-Say this blanket represents all the matter and energy in the universe, okay? You, me, everything. Nothing has been left out, all right?
- All the particles, everything.
- What's outside this blanket? -- More blankets. That's the point.
- Blanket's everything.
- Exactly. This is everything.
- Let's just say that this is me, all right? And I'm, what, 60-odd years old and I'm wearing a gray suit. Blah, blah, blah. And let's say over here, this is you. And, you're... I don't know, you're 21. You got dark hair, etc. And over here, this is Vivian, my wife and colleague. Then over here, this is the Eiffel tower, right? It's Paris. And this is a war. And this is, uh, a museum. And this is a disease. And this is an orgasm. And this is a hamburger.
- Everything is the same even if it's different.
- Exactly. But our everyday mind forgets this. We think everything is separate. Limited. I'm over here. You're over there. Which is true. But it's not the whole truth… Because we... are connected. All right, now, we need to learn… how to see the blanket truth all the time.
-- David O. Russell and Jeff Baena, the film I Heart Huckabeees, 2004
I am currently reading Where the Heart Beats about the composer John Cage. He was interested in Zen Buddhism and Hinduism and that seeped into his music. He was experimental and often made audiences uncomfortable (and some angry) with the “silence” in his pieces. What was amazing to me about this book is that there is mention of Cage and the artist Diego Rivera attending the same party held by art dealer Galka Scheyer in 1935. I researched Rivera extensively when I was in graduate school. His mural at the San Francisco Art Institute was the focus of my thesis in art history so finding a connection with him and Cage was exciting. I left art history and academia a few years ago to pursue teaching yoga. There were many reasons for my doing so, but nonetheless I didn’t consider these things would ever be intertwined. I had yoga life and academic life and they were separate. The amazing thing is not that I would read a book that contains more than one of my interests, we attract stuff all the time without meaning to. What is amazing is that I had forgotten that it’s all the same, the yoga self and the art self. There is no separation. It is all human behavior, the universe, the Divine Mother, consciousness, whatever you want to name it, it’s all the same.