Easy, Yet Complicated

Human mind is an incredible vessel which can have millions of thoughts at the same instance. This can be a boon to some people and a bane to some others. The painting brings out the latter in this scenario. The protagonist is trying to meditate and clear his mind from all the worldly thoughts and detoxify his mind. But instead of achieving self-realization through meditation, his mind is wandering off to many places at a time due to worldly attachments. Through this artwork, I want to convey the audience that, even though it may seem like doing meditation is like a cakewalk, it’s really difficult for a person to concentrate his/her mind into God, a concept which is something unknown and incomprehensible to human psychology. The subject in the painting is portrayed as bare-bodied which symbolizes that he wants to give up all worldly pleasures and concentrate on understanding the spiritual aspects of life by devoting his time and mind towards meditation. But due to attachments with the outer world, this is not happening to him as he desires. The other characters who are distracting him are his own self in the form of financial commitments, entertainment, attachment to blood relatives, etc. Even the minor characters are dressed in charming, colourful outfits signifying that even though the protagonist understands the importance of penance, he still thinks these distractions are ‘cool’ and he longs for these.