Zar's Art

WOMB OF CREATION

2011-01-15T08:48:00.000-08:00

Creation always comes out of the vast quality of one's essential being.

GIA THE GODDESS

2011-01-12T07:44:00.000-08:00

The great unconscious female aspect of all of mother nature's riches: the trees, the flowers, the water, the sky.
The longing for everything to intertwine and create.

SPRING

2011-01-11T08:23:00.000-08:00

Hidden within the death of each cycle is the seed for rebirth.

HIGH ART

2011-01-10T08:35:00.000-08:00

High art is a language of the multidimensional soul. Amazement and clarity are usually the messages it imparts to the observer.

"The Slip" 24"X30"

2011-01-07T07:40:00.000-08:00

This is the environment in which my father worked and where I grew up - in fact this location is only blocks from where I lived.

UNDERWATER

2011-01-03T09:08:00.000-08:00

This was a study for an underwater painting. The focus is still on meditation.

THE BABYSITTER 30"X36"

2011-01-02T10:53:00.000-08:00

A child burdened with responsibility...and aren't we all?

PURPLE PASSION 24"X30"

2011-01-01T09:15:00.001-08:00

A good still life is always about the beauty and quiet order.

DEEP MEDITATION

2010-12-31T08:53:00.000-08:00

In deep meditation, past all thought and ideas, the mind is receiving multidimensional rivers from unseen realities. Then, from this incredible, rich, full oceanic mind perfect thought waves rise and fall.

BOOK COVER

2010-12-30T08:19:00.000-08:00

This is one of the book covers I did for one of my wife's novels - we really like it.

MENTAL BALANCE

2010-12-29T09:49:00.000-08:00

Through meditation we have the innate ability to purify our mind and our surroundings. Then any action we take will have a certain elegance to it, no matter how mundane.

ABUNDANCE 12"x24"

2010-12-27T08:56:00.000-08:00

The quality of pure being has no morality, but it can never violate anything. It is based upon total love, or freedom.

AWARENESS

2010-12-26T08:39:00.000-08:00

Through a flash of awareness, you know everything - car, tree, person, sky, etc. Your true mind knows itself completely.

IT'S TOO MYSTERIOUS 24"X30"

2010-12-21T08:53:00.000-08:00

Everything is in flowing change. We do not stand outside of this fact, but are part of this dynamic.

UNCONSCIOUS SOURCE 24"X50"

2010-12-19T09:17:00.000-08:00

Start of a new painting - very excited.

TRADITION OF GREATNESS

2010-12-15T07:34:00.000-08:00

I worked with the Raiders for over twenty years and I loved doing this project.

FOGGY DAY

2010-12-11T08:14:00.000-08:00

Am seeking simplicity and quiet order on this foggy day.

FREEDOM OF BEING

2010-12-10T08:20:00.000-08:00

To forget the self is to resume our true nature in this moment. Everything is giving itself away to everything else. This is freedom of being.

HIGHER CONSCIOUSNESS

2010-12-07T07:00:00.000-08:00

A heart at heart's core, dancing and singing, in and out of the changing forms of all there is....

SILENCE

2010-12-05T07:30:00.001-08:00

It's all about silence.

PURE IDENTITY

2010-12-01T07:13:00.000-08:00

The infinite joy of its pure identity is expressed in the slightest glance, or sound.
ate groupings of gestalt formations flash forth out of a timeless mind. Triumphant and free, love is always freedom!

CONSCIOUS MIND

2010-11-29T07:15:00.000-08:00

The excitation of light and shadow is asleep! Stillness pervades all form. If consciousness demands the exercise of its limitless potential then awareness demands the light of the sacredness of all existence just as it is now!
At a deeper level there is no division between the unconsciousness and the conscious mind or spirit.

FANTASY STUDY

2010-11-28T10:06:00.000-08:00

Fantasy art always points to the multidimensional, the simultaneous, that the physical oriented brain cannot grasp by adding or subtracting.

SWIFT

2010-11-26T08:31:00.000-08:00

There is a mysterious intelligence spinning out unique patterns of creation moment by moment. Once created it never repeats itself.

THE FINAL DESTINY

2010-11-23T11:27:00.000-08:00

Sooner or later, consciousness will demand its own true self,
the love of God. No person can forever run away
from this epiphany. God will find God, that is life’s innermost desire.
Here all evil and hate, all suffering and resentment will be obliterated.
Illusion is hate, fear, ignorance…and isolation.
All guilt and petty self criticism dissolves in a love and freedom that runs through everything.

JUDY

2010-11-20T07:27:00.000-08:00

This is one of my favorite paintings. It's a portrait of my wife Judy, the love of my life.

GHOST FROM THE PAST

2010-11-19T10:45:00.000-08:00

Here's a drawing I did of Arnold (about 33 years ago).
I met Arnold before he started his movie career. My wife and I became friends with him - he was a lot of fun! I did various promotional work for him and the painting of YELLOWHAIR THE MEDICINE MAN hangs in the Governor's office in Sacramento. I'm pretty sure it was Arnold's first fine art purchase.

