For thousands of years icons and art have inspired seekers to open their hearts to higher spheres of life. The whisper to the mind that there’s something more, something mystical behind the veil of concrete things that we see everyday. Walking into Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris or seeing roadside shrines in Switzerland where saints are sheltered in stone niches, moves the mind into the sacred land of the Divine. 

Statues of Jesus with the compassionate, flaming heart and the serene face of the Buddha that adorns temples, inspire both compassion and serenity in the beholder. As the iconographers of the Middle Ages knew, sacred images bring the troubled mind that contemplates them to go deeper and merge in God. Sacred art moves us beyond the mundane and merely physical into the realm of the spiritual.

For today, consider the art and images that inspire you to go deeper and higher. Some contemporary artists like Nicholas Roerich, a Russian painter who chooses subjects from St. Francis to Tibetan Buddhist masters offer an updated view of mystical experiences and spiritual life. Images of mandalas, used by Buddhists, are meant to move the mind to the “central” house and gain the quality embodied in the image, like health or peace. Yantras are a form of art that is a physical embodiment of a mantra carved on a metal like copper. A point in the center guides the mind to merge in the purity of Divinity.

What images or icons uplift your mind?

Bio: Debra Moffitt is author of Awake in the World: 108 Practices to Live a Divinely Inspired Life. A visionary and teacher, she’s devoted to nurturing the spiritual in everyday life. She leads workshops on spiritual practices at the Sophia Institute and other venues in the U.S. and Europe. Her mind/body/spirit articles, essays and stories appear in publications around the globe and were broadcast by BBC World Services Radio. She has spent over fifteen years practicing meditation, working with dreams and doing spiritual practices. Visit her online at http://www.awakeintheworld.com.