Artist’s Statement:

The Unobservable Totality of Light

by Adi Da Samraj

            My image-art can be characterized as paradoxical space that undermines "point of view". That undermining (which occurs in the any instant of fully felt participation in any of the images I make and show) allows for a tacit glimpse, or intuitive sense, of the Transcendental Condition of Reality (even as all conditional appearances, and, Ultimately, As It Is)--always, inherently, and totally beyond and prior to "point of view".

            The human individual in the midst of perceived reality is like a camera in a room--perceiving everything from a fixed "point of view". Any one and every one in a room separately perceives the whatever they think and feel they see--but what does the room (itself) really look like? What is the appearance of the room itself--as a totality, as a whole, and As it Is? The room (itself) is an always unobserved (and Perfectly Unobservable) totality--a seamless, simultaneous, and non-separate whole, indivisibly conjoined (in Prior Unity) with the all-and-All of time, and space, and light, and all the All of Prior's Depth, and all the All of All Reality Itself. The room (itself), like even the universe as a whole, exists only As it Is, inherently prior to every "point of view" (or ego-"I"), and always (irreducibly) as it would appear when viewed from every possible "point of view" in space-time--not merely as it would appear from any one and particular "point of view" (or separate ego-"I"), or from even any finite collection of the seeming selves of "points of view".

            No particular "point of view" can reveal the "room" itself, or the universe itself, or Reality Itself--because every "point of view" is inherently limited and intrinsically "self"-referring.

            Reality Itself always already exists. Reality Itself Is the One, and Only, and All, and What That Exists--always prior to "point of view", and always before any individual "point of view" constructs its version of separately "self"-presumed "reality".

            "Point of view" is the essence of ego-life: The apparently individual being presumes that he or she is a particularized "point", or a psycho-physically self-organized "point of view", in space-time. And that "point" is "made" by contracting from the always prior and indivisible (and inherently egoless) condition of totality--and, indeed, by contracting from even every mode, form, or state of conditional existence that is not "local" (or even identical) to the "point of view" (or ego-"I") of "self"-reference. Nevertheless, the "room" itself (As Is) exists always already non-"locally" (or comprehensively, inclusive of innumerable potential "locations" of "point of view")--and, as that totality, the "room" itself exists inherently prior to all possible "points of view", and such that the "room" itself is (inherently, and paradoxically) un-"locatable" and unobservable.

            My images are always artistic demonstrations of the Non-conditional and Inherently Un-observable (and, thus, Transcendental) Reality-Condition of whatever is (apparently) perceived--and (simultaneously) they are also root-"imagings" of the conditional (or naturally perceived) states and appearances of the psycho-physically constructed phenomena of "ordinary" human experience. My process of image-art is always "purposed" to transcend "point of view"‑‑and, if the resultant images are received seriously and viewed seriously, they are, for the any and every such viewer, a means for tacitly feeling the Transcendental, irreducibly paradoxical, and intrinsically incomprehensible Real, and Indivisible, and all-Simultaneous, and Non-separate, and Perfectly egoless Condition of that which is (presently) conditionally perceived (and, thus and thereby, presumed to be "reality"). The Reality-Condition of all that appears to arise conditionally Is Perfectly Non-conditional and Inherently egoless (or Irreducibly Prior to "point of view"). Indeed, even the human body-mind (or "self"-presumed separate ego-"I") is inherently egoless (or Inherently Prior to the presumption of "location", separateness, or any reduction to a "point" in space and time)--for even the body extends into such enough of space that no finite "point" in space can be said to be its "location".

            My image-art is always "in" the "space" of the irreducible Reality-Condition of all that is conditionally and naturally perceived and "known". Thus, by making image-art, I am making "space" for What Is Beyond and Prior to "point of view" and ego-"I".

