The title Wonderstand is a play on words that speaks for itself and holds a promise, for the seeker, of both serenity and humor. The book includes two collections of texts: Aphorisms and The Dot and the Dots.
"We are big fans of Sohan´s paintings and now we are big fans of his poetic voice too!"
- Lorna Howarth (Co-Editor, Resurgence Magazine).
Aphorisms
The truth cast into idea
looses its truth
the mold takes hold (p. 20)
Make me transcend
my time
my space
and break my border
to you (p. 36)
In the poems the Dot and the dots Sohan carries on the tantric tradition, expanding our minds by placing the dot everywhere, between the lips of lovers, in the northern lights, among the galaxies, and yet we remain right here.
I am a dot
in the orgiastic ecstasy
so spiritual
and so mundane
at once.(p. 60)
"You don't have to know the secrets of Tantra to experience and appreciate Sohan Qadri´s poems - they will inspire you and convey its universal message anyway."
- Swami Janakananda (Meditation teacher and writer)
"... a garland of pearls of wisdom like Rubayat, a collection of gnomic verse where the world of meaning is pressed in minimum of words. Every piece is commentary on Life at the abstract plane and gives at the same time an easy understanding of life´s rules for an ordinary man."
- N. Meera Raghavendra Rao (The Newspaper The Hindu)
"What we have in the case of Sohan Qadri’s unique approach to abstraction is not concerned with just self-centred reflexivity, but instead a presentation of universal maxims."
- Wariart.com
"...Prophetic and sublime quality conveying an overwhelming interest and deep import to an individual soul...
In all these aphoristic quotations, we notice Qadri´s breadth of intellect. Wonderstand has very high qualities of proverbial expressions written with great precision and clarity.
Sohan Qadri´s eyes are fixed upon the sober enquiry of truth..."
- S. Kumar, Cyberwit
On Qadris art:
"Sohan Qadri with his art liberates the word meditation from its fashionable taste and brings it back to its proper origin, uninfluenced by Western propaganda, misunderstandings and corruptions."
- Heinrich Böll (Nobel Prize Winner)
"Sohan Qadri, in a few words, believes in an inner and outer sphere in the life of man. Striving to establish contact with this world within, with one´s true self, he sees as utterly essential for all of us. His art belongs to something of the most refined one can perceive, something which touches "the ultimate secret". We can experience his works directly and with strong presence, and thereafter we can slowly decipher and extract their secrets."
- Virtus Schade (Art critic and writer, Copenhagen)
"There are artists. There are tantriks. There are tantrik artists. As far as I know, there are no tantrik yogis who are artists as well. Sohan Qadri is an exception. He is an exceptional artist."
- F. N. Souza (Indian painter and writer)
"Qadri’s artistic vision was free and unfettered by the shackles of illusion. Instead, he had command over the forces that blind those uninitiated. He played like a child in the sand with the materials and illusory elements of colour and form. To have a moment of recognition in looking at Qadri’s paintings is like a moment of soul reflection."
- Wariart.com
Sohan Qadri was a yogi, poet and a renowned painter from India. He grew up in a small village in Punjab but settled in Copenhagen where he spent most of his life. His works evolve from states of deep meditation.
