Osho – Paul Gaugin had to suffer just the way every creator suffers. Creativity is almost like pregnancy. The mother goes for nine months into deep troubled waters, and even after the birth of the child she is not free of responsibility. All creativity is a deep suffering, unless your creativity does not come out of the mind, but out of meditation. When it comes out of meditation, creativity is sharing the joy, sharing the blissfulness that you have.

Mind has no joy — it is really a wound, very painful. Paul Gaugin had no idea of any meditation, but he had a tremendous passion, almost a madness to create. And just to create, he dropped out of society, forgot all about his wife and children and responsibilities. He was possessed by the idea of creating. The possession was so total that he could not allow any distraction. But when you are possessed by something, you are working almost as a slave, and slavery cannot bring blissfulness.

All the creators in the West have passed through long years of suffering. Many of them have been forced to live in madhouses, and many of them have committed suicide. The suffering became too much, unbearable; they had to end their own life. But still the Western creator, either of meditation or of music, of painting or of dance, has not become aware of why he has to suffer.

In the East, the situation is totally different — not a single creator has suffered. In fact only the creators have enjoyed life to its fullest. Not a single creator has been put into a madhouse, not a single creator has committed suicide; but creators have moved deeper into meditation, and many of them have become mystics. From painting, from music, from dance, they have moved deeper into their own being.

Western society lives under an affliction — their ignorance about meditation; hence, whatever they do is out of the mind. And mind is not the source of joy. It can only create agony, but never ecstasy. Mind is your hell.

So learn to be more meditative, and let your creativity be secondary to your meditativeness. Then you will have a totally different state of being — that of ecstasy; and out of ecstasy, whatever is created has also some flavor of it.

In the West, perhaps Gurdjieff is the only man who has divided art into two sections: the objective art and the subjective art. Subjective art is from the mind, and is out of anguish. Objective art — the Taj Mahal, the caves of Ellora and Ajanta, the temples of Khajuraho — has come from meditative people. Out of their love, out of their silence, they wanted to share; it is their contribution to the world.

The Western artist has lived under a very heavy burden. It is time that he should be made aware that there is something more beyond mind. First reach to that beyond, and then you can create stars; and they will not only be a great joy to you, they will also be a great joy for those who see them. Just on a full-moon night, sit by the side of the Taj Mahal — don’t do anything, just look at it — and you will find suddenly a silence descending on you, a peace filling your heart. The mind is stopping its constant chattering.

An objective piece of art like the Taj Mahal is not just to be seen, but to be lived — and then you will be in a certain way connected with the creators of that beautiful architecture. It was created by Sufi masters. Its very shape somehow creates within you a new blissful space. But the Western tourist comes with the camera, takes a few shots from here and there and runs away to some other place. He does not know how to appreciate an objective art. One has to meditate on it — it may be that thousands of years have passed between the creator of that piece and you. Suddenly that distance disappears; you become part of that creative joy, of that creative dance.

Milarepa, creativity is secondary, meditation is basic and fundamental; everything should come out of your meditation. Then it will give you a beatitude, your being a new song, and it will help others to experience something of it. It will depend on their meditativeness.

I would like to make one very strange statement: that a great meditator will find more joy, more peace, more blissfulness, than even the creator himself. If a Gautam Buddha sits by the side of the Taj Mahal, then what those Sufi Masters had experienced by creating it will be left far behind. Gautam Buddha will experience something far deeper, far more truthful, far more beautiful.

Whether you create, or you observe an objective piece of creativity, meditation should be the key. Without it, mind can only spread on the canvas its nightmares. Most of the paintings of the great painters like Paul Gaugin or Picasso are almost like vomit. They could not contain their agony and suffering — it was so much they threw it on the canvas to get relief. The real objective art is not a relief; it is not a sickness that you want to get rid of. It is a blissfulness that you want to share. And by sharing, it grows; you have more of it, the more it is shared.

Source – Osho Book “The Golden Future”

Question – How to be Creative while doing jobs which seem not to leave any space for Creativity, like cleaning etc.?

Osho – It is from Krishna Radha. She cleans. But I also do the same thing: every morning, every evening, twenty-four hours — cleaning your mind, cleansing. But I never feel that there is any need for any other creativity. Cleaning a floor can be a tremendously creative act.

