Rohit Arya_ Creation of Sacred India Tarot Grace card Ganesha

NOTES, EMAIL CORRESPONDENCE

AND PROCESS WORK

ON THE MAJOR ARCANA 2001 – 2002

GAUTAM, ROHIT, JANE

12 June 2001, from Jane’s diary:

“They want an artist to do an Indian Tarot which some sensitive ones have developed, incorporating Vishnu & Co, and the project is Secret, and will be produced in the same class as the new Ramesh book.  They don’t want treacle-colour Indi-Ikons, but …  the other kind of India – VEDIC INDIA.  All these years of Indian mysticism and Kabbalah training, exchanging trade -  now materializes! – we never know what next to be called upon!”

 “He rolls boulders in your path aside - what could be better attributes for a god?
Correspondence, Rohit:  “The dancing Ganesha should not lose his quality of being an Earth energy first, but some sort of cosmic or outer space interpretation would be welcome.  His trunk should be turned to the left as that is the version of Ganapati that interacts with the world and welcomes and blesses people.  The sitting Ganesha can have his trunk turned to the right, as that is the spiritual version and symbolic of the inner quest.   Ganesha is always depicted not with an elephants head as really happened in the myth, but with a human head that looks elephant like.  It is usually a pink or sometimes white head.  I would like to try out an actual elephant head on a human body and see how that looks.  If it turns out to be too weird looking, we can go back to the norm.  If it does not, then we will have a unique and creative perspective, which also has the virtue of being scripturally accurate.  I love the idea of having the pentacles inscribed on the head, so please retain that for this illustration.  I really do not know what else I am to say, as your knowledge of Indian culture makes me hesitant to make anything except the broadest suggestions.  Please also look at the accompanying article on Ganesha, which we have put up on our website – it may give you some ideas for another point of view.   Emotion:  Happy, dancing Ganesha....”

 

In my drawing, Ganesh doesn’t hold an axe, he holds a mace.

Jane: “The rat (his vehicle) I see as a humorous touch, the small one who gnaws through ropes.  Do you want Ganesh’s head as an elephant with or without headdress?  Can easily alter minor details.  You mentioned having “the pentacles” inscribed on his head.  Did you mean this design, or what?

 

“I have tried to combine stability with ‘pan-cosmic’ states of being, in this design;  also he should seem ever so slightly shocking and terrible as Lord of the Ganas, and guarding his mother, so I visualize the completed design (if it succeeds) with the impression of him a little against the light – the light behind him/Paradox.  Have put his trunk in his left hand, as you said.



“I have found a friend who says he can scan and compress email images to send – I can ask him to do this once or twice a week until we have your London contact set up.   If it works OK, I can send you Ganesa and Rudra.  These two are now in colour, and complete, bar finishing touches, refinements and minor alterations to headdresses or facial expression.  I have left Rudra’s headdress vague, because it could be a Siva matted locks conch shell hairdo?  Or the proto-Siva headdress – is this the one that all the Nataraja wear?

“Ganesha, now coloured in, is more gentle and playful in mood.  He dances in his OM which is in a four gated mandala, with his Rat and a little puja of incense and a few sweets.  The Sri Chakra on his trunk is now smaller.  He touches earth auspiciously.”


            Jane’s notes:

Dancing Ganesh remover of obstacles, is at first himself the obstacle:  so we worship him first before any creative process.  He unblocks the poet.  As an EARTH energy, through his dance the Spirit touches ground to manifest.  The square Yantra emphasizes this playful dance within the Tamil OM sign, with reddish and ochre tones.
 Around Ganesh’s head is a circular blue aura – heaven or Spirit, entering the Earth:  the idea of squaring the Circle.
 The Yantra on his trunk combines one ascending male triangle with two descending female/shakti triangles.  These male and female principles evolve from the primal element to polarize as shiva shakti – the kernel of the great Sri Chakra Yantra.


Rohit Arya is an Author, Yogi and Polymath. He has written the first book on Vaastu to be published in the West, {translated into five languages} the first book on tarot to be published in India, co-authored a book on fire sacrifice, and is the creator of The Sacred India Tarot {82 card deck and book}. He has also written A Gathering of Gods. He is  a corporate trainer, a mythologist and vibrant speaker as well as an arts critic and cultural commentator. Rohit is also a Lineage Master in the Eight Spiritual Breaths system of Yoga

Rohit Arya _ Shiva, the Bliss Dancer

Dance is an exuberant leap of life towards its source.Just as a tree bursts out of its nourishing soil to seek the sun, so too does the dancer seek out the creative source.
This need not be a conscious process.
It need not be a decision, a desire, a demand, or a destination.
It just needs to be dance.
The child sways to music long before it can talk. Or walk.
The soul never forgets how to dance, though minds and bodies may be ashamed of it.

To dance is to affirm life.
Which means that to dance is to risk.
Risk is not popular; systems that eliminate it are.
With dance you risk – ridicule, unwelcome self-awareness.
But also at risk is stagnant thought and depressing plainness.

When dancing, no one is ordinary.

A system of dance should not be confused with dance and dancing.
“We cannot dance”, means we don’t know a system.
So long as we can move, we can dance.
If this means something to observers, fine. If it means nothing, even better.
Does it mean something to you, something beyond the hotch-potch of clichés and assumptions and social conditioning of what dance is and what it should do?
Don’t enter a state of hot air about “Transcendental experience” and ” Being one with the universe”. A dancer has no time to think and feel such things – dancers are too busy dancing. Dance is not a vehicle for personal expression; dance is about your personality interacting with the world. Hence the importance of dance in cultures across the world, its primacy in ritual and magic.

Movement has its own language which language is usually inadequate to clearly express.
Dance with wit, with idiosycracy, with crankiness even.
Don’t dance in other people’s minds.
Not even in your own mind.
If the body is true, the mind and soul follow. So does the world.
For the world, Jagat comes from Ja – that which is born and Gat - movement.
Jagat is that which is born out of movement.
Dance is movement at its best and its purest – at its worst and ugliest – hence dance expresses the world peculiarly well.

 Hindu mythology captued the essence of this insight most magnificently in the Ananda Tandava Murthi better known as the Nataraja, king of dance. But Ananda Tandava means the ‘Bliss Dance’ and Shiva is therefore The Bliss Dancer. The Lord of the World, Vishvanatha  Shiva is also the all-pervading consciousness. The World is thus the Dance of Bliss which is Shiva.
“Dancing gods must come” said Nietzche, unconsciously echoing the Nataraja who is also Nrityashila - habituated to dance. For Shiva like all dancers, not only expresses the personal view of the world but embodies it in the physical form.
Another great form of movement,  the martial arts, shares these insights with dance.
Without humility, there is no pride.
Without ignorance, there is no learning.
Without fear, there is no courage.

To dance is not just about art or craft or skill or dedication and achievement.
It is about the appetite to dare, to be exuberant, and to be yourself.
 To dance is to make this moment, now, worth living.

Rohit Arya is an Author, Yogi and Polymath. He has written the first book on Vaastu to be published in the West, {translated into five languages} the first book on tarot to be published in India, co-authored a book on fire sacrifice, and is the creator of The Sacred India Tarot {82 card deck and book}. He has also written A Gathering of Gods. He is the Editor of The Leadership Review, a corporate trainer, as well as an arts critic and cultural commentator. Rohit is also a Lineage Master in the Eight Spiritual