About the color green

The Color Green

The color green is the color of balance and harmony. From a color psychology perspective, it is the great balancer of the heart and the emotions, creating equilibrium between the head and the heart.

From a meaning of colors perspective, green is also the color of growth, the color of spring, of renewal and rebirth. It renews and restores depleted energy. It is the sanctuary away from the stresses of modern living, restoring us back to a sense of well being. This is why there is so much of this relaxing color on the earth, and why we need to keep it that way.

The color green is an emotionally positive color, giving us the ability to love and nurture ourselves and others unconditionally. A natural peacemaker, green must avoid the tendency to become a martyr.

Green loves to observe. It relates to the counselor, the good listener, the social worker. Itloves to contribute to society. It is the charity worker, the good parent and the helpful neighbor.

Being a combination of yellow and blue, the color green encompasses the mental clarity and optimism of yellow with the emotional calm and insight of blue, inspiring hope and a generosity of spirit not available from other colors.

Green has a strong sense of right or wrong, inviting good judgment. It sees both sides of the equation, weighs them up, and then usually takes the moral stand in making appropriate decisions. On the negative side, green can be judgmental and over-cautious.

Green promotes a love of nature, and a love of family, friends, pets and the home. It is the color of the garden lover, the home lover and the good host.

Green is generous and loves to share, but it also looks for recognition. It is friendly and can keep confidences.

Green relates to stability and endurance, giving us persistence and the strength to cope with adversity.

Green is the color of prosperity and abundance, of finance and material wealth. It relates to the business world, to real estate and property. Prosperity gives a feeling of safety to green.

On the negative, the color green can be possessive and materialistic, with a need to own people and things.

Positive and Negative Traits of Green

Positive keywords include: growth and vitality, renewal and restoration, self-reliance, reliability and dependability, being tactful, emotionally balanced and calm, nature lover and family oriented, practical and down to earth, sympathetic, compassionate and nurturing, generous, kind and loyal with a high moral sense, adaptable, encourages 'social joining' of clubs and other groups, a need to belong.

Negative keywords include: being possessive and materialistic, indifferent and over-cautious, envious, selfish, greedy and miserly, devious with money, inconsiderate, a hypochondriac and a do-gooder.

Green Represents:

Harmony and balance: Green is the great balancer of our mental, emotional and physical energies which is why there is so much green on our planet. Green is the heart centre of the body.

Growth: As in nature, green leaves are an indication the plant is still growing.

Hope: Green is the anticipation of things to come.

Effects of Green:

Rejuvenating: The color green revitalizes us when we are physically, mentally or emotionally exhausted.

Nurturing: Because of its link with the heart, green urges us to nurture others. Green is also nurturing to us - another reason why it is the most predominant colour on earth.

Dependable, agreeable and diplomatic: The color green helps us to see situations clearly from all sides.

Possessiveness: Green is a color that encourages us to want to own things and people, to collect and possess. Green encourages materialism.

Envy: 'Green with envy' is a common phrase and a negative reaction to the color green.

Variations of the Color Green

Pale green: As the color of new growth on plants, it indicates immaturity, youthfulness and inexperience. It allows us to see things from a new perspective, to make a fresh start.

Emerald green: This is an inspiring and uplifting color suggesting abundance and wealth in all its forms, from material wellbeing, to emotional wellbeing to creative ideas.

Jade green: The color of trust and confidentiality, tact and diplomacy, jade green indicates a generosity of spirit, giving without expecting anything in return. It increases worldly wisdom and understanding, assisting in the search for enlightenment.

Lime green: Lime green inspires youthfulness, naivety and playfulness; it is liked the most by younger people. It creates a feeling of anticipation, and helps to clear the mind of negativity.

Dark green: There is a degree of resentment in dark green. Often used by wealthy businessmen, ambitious and always striving for more wealth, dark green signifies greed and selfish desire.

Aqua: Aqua calms the spirit, offering protection and healing for the emotions.