            My process of creating images brings together two principal elements, in a complex approach. One is the comprehensive element of form, and the other is the element of fundamental content (or essential meaning). On the one hand, I constantly exercise the formal element, and, thus and so (and by means of an always spontaneously free process of improvisation), I strictly control and order the structure of the images I invent. On the other hand, I am, likewise constantly, intent upon maintaining and profoundly enlarging the characteristic of meaning. Indeed, the meaning-content is always primary. The meaning-context (rather than the formal context in and of itself) is always the "subject" to which I respond by making the any image I make. Therefore, the work I do with the formal aspects of an image must (I insist) always responsively coincide with the preservation and enlargement of the fundamental context of meaning--no matter how much of an abstraction the image may become in the formal process of improvisational invention. Consequently, the tension between meaning and form is fundamental to all the image-making work I do.

            The idea (expressed by Cézanne, and by various other artists and artistic movements since the time of Cézanne) that artistically fashioned visual form is to be based on primary geometric elements has also been fundamental to the artistic training and familiarity I have developed with art, art I have experienced from the time that I was a boy. Indeed, if the deep process whereby the brain makes perception happen is profoundly felt and (thus) understood, then it can also be understood that the basis of the natural world's construction as perceptual experience is primary geometry, or elemental shape--curved, linear, and angular. Everything perceived is a structure that demonstrates the interaction of these three all-patterning forces of shape. The intrinsically unobservable (and, thus, unknowably complex) intersection of circles, squares, and triangles (or of curved, linear, and angular geometric, or geometrically-organizing, forces) makes (or structures and organizes) virtually every perceptible natural shape.

            The natural world itself is (inherently) a self-morphing and self-limiting construction (or a naturally improvised and spontaneously self-organizing art-form), formalized and fabricated by means of a plastic interaction between primary forces and structures--but the natural world is so complex in its combinations of root-forces of shaping-energy (and, thus, of primary geometries) that (except in some generalized and, generally, non-specific sense) the primaries are, characteristically, not perceived by any natural perceiver. However, it is altogether possible to tacitly feel that whatever is actually being perceived in any moment is something structured in the primary geometric manner, and that (consequently) all apparent complexity is based on very simple primary elements. My image-art is (on this basis) a demonstration (by spontaneously responsive formal artistic means) of the naturally perceived world (or any naturally perceived "subject", or meaning-context) as multiples of primary geometries--always (in every instant of conjunction) intersecting with each other (often numerously, or even uncountably), such that the naturally perceptible resultant form is (itself) a unique and discretely perceptible structure of "meaningful form", wherein the root-geometries may (or may not) remain (themselves) discernible.

            My image-art is not (in any instance) merely a "something" in and of itself, or an "objective something" that has, in the conventional sense, "subjective" meaning that only I can understand or know. My images are about how Reality Is (in and of and As Itself), and, also, how Reality appears (as a construction made of primary shaping-forces) in the context of natural perception. My image-art is, therefore, not merely "subjectively" (or, otherwise, "objectively") based--but, rather, the images I make and do always tacitly and utterly coincide with Reality As It Is (Itself, and altogether). Therefore, I have called the process of the image-art I make and do "Transcendental Realism".

            Reality (Itself, and, also, in the context of conditional, or perceptual, appearances) has (inherently, or As It Is) no "thing" in it, no "other" in it, no separate "self" in it, no ideas, no constructs in mind or perception, and, altogether, no "point of view". The irreducible paradox of unobservability and unknowability is the actual (Real) state of every one and every thing--even in the apparent context of all things arising.

            The living body inherently wants to Realize (or Be One With) the Matrix of life. The living body always wants (with wanting need) to allow the Light of Perfect Reality into the "room". Assisting human beings to fulfill that impulse is what I work to do by every act of image-art. My images are created to be a means for any and every perceiving, feeling, and fully participating viewer to "Locate" Fundamental and Really Perfect Light--the world As Light, all relations As Light, conditional (or naturally perceived) light As Absolute Light.

            My images, well-met, should bring tears to the eyes, restore laughter to the life, and, altogether, both show and give a perfect equanimity to the total world.

            The "room" is how and where the construction (or always illusory and temporary fabrication) of ego-"I" (or "point of view") and even all "locality" happens. Ultimately, when "point of view" is transcended, there is no longer any "room" (or any separate "location" and separate "self") at all--but only Love-Bliss-"Brightness", limitlessly felt, in vast unpatterned Joy.