Most people ask me ‘What exactly is a Mandala? And what are they for?’
While the term is of Hindu origin, the graphic form is used in many religions and cultures. One translation of the Hindu term is ‘sacred circle’.
Ancient and modern explanations agree the mandala is a spiritually significant symbol, a tool that can be focused upon, and interacted with, to assist with various purposes of understanding life and manifesting change.
I make mandalas as a visual aid to manifest my goals and dreams, and to celebrate them. I create each mandala with a purpose in mind, and I keep them in my environment, living with them in my periphery day by day. Each time I pass them, glance at them, or stop and ponder them, or sit and meditate with one, I am bringing that dream to life.
I’ve made mandalas to help me focus on manifesting prosperity, others to help me manifest relaxation and grounding. Another type is made to remind me of something—to remind me to exercise, or remind me that seeing beauty in life is a choice—while others help me manifest healthier relationship patterns, develop clear boundaries, or grow my sense of inner strength while facing my challenges.
Motivational authors use phrases like the law of attraction, and co-creation, explaining the secret to manifesting is your own psychology, beliefs, emotions and behaviour. Art and psychology show that visual imagery is integral to learning and the functioning of our minds, that our creative right brain reads and speaks in visual language. Images are already a language we use everyday to understand and further create our reality.
Mandalas help me manifest my goals and dreams by being an inspirational visual tool. They are a deliberate focal point for my consciousness, to help me manifest strong feelings and relationship with my intentions and goals, so that I manifest them further in my reality.
Background
A more detailed discussion about mandalas must take into account the visual form, the origins, the purpose or function, and symbolism.
Visual design
Visually, a mandala is a geometric design—usually circular, showing ‘radial symmetry’—whereby the outer areas radiate around a central point. The areas radiating around the centre are typically a pattern of evenly spaced elements.
Natural Examples
Examples found in nature are the petals of a flower arranged in a radial way around the centre of the flower. Other natural examples are the spider’s web, snowflakes, and cross-sections of tree trunks and fruits. In fact, mandala forms are found throughout the whole of the natural world, from spiral galaxies, to our own cells, to the realm of atoms and subatomic particles.
Origins
The term Mandala is a Sanskrit word (the ancient Indic language of India), and is usually interpreted as meaning “circle”, and sometimes further as “wheel” or “essence”.
While the term is of Hindu origin, the mandala is also used in other religions and cultures, whereby mandalas have spiritual and ritual significance; particularly in Buddhist, Christian, Islamic, Aboriginals of the Americas, Australian Aboriginals, Aztec, Mayan, Maori—although it seems that almost every culture and area of the world have created and used mandala designs.
Among these cultures and traditions, mandalas are most visibly seen in the artforms of:
- Tibetan sand-paintings
- Islamic ceramics, calligraphy, and rug designs
- Celtic knotwork
- Christian church stained glass windows
- Native American medicine wheels, dream catchers and labyrinth designs
- Australian Aboriginal paintings
- Maori carvings and tattoo designs
- and famously in designs such as the Mayan Calendar and the Hindu Sri Yantra
- The Chinese I Ching symbolism and symbol for longevity
- Flower of Life Symbol Mandala
- Three-dimensional forms abound in the architecture of sacred spaces, such as churches, mosques, synagogues and temples.
Functionality
In various spiritual traditions, mandalas are employed as a spiritual teaching tool, for establishing a sacred space, and as an aid to meditation or trance induction.
Symbolism
Many faiths employ variations of designs that radiate around a central point in their symbology, most notably the Jewish ‘Star of David’, the Buddhist ‘Wheel of Life’ Dharmacakra, the Islamic eight-pointed-star Khatam, the Chinese I Ching, and the Christian cross. The underpinning radial design within such symbolism portrays a sense of balance, harmony, and order.
At the heart of many such designs may be an influence from the geometric representation of the earth, sun, moon, stars, natural cycles, representations of the universe and our part within it.
In common use, “mandala” has become a generic term for any such geometric pattern that represents the cosmos metaphysically or symbolically—a microcosm of the Universe, and an expression of unity and oneness.
Modern use in health and healing
The psychoanalyst Carl Jung saw the mandala as “a representation of the unconscious self,” and believed his paintings of mandalas enabled him to identify emotional imbalance and work towards wholeness in personality.
Around the world today, there are many health practitioners using art for healing. This ranges from individual artists providing a forum for other individuals to heal, right through to hospitals with regular programs for helping patients to explore with art and forms of creative expression, which in turn shows a healing effect. Within this approach, there are many accounts of people making mandalas as a form of personal healing. The mandala form, with its inherent harmony, and symbolic representation of the self, seems to assist the creator with healing on an individual level.