SOURCE OF EFFORT

2010-11-18T07:54:00.000-08:00

If you can find the source of your effort and your life, everything you do would please you. This is very difficult in the modern world, because it takes a mind that is quiet and composed.

STRUCTURAL DRAWING

2010-11-17T09:13:00.000-08:00

Structural drawing deals with breaking any simple or complex object down to geometrical parts that will compose the whole form.
The awareness of negative space between the forms is important in right measurement.
The quality of line is determined by the awareness of turns and angles existing within the form.
Mastering this type of drawing allows the artist to become intimate with the thing observed.
Correctly realized, the artist and the art object become a new strong form of reality. This is energy directed with purpose and finesse…or art!

THE MIND

2010-11-16T07:52:00.000-08:00

If you can find the source of your effort and your life, everything you do would please you. This is very difficult in the modern world, because it takes a mind that is quiet and composed.

STUDY FOR INNER WISDOM

2010-11-15T10:48:00.001-08:00

Collaborative work

2010-11-14T09:32:00.000-08:00

This is the second collaborative painting Chet & I are going to do - it awaits one of his mysterious, psychological beings, in the center of the painting (where the two priestesses are looking up).

A QUIET MIND

2010-11-13T06:58:00.000-08:00

The greatest gift one gives to oneself is the ability to quiet the mind.

THE QUALITY OF BEING

2010-11-12T07:57:00.000-08:00

Study - 12"x16"
This is a figure study for a large paining.
A mind that steps out of thought references can experience the vast quality of its being that is revealed in each glance! Here is absolute value.

THE NATURAL ABUNDANCE OF GRACE

2010-11-11T07:12:00.000-08:00

Painting 18X24
- Deep within the forest of our quiet mind there are hidden treasures unfolding here and now! Only a mind free from the movement of sorrow and fear can sit at the center of this mysterious outrageous abundance.

GUARDIANS OF THE EARTH

2010-11-10T08:14:00.001-08:00

Panting 19X16
Nov. 2 – Deep within the rivers of the totality of life, all forms drink and have their being in the same pure identity.
Naked and unashamed the mind of creation nourishes all there is with love. To drink from this dazzling peace is to be free from fear and isolation.

UPON THE EDGE OF A DREAM

2010-11-09T07:16:00.000-08:00

Painting - 18"X24"
Nov 2 – Here beneath the waves of everyday thought, or consciousness, unseen possibilities play like a jester in and our of arch type symbols. Dream art or visionary art explores the multidimensional consciousness that is rarely used by our race!

CATHEDRALS OF LIGHT

2010-11-08T09:49:00.000-08:00

Painting - 30"X36"
30X36
Nov. 3 – Judy and I often walk in a park near where we live. We are always awestruck when we see the massive trees dramatized with the young vital light of morning. These trees are to us living cathedrals holding the sacred energy of creation, exploding in a pouring out of branches and leaves, demonstrating the strength and abundance of our nature.
When the mind is truly active (not with though but with dazzling attention) one moves and has his or her being in this amazing pure totality of love, or pure identity.

JON BEINART ART SHOW

2010-06-08T14:31:00.000-07:00

Jon Beinart put together a magnificent show! It was brilliant! And the level of artistic ability was incredible. The wild imaginative subject matter was harnessed and guided by masterful technical skills. So many great artists in one place, at one time. I was so impressed!
The people that are attracted to, and support his type of visionary, personal art are a prize in themselves. They are open, affectionate, non-competitive, non-judgmental and wildly enthusiastic! I just love these kids – kids is not accurate of course, they are mostly in their late twenties to early forties. A new, intriguing wave in the ocean of the race consciousness, these people are not owned by the status quo that’s for sure.
Along with so many notables, my son, the Great Chet was there. He and I collaborated in a tri-imaged painting. I painted the side panels, Chet working the center piece with one of his magnificent otherworldly entity portraits. He also designed an oval and border effect that tied the whole thing together…genius!...that kid was always cleaver beyond his years – even as a little guy. I’m hoping we’ll do more of this in the future…the two diverse styles and subject matter seem to form a greater reality in dark and light contrasts.
One of the highlights of the night was seeing some of my students there from our Saturday class in San Pedro…Tony, Lee, Allen, Carlos – these guys are body illustrators by profession and extremely talented artists themselves…and of course, Lindsey an art aficionado who helps run the class was also in attendance.
All in all the energy generated by these shows and this art could transform the landscape of our culture because it’s such a wildly creative adventure!
Jon Beinart presented a show of diversity and richness of personal reality. Great stuff!

upon the edge of a dream

2009-11-28T09:55:00.000-08:00

Intelligent thought negates itself as primary reality. Here, one is aware of the totality of creation.

November 20, 2009

2009-11-20T14:39:00.001-08:00

The morning is still cool with thick shadow-tails flowing out of trees bushes, and buildings. The mind is so susceptible to silence and pure seeing at these times. Here as at twilight the unity of dark and light corresponds in a language of totality that permits a new kind of love and identity. The ego doesn’t die; it surrenders and expands into complete openness. Here everything explodes into the essence of everything else….rare.