Olive green: Although the traditional color for peace, 'offering an olive branch', the color olive suggests deceit and treachery, blaming others for its problems. However there is also a strength of character with it that can overcome adversity to develop an understanding and caring of the feelings of others.

Yellow green: This color green suggests cowardice, conflict and fear.

Grass green: Grass green is the color of money. It is self-confident and secure, natural and healthy, occurring in abundance in nature. 

Mandala

Blue rose Mandala

Mandala painting

Blue rose Mandala is inspired with one dream. It is an original acrylic painting.

Transcendental Meditation

Transcendental Meditation

Transcendental Meditation (TM) refers to a specific form of mantra meditation called the Transcendental Meditation technique and an organization called the Transcendental Meditation movement. The TM technique and TM movement were introduced in India in the mid-1950s by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1918–2008).
 
The Maharishi taught thousands of people during a series of world tours from 1958 to 1965, expressing his teachings in spiritual and religious terms. TM became more popular in the 1960s and 1970s, as the Maharishi shifted to a more scientific presentation and his meditation technique was practiced by celebrities. At this time he began training TM teachers and created specialized organizations to present TM to specific segments of the population such as business people and students. By the late 2000s, TM had been taught to millions of people, and the worldwide TM organization had grown to include educational programs, health products, and related services.
 
The TM technique involves the use of a sound or mantra and is practiced for 15–20 minutes twice per day. It is taught by certified teachers through a standard course of instruction but fees vary by country. It is said to be a means of relaxation and stress reduction. Skeptics question its scientific value while proponents say that Transcendental Meditation research indicates improved health, creativity, intelligence, and a positive influence on society. In 1977, a U.S. district court ruled that a curriculum in TM and the Science of Creative 

Intelligence that was being taught in some New Jersey schools was religious in nature and in violation of the First Amendment. The Transcendental Meditation technique has been variously described by sociologists and religious scholars as religious and non-religious. The characterizations and responses to the TM technique by governmental agencies has varied depending on the time period, specific agency, and country of origin.
TM is one of the most widely practiced, and among the most widely researched meditation techniques. Research reviews of the effects of the Transcendental Meditation technique show results ranging from inconclusive  to clinically significant.
 
The Transcendental Meditation (TM) program and the Transcendental Meditation movement originated with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of the organization, and continue beyond his death (2008). In 1955,the Maharishi began publicly teaching a traditional meditation technique learned from his master Brahmananda Saraswati, which he called Transcendental Deep Meditation., and later renamed Transcendental Meditation. 

The Maharishi initiated thousands of people, then developed a TM teacher training program as a way to accelerate the rate of bringing the technique to more people. He also inaugurated a series of world tours which promoted Transcendental Meditation. These factors, coupled with endorsements by celebrities who practiced TM, along with scientific research that validated the technique, helped to popularize the TM in the 1960s and 1970s. As well, in the 1970s advanced meditative techniques were introduced. By the late 2000s, TM had been taught to millions of individuals and the Maharishi was overseeing a large multinational movement.Despite organizational changes and additional techniques, the Transcendental Meditation technique has remained relatively unchanged.
 
Among the first organizations to promote TM were the Spiritual Regeneration Movement and the International Meditation Society. In present times, the movement has grown to encompass schools and universities that teach the practice, and includes many associated programs offering health and well-being based on the Maharishi's interpretation of the Vedic traditions. In the U.S., major organizations included Students International Meditation Society, AFSCI, World Peace Executive Council, Maharishi Vedic Education Corporation, and Global Country of World Peace. The successor to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and head of the Global Country of World Peace, is Tony Nader.
 
The Transcendental Meditation technique is a specific form of mantra meditation developed by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi  and often referred to as Transcendental Meditation or simply, TM. The meditation practice involves the use of a sound, called a mantra, and is practiced for 15–20 minutes twice per day, while sitting with closed eyes. The technique is reported to be one of the most widely practiced, and among the most widely researched, meditation techniques, with over 340 peer-reviewed studies published. Research reviews of the effects of the Transcendental Meditation technique have yielded results ranging from inconclusive to clinically significant. The technique is made available worldwide by certified TM teachers in a seven step course.
 
