By
Dr Prerna Singla
First of all congratulations for your book “The Light of Our Beingness- I Am That You Are”. We wish you a huge success.
Prerna Singla: Tell us more about your book. Basically what is it all about and how do you think your poems and art could impact humankind?
Anca Mihaela Bruma: “The Light of Our Beingness – I Am That You Are!” is a collection of poetry together with some coloured paintings by the Romanian painter Dorina Costras. Through the art of writing I experience wonder during my continuous attempt to grasp the truth, however there is no ultimate truth to be achieved. The book emphasizes the idea of interconnectedness, achieved through spiritual intelligence and consciousness. Being open to wonder and awe, you may reach for possibilities of being or I shall say being-ness, as I see art as primarily an experience to openness, cherishing the sacred wonder, our authentic core. The writings through their aesthetic patterns reveal and underline that multiplicity is organized into wholeness, completeness. I consider any form of art as liberating, and a way to respond to your core, an artistic exuberance and a continuous process of unconditionally loving yourself through empathy and harmonious inter-subjectivity.
“I am not seeking the finding
as I do not find the seeking…
Still…
You see yourself outside you!
I see you inside myself… (…)
Future selves
or…
secret second selves,
connecting derivative patterns
and mathematical probabilities
in a Pythagorean sphere
of harmony.”
(“When I found the Love Footprints”)
PS: As you write about your poetic works, you mention that they are “mystic” writes, or more touches of the spiritual side of the being. What is “your” definition of spiritual awakening? How would you say a person is spiritually awakened?
AMB: KNOW thyself! Being aware of your own self, your own essence, of the profound mystery, the ineffable, knowing beyond the knowledge, becoming aware of realities within yourself, shifting from externality towards internality and allowing yourself to explore the multi-dimensionality of your own being, expanding your human potentiality and fulfilling life in every aspect:
“No meta-logic…
nor extra-language…
You rose above the canon of False and True
passing through the song and rhythm
of your own life (…)”
(Agape)
The human brain is used to receive defined explanations for features we are able to see/observe, however, if these features are opened to various interpretations and new assigned values across wide landscapes of reality, then thinking, defining and describing in only one way, is already misguiding (“If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, Infinite.” (William Blake); “There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception” (Aldoux Huxley).
PS: Do you believe that God is incomprehensible, and can never be comprehended? If you believe that God can be comprehended, then in which form do you comprehend?
AMB: Knowing of and knowing about is one thing… but knowing God is totally different, and no matter how much literature is out there, or how many pretences are made, no-one in truth can say they truly know the incomprehensible, though they may catch glimpses of it. The verb to “comprehend” is already out of the equation, it implies the logical mind, and according to many seers it can be felt, not really comprehended. It is said it can be “known” through the wisdom of your own heart, and not be reduced to knowledge, to a hypothesis and a formula like H2O. All searching will remain rational, all seeking will be based in the mind.
“You cannot see that which is the Seer of seeing, you cannot hear that which is the Hearer of hearing, you cannot think of that which is the Thinker of thought, you cannot know that which is the Knower of knowledge.” (Brhadaranyaka Upanishad : III. 4. 2.)
“You are the One,
the Knower of my knowing
the speechmaker of my utterances
the petitioner of my adulations…
I am the Self,
multiple manifestation of multitudes,
a dualistic unity immanently within itself,
the Life-Ying,
the Reality-Yang!…
(“Gnostic Sagacity”)
PS: In this so called “cynical” world where nothing runs without money and every possible step is taken to earn money, how far or how impactful is mysticism over cynicism or worldliness?
AMB: During these transitory times and moments of seemingly insurmountable adversity, still we are offered a choice: to deny the change therefore the challenge or to embrace it and be transformed.
If we are able to overcome the division: this is me and the rest is someone else or something else, if we can understand that what I accumulate is mine but never can be me, moving from the paradigm: “I have therefore I am” towards “I AM therefore I have”, when we can experience inclusiveness and yourself as the other person’s self, then we should be able to “to peer” beyond “the optical illusion of everyday life” (Einstein).
“I am not here to trade anymore
the cosmic runes and liquid dreams,
as Universe stumbles into its own photons…
I am here to renounce my own spectrum
with all its refracted words, rhythms and
sensationalized perfect imperfections…”
(“Cyberspaced Truths”)
We shall not interpret mysticism in the “traditional” way, as being a way to explore the faith within a religion/dogma, but seeing it from a different angle. We are aware that various stages in the human development have brought about various stages of evolvement in human consciousness.
I personally consider all artists and all forms of ART as a powerful expression of mysticism. Mystic artists need their introversion time, to imply all their senses, to “enter” that stage of ecstasy and rapture; both mystics and artists encounter other “realities” from where they gain insights, accessing different realms of experiences. For me ART is a means of meditation, leading the mind inwards, transferring attention from the material thing to the immaterial idea.
Heidegger said that the greatest, art “grounds history” by “allowing truth to spring forth” and “art is the becoming and happening of Truth”. According to him great artworks helps establish the implicit ontology and ethics through which an historical community understands itself and its world, therefore its consciousness: “all art is essentially poetry, bringing something that is into the open.”
PS: If you have the power to change something in the world, what would you like to change and why?
AMB: Art develops the consciousness and when creative art is truly inspired, it comes close to being sacred. If there is something I would love to restore, it is the Love for ART, as it creates a predisposition for a better world, with greater Empathy and Unity. Through the practice of art, a person may come closer to his/her soul rather than through occultism or other practices.
PS: I have read many poetic works on love, nature, betrayal/heart break, the most common themes written about. The topic you write is very unique. What is the inspiration behind choosing such a topic?? Is it your interest in mysticism or have you personally experienced it in life?
