Brush and Sword

The newsletter by Sameer Sharma

Issue #11

Find What You Love And Let It Kill You- What you love is the means, and you are the end.

The Bones of Me

When I stand in front of my easel, the artist I was yesterday dies to the work that must be done today. When I enter the dojo, the martial artist I am concedes to the martial artist I hope to be. In both arts, I must let go of my former self in order to become my future self. My two great artistic loves- martial arts and painting, have been the cause of both my death and rebirth. Whether I’m wielding a sword in the dojo, or a paint brush in the studio; this cycle of death and rebirth revolves around one constant center- love.

In my previous article, I described how art came to me at an early age. Martial arts wooed me with its siren song later in my 20s. Despite my refusal of their advances, both lovers courted me with persistence till I finally surrendered to their charms. But to reciprocate this love, something had to go. Like the space that disappears between the lovers’ embrace, I closed the gap between us with surrender and faith. I surrendered my resistance to becoming myself. And I had a small degree of faith that something would catch me when I let go. This fear of stepping off the known shore of the safe, predictable and well-worn path is what keeps most of us alive but dead to our soul.

What you love to do- be it your hobby, or vocation, stands before you with open arms waiting for you to embrace and surrender to it with your whole being. What you don’t realize is that this union will kill you. It will kill the small ‘you’ and give life to the big ‘You’ that you are afraid to become. This is the secret of finding and surrendering to what you love. The small egoic self dies so that the soul can come forth. This is the true purpose of all art- to give voice to the soul. You must allow the love between you and your craft to kill your small self. Otherwise, the small self lives and the art dies. As someone who spent the majority of his life preserving his ego, I can attest that nothing is more tragic. When I finally allowed the love for my arts to kill me, I came alive. This path of love is paved with the bones of my former self.

Addition By Subtraction

We are conditioned to want more- more success, more money, more health, more happiness, more, more, and more. But more requires less. Less creates space for more to emerge. I can’t have more artistic skill without less fear of failure. I can’t have more success without less safety. I can’t have more joy, wonder and meaning without less conformity and security. I can’t be free without being less attached to opinions and outcomes beyond my control.

This is the first and hardest lesson of love- to let go. I had to open my closed heart and close my open hand that begged for approval. In return, my arts gave me fulfillment, purpose and joy. The price was vulnerability.

In a previous article, I mentioned that vulnerability is an artist’s real talent. Vulnerability is the invitation for love to enter and do its magic. But, the price of vulnerability is often too high for most people. We choose the familiar comfort of a self-imposed prison rather than the freedom and wonder of the unknown. When you summon just a bit of courage, love will reward you. The reward is annihilation, or what the Sufi mystics call, fana.

Fana

In Arabic, there is a beautiful word, “fana”. This translates as- the annihilation of the ego in the presence of the Divine. But you don’t have to be a Sufi mystic and twirl like a Dervish to experience this. If you’ve ever lost yourself completely when doing something like making art, listening to music or staring at a sunset, then you’ve experienced, fana.

My arts are my gateway into this state. When painting, or practising martial arts, I lose all sense of self and time disappears. There is just the pure act of creation in a timeless state by something greater than me. I believe that “something” is the Soul. In those moments, the ego dies so that the soul can work through you. The body becomes the soul’s instrument of creation. Like the moth that is consumed by the flame, the ego temporarily dissolves in the love between the art and the artist.

Yet fana, this state of joyous unselfing, is not a means to an end. It is the end. I paint to paint; not to win awards. I practice martial arts for its own sake; not to achieve another black belt. As long as I am attached to an outcome, I can never fully enter that state. When I am too attached to a result, my arts slam the door in my face. “Get lost and find your kicks somewhere else!” they scold. That’s my warning to let go of outcomes and surrender to the process. When I can do this, flow and presence return.

This is not easy. Like the art itself, getting into this state is a practice. When love does its alchemical work,​​ it can be uncomfortable and downright scary. The practice is to not resist what comes out in this smelting. Like raw ore that is refined by heat, the love for your art will purge you of whatever is in the way of its expression. Pain will arise, but suffering is optional.

Resistance = Suffering

Suffering is resistance to what is. We all experience pain. It’s our resistance to the feeling we call pain that makes us suffer. Pain is just a feeling, resistance is the judgement of that feeling as bad. I accept that making art is not easy. I accept that I will make a sea of mistakes. I accept that my work may be rejected. I accept that I may toil in obscurity. These outcomes are beyond my control. But my choice to accept them and be at peace, or resist them and suffer is mine alone.

Anyone and anything that I have loved has always been accompanied by the knowing that this too can be taken away from me. Yet what stays is the love itself. In the act of loving, I realized that the object of my love isn’t the source of it. I am. I couldn’t experience love if it wasn’t already inside me. What I love is the medium through which love is expressed.

When you find what you love and let it kill you, you are surrendering your resistance. When there is no resistance, there is no suffering. When I practice my arts and resist my mistakes, then I suffer. When I judge the outcome as bad, then I suffer. When I cannot accept where I am in my practice, then I suffer. In this state of resistance, the stream of love is blocked. To let it flow again, I do my best to come back to the present moment, and find just the smallest bit of gratitude and playfulness. This helps to remove the barriers that I placed in love’s way.

The Giver Is the Receiver

To be in love with something is to be in love with your Self. The love that you feel towards something is coming from you. What you love is just a point of focus; a means to express the love that’s always been inside you. Otherwise, you couldn’t love it in the first place. Remove the requirements you think are necessary. You may think you have to earn it. You don’t. Self-worth is an illusion. How do you measure the worth of a soul?

I believe that love is ultimately what we are all after. Everything we do is a means of experiencing love in its various forms. My love for my arts is the pathway through which I experience the love that was always inside me. What you love is not the source of love. It is a mirror that reflects the source; which is you. When you find what you love, you find yourself. When you let it kill you, you remove the obstacles that you put in your own way.

Before I found the love for my arts, I was both the prisoner and the prison. My arts set me free. They showed me that I was carrying the key all along. What you love is a permission slip to give yourself the love that you search for outside yourself.

So, go and find what you love. You’ll know it when you find it because you’ll be magnetized to it. You won’t have a choice. You won’t understand why you love it. Love is beyond rationality. It will scare and excite you like your first kiss. The bones of your former self are the kindling that stokes love’s fire. Let it burn every obstacle you’ve put in its way. Your only job is to let go and be consumed. In this state of fana, the self-consciousness, the doubt, the voice that says you’re not good enough; they all die. Let them.

Best,

Sameer