INNERMOST DESIRE

2009-11-17T09:01:00.000-08:00

My intention in my art is always to create a persona, or an ensemble of characters and their environment that are exploded in beauty out of the commonality of the conditioned mind with all its problems, addictions, and sorrows, into that rare awareness that moves as a totality of life. Here All There Is flashes forth unique and overflowing with love and wonder.

ENLIGHTENMENT

2009-11-13T13:40:00.000-08:00

Faith means complete reliance and trust in the power and goodness of God, and absolute trust that whatever you conceive with conviction will be returned to you in this world - U.S.ANDERSON
Enlightenment is the love of God awakened in the individual mind of man. The Individual becomes the actuality of faith. Here there is a peace that is beyond faith's comprehension.

snake charmer 24x36

2009-07-27T08:27:00.000-07:00

This is the first section of the first collaborative painting Chet and I are involved in. The two side panels of the 24x36 canvas are my contributions, The circle and center piece will be one of Chet’s unique psychological portraits. We both are extremely curious to see how this diverse styled painting works as a whole.

mortal coils

2009-07-23T10:35:00.000-07:00

Out of the restricted coils of our physical sensations and sentiments, if one becomes still, there arises an attention that is so profound and penetrating that the whole movement of life is aware of its pure identity, it’s indivisible being. Here all sorrow and suffering end – until the next cycle of thought and a memorized center traps us in the confusion and contradiction of our own feelings. Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.

ENCHANTED

2009-06-25T10:09:00.000-07:00

Enchantment is the shock of beauty or love that is so outrageous that all fear and arrogance, all world weariness, all guilt and feeling of separation dissolve into the explosive realization that the lover and the beloved is one whole being!
The ultimate reality is the enchanted forest of pure energy where all forms of life overflow in their uniqueness and sacred being.
The ego is always shallow and fear ridden, it always defends its position of shallow self importance and illusion of separateness. The vast mind has no beginning or end and is enchanted in its pure identity. It is pure creation. It is pure love!
The world we are conditioned to live in today has taken a nightmare pill. It has terrorized itself out of its enchantment.

KALI: HINDU GODDESS

2009-06-22T09:31:00.000-07:00

Associated with eternal energy, the name Kali( by folk etymology) means force of time and change. Although presented as dark and violent, more complex Tantric beliefs sometimes extend her role so far as to be the ultimate reality or Brahman. In the mystical mind total negation of the known opens up the point of power of “now”. The freedom from past and future projections by ego’s thinking, analyzing, mechanical processes is totally destroyed. Creation is always revealed as unknown, new, indestructible and sacred.

This painting is part of The Monster Show being curated by Travis Louie (July 11th) at Copro Gallery in Santa Monica. This show will include many great artists, including my son, The Great Chet.

FOR THE LOVE OF THE ART IN YOU

2009-06-13T08:19:00.000-07:00

The painting should work on you. If the small you is working on the painting there is some unnecessary effort to do something or to get somewhere. This will leave a mark upon your mind and propagate many negative notions about your activity. Such as: this has to be a great painting for the show. Or: wait until they see this one! Or: why won’t this work?
True painting should cut through you until nothing is there except this magnificent activity.
The quality of your involvement is the painting itself. Here you will be satisfied with your effort and your mind will be free of effort after you finish. The real you is genius. To trust this real you is right action. Right action is right rest!

ZEN IN THE ART OF WALKING

2009-06-11T09:03:00.000-07:00

After almost 50 years of the practice of “walking” some points of right practice are evident.
A. I just let my breathing establish a deep smooth rhythm.
B. I never look at anything until I have developed this rhythm.
C. After a period of time, I let my glance fall naturally on the feather tips of trees, houses, cars, colors and so forth – no content, no reflection, just this watching mind that strikes at the heart of the form, color, texture or gesture, of each point of interest.
Here the only meaning in each gesture is the total life of all there is, dancing and singing in and out of form forever!
Form, beauty, organization, intelligence and love are in just one glance. In each glance eternity is revealed. In each glance pure identity is aware of itself.

THE POINT OF LOVE, POWER, AND FREEDOM .

2009-06-09T09:09:00.000-07:00

Om Mani Padme Hum..[http://smallanahata.com/] Taken from his essay on Honesty and Sincerity. “When I am simply present, very alert, and alive to the present moment, I am free. Each moment is total and complete within itself, lacking nothing. We are all one in the Vast River of life and in the end all rivers reach the ocean.”

When World's Collide

2009-06-06T14:19:00.000-07:00

It was a brilliant art show put on at L’Imagerie by Debi, Hadas, Karen, and Ben. The significance of Chet and I united at this point in time to share our talent was a family high point.
A festive crowd attended and the atmosphere was jovial.
If I may be so bold I consider the art work to be stunning. Chet’s beloved monsters, with their cunning psychological insights therein and my own brand of mystical visionary art had, as one observer commented, “Real wall power”.
It seemed unanimous to the people who attended that the two diverse styles and subject matter mysteriously complimented each other.
I had so much fun, I would like this Father/Son show thing to catch hold and continue in some fashion on into the future. Chet and I would like to collaborate on some pieces the next time to see what would happen when “World’s Collide” and unify into a new hybrid species.
Thanks again to Debi and her gallery and to all those who attended.
The show runs through June 20th at L’Imagerie Gallery in North Hollywood – (818) 762-8488

PRINCESS OF PEACE

2009-06-05T08:49:00.000-07:00

Upstairs in the vast room where the tide blows in clean from All There Is, sitting upon a throne of Pure Identity, a princess of peace sings softly into the essence of eternity. “Maybe you should tarry and sip of this stream, that’s as long as a summer’s long night as long as a lover can dream, it flows ever so light with a melodious passionate theme”.

