Copyright © Lawrence Sheaff, 2008, Maharishi Vedic City, Iowa, USA. 
All rights reserved. No part of this text, including any accompanying images and graphics, may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

THE SILENT GALLERY

A FACILITY FOR THE PERMANENT DISPLAY OF
THE ABSOLUTE IMAGE SERIES OF PAINTINGS

Charter

To Be Presented to Maharishi Vedic City
(Unedited Initial Draft)

LAWRENCE SHEAFF

THE BUILDING AND MAINTAINING OF A PRIVATELY FUNDED ART GALLERY DEDICATED TO COSMIC SILENCE DESCRIBED IN THIS INITIAL DOCUMENT IS TO BE OFFERED AS A GIFT TO MAHARISHI VEDIC CITY. IT IS SUGGESTED THAT SUCH AN ART INSTITUTION COULD BE ESTABLISHED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF A ”MAHARISHI VEDIC CITY FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS”. AS AN INSTITUTION THE PURPOSE OF THE SILENT GALLERY WOULD BE TO PROMOTE MAHARISHI VEDIC SCIENCE, TO PROMOTE MAHARISHI VEDIC CITY, AND TO SUPPORT THE MAHARISHI VEDIC CITY VEDIC PUNDITS.

EXCERPTS FROM THE CHARTER

The knowledge of the universe as an infinity of infinities has been maintained throughout time in the ancient Vedic wisdom of India. This level of reality has now been identified by modern science through it’s objective means of gaining knowledge. The Absolute Image Series of Paintings in the context of The Silent Gallery attempts to address that ‘infinity of infinities’ and, perhaps for the first time in the history of art, give conscious expression to it in terms of our visual aesthetic reality*

OVERVIEW

THE GIFT

‘Thy gift my Lord I return to thee’

My Absolute Image Series of Paintings* were directly inspired by Maharishi’s complete knowledge of consciousness. I feel therefore, these paintings to have been gifted to me from Maharishi. In the spirit of returning that gift I would like to offer to Maharishi Vedic City the Absolute Image Series along with a purpose-built facility to house them—‘The Silent Gallery’.

The aspiration of these paintings has been to give visual form to the Absolute and thereby reconnect both the artist and the visual arts as a whole to their foundation in consciousness. If Maharishi Vedic City were to accept this gift and make land available for building The Silent Gallery within its precincts, my mission as an artist would be complete: with the acceptance of this gift by Maharishi Vedic City, my desire would be fulfilled to humbly return what I have been given to its source. —Lawrence Sheaff

COMPONENTS OF THE SILENT GALLERY

Entrance Lobby
Main gallery
Exhibition Hall and Media Theater
The Silent Gallery Shop
Digital Image Production and Fulfillment Office
Director Office
General Office,
Security and Maintenance Office
Public Bathrooms.

THE SILENT GALLERY

THE SILENT GALLERY: A PLACE OF KNOWLEDGE PEACE

The Silent Gallery will be a unique phenomenon. It will offer a totally unique aesthetic experience. Silence will naturally be maintained within the main gallery space because of the nature of its architecture. The Silent Gallery will be built according to the principles provided by Maharishi Sthapatya Veda for constructing fortune-creating buildings in harmony with Natural Law.

The Absolute Image Series of Paintings and The Silent Gallery that house them are designed together to present the total potential of our visual aesthetic reality in its most concentrated form. The Silent Gallery is a place of knowledge and peace, a place for silent contemplation. It is a place designed to rejoice in the wonder of seeing—to rejoice in the wonder of our power to see both inwardly and outwardly.

The Silent Gallery is also a place just to be. It is a place devised to reinforce through aesthetic experience the natural unity that exists between our inner and outer realities.

CELEBRATING MAHARISHI’S GIFTS TO THE WORLD

The Silent Gallery is to exclusively and permanently house the Absolute Image Series of Paintings. Both the building and the paintings are to be bequeathed to the enlightened residents of Maharishi Vedic City.

