Yantra Art

 Last year I met Ekabhumi in his 3 day workshop in Austin Tx, exploring his message about sacred creativity through his book,"The Shakti Coloring Book: Goddesses, Mandalas, and the Power of Sacred Geometry".    Ekabhumi is an eloquent and thorough teacher.  The information he discussed at the workshop was immense and could barely be touched upon, in the three days. Ekabhumi used caution every step of the way in a ,manner of correctness in approaching the making  of a sacred work of art.  He spent alot of time talking about the qualities of various dieties, in their appearance in various forms of art and the intuitive capacity that one needs to do the art.  In the yantra drawing lesson presented in this article I was surprised to see it so thoroughly explained by the  illustrations, step by step. On the third day of the workshop I took, we did this lesson only through his speaking directives on how to draw the yantra. It took hours to create, and was a very "focusing" process indeed, for me.   Ekabhumi has studied Yantra and the painting of Devas in the lineage of Harish Johari in India. And he is a student of Nepalese master painter, Dinesh Charan Shrestha.  

Surya, your question, "What color is this goddess of magic?" was asked to Ekabhumi. He said goddess magic is all colors, and no colors, and both, and neither. That is the classic answer. In the traditional iconography, and scriptures, you hear virtually all colors mentioned except for purple.

Ekhabumi says according to his guru, there are three basic Tantric paths: the red, black, and white. There are many goddesses who are each of these colors.

There are also goddesses that are said to be colorless or Crystal. One got us in particular, Kali, is said to be mirror-like. 

any warm color like yellow, gold, orange, red, these are all associated with the Red path of desire.

any of the of the cooler colors, like blue, black, green, these are all associated with the black past the fear and fearlessness.

White, silver and some very pastel light colors, are associated with the white path of knowing and not knowing or you might say being and not being.

According to Ekhabumi's teacher the basis of all magic is focused attention, so the tantric traditions exploit basic survival instincts to hijack the primitive reptilian survival brain and help to focus the attention of the practitioner. and hence the symbolism of the colors. These colors also correspond to the three Gunas, and the three primary subtle channels of the human energetic system: Ida, Pingala, and Shushumna. This is also why you can generally rest assured that if you see someone painting a Sri Yantra using the colors blue, black, purple, brown or any other dark color in the inner triangular area, they have no clue what they are doing.  Because the goddess of that particular design known as Sri or Lalita AKA Tripura Sandari AKA Shodashi, is a goddess of desire. She is the red path.  if you change the color ofthe magical design (yantra), you change the goddess that you are invoking.