From thinking to feeling: the secret nature of the forest

RASHI AGRAWAL explores the world of feeling through art, words, meditation, and natural imagery. 

This whole journey of meditation is like Magic. The word in itself transports us to a land of the impossible, of fairy tales.

This is a land where clouds become cotton candy and the petals of a rose are a gateway to heaven. This is the land of change.

The Heart is a very similar kind of land, except that it is not a fairy tale. It is a reality.

It is here, where thoughts are the simple words that knock on the door of the heart, and take us to someplace higher than ourselves.

We soon find ourselves engulfed in a space, sweeter than candy, lighter than the cloud.

Welcome to the land of feelings.

It seemed nonsensical to me at first, but to tell you the truth it is one of the most profound dreams that I have had, simply because it taught me how to perceive what I was feeling.

And upon sharing this dream with my mother, she asked, “Why don’t you paint it?” There. I set off on recreating those same feelings and images. These images aren’t a delight to the eye, but hopefully they may take you on a journey very similar to the one I had.

This dream conjured up a journal for me. It was full of articles that did not seem of much interest until I came across a particular article with images that were literally devoid on any imagery. They were empty! They had no trace of life in them. All they had were a soft yellow glow and a few shades of colour here and there. The author had very interestingy titled his article ‘The True State of the Forest’. This intrigued me.

And there lies that secret door

In these images, there was nothing even remotely like a forest. There was no mud, forget trees or animals. It was just empty space, like a vacuum.

What was the author really experiencing, and why in the world would she choose to call this empty lifeless picture a forest, and that too, in its true state? The surreality of this compelled me to read the article. As I was reading it, my imagination took a u-turn, and there I was, right in the midst of the forest as described in the image.

Allow yourself to be taken in

According to the author, the reason why the forest looked like this (this was a secret) was because the forest, as it really is, is not the plants, trees and animals there. They are the physical manifestations of something more profound. The forest in reality is a field of energy. And only he who has entered a state of communion with it will truly be able to experience the forest in its true state, in the entirety of its energy.

And there I stood in the midst of that forest, in the middle of an epiphany, thinking in wonder and amazement how little I knew of what I thought I knew.

So you may be one with it

I was alone there, but I was not lonely. The forest’s energy was gently saying to me that there was only love. It seemed to caress me and surround me. I was humbled because the forest had let me in, and allowed me to feel her. She was all around me. I could not see her, but her harmony had taken me in, mothered me, and I knew that this was my refuge. This was the place where I truly belonged.

I wasn’t thinking all this, because I was potentially seeing nothing. The forest had allowed me to feel what it was to truly feel.

To feel our heart’s embrace

This was the end of my dream.

Hellen Keller once said that the most beautiful things are felt in the Heart. What could be more honest a statement than this?

The forest was the heart’s embrace. It wasn’t my heart, or your heart. It was the Heart of the World. It was our Heart, something in which everything and everybody have comfortably manifested themselves. We are only to realize that we are all tiny, humble, yet significant parts of it, and all of us are connected by virtue of the very same embrace

Paintings by RASHI AGRAWAL