Pressrelease 2003-03-30
Spiritual Art: Vedic Art
Some paint in order to paint. Others paint in order to grow. When the painting is based on Vedic Principles you can get in touch with the source of all creation. Now anyone can go to the Oneness Festival in India and try out how Vedic Art turns life into a masterpiece of Art. Agneta Milde found Vedic Art ten years ago and writes about it here.
Dirty hands and spiritual awakening All around me there is a chaos of colours, brushes, buckets and pieces of cloth. My clothes get stained and my hands turn into something indescribable. I forget to eat and drink. The entire world is becoming an enchanting process that binds me to the moment and dissolves everything else. Something deep inside me is in charge and wants to be seen and I fall into great despair when my earthly limits get in the way and the ecstasy is enormous when the breakthrough finally saves me. My love to the newly born piece of creative work is total and everything else looks grey in comparison. I know that I am not the only one experiencing the overwhelming depth that involvement in the art process can produce. There was a time I gave myself to it so fully that I felt I needed nothing else for my spiritual awakening. Unfortunately my success in selling my art was not up to the standards of my earthly requirements so I almost lost my inner fortune in the search for an outer one. But we are many lovers of Vedic Art returning to the process on vacations and in spare time. Some have it as a necessary tool to get on with everyday life. Every day!
Many teachers of Vedic Art "As a hobby, Vedic art is independent of age, and even those with no particular drawing skills can translate ideas into pictures with a paint brush," says Maija Pitz, a Vedic Art teacher from Finland. She also says: "Vedic art calls forth your creativity from deep down in your subconscious with the result that you become more confident about yourself and your capabilities. Veda is neither a religion nor a philosophical tendency, but rather combines life and art. The first results are manifested in your painting, then in your life and finally in society". It started with one man, Curt Kallman from Sweden. He was inspired by the Indian monk Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who took Transcendental Meditation to the west. Curt Kallman was asked by Maharishi to be the founder of an art school based on vedic principles. Curt was a young artist at that time and understood that it would take him many years to assimilate and in his own life use the principles he was taught. Instead of teaching he spent his energy on "Transcendental Artists of Sweden", took part in exhibitions both in Sweden and abroad and created his own career. 1988 Curt Kallman considered himself to be ripe to start teaching what had grown in his heart and the Vedic Art School was founded in the south of Sweden. Curt Kallman also travelled a lot to give shorter courses and it all went along without a single advertisement. People told their friends and after some years Curt had almost a thousand pupils scattered all over Sweden and some neighbouring countries. Curt needed help and he started special courses for teachers of Vedic Art. The administration was taken care of by his new teachers and Curtīs organization has always been free of the TM movement, even if he never forgets to express his respect and gratefulness to Maharishi and his TM meditation.
When the cows go out the artists go in 1993 the school was moved to an island in the Baltic Sea, where large barns turned out to be the best places to paint in. For very little money people can spend their whole summer vacation in front of an easel but of course there are lessons too. Last summer nine countries were represented on this summer course. The youth hostel plays an important role in this as everyone arranges his own accomodation. Tents and holiday cabins are used. Some painters have moved to the island to live there all year round. Nelly Stromberg takes her whole family with her for every vacation. She says: - Every year I have a new break through in my creative work in order to find more life. More life in life and more life in art! I recreate myself all the time. Her friend, Nina Jacucci, seem to prefer creating many lively animals. - It gives me a great satisfaction to have the whole of creation in my own hand and be able to give life to anything I want. For me it is a tremendous freedom. You can paint a yellow elephant walking about between planets, a blue lion or what about a turtle in love with a pink seal? No limitations! Anything is possible, Nina says. People come back and not only those who took part in the first school. They now know the interesting stories Curt is telling by heart and have become teachers. Recently the history of Vedic Art came out in book form and will soon be translated into English.
What is special? Curt Kallman, now in his sixties, has not had an easy and comfortable life and many of his adventures are narrated in the book. He has been considered a dangerous man and he is indeed a stubborn man. Never for a second has he stopped believing that this manner of painting will have a great impact on history one day. He was told to start a school to prevail for 2000 years. This is how he explains what it is all about: "At the end of the river of art history we can now feel the breeze from the ocean of wholeness. By using the boundries to measure the dignity of the boundless, we imitate Natures way of operating instead of imitating Natures outer expression. When expressing, transforming and expanding our mind and heart, by expressing, transforming and expanding the seventeen principles of art found in the Vedic tradition, we find ourselves sitting at the feet of the Creator, listening to how the language of silence will be expressed in our time".
Not about therapy When Curt Kallman hears that someone compares Vedic Art to therapy, he says: - Vedic Art is not a method of therapy, a means of creating in order to forget problems and paint them. It is to add a completely new law, a completely new experience or a completely new dimension to life. We see that something better is given to us. It is not about training the hand. It is about opening oneīs vision. Being a pupil at the Art School it is sometimes difficult to stop yourself from wandering around looking at all the exciting pictures filling the barns. They all appear very different and personal and the colours are mostly vivid. A painter here and there seems to be born with extreme talent, but if you ask the answer might be that he or she started only recently with paint and brush. Some of the happy painters do not seem to have shed a single tear due to their seeming lack of technical skill. They just paint and paint and paint! Curt Kallman explains that he finds it to be more important in the beginning to inspire people to find their profound desire to express themselves rather than to bore them with technical training.
Vedic Art in India In February 2003 Vedic Art will be one of the work-shops at the Oneness Festival outside Madras in India. Seekers of spiritual guidance are invited to find new ways to open up their spiritual capacity and well-known enlightened teachers are there to share their deepest wisdom. Birger Broberg is there to teach Vedic Art. After one week of the festival you can go deeper into different subjects and explore more by trying so called university courses. It is possible to choose Vedic Art for three days or more. Birger Broberg: - Vedic Art is not theory and can not be described in words. The principles we teach work without any intellectual thoughts about them, you can even forget about them. You and your life are important and this manner of painting helps you to find out what is important for you. You find your dharma, the reason why you are here. What more can you wish to be the outcome of a spiritual journey to India? Vedic Art originates from the age-old wisdom of Indian sages. It took a turn to Sweden and now it is back in the very good company of the mystics of today. I believe that it has come back to India to stay there.
And many people at the Oneness Festival will take it to their home countries once they have tried it. For ten years I have returned to Vedic Art over and over again and still I cannot understand why it has cast this spell over me and so many I know. Watch out! | 