June 3 2009

2009-06-03T09:23:00.000-07:00

A soft pearl grey atmosphere pervades the new mornings face. The jacaranda trees are weeping soft violet tears, flooding the nearby lawns, appearing as an impressionistic pallet of purple and green. There is a gentle breeze just brushing the locks of different tree plumes about tenderly. …..There is nothing but Mind here….There is a stillness about everything that is sacred. The Way Seeking Mind is always new and unknown. The triumph of the totality of life is the ending of the known. Love is always a shock, fear is memorized patterns of sorrow, modified here and there but never transcend able. .

MONSTER SHOW

2009-06-02T09:36:00.000-07:00

This is a sketch and the beginning of the painting that I'm creating for a monster show in July, at Copro Gallery in Santa Monica.
I haven't worked with this type of image in a long time, but Kali The Destroyer, is a fascinating theme and I'm enjoying myself immensely.
I plan on showing future images of the painting as it develops.

CURIOSITY

2009-06-02T09:10:00.000-07:00

3.
Luminous curiosity watches things as they unfold - just as the are. All form is in flowing change! Left alone there is only pure identity.

focus

2009-06-01T08:49:00.000-07:00

2. The laser beam of pure attention, that burns through all illusions, reinstates the self within the total unity of All There Is.

DETACHMENT.

2009-05-31T08:48:00.000-07:00

.1.
Upstairs in the vast room sitting upon a throne of magnificent indifference, a priestess of pure being sings softly into the indestructible essence of love. Here everything is everything else!

2009-05-30T08:15:00.000-07:00

4. TRANSCENDANCE
Form is form and I am myself! The flight of the Alone, into the Alone.

ABUNDANCE

2009-05-28T10:18:00.000-07:00

Here, stripped of thoughts and feelings of separation and beyond the possibility of loss, all life is outrageously rich, sacred and bountiful. One owns everything because one is everything!

CITY OF DREAMS

2009-02-06T15:53:00.000-08:00

Venice, the city of dreams: the inspiration for this painting came from Tony and Joyce Zar, who after traveling to Venice, commissioned me to accomplish this vision as a center piece for their beautiful home. It was the largest and most complex painting I have ever attempted.
Tony, Joyce and I were delighted by the results.
And this is what I've been up to the past three months.
If the picture looks blurry, click on it - the enlargement is sharper.

The Way-seeking Mind

2008-12-18T14:35:00.001-08:00

Our frantic human life is a continuation of one error after another (the time and space parade). The comedy and tragedy of our lives always seeks a position of advantage from a tight corral of self importance and self protection. The life of total understanding is a total revolution, and is absolutely triumphant now, beyond time and space. The engine of total understanding is the reality of emptiness exploding beyond all sorrow and fear. The self knowing mind that comes out of emptiness is sacred unto Itself. Here no movement is possible except peace and joy. Here, do what you will; everything is perfect.

NOTES TO MYSELF

2008-12-17T14:38:00.000-08:00

Before you understand the truth of emptiness you think you must make some special effort to achieve something. This is hitting the cart to make the horse go. The harder we hit the cart the madder we get, because we can’t get anywhere.

NOTES TO MYSELF

2008-12-15T10:09:00.000-08:00

If one really knows his or her true self they can do what they want and always be in life’s totality of joy. Here, morality is a joke that a lost soul always inflicts upon itself.

BEAUTIFUL MORNING

2008-09-25T14:31:00.000-07:00

A beautiful morning; there is an infinite baby-blue sky below the stretched fingers of shadows trying to hold onto the receding night's secrets. This morning is the movement of meditation...intense, clear and without motive. There is just he Vast Mind giving Itself to an outrageous display of color and form. In the distance a Crow caws, a hummingbird is a hyphen upon the taut guitar string of a telephone wire. Everything is dynamically everything else; there is no sorrow, no separation, no possibility of longing. Without the brain's constant content there is the indestructible energy to be with this Vast Mind, as its totality of life now! We live in a time and space continuum of problems. We live with agonizing choices, but the man or woman whose mind is on fire with light and love never has a problem, problems do not exist in actual reality.

2008-08-05T11:25:00.001-07:00

It was an exceptional night indeed…the L.A. Visionary Art Party at Club 740, in downtown Los Angeles, July 18^th of this year. I met up with my son, Chet Zar and his two friends, Chris and Federico (we’re fast becoming the Four Musketeers who attend various art shows).

