ShinsungHwa: Visualizing Baba Hari Dass’s Spiritual Energy (2019)
What is ShinsungHwa?
ShinsungHwa is a unique form of spiritual art where drawings emerge through spontaneous, flowing movements. Artists tap into their subject’s energy and let Qi(氣) guide their hands, creating geometric patterns that serve as a universal language.
Understanding Baba Hari Dass’s ‘ShinsungHwa’
Baba Hari Dass’s ‘ShinsungHwa’ has an unusual structure that caught my eye right away. Unlike other spiritual portraits I’ve created, his ‘path to the spiritual core’ doesn’t start directly above his head. Instead, something remarkable appears from a point in the spiritual realm above him.
Two streams of ‘spiral energy’ flow downward toward his upper body. At their source, three distinct layers rise upward—so high they went beyond my original paper. I had to add another sheet to capture what was being revealed.
On that extra paper, his ‘spiritual core’ appeared as energy that moves like clouds in divine wind.
The most striking feature starts where his mandorla begins. Here, the ‘spiral energy’ expands dramatically, taking up nearly half the entire ‘ShinsungHwa’. Multiple mandorla layers wrap around him protectively, while at his navel, a clear ‘symbol of light’ emerges.
Below his feet, I traced the material centerline—a pathway extending into the physical realm. At its base sits the ‘symbol of the cosmic principle‘, surrounded by a rotating energy field with its own rhythm.
What stands out most is how clearly his portrait shows his influence on the world through spiritual energy and inner light. This wasn’t just personal illumination—it was the fundamental force driving our universe, working through him to touch countless lives.
The entire piece speaks to someone who bridged the spiritual realm and our everyday world, channeling something far greater than himself with remarkable humility.
A Boy Who Listened to the Wind
Baba Hari Dass was born in Almora, a hill town in northern India, on March 26, 1923. Pine trees lined the steep mountain paths, and temple bells echoed through the valleys. At eight years old—when most kids were still flying kites—he left home to join wandering sādhus, the monks who walked pilgrim trails toward the sacred Lake Manasarovar. He slept under stars, learned breathing exercises from older mendicants, and discovered early that silence often spoke louder than words.
Those first years sound like folklore, but they were surprisingly practical. He worked with bricklayers repairing roadside shrines, earning bread while memorizing the verses they sang at sunset. The work gave him lifelong skills with stone and wood—talents he’d later use to build temples on another continent.
Silence as a Second Language
In 1952, at twenty-nine, he set down his voice and picked up a small chalkboard, taking a vow of lifelong mauna—silence. His written explanation was simple: quiet words can’t start loud arguments, and a still mind notices everything. He kept this promise for over six decades, until his death in 2018.
Silence didn’t diminish him; it focused him. He became a respected teacher of Aṣṭāṅga Yoga, the eight-limbed path described by Patañjali, weaving posture, breath, and ethics into one practice. For Western students struggling with Sanskrit, he simplified the terms: yama as “what not to do,” niyama as “what to keep doing.” Kids in his classes said the lessons felt more like balance games than memorization drills.
The vow drew some skepticism. How could a silent guru connect with students facing real problems—mortgages, difficult children, broken pipes? He answered by showing up at 5 a.m. to chop vegetables for everyone’s breakfast, turning service into wordless conversation.
Crossing the Ocean Without a Voice
In 1971, California art students convinced him to board a plane to San Francisco, chalkboard in hand. Immigration officers were puzzled. Why would a man who wouldn’t speak travel halfway around the world? He wrote: “To build community.” That answer proved prophetic.
Within years, he helped establish Mount Madonna Center in the redwood hills above Santa Cruz, offering affordable retreats, children’s camps, and a Hanuman temple he designed himself. Across the border in British Columbia, students opened Salt Spring Centre, converting cedar barns into yoga halls.
Not every path was smooth. He had served under the famous Neem Karoli Baba, mentor to counterculture icon Ram Dass, but left that ashram after disagreements over structure and discipline—a quiet departure never fully explained, still debated by yoga historians. Even saints have meetings that end badly.
Building Homes for Bodies and Souls
Royalties from his books—clear commentaries on the Yoga Sūtras, accessible retellings of the Rāmāyaṇa, children’s stories—accumulated in accounts he never touched for personal use. Memories of a childhood friend beaten in a harsh orphanage haunted him. He asked his American sponsor, Ma Renu, to channel every penny into Sri Ram Ashram, a home for abandoned children near Haridwar, India, which opened in 1987.
Visitors expecting austere halls found basketball hoops, bright classrooms, and a courtyard where toddlers practiced tree pose under mango trees. Staff taught English, Hindi, and basic courtesies—”Please pass the chapati,” “Thank you for listening”—that built respect into daily life. Some former residents now run the place themselves, proof of the cycle he started.
A Gentle Teacher in Tough Times
Students admired his discipline but loved his humor more. He once wrote: “If you want to find God, try looking under your ego. It’s usually lying on top.” The line traveled on bumper stickers up Highway 1.
He also urged practical sense. When young seekers announced they’d live on prana alone, he wrote: “The body isn’t a battery you can recharge with wishful thinking.” Such honesty prevented many stomachaches.
Critics say Western yoga leans too heavily on poses and neglects ethics. Baba Hari Dass pushed back decades before this debate hit social media, insisting that kindness, honest communication (or in his case, honest writing), and steady service mattered more than touching your toes. No scandal ever touched him; even skeptics admit he practiced what he preached.
What Remains: Questions, Kindness, and Quiet
Baba Hari Dass died on September 25, 2018, in the Santa Cruz Mountains at age 95, surrounded by students who read his final notes like lullabies. His chalkboard now hangs in the Mount Madonna library, bearing faint traces of half-erased Sanskrit, grocery lists, and an arrow pointing to “Love everyone.”
Today, children at Sri Ram Ashram email hand-drawn cards to the California elders who once sanded floors for their dorms. A stone gateway in Almora bears his simple motto: “Work honestly, meditate every day, meet people without fear, and play.”
For adults and ten-year-olds alike, this sounds less like distant mysticism and more like solid neighborhood advice—ordinary holiness that still speaks softly, even in silence.
