Sergeant Pepper’s Heart of Perfect Wisdom

Sergeant Pepper’s Heart of Perfect Wisdom (1984-85)

A Narrative Tour of the Egg Tempera Painting by Rob Rikoon

The inspiration for “Sergeant Pepper’s Heart of Perfect Wisdom” was a desire to show how Eastern thought and religion has made its way into Western culture. This painting represents the view that there is an underlying unity among the world’s greatest personalities and between all religions.

The overall design borrows from the tradition of Tibetan thangka paintings which normally depict idealized versions of deities. Thangkas were traditionally used as objects of meditation and as a focus for spiritual practice. The border of the painting appears to be like a woven texture which is a reference to the fabric upon which thangka paintings were traditionally done.

The central circular shape of Sergeant Pepper’s is a mandala; here a blend of modern and ancient symbols. In this mandala, our planet has center stage, an Earth on which you can see all seven continents at once. Radiating outwards, the eight golden moons represent the I Ching and the eight landscapes inside the shields depict several of our ecosystems. The black filmstrip circumnavigating the mandala has tiny images of bodhisattvas, ever-present beings, who are available to help those in need.

Underneath the mandala, standing in front of diamond treasures, are five figures who represent the world’s main religions. Going from left to right are Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Christianity. These reflective beings have arrived at their advanced spiritual states by going through ordeals, internal and external, signified by the flames. Below the fire and above the flowers are individuals from various cultures and time periods who represent the epitome of selfless-ness, which seems to be at the heart of all religious teachings.

Sergeant Pepper’s Heart of Perfect Wisdom- Detail II

Sergeant Pepper’s Heart of Perfect Wisdom- Detail

A Guide to the Historical Persons: Top row, left to right – Benjamin Franklin, Ludwig von Beethoven, Rembrandt van Rijn, Albert Schweitzer, Frank Crow, Mahatma Gandhi, Malcolm X, Henry David Thoreau, an unnamed nun, and Booker T. Washington. Next row down, left to right: Giotto, Confucius, Harriet Tubman, Helen Keller, Eleanor Roosevelt, Colonel Henry Olcott, John Albert Luthuis, Albert Einstein, Plato, Carl Jung, Moses Maimonides, and Florence Nightingale. Bottom row: Martin Luther King, Jr., Anwar Sadat, Bodhidharma, Michelangelo, Thomas Merton, Voltaire, George Washington Carver, Leo Tolstoy, Harada Roshi, Vincent van Gogh, Rabindranath Tagore, Abraham Lincoln, John Coltrane, Pete Seeger, and Kahlil Gibran.

These bodhisattvas are recognized for their great humanitarian deeds. They are fragrant in our memories because they represent the best our world has produced. The eight mythological figures below the flower formation are idealized semi-gods who are present in, but outside of, our normal consciousness. The flowers are supported by a tree’s branches which represents the natural world. Our world depends on the turning of the wheel of cause and effect, shown as an eight-spoke dharma wheel. This law of causality states that to each action comes its just reward. The sky underneath the wheel represents the vastness of our experience. The desert mountain landscape of the artist’s Southwestern environment is the window beyond which the universe of sentient (feeling) and non-sentient beings is portrayed.

The top central portion of the painting has three large cloud formations and on either side are three smaller cloud formations. The moon and the sun are present, signifying the deeper levels of the subconscious in which all of our memories are stored. The six realms of existence are depicted in the smaller cloud formations. Beginning with the left central small cloud, going from bottom to top is the animal realm showing amphibians, birds and mammals, the human realm represented by a man and a pregnant woman embracing and the pile of skulls and bones and the Buddha realm is shown by the circular rainbow image.

On the central right hand side, the lower small cloud contains red flames in which live tortured spirits, those who have succumbed to greed, anger and ignorance during their precious human lifetimes. The next realm is the Diva, or heavenly being realm, represented by the golden triangles. Devas are beings who acted in accordance with the Universal Laws but did so for their own benefit. This is said to be an undesirable state because the vestiges of ego and selflessness are present in any kind of desire for personal gain as the experience of good fortune is bound to be short-lived. Even devas must again struggle with the insoluble dichotomies of good and bad, right and wrong. Above the Diva realm is the Bodhisattva realm, represented by the blue-green figures and the brown-skinned Avolakitishvara figure that has 10,000 arms and ears to hear and help those who suffer.

Sergeant Pepper’s Heart of Perfect Wisdom – Detail III

Seated in the central, upper clouds are five races of woman as woman have been under-represented in recorded history. We see a native woman on the extreme left, a classical European woman second from the left, a modern North American woman in the center, a traditional Oriental woman second from the right, and an African woman on the extreme right. They are surrounded by the halos indicating the good karma they have accumulated by virtue of their self-sacrifice, although we may not know their names, their spiritual achievements live on.

The large cloud in the left center part of the painting represents people who have been important to the artist and whose efforts have assisted in bringing the benefits of Eastern wisdom into the Western culture. Included, among others, are Mother Teresa, Bishop Tutu, Judy Collins, the Dali Lama, Stevie Wonder, Soyen Shaku, Nyogen Senzaki, Suzki Roshi, Yastutani Roshi, Philip Kapleau, Robert Aiken, Maezumi Roshi, Thich Nhat Hanh, Jack Kornfield, the young Bob Dylan, and John Lennon. The large formation to the right of the mandala shows multiple images of children from around the world. Through their innocence play and honest spontaneity, they represent the bodhisattvas or helpers of the future. It is to their energy, effort and natural optimism that this painting is dedicated.