by Jon Rappoport
April 1, 2014
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For some unknown reason, the last post deleted the section on Tibet….here it is:
There’s a local church in my neighborhood that brings in Tibetan monks once a year to do a sand painting.
For a few days, the Monks use colored sands to create a very complex mandala on a table.
Then at the Easter service, the monks destroy the mandala. They always do that. That’s their gig. They make it over the course of a few days and then they whisk it away into dust.
An array of reasons is given to the congregation, to explain why the monks get rid of the sand painting after they’ve completed it.
One, they’re “transmuting” the painting. Two, they’re using the sand to create “healing.” Three, giving people small envelopes of sand, they’re “spreading the healing/creation.” Four, they’re illustrating the ineffable or transient nature of all things.
These are all New Age reasons. Superficial jive food for a modern entrained audience.
In the ancient Tibetan tradition, the creation of art (I’m boiling it down) had a purpose: to reveal that the universe is a product of mind. Period.
The universe, then, isn’t some final sacred entity, it’s a work of art…and if it can be vividly and deeply perceived as such, the adept (artist) can then spontaneously delete pieces of physical reality and/or insert pieces of his own invented reality into universe.
To really qualify as an adept/artist who understands all this, you also have to able to destroy (as in DESTROY) what you create. Not disperse it or turn it into some healing force or blow magic dust on a crowd with it. No.
A long time ago, the Tibetans clogged up their own technique of creative work with immense amounts of ceremonial baggage and ritual and “preparation.” You couldn’t go straight into practicing their creative techniques. You had to approach it from a long way off, and you had to endure all sorts of introductory strain before you walked through the door.
Then on top of that, coming into modern times, further New Age fluff was added to the mix, resulting in a ludicrous mess.
“Hey, man, give me some of that magic dust!”
(To read about Jon’s mega-collection, Exit From The Matrix, click here.)
Anyway, you see, DESTROYING isn’t a word you want to use nakedly, in polite company, to describe what’s happening to those sand paintings. It’s too stark for people. It’s too real. It’s too profound.
Destroying what you create means a few things: you know you can always create more; you have that bedrock confidence; you aren’t afraid that if you destroy what you created, you’ll suddenly find yourself in a great big vacuum; you’re perfectly willing to stop creating; you aren’t residing in some whimpering spaghetti of ideas and feelings about creation and destruction; you aren’t conning yourself with all that garbage; you aren’t totally relying on what you’ve created to feed back messages to you about what you should do in your life.
And destroying what you created also means you can enter into what the Tibetans call the Void, which, when you strip it of all superfluous nonsense, really is the place where you’re not creating anything.
And then you can start creating again.
Yes, the ancient Tibetans—before they obscured their own cosmic kick-ass philosophy—the most profound of Earth-bred cosmologies—were on to something. They weren’t messing around.
They were way ahead of the baloney modern so-called gurus have been cutting and turning out.
The monk sand painters at the local church on Sunday? I have no idea whether they know and remember all this. But they are a vague reminder of that wildness.
Whether anyone knows or cares, that’s what the sand painting and destruction are about.
It doesn’t need an audience at all. The audience is supposed to be doing the painting and the destroying, too.
Jon Rappoport
The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.
Reblogged this on Tania Marie's Blog and commented:
I love this post by Jon Rappoport on “creation” and “destruction” – very powerful. I had recently, and synchronously, watched a documentary sharing on the Tibetan monks creating their complex sand painting mandalas, and had pondered the meanings behind the process. I feel Jon wonderfully describes the symbolism. Hope you find his article liberating.
Our conscious creative force is what separates us from most animals. We must create. And every ten year old boy loves to create something, and then to destroy it. Somewhere later in life, we forget the joy of destruction, and many of us never grasp the meaning.
Love your article Jon, thank you. I’ve studied shamanism from a lineage of indigenous peoples of the Andes/Amazon. They have a number of ceremonies where you also create mandalas (I would say similar to sand paintings) on the earth. I have done a number of these for various things I was working with. One particular mandala I created was about my life from the past that had had really big challenges for me. So I took this opportunity to create a mandala of that time period. I left it alone for a specified amount of time. Then I went back and rearranged the design of the mandala to what I would have rather had it be, looking on as an adult with a different perspective.
