The Golden Light – Paintings inspired by Sri Aurobindo’s poems

At last I find a meaning of soul’s birth

Into this universe terrible and sweet,

I who have felt the hungry heart of earth

Aspiring beyond heaven to Krishna’s feet.

I have seen the beauty of immortal eyes,

And heard the passion of the Lover’s flute,

And known a deathless ecstasy’s surprise

And sorrow in my heart for ever mute.

Nearer and nearer now the music draws,

Life shudders with a strange felicity;

All Nature is a wide enamoured pause

Hoping her lord to touch, to clasp, to be.

For this one moment lived the ages past;

The world now throbs fulfilled in me at last.

Thy golden Light came down into my brain

And the grey rooms of mind sun-touched became

A bright reply to Wisdom’s occult plane,

A calm illumination and a flame.

Thy golden Light came down into my throat,

And all my speech is now a tune divine,

A paean song of Thee my single note;

My words are drunk with the Immortal’s wine.

Thy golden Light came down into my heart

Smiting my life with Thy eternity;

Now has it grown a temple where Thou art

And all its passions point towards only Thee.

Thy golden Light came down into my feet;

My earth is now Thy playfield and Thy seat.

My breath runs in a subtle rhythmic stream;

It fills my members with a might divine:

I have drunk the Infinite like a giant’s wine.

Time is my drama or my pageant dream.

How are my illumined cells joy’s flaming scheme

And changed my thrilled and branching nerves to fine

Channels of rapture opal and hyaline

For the influx of the Unknown and the Supreme.

I am no more a vassal of the flesh,

A slave to Nature and her leaden rule;

I am caught no more in the senses’ narrow mesh.

My soul unhorizoned widens to measureless sight,

My body is God’s happy living tool,

My spirit a vast sun of deathless light.

In her artistic journey spanning over three decades, she has exhibited her work only twice so far in the format of a solo exhibition. She was at first reluctant to attempt illustrating Sri Aurobindo’s words, since she usually writes and illustrates books for children in her spare time. But when Shakti initiated a project in which she composed music for some of Sri Aurobindo’s poems, to be accompanied by paintings and dance, she invited Jyoti to collaborate. Jyoti saw it as an offering and started her work of painting this series.

The artist says she grew up reading Sri Aurobindo’s poetry and always felt drawn to it. As she re-read the poems before painting them, she felt that the words created an inspiration that then formed a visual image through her mind. Her process as she starts painting then becomes a dynamic work, also because of the use of (fast-drying) watercolours.

Jyoti says that what helps her creative flow is listening to music while painting. What needs to come through can then flow unhindered, while the mind is kept out of it yet something stays alert to what wants to express itself. The colours come to her, choosing her. They come naturally, while she simply aspires for a luminous energy. ‘It is a state of being when I’m painting that stabilises in that moment, which I then try to keep in the rest of my life.’

Jyoti recalls that Sri Aurobindo always encouraged people to use art as a means of sadhana, of opening ourselves to higher inspirations, and she resonates with that approach, so this project made sense to her: ‘his poetry are his realisations, his siddhis, whereas what we do is just a little attempt at being in that energy, and that is my humble offering to Them, and I felt guided’.

She feels open to sharing these works because ‘it is an occasion for people to come in contact with Sri Aurobindo’s poetry, because people don’t go towards it so easily. This exhibition is just a medium for giving a taste of Sri Aurobindo’s poetry. That is the reason why the poems are printed big and displayed alongside the paintings instead of as small captions. I wanted people to first experience the poems, and then connect with the paintings.’

Regarding her illustration of the poem Krishna, the artist takes us through the process of illustrating it:

‘I was looking in my mind for Krishna’s face, his flute, the peacock feathers, and I was wondering how to bring out this aspiration for Krishna. At first, nothing except the face of Krishna came to me. But there are many paintings of Krishna, so I asked myself how I could attempt to make it Sri Aurobindo’s Krishna. As this process went on for several days, I started sketching Krishna’s face, but that concept was somehow pushed away from me. then came to me were Krisha’s feet. I just had to draw the feet, so that is what I did. There is this sense of yearning, of searching, of reaching out to Krishna, and this came very strongly to me, so that I just had to paint these hands, reaching out to Krishna, because that is what the poem is about. And if you look at the painting, it is not proportional. The elongated arms represent and accentuate the longing, the yearning, the aspiration, the path to Him.

“The brown is the earth aspiring to Krishna’s feet. The flowers represent the grace that is descending. Mother’s name for these flowers ‘happens’ to be ‘First sign of Krishna’s light in Matter’, and before even knowing their name, I knew I had to put those flowers that grow at grass level...these indications just came to me and I followed them. The process was very special, I was going in one direction and then I was pulled into this other direction very briskly and only as I was finishing the work did I fully get the sense of what had emerged. And this keeps happening in different ways.’

(based on a video interview by the Unity Pavilion team on the occasion of the inauguration of the exhibition)