“Flowers of Light” | Anthony Satori
“He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened.”
– Lao Tzu
Flowers of Light
enlightenment
You Are Enough
“Raven on the Steppe” | Anthony Satori
“Our whole spiritual transformation brings us to the point where we realize that in our own being, we are enough.”
– Ram Dass
Vibrational Energy
“Tuning Fork (432 Hz)” | Anthony Satori
Our mind is the locus of our consciousness, and consciousness is the foundation and source of all reality. Therefore, if you wish to elevate and improve your reality, you must first begin by elevating your thoughts and your words. Adjust your vibrational energy toward peace, love, health, and virtue, and everything else will follow.
The Movement of Thought and Feeling
“Black and Yellow Butterfly on Blue Flowers” | Anthony Satori
“Meditation is to be aware of every thought and of every feeling, never to say it is right or wrong, but just to watch it and move with it. In that watching, you begin to understand the whole movement of thought and feeling. And out of this awareness comes silence.”
– Jiddu Krishnamurti
All Wisdom and Virtue
“Dancer, Racehorse, Buddha” | Anthony Satori
“To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one’s family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one’s own mind. If you can control your mind you can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to you.”
– Buddha
Elevate Your Mind
“Seek Light” | Anthony Satori
“Artists are here to disturb the peace.”
– Madonna
I disagree.
Artists are not here to disturb the peace. Quite to the contrary, artists are here to point the way to something better, something higher. Artists are here to illuminate universal goodness, beauty, and truth. Artists are here to connect our minds and spirits by shining a light on shared human values, virtues, and meaning. To put it most succinctly, artists are here to elevate consciousness. And this, it seems to me, is quite the opposite of “disturbing the peace.”
It’s true, sometimes the expansion of consciousness can be disorienting in its exhilaration. It can have the side effect of shaking up the status quo, of waking us up from the hypnosis of complacency. But this is not the primary goal of art. It is not even its primary side effect. And if we mistake this secondary side effect for the actual purpose of art, we will miss it entirely. If we proceed under this misapprehension – especially if artists themselves engage in this folly – we will miss out on one of the most sacred and pure paths to enlightenment and enrichment that we, as humans, have available to us.
Other potential sources have failed us in this pursuit, time and time again. Religion, politics, media, education – each have failed us disastrously in this measure, at some point or another, often in what seems to be nothing less than orchestrated concert. And when we find ourselves in this state of affairs, art remains the last and best refuge of enlightenment. And when artists fail to live up to this ideal – when they fail to even recognize it – society suffers greatly.
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“Humanistic scholars and artists used to be, and were supposed to be, as a group, carriers of and teachers of the eternal verities and the higher life. The goal of humanistic studies was… to inspire the student to the better life, to the higher life, to goodness and virtue. But in recent years and to this day, most humanistic scholars and artists have shared in the general collapse of all traditional values. And when these values collapse, there are no others readily available as replacements.”
– A. H. Maslow
The Stillness Underneath
“Tree of Light” –|– Anthony Satori
“To know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain, is freedom, salvation, enlightenment.”
– Eckhart Tolle
A Single Flower
“Golden” –|– Anthony Satori
“If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.”
– Buddha
Ascent
“Ascent” –|– Anthony Satori
“Here I cry out, arms raised: ‘Both wealth and pleasure spring from dharma, so why is dharma not followed?’ Not for pleasure, not for fear, not for greed should one ever abandon dharma — not even to save one’s life. Dharma is eternal; happiness and misery are not eternal. The living self is eternal; the body through which it lives is not.”
— The Mahabharata
Enlighten
“Enlighten” –|– Anthony Satori
“All emotions are pure which gather you and lift you up; that emotion is impure which seizes only one side of your being and so distorts you.”
— Rainer Maria Rilke
Satori Circle | Art & Culture 