During each phase I would sit and visit with it and it was a powerful process. Then I dissembled everything and put it back from where I had taken it from as best I could. I’ve repeated this process a number of times whenever I sense a shift is needed. The Tibetan Monks were certainly onto something powerful before it became diluted.
We are all creators, if we take that responsibility. Sometimes we create things we don’t like. But that is no reason to stay stuck in them. We can break it all down and begin again. As long as we understand the power we wield and embrace it instead of fear it.
This is a very deep concept, Jon that goes way beyond the simplicity of art. In fact it redefines a superficial vain creative force mesmerised on its own brilliance. I remember a friend calling Andy Warhol’s output “a load of junk”. Just as with the hoarders of junk, surely a disciplined supreme creator [beyond reproach] would have a clear out every now and again. If that is not being used; it has ceased to be of ‘value’, it is junk. Yeah, the antiques guys might love it in the future, but it is junk today and the clear out is now. As ambassadors of the supreme creative force, can we decide what can go and what can stay in SINCERITY?
I know this is moving away from the “point” of the article, but think about it………
Did anyone else catch the wink from the Universe (or maybe just irony) that “For some unknown reason, the last post deleted the section on Tibet” — a section about the destruction of a created something? Giggles.
Well, the tibetan buddhists are actually an overlay upon the Bon people, who, in fact, were the founders of that “kick ass” cosmology. When circumambulating the Kang Rinpoche (Mount Kailas) on pilgrimage, the tibetan buddhists follow a clockwise direction, the Bonpo (followers of the indigenous spiritual tradition), follow a counter-clockwise route. When asked why, the Bonpo replied: ” I’m not following the Buddha, I’m going to meet him.” (From: Tibet: Reflections on the Wheel of Life, Duham and Baker). THAT is the statement of a true, independent artist.
Most people are unaware that, in practice in Tibet, the Tibetan Monarchy is nothing more than a feudal lordship, the religion “owning” massive amounts of land and cattle and taxing the peasants to impoverishment to maintain the hierarchy of the Church of Tibetan Buddhism.
So, there is a LOT of reality there that has not been revealed and, perhaps, we should not wax so ecstatic about yet another, hierarchical religious structure – not much different than Catholicism, though I do like the Tibetan costumes much better. And, having been a student of the Shambhala tradition, I do find it to be the most accessible form of meditation amongst the various and sundry forms of buddhism.
If you really want a kick ass way of being, indigenous people hold the keys to that ancient art.
And, I suggest you might want to check out the Tao, both its philosophy and practical meditative, martial and medicinal arts. No hierarchy, no titles, no belts nor degrees (as in white, green brown, black belts . . . etc.). One’s “kung fu” is one’s kung fu and NO certificate nor piece of paper nor “degree” can bestow that – it simply shows in HOW you are in your life and in the “dojo.”
I do, however, very much appreciate all of your articles. They are interesting, creative, fun and inspiring and I share your observations to a great degree
Wise words TaoWisdom….and let us not forget the lengths the Tibetan faux monarchy went to control the people up to Chinese intervention. Their array of torture implements (including devices for the removal of just about every body part) would make the Illuminati sponsors scream with glee. Perhaps China has been a “blessing” after all……
Do you think the Bon were aware of mind parasites?
Were they aware of the destructive nature of Judea-Christian reality? Therefor possibly giving credence to diety manifestation as a means towards a balance…protection of the imaginative center.
Do you think Bon influenced the Gnostics, or possibly, Gnostics were Bonpo.
They seem remarkably close, actually it’s startling from were I stand!
Do you think there is a relationship between mind pharmacriticals and the shutting down of the imaginative center.
Maybe I am answering my own questions.
I am thinking out loud…really. Tibet is such a pregnant thought.
Why have you stopped writing in ‘OutsideTheRealityMachine’?
It’s your best work!