Beginning in 1965, the Transcendental Meditation technique was incorporated into selected institutional programs such as schools, universities and corporations, as well as social programs aimed at veterans, prison inmates and the homeless. In 1977, a U.S. district court ruled that a curriculum in TM and the Science of Creative Intelligence that was being taught in some New Jersey schools was religious in nature and in violation of the First Amendment. The technique has since been included in educational and social programs worldwide.
 
The Transcendental Meditation technique has been described as both religious and non religious, as an aspect of a New Religious Movement, as having roots in Hinduism, and by the TM movement as scientific and non-religious. Publicity campaigns for the TM technique have varied over a 50 year history. It has been praised for visibility in the mass media and effective global propagation, and criticized for turning its celebrity and scientific endorsements into propaganda. The fees for the TM course vary from country to country.
 
Advanced courses supplement the TM technique and include an advanced meditation called the TM-Sidhi program. In 1970, the Science of Creative Intelligence (SCI) became the theoretical basis for the Transcendental Meditation technique, although skeptics questioned its scientific nature. According to proponents, when 1 percent of a population (such as a city or country) practices the TM technique daily, their practice influences the quality of life for that population. This has been termed the Maharishi Effect.
 
The Transcendental Meditation movement (also referred to as Transcendental Meditation or TM, Maharishi's worldwide movement, and the Transcendental Meditation organization) is a worldwide organization, sometimes characterized as a neo-Hindu new religious movement, and also as non-religious, founded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in the 1950s. Estimated to have tens of thousands of participants, with high estimates citing as many as several million, the global organization also consists of close to 1,000 TM centers, and controls property assets of the order of USD 3.5 billion (1998 estimate), including real estate holdings, schools, and clinics.
T
he term Transcendental Meditation movement refers to programs and organizations connected to the Transcendental Meditation technique that were developed and or introduced by the founder. These programs include the TM-Sidhi program, Maharishi Ayurveda and Maharishi Sthapatya Veda. The TM-Sidhi program is an advanced form of Transcendental Meditation and includes "Yogic flying". Maharishi Ayurveda is an alternative system of health care that aims to restore balance in the physiology, eliminate impurities, and awaken the body's natural healing mechanisms. Maharishi Sthapatya Veda is a system of architectural and planning principles based on "ancient Sanskrit texts" The movement also operates numerous schools and universities, offers monastic programs called Mother Divine and Thousand Headed Purusha, operates health centers such as The Raj and Maharishi Ayurveda Health Center, assorted businesses such as Maharishi Ayurveda Products International and several TM-centered communities.
 
The first organization of the Transcendental Meditation movement was the Spiritual Regeneration Movement, founded in India in 1958. The International Meditation Society and Student International Meditation Society (SIMS) were founded in the US in the 1960s. The organizations were consolidated under the leadership of the World Plan Executive Council in the 1970s. In 1992, a political party, the Natural Law Party (NLP) was founded based on the principles of TM and it ran candidates in ten countries before disbanding in 2004. The Global Country of World Peace is currently one of the primary organizations.
The TM movement has been described as a spiritual movement, as a new religious movement, and a "Neo-Hindu" sect. 

It has been characterized as a religion, a cult, a charismatic movement, a "sect", "plastic export Hinduism", a progressive millennialism organization and a "multinational, capitalist, Vedantic Export Religion" in books and the mainstream press, with concerns that the movement was being run to promote the Maharishi's personal interests. Skeptics have called TM or its associated theories and technologies a pseudoscience. Other sources assert that TM is not a religion, but a meditation technique; and they hold that the TM movement is a spiritual organization, and not a religion or a cult. Participation in TM programs at any level does not require one to hold or deny any specific religious beliefs; TM is practiced by people of many diverse religious affiliations, as well as atheists and agnostics.