AMB: For me poetry is an opportunity to explore and navigate the multiple aspects of being, rather than the various ways of doing; to reveal agapism by not trusting the fragmentation and plurality of the logical mind, to enlighten disenchanted thinking, in favour of multiplicity, indeterminacy by rejecting the limited disciplinary boundaries.
The expression “I Am That You Are” shows that multiple selves are not to be seen as discontinuous fragments, a fragmented ontology, but as a holistic visualization of our own selves, interconnected and detached from the analytical discourse of the mind.
“When I found the Love footprints
the absence became present,
and… I know:
I am pre-sent to BE
in this everlastingness fate
which sounds like a formula.
No heart geometrics,
nor inner alphabets…
Simply,
a sense of nothingness
in your everyness…”
(“When I found the Love Footprints”)
A relationship of any kind is not seen as being fractured and fragmented, but as identifiable with another, not as a concoction of disassociated beings but as an ontological holism. Within this “state” there is a complexity of interrelations and processes which leads to growth and healing (Note: the etymology of the word “to heal” comes from “Heilen” in German, and “Kailo” as an Indo-European root), referring to the state and process of wholeness). This flowing wholeness which is constantly enfolding and unfolding, is the fundamental order in the universe allowing us to transcend fragmentation, as everything is in a state of process or becoming inside a universal influx during this process of explicating and implicating as a holomovement.
“In this timeless ethereality
where silences built converted assonances
and gravitational elapses,
I breathe your unspoken space
within my pollinated reflections…”
(“Ethereal Awareness”)
My poems do not present a static wholeness but a dynamic one, in a continuous motion in this inter-connected process, a cosmological undivided wholeness in an undivided totality. The force of Love allows this interconnection to be total, moving from the “law of the individual” to the “law of the whole”, the emphasis being on the internality rather than the externality of the things. This totality continually forms and dissolves as part of the universal flux, an enfolding-unfolding consciousness, as everything is part of a single unified whole.
“Me…
and
You…
Without yesterdays and tomorrows,
just conjugated by the verb of Today!…”
(Drink Deeply From My Soul”)
The transpersonal self, also called “the real self”, is attuned to the relational nature of reality to the “Love-Life” energy, and a significant amount of self-transformation takes place during this creative self-understanding which ultimately leads towards self-healing.
“Drink deeply from my soul and let questions come in …and fall out
of this Existence!….
See the Beauty beyond the Beauty,
let your breath sing different
sizes of Life (…)
Let the flavour of your Beingness
Explode into this Existence!”
(“Drink Deeply From My Soul”)
I believe in the revelation and power of the word, as a metaphysical insight, a transcendent act, beyond the potentiality of the human condition, and this is not to be confused with individualized knowing.
PS: We all come from different countries, speak different languages, have different cultures but still are able to connect by way of Art, creativity, music, poetry. Do you feel that belonging to different places has an impact on Art?
AMB: Art is a language known to everyone, and multiple cultures, multiple “voices” add to its beauty. The challenge lies in how a so called “total artist” is able and creative enough to combine them, to take parts from various cultures and create something which is harmonious and meaningful for the rest, emphasizing unity as opposed to division.
PS: As a spiritual being how do we connect to the universe?
AMB: “In the world there are many different roads but the destination is the same. There are a hundred deliberations but the result is one” (Confucius). The so called “Truth” is to be found along many “paths”, and at any moment anyone can choose the direction which answers their heart’s beckoning at certain stages in life. Simply having “awareness” is the key, and how someone applies this differs from one individual to another. In our pluralistic society everyone will have pluralistic hypotheses and will interpret the world in their own way, deciding what is “True” or “False” according to their own convictions. For each human being on this earth there is a learning curve, and each being has to find their own path and to follow ready-made recipes – this would be their wisest act. The more I have read, the more I have realized (who) I am. I have come to terms with the fact that I know that I do not know.
Where substantial diversity exists, of course there is substantial differentiation.
To answer your question, there is no ready-made formula on how to connect with the universe. Someone could be simply in awareness and believe he/she is in connection with the divine, with the ultimate Reality. It could be a conflicting truth system for others but it may mean the “reality” for some others, therefore a vast chasm in their belief systems.
PS: Tell us about your second book? What is the title of the book and what is it all about?
AMB: The second book, named “I am! Within You –Without You!” is based on the same principle: “My humanity is inextricably bound up in yours. We belong in a bundle of life” (“Ubuntu”, the African philosophy of life).
It is the same approach with “The Light of Our Beingness – I Am That You Are!” talking of mindfulness thorough the alchemy of Love, a life juxtaposed with the infinite of the universe, a depiction about “Unione Mystica” (mystical union), lovers living a continuum verb, inside an unravelled universe.
Anca Mihaela Bruma
My name is Anca Mihaela Bruma, I am Romanian living in Dubai/UAE. My love for poetry started when I was just 9 years old, when I registered myself to some creative poetry writing group. It was a turning point for me as I started to discover the mysteries of the written word and its impact on the readers. I was just 6 years old when I registered myself at a public library, being fascinated by the readings. The passion for reading, composing and reciting the written words was extended to choosing the first degree, a BA in English and Romanian Philology. While a teenager, I was published in various journals of poetry.
Since an early age, I have always viewed writing poetry as the perfect medium which is able to depict profound unfathomable complexities of someone’s life or life itself, to render into words that which is unsayable, that ineffable, which can be truly deeper than the language itself. Through my writings, as well years of readings, I always looked to seek something beyond that which was apparent to others! I was fascinated to see how different aspects of truth were transfigured by different emotions, how experiences were poetized. I pursued seeing beauty expressed in all forms of art, not just poetry; creating a “thirst” within me to explore more and more for the knowledge of the mystery beneath and beyond it, as a symbol of something greater and higher with its own power to immortalize the expressions over the years.
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