Mandala is the Sanskrit word for circle. Commonly, a mandala is a circular drawing made in a ritual and geometric way to contain the mandala-maker's thoughts, reflections, ideals, dreams, symbols and psychological state of mind.
A mandala can be viewed as a psychic totality, a symbol or reflection of the self. It can be viewed as is a reflection of your consciousness at the moment of drawing.
The mandala, the outer circle, can be regarded as the container. Within this container, the mandala-maker draws the pictures or words, the colours, symbols, icons, numbers or textures that are appropriate and potent for them at that time. The contents of the circle are uniquely meaningful to the mandala maker, and can be interpreted in the same way that dream symbols can be read.
The circle is a universal human symbol, found in all the world's great spiritual and religious traditions.
It is a shape without beginning or end, thus representing wholeness, unity, the centre, the Self, totality, eternity, infinity, timelessness, cyclical reoccurrence, the universe and God. It can represent the entirety of both the inner and the outer world.
The circle delineates the sacred space and also used for protection in magic and ritual. Ancient cities were often laid out in a circular pattern with the temple or the palace in the centre. Circles of light, especially around the head, called haloes, are used in religious art to designate holy persons. Circles are used to show the fickleness of fate (the Wheel of Fortune) and the cyclic nature of life, time, the movement of the planets. In the Buddhist tradition, the Wheel of Dharma, an eight-spoked wheel, represents the cycle of birth, death and reincarnation as well as the way that Buddha's teaching continues to spread endlessly, with Buddha as the unmoving hub.
Drawn mindfully, the experience of making a mandala may be healing, comforting, restorative, confronting, reassuring, shocking, funny, sad or inspirational. A mandala represents a unifying and integrating force for the individual. Drawing a mandala can help to make the unconscious conscious.
James Joyce wrote in Ulysses: ‘Any object, intensely regarded, may be a gate of access to the incorruptible eon of the gods.’
So it is with a mandala. Just as gazing into a mirror can show you your exterior self, gazing into a mandala can reveal the inner self. Studying your own mandala drawings can be an opportunity to encounter your authentic self.
Mandalas can play a part in both healing and transformation for all mandala-makers. Some believe that the meditative experience of drawing a mandala not only helps to heal the mandala-maker, but can also work for greater good, for all the life on the planet.
Universally inherent in human consciousness, mandalas are common to all major cultures and traditions. Many of the world's great religious and spiritual traditions honour the mandala in meditation, creation and reflection.
Mandalas are used in the Buddhist tradition as a basis for meditation and education. It is possibly in Tibet where the mandala has achieved its fullest and most complex development.
The Hindu faith uses mandalas for prayer, meditation and reflection. Mandalas in the Christian tradition are manifest in the labyrinths and stained glass windows of Europe's medieval cathedrals. Native American Indians create sand mandalas their spiritual life. The Australian Aboriginal culture utilises circular drawings in sacred art. The Celtic tradition has immortalised the circle and the knot as sacred symbols for centuries.
Much like the interpretation of a dream, mandalas can reveal how you are feeling, issues that you are grappling with at a conscious or sub-conscious level, reflections of the past or the present or perhaps may even be harbingers of the future. As a photograph may show you the reflection of the external world, a mandala can show your inner world at that precise moment.
Mandalas may contain a vast array of symbolism reflective of the mandala-maker's life journey. As well as the actual picture or shapes within the mandala, colours and numbers can also be pointers in its interpretation.
Like dreams, it is impossible to generalise about the meaning of symbols in a mandala, because they relate intimately to the mandala-maker's own life and consciousness. All answers are within, waiting to be found.
Carl Jung, one of the fathers of modern psychology, was instrumental in introducing the mandala to the Western world as an instrument of psychological investigation and healing. During a time when he was experiencing great personal upheavals, he turned to art, and especially to mandala-making, as therapy. In Memories, Dreams and Reflections, he wrote:
'My mandalas were cryptograms concerning the state of the self which were presented to me anew each day. In them I saw the self - that is, my whole being - actively at work. To be sure, at first I could only dimly understand them; but they seemed to me highly significant, and I guarded them like precious pearls. I had the distinct feeling that they were something central, and in time I acquired through them a living conception of the self. The self, I thought, was like the monad which I am, and which is my world. The mandala represents this monad, and corresponds to the microscopic nature of the psyche.' (Fontana Press, 1995, page 221)
Check out the following links to great websites about mandalas.
An exploration of the mandala as a tool for growth and the discovery of the self. Includes an extensive guide to mandala resources in print and on the World Wide Web.
A non-profit project dedicated to promoting peace through art and education. Explore mandalas from all over the world submitted to this site.
Be sure to check out Susanne Fincher's website Creating Mandalas, as well as her inspirational book of the same name.
Charles' website contains some beautiful original artwork as well as free mandala templates.
Margi Gibb is an Australian mandala artist. Her website contains some lovely original works.
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