 

Chakras

Chakras in Buddhist Tantra

Chakras play an important role in the main surviving branch of Indian Vajrayana, Tibetan Buddhism. They play a pivotal role in completion stage practices, where an attempt is made to bring the subtle winds of the body into the central channel, to realise the clear light of bliss and emptiness, and to attain Buddhahood.
 
The Vajrayana system states that the central channel (avadhūtī) begins at the point of the third eye, curves up to the crown of the head, and then goes straight down to the lower body. There are two side channels, the rasanā and lalanā, which start at their respective nostrils and then travel down to the lower body. The apāna vāyu governs the lower terminations of the three channels. The lower end of the central channel ends in the rectum. The lower end of the lalanā ends in the urinary tract. The lower end of the rasanā channel emits semen.
 
The side channels run parallel to the center channel, except at locations such as the navel, heart, throat and crown where the two side channels twist around the central channel. At the navel, throat and crown, there is a twofold knot caused by each side channel twisting once around the central channel. At the heart wheel there is a sixfold knot, where each side channel twists around three times. An important part of completion stage practice involves loosening and undoing these knots.
 
Within the chakras exist the 'subtle drops'. The white drop exists in the crown, the red drop exists in the navel, and at the heart exists the indestructible red and white drop, which leaves the body at the time of death. In addition, each chakra has a number of 'spokes' or 'petals', which branch off into thousands of subtle channels running to every part of the body, and each contains a Sanskrit syllable.
 
By focusing on a specific chakra (while often holding the breath) the subtle winds enter the central channel. The chakra at which they enter is important in order to realise specific practices. For example, focusing on the subnavel area is important for the practice of tummo, or inner fire. Meditating on the heart chakra is important for realizing clear light. Meditating on the throat chakra is important for lucid dreaming and the practices of dream yoga. And meditating on the crown chakra is important for consciousness projection, either to another world, or into another body.
 
A result of energetic imbalance among the chakras is an almost continuous feeling of dissatisfaction. When the heart chakra is agitated, people lose touch with feelings and sensations, and that breeds the sense of dissatisfaction. That leads to looking outside for fulfillment. When people live in their heads, feelings are secondary; they are interpretations of mental images that are fed back to the individual. 

When awareness is focused on memories of past experiences and mental verbalisations, the energy flow to the head chakra increases and the energy flow to the heart chakra lessens. Without nurturing feelings of the heart a subtle form of anxiety arises which results in the self reaching out for experience. When the throat chakra settles and energy is distributed evenly between the head and the heart chakras, one is able to truly contact one's senses and touch real feelings.

Mandala

Mandala

Original Mandala painting

Second Chakra Mandala

Acryl on paper

Natural Mandala

Natural Mandala

Mandala meditation

Mandala meditation

Mandala

Mandala

Original Mandala painting

Night lily Mandala

Acryl on paper

Mandala

Mandala

Original Mandala painting

Tribal Mandala

Acryl on paper

Mandala

Mandala

Original Mandala painting

Sun flower Mandala

Acryl on paper

Flower of life

Flower of life

The Flower of Life is the name coined by New Age author Drunvalo Melchizedek for a geometrical figure composed of multiple evenly-spaced, overlapping circles. This figure, used as a decorative motiv since ancient times, forms a flower-like pattern with the symmetrical structure of a hexagon.

A "Flower of Life" figure consists of seven or more overlapping circles, in which the center of each circle is on the circumference of up to six surrounding circles of the same diameter. However, the surrounding circles need not be clearly or completely drawn; in fact, some ancient symbols that are claimed as examples of the Flower of Life contain only a single circle or hexagon.

New Age followers ascribe many forms of significance to the Flower of Life and three similar figures, called the "Egg of Life," the "Fruit of Life," the "Seed of Life,"and the "Tree of Life." Melchizedek and others assert that these figures are symbols of sacred geometry, that they represent ancient spiritual beliefs, and that they depict fundamental aspects of space and time. They claim that Metatron's Cube may be derived from the Flower of Life pattern, and that the Platonic solids within it were "thought to act as a template from which all life springs."

