I wanted to share some parts of the book on my blog, especially the amazing imagery and literary references which speaks to our universal desire for a sense of love, completion, and connectedness with the world around us. I hope you will get as much out of the posts as I did from the book.
Great art is a doorway to the divine.
At the center of this “cosmos of enlightened vision” is a representation of the Buddha-the awakened consciousness of our innermost being. The gilded walls and roofs of a celestial palace radiate outward from this sacred center, expressing the fully realized nature of the human mind and body-the arena of enlightenment. The petals of an unfolding lotus support further Buddha emanations, each adopting different hand gestures, indicating different states of enlightened intention. These 36 celestial forms recall the renowned assembly of 35 Buddha’s of repentance and purification. The outer rings of stylized clouds and fire are, in turn, inscribed by vignettes of the eight charnel grounds renowned in Tantric tradition as optimal environments for awakening from life’s illusions.
The paintings in Celestial Gallery depict Buddhist deities and bodhisattvas. These are not gods remote from our experience, but reflections of different states of awareness. The Buddhas, Taras, and other peaceful divinities represent sublime states of consciousness, while the wrathful or diabolical forms represent our inner tendencies for resentment, jealousy, greed, and guilt. When we are not in touch with our own “shadow” energies, they express themselves pathologically. But when we consciously address these powerful forces, we become more accepting of ourselves and others and can turn these energies into creative expression. Similarly, the ecstatic deities, shown in sexual union, represent the transmutation of passion into a force of spiritual awakening – the harmonious reintegration of the male and female energies which shape the entire universe. Ultimately, the spiritual journey leads to the blissful exultation of the spirit, and to the original ecstasy embodied in the symbolic forms. By identifying with the intricately rendered worlds within a mandala and the primal source at its center, we can enlarge our experience of the universe in which we dwell.
I curve back within myself and manifest different forms, I realize that I am not in the universe but the universe is in me; I am not in this body, this body is in me; I am not in this mind, this mind is in me. And as I curve back within myself, I create the experience of mind, of body, of the universe and all these infinite realms. That’s enlightenment: to know that the entire universe is a projection of my own being and that I create within myself the texture and fabric of all that exists.
(Bhagavad Gita)
text excerpts: Celestial Gallery, foreword by Deepak Chopra, 2000
hilitehead 
elaborate?