Club 740 is an awesome space; it looks like an old, ornate balcony structured theatre that was maybe constructed in the 30’s or 40’s.

The arriving guests gave me the feeling of participating in a costume ball based on the Arabian Nights. There were young men with muscular arms, young women with beautiful body illustrations, and some of the women serving at the buffet were dressed like belly dancers. I just loved it; it looked as if some of my painting characters had come to life and were visiting me in a festive dream sequence!

Alex Grey and his wife, Allyson, showed up about 9:00 and were busy setting up the stage where the talented guest artists would paint throughout the night against the background throb of delicious recorded music which was amplified throughout the theatre’s inner sanctuary

My son, Chet, introduced me to Alex (who is probably the foremost ambassador of the visionary art movement) along with his beautiful and talented wife Allyson. They are both great painters. Alex is also the author of the book, “The Mission of Art”. While attending the San Francisco Art Institute in the late 60’s I studied art history and I must say with frank sincerity that Alex’s book is the most important investigation into art as the expression of higher consciousness that I have ever read. I found the couple to be warm, down to earth people…in fact everyone there that night seemed aglow with a friendly, fun loving attitude.

My son, Chet, gave a moving talk about his motives for following the passion of his art - I had to laugh to myself, remembering how my wife and I had watched him as a little kid, constructing outrageous inventions, drawing incredible monsters and now here he is a famous visionary artist talking to a huge audience about his work and life. And what a life it is!

As the night wore on and the various guest artists gave talks about their work I found myself joking and talking to a great guy, who it turns out was Adam Jones lead guitarist for Tool. Adam told me he had first met Chet on an FX movie set.

When the talks ended, the artists began their live painting performances (which went on until four in the morning). Wild dancing and painting continued the entire night and it was magical!

Many thanks to all those who made this fun, informative night possible. And as for the great photos, thank you Michele Marlo and Michele Wortman (I hope I’ve spelled the names correctly because they do such outstanding work - including the above photo of Chet, Alex and me).

IT’S TOO MYSTERIOUS, DON’T TAKE IT SERIOUS

2008-06-21T10:24:00.001-07:00

Laughter is one of the greatest destroyers of the accumulation of the ego’s prison of problems, addictions, miseries and fear. Laughter is the playful mind that is open to the outrageous abundance of the dance of our spirit in and out of form and color. Here and now the playful mind is always a release into the moment’s cleansing benediction. Laughter is the self telling Itself, “Be happy, don’t worry”.

A River Runs Through Us

2008-06-17T09:45:00.000-07:00

It has no point of origin, no destination, no limitation of depth or width!

This enormous quality of one’s life cannot be contained by form, but is always on the

verge of forming that which has never been and will never be again.

This river is the core energy that sustains all life. It does not judge or evaluate, it does not accumulate experience, and therefore it dissolves all problems that time and space create.

Our thinking minds describe life as it if were a tray of ice cubes. Our vast mind flows with limitless power and beauty. This is intelligence, this is love, this is true self knowing.

THE GREAT DILEMMA

2008-05-16T08:30:00.000-07:00

The point of impact with one’s total liberation is here and now, not there and when. And herein lies the great dilemma! We are conditioned from birth to be guided by our pasting/ futuring thinking. But how can a self be happy or living when it lives in the constant informational storm of the riptides of opposing desires? Or promises in the future for self denial in the present! The self that sets its liberation up in terms of outside circumstances weather acquisitions, moods, flattery, or criticisms, is set against the ultimate truth of here and now – which is the great fact of life! The self in isolation and the thing in isolation cannot release its position to flow with the totality of life which is here and now, not there and when. Only by watching this dilemma with great attention and not trying to move out of this condition can something happen which changes everything! As one just watches all the aspects, feeling, and images of the great dilemma one becomes pure observation and this movement of clarity brings a profound healing peace that reinstates the self here and now with a sense of freedom that surpasses all reason or logic. Here one can enter into creation which is pure action which is also pure rest. Every time one breaks the Karmic chain of the split-mind’s suffering the whole world changes and will never be as dark as it was before. We are all in this great dilemma together and that is the light that brings a compassion for all living things….that was not there before. Whatever moves in one man or woman’s mind moves in the Vast mind which is everywhere simultaneously. This is the great truth of Pure Identity…..this is love!

Spring Will Be A Little Late This Year

2008-04-26T10:59:00.000-07:00

In the impeccable stillness of the vast winter’s mind only emptiness can survive! But out of this flawless womb of emptiness a new child of creation will flash forth – unique and triumphant in its pure movement of love and eternal spring.

“No amount of thinking can help you. Your thoughts must stand before you as free children of God!” - Goethe

NOTICE!

2008-04-20T08:58:00.000-07:00

To those of you who are students of higher consciousness and the meditative mind, I want to recommend that go to the blog http://smallanahata.blogspot.com - my friend Jacob’s writings are some of the most insightful and beautiful essays and poems I have ever read. In a world groping for truth and freedom, his work is a beacon of love and light.