Remember, creativity has nothing to do with any particular work. Creativity has something to do with the quality of your consciousness. Whatsoever you do can become creative. Whatsoever you do can become creative if you know what creativity means.

Creativity means enjoying any work as meditation; doing any work with deep love. If you love me and you clean this auditorium, it is creative. If you don’t love me then of course it is a chore, it is a duty to be done somehow, it is a burden. Then you would like some other time to be creative. What will you do in that other time? Can you find a better thing to do? Are you thinking that if you paint, you will feel creative?

But painting is just as ordinary as cleaning the floor. You will be throwing colours on a canvas. Here you go on washing the floor, cleaning the floor. What is the difference? Talking to somebody, a friend, and you feel time is being wasted. You would like to write a great book; then you will be creative. But a friend has come: a little gossiping is perfectly beautiful. Be creative.

All the great scriptures are nothing but gossips of people who were creative. What do I go on doing here? Gossiping. They will become gospels some day, but originally they are gossips. But I enjoy doing them. I can go on and on for eternity. You may get tired some day, I am not going to get tired. It is sheer delight. It is possible that one day you may get so tired that you disappear and there is nobody — and I will be talking. If you really love something, it is creative.

But this happens to everybody. Many people come to me. When they come for the first time they will say, ‘Any work, Osho. Any work — even cleaning!’ Exactly they say, ‘Even cleaning! — but your work and we will be happy.’ And then after a few days they come to me and they say, ‘Cleaning…. We would like to have some great creative work.’
Let me tell you one anecdote:

“Worried about their lacklustre sex life, the young wife finally persuaded her husband to undergo hypnotic treatment. After a few sessions his sexual interest was kindled again, but during their lovemaking he would occasionally dash out of the bedroom, go to the bathroom and come back again.

Overcome by curiosity, the wife followed him one day to the bathroom. Tip-toeing to the doorway she saw him standing before the mirror staring fixedly at himself and muttering, ‘She is not my wife. She is not my wife.”‘

When you fall in love with a woman, of course she is not your wife. You make love, you enjoy, but then things settle; then she is your wife. Then things become old. Then you know the face, you know the body, you know the topography, and then you get bored. The hypnotist did well. He simply suggested, While making love to your wife, you go on thinking, “She is not my wife. She is not my wife.”‘

So, Krishna Radha, while cleaning, you go on thinking you are painting. This is not cleaning. This is great creativity. And it will be. It is just your mind playing tricks. If you understand, then you bring your creativity to every act that you do.
A man of understanding is continuously creative. Not that he is trying to be creative. The way he sits is a creative act. Watch him sitting. You will find in his movement a certain quality of dance, a certain dignity.

Just the other day we were reading the story of the zen master who stood in the hole with great dignity — dead. Even his death was a creative act. He did it perfectly well; you cannot improve upon it. Even dead he was standing with dignity, with grace?

When you understand, whatsoever you do — cooking, cleaning…. Life consists of small things; just your ego goes on saying these are small things. You would like some great thing to do — a great poetry. You would like to become Shakespeare or Kalidas or Milton. It is your ego that is creating the trouble. Drop the ego and everything is creative.

I have heard:
“A housewife was so pleased with the promptness shown by the grocer’s boy that she asked him his name. ‘Shakespeare,’ replied the boy.
‘Well, that is quite a famous name.’
‘It should be. I have been delivering in this neighbourhood for almost three years now.”‘
I like it. Why bother about being Shakespeare? Three years delivering in a neighbourhood — it’s almost as beautiful as writing a book, a novel, a play.

Life consists of small things. They become great if you love. Then everything is tremendously great. If you don’t love, then your ego goes on saying, ‘This is not worthy of you. Cleaning? Krishna Radha, this is not worthy of you. Do something great — become Joan of Arc.’ All nonsense. All Joan of Arcs are nonsense.

Cleaning is great. Don’t go on an ego-trip. Whenever the ego comes and persuades you towards some great things, immediately become aware and drop the ego, and then by and by you will find the trivia is sacred. Nothing is profane; everything is sacred and holy. And unless everything becomes holy to you, your life cannot be religious.

A holy man is not what you call a saint. A saint may be just on an ego-trip. And also he will look a saint to you because you think he has done great deeds. A holy man is an ordinary man who loves ordinary life. Chopping wood, carrying water from the well, cooking — whatsoever he touches becomes holy. Not that he is doing great things, but whatsoever he does, he does it greatly.

