Symbols, Shapes and Colours of Mandalas

Watching or creating mandalas requires our ability to connect to our intuitive and intellectual self, to be able to simultaneously use the right and the left hemisphere of our brain. Mandalas help us in this procedure of connecting to ourselves, fine-tuning within.

Making yourself aware of your own feelings, intuitions and experience have primacy in the creation and receptive interpretation of mandalas.

Different Shapes in Mandalas

Dot: everything is one, symbol of the Unmanifested

Circle: wholeness, integrity, unity

Horizontal line: divides up from down, the earth and the sky. Maternal energy.

Vertical line: connection between worlds, energy. Divides right and left.

Cross: two lines meet and form a centre. Recognition.

Triangle with the vertex pointed upwards: aspiration, energies pointing upwards, in the direction of the spiritual sphere

Triangle with vertex pointed downwards: aspirations towards the earthly, material sphere

Hexagon, created from the above-mentioned triangles: unity spiritual and material aspirations

Square: our existence in the material world

Circle and square together: implementation of the spirit in the material

Octagon: harmony in human existence

Pentagon: human being brought to perfection

Heptagon: spiritual way

Circle divided to twelve parts: cycle of nature, wholeness

Swastika: Sun, energy, movement of the Universe

Spiral: cyclic movement of nature, dynamics. The two directions of the spiral symbolises the constructive and the destructive aspects

Colours:

Colours can be interpreted in many different ways:

1.      According to the colours of the chakras

2.      According to the seasons, natural forms

3.      According to the interpretation of different spiritual schools

4.      According to Feng-shui

Certainly, there are several other possibilities for the interpretation…

You can experience what feelings are aroused in you by a specific colour – does it activate or relax you, does it vitalize or soothe you, does it turn you you inside… Does it raise a warm or cold sensation? You can read a lot about the effect that pure colours have on our chakras and  - through the chakras - on our mood and even on the way our organs function. Selecting colours spontaneously (using the colours that are the most appealing to us) can lead us to find the colours that are important for us, the colours that heal and help us in harmonization. I honestly suggest you this method. When ready, the mandalas we created can be interpreted, stared at in astonishment, recognitions may be born.

Pure colours (they have a number of different shades)

Yellow: power, light, joy, this is the colour of the 3rd chakra

Orange:  ample energy, heat, colour of the 2nd chakra

Red: fire, passion, colour of the 1st chakra

Violet: spiritual forces, colour of the 6th chakra

Blue: protection, tranquility, coldness, colour of the 5th chakra.

Green: peace, nature, colour of the 4th chakra

White: purity, unity, colour of the 7th chakra

Black: secret, darkness

Grey, just like brown, has several shades. They can either be cold or warm and they can be almost identical with one of the pure colours. They can be vivid or soft, can express boredom and sadness or, on the contrary, vitality and cheerfulness.