• Icons and Symbols of Other People
• Art and Its Products

Icons and Symbols of Other People

Dwelling in their hearts . . . I am the Self . . . seated in the hearts of all creatures. - Bhagavad Gita, from Chapter 10 [Link]

How to find out of it? By meditating into Self-Knowledge and to go on from there, and living a good enough life. That is yoga - While you study it, you could ask for conclusive truth also, for Krishna says, "I am the conclusive truth (10:32)". You may venture to ask for significant evidence before you believe anything.

Men who cultivate awareness look for me, the Supreme Lord, (who am different from what can be grasped by the senses), directly in the human body. - Krishna, Uddhava Gita 7:19-23. [Link]

There are scriptures that tell Krishna is a human's innermost soul, Narayana, or Brahman. Thus, daily, sound meditation can amount to set a human on the track - depending on how well it is done, and for how long too, among other factors.

Some verses in the Bhagavad Gita that are attributed to Krishna, are in Upanishads too. So the Bhagavad Gita may be said to be a synthesis of old teachings.

Prejudiced scholars may learn something from Gordon Allport:

If a person is capable of rectifying his erroneous judgments in the light of new evidence he is not prejudiced. - Gordon Allport 1979, chap. 1).

Caveat

Many have affective thoughts through various deep-set urges and wishes or motivations. Accordingly, we may suspect that some appealing ideas relate to inner problems, and that "birds of a feather flock together" in some cases, having similar cultural stereotypes and prejudices. If mere opinions rule the day and not rational inquiry, conditions are far from ideal. Opinionation may work milder than brainwaishing and counter-brainwashing; yet it is not fully humane. (Brown 1963)

There are persons who dare to look into themselves somehow. The noted psychologist Abraham Maslow found that persons with much self-knowledge (so-called self-actualisers) had a clearer view than others, were better (more unbiased, less emotionally tinged) witnesses, and tended to be better exemplars of human beings. [Link]

Some culture-enhancers may come up with ideas that scare others for a long time. Charles Darwin did, for example.

Dr Sigmund Freud considered that id - and deep associations - may get blocked if the culture is repressive, and worked out many insightful, related ideas. Once again, we think by mental associations and thereby view persons and happenings to our ability or less: Defence mechanisms may set in and do havoc, so that finer health aspects could be undermined. Mental and social repressions often take their toll and make a lot of people ill. Somehow in line with this: "It has been estimated that 75 – 90 percent of all visits to primary care physicians are for stress related problems," ◦writes The American Institute of Stress. Thus, most of the common bodily diseases are at least in part stress-related, psychosomatic ones. [Kottler and Chen 2011; Shrand and Devine 2012; cf. Maslow 1987].

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Art and Its Products

- can have good sides and drawbacks

If children are sound as they should be, they love funny stories that transcend or go beyond the habituated. In not a few cases, well adapted good narratives also help to correct the minds of little ones. (Bruner 1996; Brudal 1984).

Some paintings, called icons, may contain subtle teachings, thanks to symbology, the use of symbols.

Iconography

Krishna

James Hall:

The varied character of Krishna's iconography is the result of bringing together many Hindu legends . . . He was epic hero of the Mahabharata and also a pastoral deity and divine lover. In later recensions of the poem he becomes one of the incarnations of Vishnu [and] acquires Vishnavite traits. Some episodes in his story have marked parallels with western religious myth and epic. He is seen in Hindu art of all periods from the 3rd cent. AD. . . . Krishna is widely represented dancing on a cobra" - (Hall, 1996, 91-92)

In some images Krishna holds a ball of butter. "As a pastoral god, Krishna is a flute-player, a very popular image. Like Orpheus, he enchanted the whole of nature - birds, beasts and humans with his music. . . . In the Mahabharata Krishna is the charioteer of the hero Arjuna. . . . He was also Arjuna's teacher. (Ibid. 92)

Another incident from Krishna's childhood: "His mother, on looking into his mouth, saw there the whole universe at a glance." (Ibid.)

Mary, mother of Jesus

In the Western world, the Trullan Synod (692) of the Third Council of Constantinople approved of the use of images. The Western Roman Church decided that images of Mary, saints and so on - images and statues - were all right.

James Hall writes that Mary, also called 'Madonna' and mother of Jesus, has an "exceedingly rich iconography," although it is a loan, more or less: [Pagan parts of Christianity abound]

The worship of mother Mary and baby "seems to have grown over the centuries out of a need of the Christian Church for a mother figure". The image of the 'Mother and Child' "had already long existed [in] the Egyptian goddess Isis holding her son Horus in her lap . . . The early Church adapted it, as it did other pagan images, to its own purpose." (Hall 1974, 323)

The Protestant Reformation was iconoclastic by comparison. For example, in most versions of his smaller cathecism Martin Luther left out the commandment against imagery: "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below". Luther left out a commandment! Puritans were hostile to the use of religious images of saints, Mary and so on. Some Protestants still consider their use idolatrous.

Think

The words of language . . . do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought. The physical entities which seem to serve as elements in thought are certain signs and more or less clear images. - Albert Einstein

Fit measures in handling art, imagery, symbols and emblems should be largely educative, and thereby helpful for gaining significant wisdom. Eventually the process of going into mankind-fit materiel helps self-esteem. How we react is also a function of how developed or cultivated we are, and in whose shoes (read: mind-sets) we are walking.

We may also be also faced with this: Careful imagery is attuned to development of higher thinking: that is what Rudolf Steiner asserts in many places. Well done imagery can be good for man, and not stultify or reduce the power of higher thinking.

(Cf. Hall 1996; The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed, 2001, "Iconoclasm"; Catholic Encyclopedia, "Iconoclasm)