The greatness is not in the thing done. The greatness is in the consciousness that you bring while you do it. Try. Touch a pebble with great love; it becomes a kohinoor, a great diamond. Smile, and suddenly you are a king or a queen. Laugh, delight…. Each moment of your life has to be transformed by your meditative love.

When I say be creative, I don’t mean that you should all go and become great painters and great poets. I simply mean let your life be a painting, let your life be a poetry.

Always remember it, otherwise the ego is going to land you in some trouble. Go to the criminals and ask why they have become criminals: because they could not find any great thing to do. They could not become a president of a country — of course, all persons cannot become presidents of a country — so they killed a president; that is easier. They became as famous as the president. They were in all the newspapers with their pictures on the front page.

A man, just a few months ago, killed seven persons, and he was asked why — because those seven persons were totally unrelated to him. He wanted to become great, he said, and no newspaper was ready to publish his poems, his articles; they were refused from everywhere. Nobody was ready to publish his picture, and life was fleeting, so he killed seven persons. They were not related to him, he was not angry with them; he just wanted to become famous.

Your politicians and your criminals are not different types of people. All criminals are political and all politicians are criminal — not only Richard Nixon. Poor Richard Nixon was caught redhanded, that’s all. Others seem to be more clever and more cunning.

“Mrs. Moskowitz was bursting with pride. ‘Did you hear about my son Louie?’ she asked her neighbour.
‘No. What is with your son Louie?’
‘He is going to a psychiatrist. Twice each week he is going to a psychiatrist.’
‘Is that good?’
‘Of course it is good. Forty dollars an hour he pays. Forty dollars! — and all he talks about is me,’ said the mother. ” The mother is feeling very happy.

Never allow yourself this tendency for being great, famous, someone bigger than life-size — never. Life-size is perfect. To be exactly life-size, to be just ordinary, is perfectly as it should be. But live that ordinariness in an extraordinary way. That is what a nirvanic consciousness is all about.

Now let me tell you the last thing. If nirvana becomes a great goal for you to achieve, then you will be in a nightmare. Then nirvana can become the last and the greatest nightmare. But if nirvana is in small things, the way you live them, the way you transform every small activity into a holy act, in a prayer, your house becomes a temple, your body becomes the abode of god, and wherever you look and whatsoever you touch, is tremendously beautiful, sacred; then nirvana is freedom.

Nirvana is to live the ordinary life so alert, so full of consciousness, so full of light, that everything becomes luminous. It is possible. I say so because I have lived it so, I am living it so. When I say it, I say with authority. When I say it, I am not quoting Buddha or Jesus. When I say it, I am quoting only myself.

It has become possible for me; it can become possible for you. Just don’t hanker for the ego. Just love life, trust life, and life will give you all that you need. Life will become a blessing for you, a benediction.

Source – Osho Book “Nirvana: The Last Nightmare”

Question – Bhagwan, What is Objective Art? Is Creativity somehow related with Meditation?

Osho : Art can be divided into two parts. Ninety-nine percent of art is subjective art. Only one percent is objective art. The ninety-nine percent subjective art has no relationship with meditation. Only one percent objective art is based on meditation. The subjective art means you are pouring down your subjectivity on the canvas, your dreams, your imaginations, your fantasies, your dreams. It is a projection of your psychology in the same way it will be in poetry, in music, in all dimensions of creativity. You are not concerned with the person who is going to see your painting. You are not concerned what will happen to him when he sees your painting; that is not your concern at all. Your art is simply a kind of vomiting. It will help you, just the way vomiting helps. It takes the nausea off, it makes you cleaner, makes you feel healthier. But you have not considered what is going to happen to the person who is going to see your vomit. He will become nauseous. He may start feeling sick.

Look at the paintings of Picasso. He is a great painter, but just a subjective artist. Looking at his paintings, you will start feeling sick, dizzy, something going berserk in your mind. You cannot go on looking at Picasso’s painting long enough. You would like to get away, because the painting has not come from a silent being. It has come from a chaos. It is a by product of a nightmare. But ninety-nine percent art belongs to that category.

Objective art is just the opposite. The man has nothing to throw, he is utterly empty, absolutely clean. Out of this silence, out of this emptiness, arises love, compassion, and out of this silence a possibility for creativity. This silence, this love, this compassion, these are the qualities of meditation.

