What is a mandala?

After you read the article, click the images on the right and visit Prema's Mandalas page for further inspiration and exploration.

what are mandalas and What's so special about them?

Before I let you in on the secret code of mandalas, first let me give you a practical sense of the term if you are not familiar with it. Mandala is an ancient Sanskrit word that means “sacred circle.” It most often refers to spiritual or religious art that is created in the form of a circle. The word is specifically associated with traditional Hindu and Buddhist artwork, but mandalas can be found in perhaps all of the worlds spiritual traditions. We find them in the rose windows of the great cathedrals, Native American medicine wheels, the I Ching, and Zen circle paintings, among numerous others.

As we begin to recognize mandalas throughout the world’s sacred art practices, we literally begin to see an underlying unity, a common “spirit” that is sought and celebrated through diverse traditions. This is no accident, because mandalas aren’t just about “religious art.” The sacred circle can be found in every inch and corner of our living universe. It is so prevalent, in fact, that we overlook its incredible power and fundamental importance in the manifestation of all things seen and unseen.

A psychologist or theologian might tell you that mandalas are symbolic of essential qualities like oneness, emptiness, and the creative power of the feminine. But don’t be satisfied with these esoteric ideas, for they are just pointers to something you can see directly for yourself -- right now. Have you ever noticed how important circles are to the functioning of the universe as it radiates, contains, and directs the movement of things? I invite you to notice how the circle radiates as the sun emanates light, as a sound wave expands in all directions, and as a flower displays itself with a fountain of petals emerging. How it contains water in every drop of rain; protects every baby bird forming within its egg; and how in a circle that we do not ordinarily see, we find everything that constitutes our homeland, Planet Earth. The circle also creates passageways that can be found in the veins of our circulatory system, in a hole dug by the neighborhood gopher, and in the iris of the eye though which the visual world miraculously enters our experience. Mandalas carry the power of these lineages that extend as far back in time as the universe itself. It’s hard to imagine the big bang in the shape of a rectangle! Or for that matter, the garden of eden fenced into a nice square plot.

So it's not so much that there's a secret code of mandals -- mandalas are the secret code -- hidden within everything. And when we unlock that code, when we recognize the one Sacred Circle as it contains, radiates, and creates passageways in every inch and light-year of our world, our experience of everything becomes, as a friend said simply, "nicer."

One of my favorite mandala images is an ancient one -- a group of kindred spirits gathered in a circle around a fire. The fire radiates a mandala of warmth, which then contains the circle-gathering of people together as one, and through this sense of unity creates a passageway into “a world beyond” through story telling, sacred ritual, or simple silence. By creating or viewing mandalas we tap into the power of the circle that is both infinitely beyond our personal world, and intimately engaged in it. I invite you to notice the innumerable manifestations of circles in your world. Each and every one is a mandala, a sacred circle, revealing to us the secret unity of all things. ♥