The Flower of Life and the Seed of Life are linked by New Age authors with the Biblical prophet Enoch, the Archangel Metatron, the six days of Creation, the Vesica Piscis religious symbol, and Borromean rings.

Lakshmi

Lakshmi

Hindu art

Lakshmi is the Hindu Goddess of wealth, prosperity (both material and spiritual), fortune, and the embodiment of beauty. She is the consort of the God Vishnu. Also called Mahalakshmi, she is said to bring good luck and is believed to protect her devotees from all kinds of misery and money-related sorrows. Representations of Lakshmi are also found in Jain monuments.

Lakshmi is called Shri or Thirumagal because she is endowed with six auspicious and divine qualities, or Gunas, and also because she is the source of strength even to Vishnu. When Vishnu incarnated on earth as avatars Rama and Krishna, Lakshmi incarnated as his consort. Sita (Rama's wife), Radha (Krishna's lover) and Rukmini and Satyabama are considered forms of Lakshmi.

Lakshmi is worshipped daily in Hindu homes and commercial establishments as the goddess of wealth. She also enjoys worship as the consort of Vishnu in many temples. The festivals of Diwali and Kojagiri Purnima are celebrated in her honour.

Vishnu - sacred art

Vishnu

Hindu art

Vishnu is a Vedic Supreme God (including his different avatars) in Hinduism, and is venerated as the Supreme Being in Vaishnavism. He is also known as Narayana or Hari and is venerated as Purushottama or SupremePurusha in Vedic sacred texts like the Bhagavad Gita, the Vedas and the Puranas. He is the Supreme Purusha of Purusha Sukta.The Vishnu Sahasranama of the Mahabharata declares Vishnu as Paramatman (supreme soul) andParameshwara (supreme God). It describes Vishnu as the All-Pervading essence of all beings, the master of—and beyond—the past, present and future, the creator and destroyer of all existences, one who supports, sustains and governs the Universe and originates and develops all elements within.

Vaishnavism sees Vishnu as the Supreme God, venerated as the Supreme Being. Smarta followers of Adi Shankara, among others, venerate Vishnu as just one of the five primary forms of God, namely Shiva, Vishnu, Devi, Surya and Ganesha; who are all seen as equal reflections of the one Brahman, rather than as distinct beings. His supreme status is declared in Hindu sacred texts like the Yajurveda, the Rigveda the Bhagavad Gita, The Bhagavata Purana and other Sattva Puranas which all declare Vishnu as Supreme God. Vishnu incarnates on planet Earth from time to time to eradicate evil forces, to restore the Dharma and to liberate the worthy ones or devotees from the cycle of births and deaths.

In the Puranas, Vishnu is described as having the divine blue colour of water-filled clouds and as having four arms. He is depicted as holding a padma or lotus flower in the lower left hand, a gada or mace in the lower right hand, a shankha or conch in the upper left hand and a Sudarshana Chakra or discus weapon in the upper right hand. Vishnu is also described in the Bhagavad Gita as having a 'Universal Form' (Vishvarupa or Viraat Purusha) which is beyond the ordinary limits of human perception or imagination.

Vishnu's eternal and supreme abode beyond the material universe is called Vaikuntha, which is also known as Paramdhama, the realm of eternal bliss and happiness, for the final or highest place for liberated souls. Vaikuntha is situated beyond the material universe and hence, cannot be perceived or measured by material science and logic.Vishnu's other abode within the material universe is Ksheera Sagara (the ocean of milk), where he reclines and rests on Ananta Shesha. It is the topmost realm in the material universe, even higher than Satyaloka where Brahma resides. Vishnu manages and sustains the universe from there. Hence, Ksheera Sagara is also sometimes known as local Vaikuntha of the material universe, which is approachable by demigods or devas in order to meet the lord in case of any emergency or disturbance in universal balance.

Hindu art

Hindu art

Ganesh