Meditation brings you to your very center, and your center is not only your center, it is the center of the whole existence. Only on the periphery we are different. As we start moving towards the center, we are one. We are part of eternity, a tremendously luminous experience of ecstasy which is beyond words, something that you can be but very difficult to express it. But a great desire arises in you to share it, because all other people around you are groping for exactly such experiences. And you have it. You know the path.

And these people are searching everywhere except within themselves — where it is. You would like to shout in their ears. You would like to shake them and tell them, that “Open your eyes! Where are you going? Wherever you go, you go away from yourself. Come home back, and come as deep into yourself as possible.”

This desire to share becomes creativity. Somebody can dance. There have been mystics — for example, Jalaluddin Rumi — whose teaching was not in words, whose teaching was in dance. He will dance. His disciples will be sitting by his side, and he will tell them, that “Anybody who feels like joining me can join. It is a question of feeling. If you don’t feel like, it is up to you. You can simply sit and see.” But when you see a man like Jalaluddin Rumi dancing, something dormant in you becomes active. In spite of yourself you find you have joined the dance. You are already dancing before you become aware that you have joined it.

Even this experience is of tremendous value, that you have been pulled like a magnetic force. It has not been your mind decision, you have not weighed for pro and for against, to join or not to join, no. Just the beauty of Rumi’s dance, his spreading energy, has taken possession of you. You are being touched. This dance is objective art.
And if you can continue — and slowly you will become more and more unembarrassed, more and more capable — soon you will forget the whole world. A moment comes, the dancer disappears and only the dance remains. And then there is a meeting with the Master, the synchronicity I have been talking about again and again in different ways from different directions. They are not two. The ice has melted. Slowly, slowly other disciples will be joining.

A famous story is about Jalaluddin Rumi. He was living in a forest monastery with five hundred disciples. Few visitors who were passing by the road just out of curiosity, that “What this fellow Jalaluddin Rumi is doing here? We have heard five hundred people are living with him, but what they go on doing inside this monastery?” They went it. They saw. They could not believe. Five hundred people dancing madly. Nobody even took any note of them. They remained there for at time being, and then they thought that these people are mad. “Returning, we will see what happens. Perhaps we can find them sitting and then we can talk about, ‘What you are doing?’ This time they seem to be completely mad.”

Next time when they were coming back after few months, they again went into the monastery. The five hundred people were there. Nobody was dancing, all were sitting like statutes, with closed eyes. There was a eternal silence. It was even more frightening to those people. Dancing at least there was some activity. Now what has happened to these people? They have gone, seems to be, completely mad. Dancing in the hot sun in the desert for days — this is the result. But they thought, that “When we are coming again for the next trip, we will see what happens.”

Next trip they came, there was only Jalaluddin Rumi. The five hundred has gone. They were very much puzzled: “What has happened? All those people are dead?” That’s what they could logically think. “First they were dancing madly, then they were sitting like statues as if not breathing at all. Perhaps they have all died. This old guy is dangerous! But now at least we can talk something to him.” They reached to him and asked him, “What has happened to five hundred people who used to dance here and then sit?”

Jalaluddin said, “The work is over. They have learned what they have come to learn. Now they have gone to teach others. Are you interested?” They said, “No. We are going for a business trip.”

Jalaluddin said, “You can go for a business trip later on, but this is far
more important.” They said, “Just, please, forgive us. Not this time, because that dance in the hot sun — we cannot manage.”

Jalaluddin said, “You need not be worried. It manages itself. You don’t have to manage it.” They said, “Before we leave, we want to ask, they what happens? Why they were sitting like statutes?”

Jalaluddin said, “When the dancer has disappeared, who is going to dance? There is a momentum — the dance continues for awhile — then that, too, stops. Then comes a period when one is utterly silent, just sitting, doing nothing. But the bliss of it is incomparable. So whenever you can find time, if I am alive you are always welcome.”
There are in India statutes which you have just to sit silently and meditate upon. Just look at those statutes. They have been made by meditators in such a way, in such a proportion, that just looking at the statue, the figure, the proportion, the beauty….

Everything is very calculated to create a similar kind of state within you. And just sitting silently with a statue of Buddha or Mahavira, you will find a strange feeling which you cannot find in sitting by the side of any Western sculpture. All Western sculpture is sexual. You see the Roman sculpture: beautiful, but something in you creates sexuality. It hits your sexual center. It does not give you an uplift.