The artist’s continuing purpose has been to find a way to give visual form to Maharishi’s totality of knowledge. The Absolute Image Series of Paintings pay homage to Maharishi for all his glorious gifts to the world. The paintings were made to celebrate, in terms of an artistic expression, that cosmic totality, Brahm, which Maharishi embodied in all its perfection.

The Silent Gallery aspires to create a venue of the highest quality whose purpose will be to help draw all those who love the arts directly into Maharishi’s knowledge of consciousness. The main agenda of The Silent Gallery will be to attract visitors to the city, not only from the general public, but also from other art institutions around the country and around the world through its specific outreach programs.

Both through its physical presence in Maharishi Vedic City and the interest it is hoped it will stir beyond the city borders, The Silent Gallery aspires to be a source of pride, nourishment, and enjoyment for its residents. (The artist’s initialarchitecturalsketches for the facility are included in this document.)

UNIVERSALITY, NOT INDIVIDUALITY

By exploring our visual world in the light of Maharishi Vedic Science, Absolute Image seeks to connect both the artist and the visual arts as a whole directly to their ultimate source in pure consciousness, the unified Totality of Natural Law. The Silent Gallery and its Absolute Image Series of Paintings is solely devoted to exploring universal values of artistic expression in the context of Maharishi’s knowledge of consciousness. The paintings are about universality, not about the artist’s individuality.

The Silent Gallery’s focus therefore is on the art—not on the artist. It will not be appropriate to make a feature of the artist in The Silent Gallery’s promotional materials, but rather to emphasize Maharishi’s knowledge of consciousness in relation to the visual arts.

It should also be noted that no proceeds from The Silent Gallery would go to the artist. Instead, all its revenues will go to support the Maharishi Vedic City Vedic Pundits and their Vedic performances for creating enlightenment for every individual, invincibility for every nation, and peace for the world.

GALLERY OPERATIONS

The Silent Gallery will operate as a private institution within Maharishi Vedic City. However, its Charter of Operations will initially be devised in collaboration with the Maharishi Vedic City Council. Such collaboration will continue in relation to all the gallery’s ongoing promotional materials both within the city and on the national and international levels. Because The Silent Gallery is their to support the goals of the city council—which are to promote Maharishi’s knowledge and MVC as a whole and its uniquely creative atmosphere—the collaboration would always naturally be mutually enriching and supportive.

In addition to this, The Silent Gallery’s Director will always ensure that its programs are developed in concert with both MUM’s departments of art (including video and film) and William Teeple’s Icon Gallery and Stacey Hurlin’s Emerald Gallery in Fairfield. The Silent Gallery, while representing the underlying unity of the arts will, at the same time, cherish the great diversity of artistic expressions these institutions foster and promote.

Another major role of The Silent Gallery Director will be to create out-reach programs and send invitations to universities and colleges of art in the USA and around the world. The Silent Gallery as an established public institution will seek to forge an ongoing relationship with other educational centers around the world. One of the main purposes of this liaison would be to arrange for groups of students to visit MUM and MVC and experience first-hand the power of consciousness-based Vedic education in all its glorious expressions.

THE PRINCIPLES BEHIND THE SILENT GALLERY

Absolute Image, The Silent Gallery and the
totality of Natural Law as an infinity of infinities

A more complete discussion of the Absolute Image Series of Paintings is provided in the artist’s book, “The Line as Living Pulsations of Consciousness”. The very compact statements that follow therefore, offer only a brief summary of the purpose of the series and principles behind them.

The concept itself of The Silent Gallery was also inspired by Maharishi’s knowledge. The Silent Gallery is integral to the Absolute Image Series of Paintings and completes their purpose. For this reason the artist has now committed himself to the realization of this unique art institution.

The purpose of The Silent Gallery together with Absolute Image Series is to define the ultimate cosmic value of wholeness—the infinity of infinites level of reality—in relation to our visual modes of expression. Since time immemorial the knowledge of the infinity of infinities structure of reality has been maintained in the Vedic wisdom of India. This level of reality has now been identified by modern science through its objective means of gaining knowledge.

