A Mondrian abstraction, an ancient Greek sculpture of a youth, or a Corot landscape can be as spiritually uplifting as a Buddha or a crucifix: In art, it is not what the subject brings to the artwork, but rather what the artist brings to his subject. But settings matter. And few places in New York offer the kind of spiritual oasis available at the Rubin Museum of Art, where “Bon: The Magic Word,” an enchanting exhibition and the first major show devoted to the art and culture of the Bon religion, continues through April 14.

The Bonpo (practitioners of the Bon religion) are not well-known outside of the Himalayas and Central Asia (today, they number approximately 1.5–2 million), but before Buddhism flooded the Tibetan Plateau in the seventh century, Bon was the indigenous religion of Tibet and the surrounding region. In fact, the art of Bon influenced and cross-pollinated with Buddhist art. This has led to some Bon art being mistaken for that from the Buddhist tradition. This cross-pollination, more the rule than the exception, is not unusual — any new religion, to be understood and accepted, must speak in a language already familiar.

“Bon: The Magic Word,” curated by Tibetologist Samten Karmay and RMA’s Jeff Watt, is divided into four broad sections: Founders and Teachers; Deities and Archetypal Models; Sacred Geography; and Expressions of Culture. The show comprises approximately 100 objects from the 11th to the 21st centuries. These are mostly paintings, but there are also carved and sculpted deities, elephants, and lions; carved wood blocks and book covers; masks; a ritual funerary home; a fragment of a throne back; cymbals; prayer flags; photographs, and “Namkhas,” thread-cross creations that resemble God’s eyes.

Bon’s art will feel familiar, even if Bon’s founder, Tonpa Shenrab, as well as Bon’s deities, demons, sages, and mythologies, are not. Some of the deities are benevolent; others are wrathful. Either way, since the wrathful deities attack only the enemies of Bon, all are in the service of enlightenment.

The title of the exhibition is taken from Bon literature and refers to the Bon religion as “the truthful Bon, the magic word that makes the fool eloquent.” Bon art is art that allows for spiritual transformation and transcendence; the sumptuousness and beauty of the objects on view, especially the paintings, creates an atmosphere at the RMA that is hypnotic, meditative, and serene. Much of the Bon art in the exhibit resembles art of Hindu and Buddhist origin. Bon art’s cross-legged lotus postures; Buddha figures; hierarchical, gridded structures, Chinese-inspired landscapes; nearly symmetrical compositions; mandalas, and abstract frontal planes in which hundreds of figures float in seas of deep meditation may remind you of artworks you have seen before. It is important, however, to read at least some of the wall text so you can understand the figures, their purposes, and their function in the artworks.

Intricately detailed, and with a seeming aversion to empty space, the pictures are dense mazes made up of tiny, delicate incidents and beings, creating compositions that feel woven rather than painted. To get up close to some of the works, such as “Walse Ngampa” (Tibet, 16th century), in which one of the principal deities of meditation is surrounded by dozens of smaller figures floating on clouds, is to be drawn to the heat and subsumed by fire. Walse Ngampa, trampling the enemies of Bon, is a writhing blue figure radiating a mandala of red and orange flames. His fiery aura laps at the attendant figures; yet he is the heat that warms and sustains them like the sun.

The 16th-century Nepalese painting on cloth, “Satrig Ersang: Loving Mother of Wisdom” (all the works are anonymous), depicts Satrig Ersang, one of the four transcendent lords, or supreme deities, of the Bon religion. She hovers, as do the exhibit’s depictions of other deities and Tonpa Shenrab, at the center of a field peopled with row upon row of much smaller figures.

The field in which the smaller figures float is felt as flat, frontal, and impenetrable. And the figures, which appear to be suspended or vibrating against her aura, become decorative pattern. That field also surrounds the Loving Mother of Wisdom. Yet, as it spreads around her large, volumetric body, it changes character. Spreading outward and inward into a mandala that surrounds her, the field expands in the plane and opens like a magic door. As in many of the pictures in which we see a large central portrait of a deity, Satrig Ersang swells, creating volume, space, and an opening in the plane.

These large central figures are often seated in the lotus position and clasped in sexual union with a female consort in the yab-yum, or “father-mother,” tantric posture (that is, the female’s legs wrapped around his waist). They represent the creation not only of form but also of spiritual passage: It is through meditating on these figures (no less so than through the contemplation of Mondrian’s flat color planes or the mysterious trees in Corot) that solids dissolve, that doorways open, and that spiritual enlightenment — at least as far as art can take us — can be attained.

Until April 14 (150 W. 17th St. at Seventh Avenue, 212-620-5000).