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Book Cover for: Art as a Hidden Message: A Guide to Self-Realization, Swami Kriyananda

Art as a Hidden Message: A Guide to Self-Realization

Swami Kriyananda

Art as a Hidden Message offers a blueprint for the future of art, and shows how art can be a powerful influence for meaningful existence and positive attitudes in society. With insightful commentary on the great musicians, artists, and creative thinkers of our time, Art as a Hidden Message presents a new approach to the arts, one that views both artistic expression and artistic appreciation as creative communication. Swami Kriyananda shows the importance of seeing oneself and all things as aspects of a greater reality, of seeking to enter into conscious attunement with that reality, and of seeing all things as channels for the expression of that reality.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Crystal Clarity Publishers
  • Publish Date: Nov 1st, 1997
  • Pages: 189
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 7.95in - 5.28in - 0.53in - 0.50lb
  • EAN: 9781565897410
  • Categories: Criticism & TheorySpirituality

About the Author

Kriyananda, Swami: - A prolific author, accomplished composer, playwright, and artist, and a world-renowned spiritual teacher, Swami Kriyananda (1926-2013) referred to himself simply as "a humble disciple" of the great God-realized master, Paramhansa Yogananda. He met his guru at the young age of twenty-two, and served him during the last four years of the master's life. He dedicated the rest of his life to sharing Yogananda's teachings throughout the world. Kriyananda was born in Romania of American parents, and educated in Europe, England, and the United States. Philosophically and artistically inclined from youth, he soon came to question life's meaning and society's values. During a period of intense inward reflection, he discovered Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi, and immediately traveled three thousand miles from New York to California to meet the master, who accepted him as a monastic disciple. Yogananda appointed him as the head of the monastery, authorized him to teach in his name and to give initiation into Kriya Yoga, and entrusted him with the missions of writing and developing what he called "world-brotherhood colonies". Recognized as the "father of the spiritual communities movement" in the United States, Swami Kriyananda founded the Ananda World Brotherhood Community in the Sierra Nevada Foothills of Northern California in 1968. It has served as a model for nine communities founded subsequently in the United States, Europe, and India.

Praise for this book

"Art as a Hidden Message is a monumental work, and should be required reading for everyone. Artists, especially, will benefit from it, and should carefully read, study, and act on what is enshrined in these pages. This book is, I believe, the most important book of our time on this vitally important subject." - Derek Bell, from the preface of this book, Legendary harpist of the five-time Grammy award-winning group The Chieftains


"[Swami Kriyananda] has provided a manual for creativity as spiritual practice. Insightful, inspiring, and imaginative, Art as a Hidden Message reveals the sacred dimension of artistic expression and opens a new world of meaning and purpose." - Michael Toms, Co-founder, New Dimensions Radio and co-author of True Work: The Sacred Dimension of Earning a Living


"[Swami Kriyananda] reminds us throughout the book that the appreciation of the arts and of a virtuous life are similar. He mentions that science (methodology) and art (intuition) are 'natural partners, ' just as reason and feeling are found in balance in the realized individual." - Allan Hartley, Editor, New Perspectives Magazine