In the East the situation is totally different. Statutes are carved, but before a sculptor starts carving statues he learns meditation. before he starts playing on the flute he learns meditation. Before he starts writing poetry he learns meditation. Meditation is absolute necessity for any art, then the art will be objective. Then just reading few lines of a haiku, a Japanese form of a small poem — only three lines, perhaps three words — if you silently read it, you will be surprised. It is far more explosive that any dynamite. It simply opens up doors in your being.

Basho’s small haiku I have on the pond near my house. I love it so much, I wanted it to be there. So every time, coming and going…. One of the persons I have loved. Nothing much in it. “An ancient pond….” It is not an ordinary poetry. It is very pictorial. Just visualize: “An ancient pond. A frog jumps in….” You almost see the ancient pond! You almost hear the frog, the sound of its jump: “Plop.”
And then everything is silent. The ancient pond is there, the frog has jumped in, the sound of his jumping in has created more silence than before. Just reading it is not like any other poetry that you go on reading — another poetry, another poetry.

No, just you read it and sit silently. Visualize it. Close your eyes. See the ancient pond. See the frog. See it jumping in. See the ripples on the water. See the sound, hear the sound. And hear the silence that follows. This is objective art.

Basho must have written it in a very meditative mood, sitting by the side of an ancient pond, watching a frog. And the frog jumps in. And suddenly Basho becomes aware of the miracle that sound is deepening the silence. The silence is more than it was before. This is objective art. By ‘objective’ it means the person is not simply trying to get rid of his sickness, garbage, of which he is so full of wants somehow to throw it out.

I used to know a principle. I was only a student in his college, but we became very friendly, because so many complaints were coming against me to him, that finally he thought, “This boy seems to be unique. Every day some professor comes with a complaint, and whenever I call the boy, I always find he is right. This is such a strange thing: that all my professors prove wrong and he is always right. I cannot say that you have done anything wrong.”
We become friendly, I told him, “Whether they send me or not, I will be coming at least once every day!”

He said, “I enjoy your coming, so you can come, whether they send you or not. If they send, good, if they don’t send you, you come on your own. And now we are not going to discuss for what you have done and for what they have sent you. Because I can see, we can discuss far better things. And I love your insight into things.”
So I started going to the principle and then I became aware of one thing, that whenever I will go to him, he will take his earplugs off. I said, “What are you doing?”

He said, “You know, my whole life I have been tortured by all kinds of complaints, finally I decided not to hear anything. Everything is right! So I just keep earplugs. They go on saying; then I go on nodding. And they feel happy and I feel happy. But with you I really want to talk, so I have to take (them out), but don’t tell it to anybody else.”
I said, “This is really a great device. Everybody should use it. It prevents other people pouring their garbage in your mind. And everybody is so interested in pouring his garbage in your mind.”

That I have heard — I told the principle the story, that’s why I remember it — that a thief was caught. And the man, in whose house he was stealing, came to the court and asked the judge to forgive the thief. The judge said, “This is strange. He was trying to steal in your house. Why you want him to be released?”

He said, “In fact, he would have stolen and he would have left, but I was awake, and you know, I am a poet. So I told him, ‘Sit down and listen to my poetry, otherwise I will give you to the police.’ So out of fear he sat down. He returned everything; he said, ‘You take everything, but please don’t tell me your poetry, I am a poor thief and I don’t understand poetry.’”

The poet said, “It does not matter, whether you understand or not. I am enjoying telling it. And if you are going to create trouble, I am going to phone the police. The whole night this poor man has been listening to my poetry; he has suffered enough. And then he was caught by the police. Just release him. And I hope that once in a while he should come and visit me. And no need to catch hold of any thief, because I am capable enough to catch hold of thieves and make them listen to my poetry. I write the poetry with so much effort, and nobody is there to listen to me. So only once in a while I get some audience. And this man was really very attentive. He seems to be a lover of poetry.”

People are ready to throw their garbage, their advice, their wisdom, their knowledge, everybody is ready to catch hold of you and put something in your mind. You are already too much burdened. Subjective art burdens you more. Objective art unburdens you. Subjective art should be part of psychiatric hospitals only. People suffering from mental sicknesses should be allowed painting, poetry, sculpture, anything they want. And it is going to help, it is therapeutic. It will make them healthy.

