The End Beyond The End

Does anything ever end entirely? Or is every ending merely a beginning disguised as a complete stop, a win concealed within a loss, a rebirth arising out of death?

In the soul, you have an eternal essence that any temporality can never bind and exists beyond the cycle of life and death. However, just like the mind-boggling diversity that inhabits this planet, there is a mind-boggling diversity of traditions with their conceptions of what the soul is. From an Egyptian conception of the soul as a dual entity with a ka and a ba, to the Hebrews who thought the soul is intricately tied to the body, to those from Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism where the soul can travel across lifetimes and change bodies.

It is this same journey of various souls across the cosmos that is being showcased in the painting. One of the most prominent features that strikes a viewer at first glance about the picture is the metaphysical and extra-terrestrial nature of the setting. Most distance between the two large wheels is filled with space: black matter and nothingness, stardust and stars, galaxies and comets. The vastness of the universe is firstly and profound invoked by the painting since we are made to imagine elements that transcend limitations of planet or galaxy.

Stars do not speak any definable language. As such, comprehending space’s vastness is a proficient way of taking one’s life with humility and grace. Comprehending the ease with which all these angelic and translucent souls are walking across the surface of space as though they are simply strolling for a garden’s walk communicates how malleable our identities are. Our identity feels like everything to us as we stand now. However, when inspected through the lens of the microscope of the universe, our identity does not stand for anything. To the soul merely a part of the universal consciousness, the essence we so carefully craft can be discarded at the drop of a hat and pursued for another. We are already walking wonders of the universe.

This sense of wonder and openness is reflected in this canvas as various souls walk across black matter and toward the beyond. We are still determining their following territory, which realm they will end up in, or their final destination. Will they go on to take over the material skin of another body, or will they attain emancipation, i.e., moksha? Even though these souls may have various fates awaiting them, their sameness is established in the painting. In this brief moment, as they traverse this path, they are all somehow one unit. The mystery of their destiny mirrors the secret of our soul's destiny and the existential anxiety we humans universally face over life after death. The forward pacing attitude of the various souls symbolizes this same longing for something unnamable but irresistible. At the same time, as they move ahead, their bodies are not distinct or opaque always. They are shown as dissolving into the ether. Here and there, the viewer sees a disappearing limb or a body on the verge of vanishing—these depictions of how our identities and selves are not as distinct as we think. We are in a perpetual state of dying and being born again. Our cells collapse, and new cells replace old ones every second. We are inseparable from the elements of the universe that surround us.

The two wheels on either side are the last players of the painting. They constitute the most exciting and riveting facet of the background. The wheels draw our attention and are responsible for creating the effect of a river of the universe flowing through them. More than that, they carry symbolic significance as well. They highlight the cyclical nature of Time. As such, they can be interpreted as being the wheels of Time itself. The wheel of time concept is found notably in several eastern traditions, like Jainism, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc. A wheel’s prominent characteristic is that it never has a beginning or an end. Its circular movement is perpetual and eternal. No obstruction of design can stop it. The wheel comes back to where it started from, and then it starts moving again. Apart from that, the wheel can also move forward and has historically been central in revolutionizing how humans move on earth. The wheel gave birth to vehicles. The wheel gave birth to quicker speeds and eventually allowed humans to traverse massive territory in record-breaking times. The wheel also found itself placed on the toes of airplanes. The wheel became omnipotent, just like Time already is. As such, it is an apt symbol of forward momentum and of progress. These are all characteristics that Time possesses. This omnipresent force demands our surrender every moment of our life. Whenever we think we can fight Time, it works harder to prove us wrong. In the painting, the souls are moving across the plane of existence, bound on either side by the wheels of Time. As such, the journey of these souls can be interpreted in different ways. They are entering the matrix they came out of, i.e., once again entering the mundane existence of mortal life. Or else they are transcending the boundaries of Time and stepping across to a different timeline. This second interpretation is not meant to show a contradiction between science and the artwork but to highlight a fantasy. Since Time cannot be overcome or bested, humans always long to gain mastery over it. This same fantasy of a domination over Time is the one that can be read as being played out on the canvas of this painting. These souls aren’t merely travelers of space but of Time. They are conquerors of the vast building blocks of the universe. Ultimately, this painting is filled with longing—the longing to transcend and the longing to be limitless.