From Where You Dream

I’m read­ing a very inter­est­ing book, From Where You Dream: The Process of Writ­ing Fic­tion, by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Robert Olen But­ler. It seems the process of writ­ing lit­er­ary fic­tion is quite sim­i­lar to the process of nat­ural devo­tion in which we enter into a lov­ing rela­tion­ship with Radha-Krishna. They both involve a daily entrance into a rit­ual space which allows us to get out of our heads and into our hearts. We don’t think our way into Braj or a good book. Rather, we sink into that space within our­selves where those char­ac­ters and places live–in the uncon­scious or sub-conscious mind–just wait­ing to be given expres­sion through us.

It is the realm of gods and god­desses, heros and hero­ines, the arche­types, ideals, par­a­dig­matic indi­vid­u­als, Braj. How­ever, it also has its dark side where the mon­sters, demons, night­mares, repressed con­tents of the con­scious mind, etc. live. It’s amaz­ing to me how much of what is con­sid­ered good lit­er­a­ture, art, or film dwells in these dark realms as does much of what we read in the daily news. Things evolve from sub­tle to gross.

While, the processes may be sim­i­lar, the sub­ject mat­ter is dif­fer­ent. As I recre­ate and expe­ri­ence Radha-Krishna’s pas­times in my heart, I reject all dross, neg­a­tive emo­tions and expe­ri­ences. I don’t need any more drama or hor­ror in my life. I seek beauty and love in their purest forms. That’s what it means to be a paramhansa, we learn to sep­a­rate the pure essence from the dross and live in that essen­tial nature which is Braj, the eter­nal ide­al­ized real­ity my heart longs for most intensely.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, November 26th, 2009 at 10:45 and is filed under Jungle dispatch and tagged with aesthetics, Braj, creativity, Radha-Krishna. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.