The Relative Mind

2008-04-07T11:35:00.001-07:00

THE RELATIVE MIND 4\7\08

We live 99% of the time in our relative minds. This is the mechanical measuring, analyzing, judging mind that reacts to memories. This relative mind is created by experiences, pleasure and pain experiences. This mind is the product of space and time assumptions, backed by emotional charges. The accumulation of experiences fortifies an illusional center called “me, not you”. This mind is not really creative, it modifies and rearranges the “me not you”, in positions of puffed up victories or agonizing defeats. This relative mind deducts conclusions and projects them into an image oriented future to re-experience these conclusions which are still mechanical reactions. This is the karma mind that Buddhism points to. To see all the implications of this false mind, if only for an instant, is to be free of its attachments. To be constantly here and now, without choice or gaining ideas is the complete destruction of this karma ridden mind. The ego fears the end of its illus ional life more than anything; in fact, fear is the engine that drives the relative mind to continue its reactive passion plays. To move with the totality of life is the function of our real mind, or spirit. Here everything is new, innovative, abundant, blessed and joyful. This is the flow of creation. Sooner or later our mind must awaken to its Pure Identity. This is the inherent promise of Love that everyone is entitled to. .

2008-04-07T11:33:00.001-07:00

Spiritual Tree Huggers

2008-03-26T08:33:00.001-07:00

TREES 3\26\ 08

Trees are the cathedrals of the earth. Trees are the outer explosion of life inner glory and joy. Trees give the oxygen we all breathe, they give the shade and shelter and intimacy we crave. Trees cool the surface of the earth, they house the birds that greet each dawn with triumph. Trees are the thoughts and ideas of an inner sound that constructs all physical realty. In the realm of Self Knowing, trees are the extension of the intelligence, power and beauty of our Pure Identity, our greater body. To indiscriminately cut trees down is the ignorance of a human mind bent upon the unconscious destruction of his or her own life.

2008-03-07T08:43:00.000-08:00

THE SPEED OF LOVE 3/7/08

The Vast Mind is so fast that the form of its awareness is beyond time and space. The speed of love is simultaneous; this is beyond the faculty of measurement. The speed of love is one complete flashing into the phenomenal world; here we have the blossom of Pure Identity and freedom of being. If self knowing is the dynamic truth of a man or woman’s life, then this society’s agenda has not served its race well. Most people have no idea what their Vast Mind, or Pure Identity is, they seek everything with their measurement minds. This mind has its valuable use in technological areas, but in the area of self knowing it is useless. We talk constantly about love, but in truth we can never really love anything until one loses his or her measurement mind and becomes one complete flashing into the phenomenal world and then another and then another. When there is no one but you, you love everything as your self eternally now.

Febuary 28 2oo8

2008-02-28T08:54:00.000-08:00

When the brain’s activity is quieted by a meditative state of just awareness, that awareness of attention (with no motive) produces a pilot flame that if intense enough, will explode into a state where nothing touches, nothing overlaps, nothing causes anything. Here time and space evaporate into an immense knowing that there is nothing but love! This is pure identity. This is freedom of being.

The Eternal Self (2/21/08)

2008-02-21T09:09:00.000-08:00

THE ETERNAL SELF

I, so old

To be so young,

To see the what

That sages saw,

And into this stream

With my spinnaker breast

Leading my see,

I was entered upon in an

Ebb and flow,

Emerald and gold,

By a silent song.

Good God a mouth is formed!

That sung of me

In numerous chants,

Squashing my ant,

Splitting my fear,

Emitting one ear

That heard my dawn,

Through vast naked pours

Of rich fallowed nights,

That grew up my race,

To trample out lies.

Thus one eye was born.

To see myself,

To myself,

In one glimpse,

Eternally now.

VENUS RISING

2008-02-20T09:49:00.001-08:00

February 22

The dynamic of this painting is a simple one; the female persona of the meditator above is pulling the half-buried self out of our confining beliefs into an ever rising, or expanding, sense of freedom. The innermost desire of us all is to be free! To be in love with all life and to be able to explore limitless possibilities of value fulfillment based upon pure love. Our consciousness carries an aching burden by being only self conscious and separate from its vast source. But this source is always urging us toward that awareness that is free of the brain’s time and space confinements. Something loves us all beyond our comprehensions. IT doesn’t, nor will it ever, judge us. The very nature of our life, all life, is love, power and beauty flashing forth complete and whole. We are all travelers. We are all seeking our true home!

Waves of essence.

2008-02-08T09:33:00.000-08:00

February 8 2008

Upstairs in the Vast Room where the tide blows in clean from “ALL THERE IS’ sitting upon a throne of absolute value, one watches the spectacle of all forms dancing and singing in the phenomenal world. Now and then out of the waves of essence strange partners appear.

Febuary 6 2008.

2008-02-06T10:42:00.000-08:00

February 6 2008

The complete destruction of every nook and cranny of our reactive, struggling and conditioned mind is the total presence of our original mind. The essence of this vast mind is the awareness of simultaneous creation, not memorized pleasure-pain experiences trying to reform themselves in a limited time-space continuum that argues its case from fictional center. This fictional center cannot save itself or compete with the world, how could it when it is not real. The vast realty of our Pure Identity has no center, is not born is not subject to cause and effect and cannot die. Nothing outside our Real Self can harm us, therefore our Reality is Love.

