Thursday 17 June 2010

Mind-Over-Colour

Be it any language, it has phrases linking different moods/emotions/feelings with colours. And recently, I realized that these phrases are not mere musings of an idle ancestral mind. They have a rather unfathomable significance on the physical world!

The profoundness of this mind-colour-matter association hit me while hanging out at Mocha when I saw my reflection in the mirror illuminated by red light (Mochas' trademark). Flawless skin, sharp features- I thought I was staring at a stranger! Red is touted as the colour of ''confidence'' and at that moment I couldn't agree more! It subtly camouflages your acne, highlights your features, giving you a very beautiful aura. It explains the dominant use of red lighting on theatre stages, probably to accentuate the facial expressions of the actors, and why the red-light-areas are called so. There is more to this insecurity-buster than just wearing a red out-fit.

Jealousy makes your facial veins jut out and you become ''green'' with envy. You appear pale and ''yellow'' when sick, thanks to the existence of a (yellow yellow) ''dirty fellow'' in your body. I don't feel the need to mention excreta ;)...When you bump into something and feel excruciating pain to the core, the surrounding skin turns blue. That's why you feel ''blue'' even when someone hurts you verbally.

Imagine all your emotions placed on a rotating disc. When they careen out of control, they are replaced by a single emotion- fear. Or you can say that when you are gripped by extreme fear, your confidence, stability and all other feelings whirl into oblivion inside your mind. Isn't it analogous to a rotating disc divided into different hues uniformly showing a white colour when swerved wildly? You turn ''white'' with fear!

White is also associated with purity of mind, which is inherent in a very very few people. Compare it with the R-G-B model that we learned in school. When the three basic colours (emotions) of accurate shades (intensities) are mixed, they give a pure white shade. A slight deviation in any one of the shades (emotional intensities) gives a greyish outcome...And that explains the existence of people with different grey shades. I am sure many of you must have shallowly correlated grey shades as a combination of black (dark thoughts) and white (ideal thoughts). But these age-old ideologies run deeper than that.

When you achieve something by imbibing virtuous qualities and overcoming all the negative ones, you are said to ''come out with flying colours''. Just as the perfect combination of rain (gloomy days) and sun (bright moments) develops into an enchanting rainbow. Although most of us are cynical about the lucky stones the astrologers advise to wear, they may have more of scientific than spiritual bearings-an unexplored aspect. Mind over matter, mind over colour. You'd better mind over what colour colours your mind and, what colour your mind colours ;)...

Ciao!
Rati

1 comment:

  1. Really nice post. Have you ever wondered about the colour perception paradox? What is 'red' for me, is it 'red' for you? Anyway, let me be cheeky and ask you to visit my blog too,

    mindgrease@blogspot.com

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