Detached Action and Abstract Visual Expression: Bhagavad Gita?s Wisdom in the Creative Process

Niharika Joshi, Dr. Mahesh Singh

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to discuss how the Bhagavad Gita's ethical principle of detached action, or Nishkama Karma, provides a profound and pragmatic philosophical grounding for contemporary artistic practice, focusing on abstract visual expression. The research starts with identifying the core psychological obstacle in modern creation: an intense outcome obsession, fully aligned with Sakama Karma, or action driven by craving external, measurable results. This anxious striving, underpinning the volatile Rajas Guna, is counterpoised through the cultivation of NK, which insists on carrying out one's dharma, or duty, without attachment to its phala, or fruits, so that work becomes an act of the unshakeable, calm Sattva Guna. This ultimately culminates in Samatvam, or equanimity-the resilient mental state unswayed by external judgment. The paper establishes a critical cognitive link by asserting that NK forms a necessary condition for achieving optimal states of creativeness, such as the psychological Flow state. Training the mind in non-clinging, NK provides the intentional mental discipline to suspend self-consciousness and critical inner chatter in order to allow deep immersion. In this way, psychological detachment is also said to protect intrinsic motivation and enhance the artist's resilience against inevitable failures or market pressures. Neuroscientifically, this conscious detachment thus facilitates the necessary hypofrontality, or reduced engagement of the executive functioning regions of the Prefrontal Cortex (PFC), which underpins spontaneous, uninhibited creation and thus provides empirical validation of the Gita's directive to act without calculation. The required engaged detachment has even been hypothesized to depend on a specific, complex neural circuit involving the dorsal and ventral Medial Prefrontal Cortex and the amygdala, enabling objective distance without lapsing into apathy. It examines abstract visual art as the aesthetic medium that intrinsically embodies this philosophy, for its very non-representational nature frees an artist from conventional measures of success by ceding value entirely to process. Case studies illustrate this: Wassily Kandinsky's spiritual abstraction sought to express "inner need", while the colour fields of Mark Rothko minimized form in favour of visceral, non-intellectual presence. Jackson Pollock's action painting is perhaps the most radical commitment to process, whereby the artist becomes a medium, stating, "the painting has a life of its own". This aesthetic, so centred on process, functionally mirrors concepts from the East, such as Wuwei (non-coercive, natural action). Finally, it discusses the practical value that can emerge from this synergy. Integrating NK into art education enhances student resilience through framing creation as duty rather than performance. In art therapies, techniques that incorporate non-attachment-for example, transient or abstract-art offer potent tools for "cognitive disruption," helping clients interrupt anxious thought patterns and regulate emotional responses through a focus on the moment of creation over the final product. The paper concludes that Nishkama Karma offers a sustainable model for achieving authentic, innovative expression concurrently with profound mental serenity.

Keywords: Detached Action, Nishkama Karma, Abstract Art, Equanimity, Art Therapy

How to Cite?: Niharika Joshi, Dr. Mahesh Singh, "Detached Action and Abstract Visual Expression: Bhagavad Gita?s Wisdom in the Creative Process", Volume 14 Issue 11, November 2025, International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR), Pages: 1826-1834, https://www.ijsr.net/getabstract.php?paperid=SR251127164411, DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.21275/SR251127164411