Each painting in the Absolute Image Series is a self-sufficient universe unto itself and, therefore, presents one value of infinity. However, the reality of the unbounded Absolute—the Totality of Natural Law, pure consciousness—is that it is an infinity of infinities. This is a value of wholeness beyond which there is no larger magnitude*. The purpose for bringing the Absolute Image Series together and housing them permanently in The Silent Gallery is to finally address this ultimate value of wholeness.

FOOTNOTE: The Tenth Mandala of Rig Veda embodies this ultimate wholeness of reality. The Vedic aphorism “Thou art the Tenth” confirms that the human psychophysiology itself is potentially the living, breathing Totality of Natural Law, the infinity of infinities, in localized form.

The single infinity of a single Absolute Image, although on one level complete in itself, does not give expression to that ultimate magnitude of wholeness. To express the infinity of infinities level of existence, and thereby fully complete the purpose of Absolute Image, a series of paintings are needed who’s potential permutations are seen to be infinite in number.

This means that to give the fullest artistic expression to an infinity of infinities, a certain critical mass of the Absolute Image Series would need to be assembled under one roof. At the present time, forty paintings have been completed in the series, and this number is felt to be sufficient to convincingly establish the infinite possible range of their permutations in the awareness of the viewer. It seemed to the artist that a certain density of intelligence had been collectively accumulated in the series with the creation of the fortieth painting and that this then brought forth the concept for the ideal facility for housing them—The Silent Gallery.

THE INFINITY OF INFINITIES:
AN HISTORICALLY UNPRECEDENTED ARTISTIC ENDEAVOR

The conscious endeavor to give artistic expression to the infinity of infinities—the ultimate value of wholeness—would seem to be unprecedented in the history of art; this project could only have been inspired by Maharishi Vedic Science. As we have seen, to effectively achieve this endeavor, a structure designed to specifically enhance that level of experience—The Silent Gallery—had to be created. 

The search for the Absolute in visual form was initiated in our Western traditions of painting in the early decades of the twentieth-century. Artists such as Malevich, Kandinsky, and Mondrian, among others, were the first to begin defining absolute values in the visual arts. Absolute Image aspires to bring to fulfillment this decades-long research for the ultimate foundations of our visual aesthetic reality (the term “visual aesthetic reality” refers to our inborn faculty to powerfully respond to certain arrangements of color-form).

However, as we have seen, the project would remain incomplete if limited to the single infinity of a single image. Now, and perhaps for the very first time, the infinity of infinities level of existence has not only been addressed in the arts but an attempt made to actualize that greatest magnitude of wholeness as a direct outer sensory perception within the purpose-built ambience of The Silent Gallery. 

Without the unbounded scope of Maharishi’s complete knowledge of consciousness, the articulating of this infinite potential of the visual arts could not even have been conceived of let alone attempted as a realizable reality. The artist therefore, in his books and discussions about the Absolute Image Series always points to the Vedic wisdom of His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi as the source of all his artistic work and for shaping its highest aspirations.

THE SILENT GALLERY ADMINISTRATION

An endowment fund would be established by private donors for the building and ongoing maintenance of The Silent Gallery.

As has been said, all aspects of The Silent Gallery’s operation policies and programs will be mutually agreed beforehand between the endowment fund’s chairperson and board of trustees, the Gallery Director, and the council members of Maharishi Vedic City. Any adjustments to these that are found to be necessary after The Silent Gallery is up and running will again be mutually agreed between the same. This includes all new programs or promotional projects that The Silent Gallery Director and staff may wish to launch in the context of ongoing gallery operations and their agreed upon overall purpose.

The Silent Gallery would seek charity status and all its extra earnings would go to help fund the Maharishi Vedic City Vedic Pundits (or support other Maharishi consciousness-based educational programs). As has been made clear, the artist will not receive any financial benefit from the existence of The Silent Gallery or its activities (NOTE: There may also be funds available from the state government to help create and maintain such a public educational facility).

EXCERPTS FROM THE INITIAL DRAFT OF THE SILENT GALLERY’S CHARTER ENDS