The Mandala process provides powerful meditation which focuses on an awareness of BEING. The mandala has been used by religions from all over the world Christian, Celtic, Buddhist, Hindu and Native American, as well as others. The Mandala has been recognized as a spiritual practice for thousands of years.
The Mandala for Healing Process begins with a Prayer and then moves into the formulation of an Intention. Next time is given to Centering and Meditation and the expression of an Image. This image represents God as the Source of all Light, Energy, and Love.
Integral to this is the recognition that God resides within each of us. During the period of Centering, a time of silent prayer offers participants time to imagine an image that symbolizes the relationships between God and themselves. Actual wording of their INTENTION begins in this reflection.
Our gift of imagination is an aspect of our being that separates us from All other living things. Used in prayer, it allows to come to a new awareness of The God who created each of us as an expression of His Love. When we put an image on the essence on the relationship we have with God, MANDALA-MAKING---"IMAGE-N-ING" invites us to awaken to the energy and Reverence with which God has blessed us. At the same time, it impels us to deepen that relationship so that we might further our own healing and the healing of the universe.
Sacred Art and Mandalas both come out of a deeply meditative state. Both represent the Energies of the universe at their fullest---LIGHT, LOVE, AND ENERGY. Our awareness of them develops as we we immerse ourselves in the midst of the wholeness of the relationships that exist among the created world as we know it.The Healing force of the Mandala begins with the setting of the Intention and deepens through the realization of the Mandala. The Healing Process reaches its culmination when the LIGHT, LOVE, AND ENERGY are given back to God who directs it to the place where it is most needed. The whole point is in the building of relationships among all the people of the world.
IN MANDALA-MAKING, what is of greatest significance is not the finished work of art, but rather the deepening connection between God and the individual.
Carl Jung used mandalas to acknowledge the integrity of his own life by measuring what aspects took prominence from time to time.
Native Americans used mandalas as “healing circles” which they drew around the person who was ill or dying. Native Americans had such great faith in God that they began the Mandala and the smudging before the they fully entered into their spiritual rituals of song, dance, and prayer. The fact that they placed such faith in God is amazing to many of us today. It is also an incredible fact that when the Native Americans brought something to their God to ask for his help, they would spend as long in prayers of thanksgiving as they had in prayers of asking.
Tibetans use the mandala to remind us of the Impermanence of life. After prayerful placing of grain by grain of colored sand into a particular mandala form---which could take days or weeks to complete---the monks left the mandala for visitors to see for a few days. They then swept up all the sand, destroying the Mandala. The sand was placed in a nearby river, where they believed GOD would graciously receive it. They also believed the Divine would share the power of the mandala with those most in need.
Did you know Carl Jung created a mandala everyday?
"I sketched every morning in a notebook a small circular drawing, a mandala which seemed to correspond to my inner situation at the time, Only gradually did I discover what the mandala really is....the SELF, the wholeness of the personality, which if all goes well, is harmonious." Carl Jung
“Art has the power to transform, to illuminate, to educate, to inspire, and to activate.”