January 31 2008

2008-01-31T08:56:00.000-08:00

Total forgiveness exists before any error, it is indestructible and inviolate. Forgiveness is explosive it clears the channels for complete self forgiveness, and union with one’s Pure Identity. Total forgiveness does not forgive while holding onto the belief that one is right and the other is wrong, but realizes in a flash that everything is actually based in absolute indestructible value or grace. Actually we live and learn by one mistake after another, but only in the grace of explosive forgiveness do we expand in joy or become what we term better people, and are a richer expression of life and its unlimited potential.

January 29, 2008

2008-01-29T09:46:00.001-08:00

The brain is the seat of memory; it must operate out of a psychological center of experience. The body records the sensations and sentiments of the brain’s belief and desire systems. In the world of the brain’s thinking process everything appears in time and space, this and that, pleasure and pain, good and evil, win and lose, arrogance and fear. Imagination, intuition, and reason are part of the brains activity. In so far as we live in this world, the brain or the thinking process is necessary for the technological means to our security, food, and shelter, etc. It is wise to train the brain’s positive thinking process for what we think about we bring about. But knowledge is not knowing. The vast mind is beyond time and space or me and you experiences, in this vast mind everything is happening at once, and only in the vast mind is there direct knowing of the whole. Direct knowing allows us to operate with the total absence of fear in time and space. The vast mind is total reality and therefore is love.

January 18 2008

2008-01-18T10:00:00.000-08:00

It has been extremely cold at night, but this morning the sky’s mind is clear, empty and colored in tender blue. The suns inner explosiveness is aggressively cutting sever patterns of shimmering light out of the world of dark shadows. The excitation of newness is everywhere. Man, for the most part slumbers in the shadows of problems, his inner moral issues and isolated vanity of winning and loosing, fears and resentments. Even the saint is bored to lethargy with his or her resistances against life’s hearty lustfulness. The Sprit of ALL THERE IS is forever young and is dancing and singing in and out of myriads of worlds seen or unseen. Saint or sinner you cannot flatter or condemn anything in the light of ALL THERE IS. You can only be still and surrender to the sacred absolute value that you and I and everything is and always will be.

January 5 2oo8.

2008-01-05T09:56:00.000-08:00

January 5 2008.

After sever rains and wind the morning is calm and the sky is a soft pearl grey. Out of my studio window I can see the harbor and the breakwater where large ships lay anchored and patient. White gulls flicker in and out of view between the dark green wall of trees far off, that fence the town from the vast open sea. Meditation is the last flickering of thoughts in and out of the mind with its sensations and sentiments, pulsing and gathering similar feelings in their gravitational pull. The vast sea is like the quiet mind of meditation, limitless, mysterious and seemingly eternal. Pure Identity flashes across the enormority of the Vast Mind. Enormity of no-thing ness is the essence of meditation.

December 28, 2007

2007-12-28T10:10:00.000-08:00

Another brilliant, clear morning. The earth was washed sparkling clean by the rains. There was stillness about everything as if the mind of the planet was in deep silence, or meditation. The highest form of meditation is simply awareness. Awareness of everything being aware here now, beyond this and that or time and space, utility, survival or pleasure and pain.

Pure meditation is fulfillment of self knowing, absolute value, without reason or motive. The thinking mind describes things. The knowing mind lives everything as itself. All there is, although new in appearances each moment, is eternally the same pure identity.

December 26, 2007

2007-12-26T10:10:00.000-08:00

December 26, 2oo7

It is one of those incredible mornings filled with beauty. High vaulted tender blue skies, deep long shadows running like cool rivers beneath dazzling diamond lighted trees. Everything has an exquisite sharpness to it. This quality of atmosphere is perhaps what has influenced my art the most. Many artists are solitary people, the very passion to see and feel things as they really are drives out this characteristic in them. One almost feels as if you have to use all your cunning to get away and be alone within your solitude. The market place of the world is the noisy jabbering of one’s mind, with its wanting and not wanting, duties and obligations - but the kingdom of joy always lays in the source of solitude. Wonder and joy is the engine of art.

WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE

2007-12-09T08:55:00.001-08:00

This is my new painting called WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE.

Chet and I: a father and son in love with an art that chases demons and angels across a vast mind of infinite possibilities. For us, creation is the essence of all life and we are drunk with its adventurous joy!

RECOGNITION.

2007-12-07T10:32:00.000-08:00

Sitting on the upper slope of my backyard at twilight, suddenly one realizes that on a vaster plane of being, nothing in or of this earth happens that does not move through my entire body or being. In Alaska a shard of ice breaks free - I am there. The smallest creature form in Africa registers its dream in my life’s intricate web. Somewhere in the South Seas the currents of warm winds touch quiet pure atolls in the fauna and flora of my mind. How can this be true? Yet somewhere in the Vast mystery of my heart it is so. The first movement of all life is love.

