Raphael Montoliu is an artist by vocation and profession. He grew up watching his artist parents draw and paint, and feels happiest with brushes in hand, canvas and oil paint, when...показать большеRaphael Montoliu is an artist by vocation and profession. He grew up watching his artist parents draw and paint, and feels happiest with brushes in hand, canvas and oil paint, when he is not spending time in nature, his real home.
Born in a large metropolis, he became aware very early on that city life does not provide the best environment to develop a spiritual relationship with the natural creation. But he felt that this problem went much deeper than everyday noise, rush, crowds and pollution, that there was something fundamentally askew with civilization, at its very foundation.
He consequently embarked on a spiritual journey and intuitively sought solitary, contemplative moments in nature whenever he could, during family vacations and later on, at seventeen years old, during a solo three months long trip to very remote natural locations, motivated by a desire to unlearn much of what he had been taught to believe and perceive by western culture, which he felt was false, and find a new vision, a simple and direct relationship with the earth and the cosmos free of any mental distortion.
This led him to develop, or perhaps remember, a more holistic understanding of the nature of life and of the self, and ever growing feelings of harmony, kinship and unity with the natural world and all life. He eventually began writing, for himself at first. Encouraged by others to publish a book, and although he doesn’t claim to be a writer, he eventually chose, among hundreds of texts, which one to use and occasionally edit, and this book is the outcome of this effort.показать меньше