Now it is being used by few psychotherapists. Carl Gustav Jung has used painting to heal many patients, but that painting should not be allowed to be sold in the art galleries to reach to people, because if they see it, something sick is bound to radiate from it.

Subjective art is good for the artist but not for the one who looks at it, who sees it, who listens it, who reads it. It is harmful to him. And objective art is only one percent, for the simple reason because very few people have been meditating. And out of those very few people, only few expressed their silence into artistic forms.

But my idea is that as your commune matures, as you are finished with your necessary things, your houses, your roads — and they too can be very artistic, they can be expression of your meditation — as you are finished with utilitarian things, I have the idea that the university should be teaching you with meditation, painting, dancing, singing, music, sculpture, poetry, every possible thing.

This commune should become a commune of creators. Unless you are a creator, you will never find real blissfulness. It is only by creating, that you become part of the great creativity of the universe. But to be a creator, meditation is a basic necessity. Without it you can paint, but that painting has to burnt, it has not to be shown to others. It was good, it helped you unburden, but please, don’t burden anybody else, don’t present it to your friend, they are not your enemies. Objective art is meditative art, subjective art is mind art.
Okay, Pratima?

Source – from Osho Book “The Last Testament, Volume3″

Question – I believed I was Uncreative. What else can be Creativity besides dancing and painting and how to find out what my creativity is?

Osho – CREATIVITY has nothing to do with any activity in particular — with painting, poetry, dancing, singing. It has nothing to do with anything in particular. Anything can be creative — you bring that quality to the activity. Activity itself is neither creative nor uncreative. You can paint in an uncreative way. You can sing in an uncreative way. You can clean the floor in a creative way. You can cook in a creative way.

Creativity is the quality that you bring to the activity you are doing. It is an attitude, an inner approach — how you look at things. So the first thing to be remembered: don’t confine creativity to anything in particular. A man is creative — and if he is creative, whatsoever he does, even if he walks, you can see in his walking there is creativity. Even if he sits silently and does nothing, even non-doing will be a creative act. Buddha sitting under the Bodhi Tree doing nothing is the greatest creator the world has ever known.

Once you understand it — that it is you, the person, who is creative or uncreative — then this problem disappears. Not everybody can be a painter — and there is no need also. If everybody is a painter the world will be very ugly; it will be difficult to live. And not everybody can be a dancer, and there is no need. But everybody can be creative.
Whatsoever you do, if you do it joyfully, if you do it lovingly, if your act of doing it is not purely economical, then it is creative. If you have something growing out of it within you, if it gives you growth, it is spiritual, it is creative, it is divine.

You become more divine as you become more creative. all the religions of the world have said: God is the Creator. I don’t know whether He is the Creator or not, but one thing I know: the more creative you become, the more godly you become. When your creativity comes to a climax, when your whole life becomes creative, you live in God. So He must be the Creator because people who have been creative have been closest to Him.

Love what you do. Be meditative while you are doing it — whatsoever it is! irrelevant of the fact of what it is. Have you seen Paras cleaning this floor of Chuang Tzu auditorium? Then you will know: cleaning can become creative. With what love! Almost singing and dancing inside. If you clean the floor with such love, you have done an invisible painting. You lived that moment in such delight that it has given you some inner growth. You cannot be the same after a creative act.

Creativity means loving whatsoever you do — enjoying, celebrating it, as a gift of God! Maybe nobody comes to know about it. Who is going to praise Paras for cleaning this floor? History will not take any account of it; newspapers will not publish her name and pictures — but that is irrelevant. She enjoyed it. The value is intrinsic.

So if you are looking for fame and then you think you are creative — if you become famous like Picasso, then you are creative — then you will miss. Then you are, in fact, not creative at all: you are a politician, ambitious. If fame happens, good. If it doesn’t happen, good. It should not be the consideration. The consideration should be that you are enjoying whatsoever you are doing. It is your love-affair.

If your act is your love-affair, then it becomes creative. Small things become great by the touch of love and delight. The questioner asks: “I believed I was uncreative.” If you believe in that way, you will become uncreative — because belief is not just belief. It opens doors; it closes doors. If you have a wrong belief, then that will hang around you as a closed door. If you believe that you are uncreative, you will become uncreative — because that belief will obstruct, continuously negate, all possibilities of flowing. It will not allow your energy to flow because you will continuously say: “I am uncreative.”