Something new

2007-11-28T11:52:00.000-08:00

I'm hot on the trail of a new painting to post - be back soon.

clarity

2007-11-18T10:59:00.000-08:00

The painting is complete. Every object or element has been treated with all the care and attention that I now possess. And since I am pleased with the outcome I can release it.

Are you being thought?

2007-11-12T09:56:00.000-08:00

I can only effectively comment on the painting from this point until it is completed! So here’s something to think about in the meantime: are we thinking or are we being thought?

The meditative or quiet mind, free from shouting, sensations or sentiments notices we do not originate ninety-nine percent of our thoughts, but rather follow them about helter-skelter, now happy, now sad, now frightened, now arrogant. I must say that very few people on the face of the earth, including me, are the masters of their fate by being the masters of their minds. The master thinker discards all negative thoughts and chooses only thoughts that serve him or her in love, abundance and joy. Therefore, some people’s lives are creatively active and successful while some are confused, disordered and reactive!

Clarity.

2007-11-10T08:08:00.000-08:00

I’m moving to the central figure and developing her and the foreground butterflies. This stage is by no means the finished product. Once again I always paint in conscious stages never forcing a completion in one area but bringing the painting alone as a whole.

Clarity

2007-11-09T10:47:00.000-08:00

I’m working the left side of the painting (see November 8); the ship, the girl with the guitar, and the butterfly girl. At this point in the painting I’m working rather quickly, putting down color, separating light from dark with warm and cool values often blurring one into another. Before the painting is finished I usually will paint each object including the background three times. This is not formula but I’m always challenging each aspect of the painting to produce a more vivid experience.

2007-11-08T09:46:00.000-08:00

After establishing the main character I usually start from left to right developing other elements in the painting. I will work the background color schemes to best pop-out the significant objects. Now the beginner usually panics and tries to finish the painting quickly. There are always problems of coordination when dealing with a variety of objects but the mature artist has a highly developed faith that with the right quality of attention to each component in the painting the whole painting will eventually evolve harmoniously.

2007-11-07T11:21:00.000-08:00

O.K. I’ll start showing the evolution of this painting as best I can. This painting is centered around the idea that at the center of our being is perfect balance, beauty, power and poise. To prepare a painting I settle upon the main point of interest. Here the female meditator is the point of power that makes this painting or idea go. I start by drawing the figure upon a gessoed panel, I will also draw in other elements and when the composition seems to feel right I will “fix it” on the board and put a thin coat of burnt umber cut with liquin over the whole board. When the board is dry I start painting into the main figure.

Not Yet

2007-11-05T09:57:00.001-08:00

Well after a commercial break the game is afoot. The new painting is going well, now if my mind would stop torturing me with duties, obligations, and pictures of the terrible state of the world I would be able to step out of the war-zone and find the peace I need in order to complete this painting.

2007-11-02T11:30:00.000-07:00

I have plans for a new blog in which I’m going to photograph the various stages and
decisions involved in my latest painting. I’m excited about this because as a viewer
myself, I never quite know how the final painting will look. But right now I’m committed to a different project. I’ve been invited to write the introduction for an article for my son, The Great Chet - [www.chetzar.com] to be published in the U.K. magazine called Dangerous Ink. So don’t turn that dial I’ll be back after the next commercial.

Chi

2007-11-01T10:17:00.000-07:00

Only a mind free from the movement of sorrow and fear can decide or act with effiency, this is the dynamic mind. This mind works by integrity, meaning no real feelings of separation from the moment’s total event. Only this mind on fire with light, can be with, or be the thing, it sees and feels. The melodramatic mind is based upon the memory’s resentments and slights. But in pure identity no footprints of this melodramatic mind can be found. The flame of pure identity is the enormous quality of timeless attention.

Attracting Art Ideas

2007-10-30T10:25:00.000-07:00

My artwork, especially the fantasy work, is developed out of spontaneous feeling tones. A figure or a scene flashes across the palace of mind and insatiable curiosity draws me into a new adventure. This quality of being in the creative mode attracts great energy to it.

Every new painting is in the womb of this new energy. I believe every self or person is an energy idea. This idea yearns to be expressed. God also yearns to know more about God through this life or expressed idea.

Rarely does the meaning or teaching of a new painting make itself known to me until after it is finished. Then, often it will startle me with, “Oh, that’s what that means!”

DAY 5

2007-10-29T11:16:00.000-07:00

Day 5

I thought the female figure in the lower left corner of the painting was just a compositional component. But when I asked her what her function was, she replied, “Well Jim, I’m here to remind you that the mind in the hands of a meditative master can be a garden of ever changing wonders or, in the hands of a blind fool, a nightmare of confusion, self loathing, hate and fear. You are always creating by your thoughts and beliefs. The point of power is always now. Eternal vigilance is the price of peace.

DAY 4

2007-10-28T14:01:00.000-07:00

In this symbol the female face is wearing the crest upon her headdress of the flower of
meditation. From this mind set, creation duplicates innovative intentions and solutions of the highest order. Without the faith which places the task in God’s hands our intentions are usually burdened with the belief that we have to do everything by ourselves, setting into motion opposing situations that can tear us apart. We are learning not to compete with the outside world but to cooperate with the infallible inner laws of creation.