ICON

Icons, like Tibetan Mandalas, are a mode of access for other states of consciousness which can be a program of grace in human potential encoded in the very flesh of our existence. The Hesychasm was strongly iconophilic. Icons, like mandalas are not really images or pictures in the sense of a painting or drawing, but a world of radiant beauty that leads to the production of the art that in turn refers back to that world. The significance of an icon, like a mandala, is not the aesthetic form itself but what it evokes in the viewer, in the world. The image is a reference point for the meditator, a portal of transcendence for those who understand its function. The maker of icons is required to fast and pray and go on pilgrimages, to practice perhaps many other forms of ascetical discipline in order to infuse the icons with holy energy that comes from such practice. It is similarly necessary for the viewer to do the same in order to shift into the realm of the divine presence, to access that capacity for this type of experience. “Put yourself in the presence of God.”