
between what you can and cannot hear. Basically, mandala is everything, our way of life,
our development. It is everything that is visible and invisible in us. We could say that it
is a spiritual image, somehow brought from the invisible into the visible. We can feel
this image and bring it into the visible. It is what sends some sort of frequencies
or what brings joy into our lives. Mandala is basically some sort of equilibrium,
it is like a rainbow, meaning it comprises all colour frequencies, from red to the highest,
including those shades that are invisible to the naked eye and can be seen only if you
a take a deeper look at it. This deeper look can be achieved through our own peacefulness,
relaxation, long years' work on ourselves. Afterwards, it gradually opens to us.
And you also need to make special preparations
before you start working on a mandala; this is probably not as easy as one might think,
is it?
No. This is the preparation.
Basically, first, there is a relaxation technique, a cessation of thoughts, emotions, and observation
of our own thoughts. When I completely remove them, images begin to appear, and then I can
transfer these images onto a sketch as a spiritual image.
So, as you have said, mandalas are a link,
a path, a bridge between the visible and the invisible, and at the same time they can be
a way, also a sort of an aid, to raise our consciousness and also to raise the awareness
in those invisible parts of our being, which we are perhaps not even aware of.
Exactly; because mandala is basically a path
to achieving peace and harmonisation within our own being. This is one of the aids,
and today there are more such aids; it can be breathing exercises, or it can be something else.
But mandalas are one of the paths, perhaps also easier ones, to relax your body faster.
For example, if you looked into the centre of a mandala for five minutes every day
- in the morning before you go to work or school - taking three or four long and deep breaths,
your body would be relaxed, calm, and you could go to school or workplace completely calm.
It is an aid that helps us to harmonise ourselves or, in a long run, to get back
in touch with ourselves. And this is the point and mission of our lives;
to get in touch with ourselves.
Mandalas guide us, warn us and lead us,
say the artists. Their mandalas have been shown in several exhibitions visited by both kids
and adults, for the visual language of mandalas is universal and touches everybody.
Their books and colouring books are also extremely popular, as colouring a mandala itself calms
the spirit and relaxes the tension.
What kind of a lighthouse were mandalas,
and still are, to you on your spiritual path?
They are still a large lighthouse, they enable
me to grow, stay calm, be in touch with myself, and that is the point. Thus even when life
is tough, you can relax through mandalas, you overcome the whole thing easier,
and you see the world through different eyes.
The Buddhist wisdom says: »See all living
beings as Buddhas, hear all sounds as mantras, and envision the reality as a mandala.«
For that purpose, the mandala also has healing properties. In the Western world, this dimension
was recognised also by the renowned psychologist Carl Gustav Jung, who described the mandala
as a psychocosmogram or as a drawing of the universe of our soul. In his definition,
the mandala therefore maintains and restores mental equilibrium.
Before I start painting, before I even pick up the brush,
I first calm down internally. Basically, I express thanks for the perfect guidance,
and then I just function. Because while painting, I generally do not feel myself
as a physical person, but I somehow become lost in time and space, falling into a sort
of a non-dimensional space, and that is it.
How do you experience this creativity,
the process of creating mandalas? Does it affect you and work on you, too? How can you tell
that it will not affect only those to whom it will mean something, those who will become
in tune with it?
I mainly feel great peace. Peace that I could
almost touch. This is how it affects me. And this peace, this internal harmony, is also
what makes me truly happy. When I pick up the brush, I simply feel my soul playing
a song of happiness: "Oh, finally!", "Now it feels like home". And from this spiritual world,
I will bring these feelings into this physical world, into this reality, into this
experience in this life.
So we could say that these spiritual experiences
actually also open the door to an entirely new view of and relationship with the everyday
real world you live in?
Yes, definitely. We are used to, are taught
to see only one aspect, one view of the world, of ourselves, of everything around us.
Mandalas help us and give us understanding and a deeper insight, so that we can see that not everything
what we see with our five senses is the ultimate truth, that there is another world, that there
is a lot more to it, and that this is a wonderful world with infinite possibilities. And consequently
we start to realise that we are beings of infinite beauty, infinite harmony,
and that, if we want to - this is, of course, connected to our free will - we can evoke this in ourselves
and live like that. And this is the goal.
With mandalas, we want to help people relax,
achieve balance and awaken their conscience, say Vanda and Gabrijela, adding that the mission
of mandalas is to bring peace, joy, happiness and love back into people's hearts.