Zen Pearls: Creativity Inspired by Osho

A review by Madhuri of Shunyo Mahom’s book with his artwork and Osho quotes.

This is a tall book with a lovely mysterious flower on the cover, against a background print like one might find on antique kimono silk. There is a sort of ‘sacred dailiness’ feeling to it; of interiors where Nature is invited in through spare yet organic shapes and imperfections – spare because only through looking at just what you are looking at, undistracted by clutter, can you absorb the messages Nature is bringing to you: how long a tree takes to grow and mature. How mindblowingly long stone takes to be formed. How short is the life of a flower, yet how ever-renewing – so many flowers are born, with so many seeds. We need only look at this one flower, now, to know this.

But we need to look in quiet and in peace and without clutter. I feel a masculine sensibility here – a mental organization not complicated by a dozen children and all their stuff. A vertical meditative up-flow. A heart of quiet and space. We all have both, respond to both, somewhere in us.

I love the dark greens I am receiving. I feel invited in to a deep woods, or perhaps the drying-grassy meadow beyond a reedy pond when autumn is on its way and colours are reaching down in to themselves to prepare for winter.

And I love the vivid chartreuse of Osho’s name. Playful and springy and joyous. Gorgeous with the other colours.

I go on into the book. There is a quietly rebellious copyright page, then tables of contents for quotes and for paintings. For this is a book of Osho quotes, usually about ¾ of a page each, followed by a painting Shunyo did in response. And it works – it absolutely works – because the quotes are genius, and surprising and consciousness-expanding, and the paintings – most calligraphy-inspired, some more graphic and colourful, reminding me a bit of Padma’s Zen Tarot – are grace and immediacy and colour and boldness and wow.

I just love this book. It makes me want to meet Shunyo, to spend time with him, drinking tea or sitting outside somewhere lovely.

I recommend to anyone who loves beauty and the expansion of consciousness that the words of a Buddha bring: Put it by your bed, or by your favourite chair. Keep it there. Open it when your heart is tickling at you for something more. Open it like a dawn or a sunset opens you.

It is sweet and good; it is a dance, a garden, a fragrance of herbs on late-summer air; provoking, soothing.

Yum!

Review by Madhuri – www.madhurijewel.com

Available as paperback from createspace.com – amazon.com – amazon.co.uk – amazon.de – amazon.in

Shunyo Mahom discovered meditation in 1970 and left his engineering profession for the unknown. He became Osho’s disciple in 1981, lived in seven Osho communes, and over the years creativity evolved through poetry and song writing. In 1994, during workshops with Meera, he discovered a natural talent for painting, and in 2006, a love for calligraphy during a workshop with Alok Hsu Kwang-han. He lives in an Osho ashram in Southern California. www.shunyo.org

See the artwork on Osho News in Spontaneity and Spaciousness of Zen