This has been taught to everybody. Very few people are accepted as creative: A few painters, a few poets — one in a million. This is foolish! Every human being is a born creator. Watch children and you will see: all children are creative. By and by, we destroy their creativity. By and by, we force wrong beliefs on them. By and by, we distract them. By and by, we make them more and more economical and political and ambitious.

When ambition enters, creativity disappears — because an ambitious man cannot be creative, because an ambitious man cannot love any activity for its own sake. While he is painting he is looking ahead; he is thinking, ‘When am I going to get a Nobel Prize?’ When he is writing a novel, he is looking ahead. He is always in the future — and a creative person is always in the present.

We destroy creativity. Nobody is born uncreative, but we make ninety-nine percent of people uncreative. But just throwing the responsibility on the society is not going to help — you have to take your life in your own hands. You have to drop wrong conditionings. You have to drop wrong, hypnotic auto-suggestions that have been given to you in your childhood. Drop them! Purify yourself of all conditionings… and suddenly you will see you are creative.

To be and to be creative are synonymous. It is impossible to be and not to be creative. But that impossible thing has happened, that ugly phenomenon has happened, because all your creative sources have been plugged, blocked, destroyed, and your whole energy has been forced into some activity that the society thinks is going to pay.
Our whole attitude about life is money-oriented. And money is one of the most uncreative things one can become interested in.

Our whole approach is power-oriented and power is destructive, not creative. A man who is after money will become destructive, because money has to be robbed, exploited; it has to be taken away from many people, only then can you have it. Power simply means you have to make many people impotent, you have to destroy them — only then will you be powerful, can you be powerful.

Remember: these are destructive acts. A creative act enhances the beauty of the world; it gives something to the world, it never takes anything from it. A creative person comes into the world, enhances the beauty of the world — a song here, a painting there. He makes the world dance better, enjoy better, love better, meditate better. When he leaves this world, he leaves a better world behind him. Nobody may know him; somebody may know him — that is not the point. But he leaves the world a better world, tremendously fulfilled because his life has been of some intrinsic value.

Money, power, prestige, are uncreative; not only uncreative, but destructive activities. Beware of them! And if you beware of them you can become creative very easily. I am not saying that your creativity is going to give you power, prestige, money. No, I cannot promise you any rose-gardens. It may give you trouble. It may force you to live a poor man’s life. All that I can promise you is that deep inside you will be the richest man possible; deep inside you will be fulfilled; deep inside you will be full of joy and celebration. You will be continuously receiving more and more blessings from God. Your life will be a life of benediction.

But it is possible that outwardly you may not be famous, you may not have money, you may not succeed in the so-called world. But to succeed in this so-called world is to fail deeply, is to fail in the inside world. And what are you going to do with the whole world at your feet if you have lost your own self? What will you do if you possess the whole world and you don’t possess yourself? A creative person possesses his own being; he is a master.

That’s why in the East we have been calling sannyasins ’swamis’. ‘Swami’ means a master. Beggars have been called swamis — masters. Emperors we have known, but they proved in the final account, in the final conclusion of their lives, that they were beggars. A man who is after money and power and prestige is a beggar, because he continuously begs. He has nothing to give to the world.

Be a giver. Share whatsoever you can! And remember, I am not making any distinction between. small things and great things. If you can smile whole-heartedly, hold somebody’s hand and smile, then it is a creative act, a great creative act. Just embrace somebody to your heart and you are creative. Just look with loving eyes at somebody… just a loving look can change the whole world of a person. Be creative. Don’t be worried about what you are doing — one has to do many things — but do everything creatively, with devotion. Then your work becomes worship. Then whatsoever you do is a prayer. And whatsoever you do is an offering at the altar.

Drop this belief that you are uncreative. I know how this belief is created: you may not have been a gold medalist in the university; you may not have been top in your class; your painting may not have won appreciation; when you play on your flute, neighbors report to the police. Maybe — but just because of these things, don’t get the wrong belief that you are uncreative. That may be because you are imitating others.

People have a very limited idea of what being creative is — playing the guitar or the flute or writing poetry — so people go on writing rubbish in the name of poetry. You have to find out what you can do and what you cannot do. Everybody cannot do everything! You have to search and find your destiny. You have to grope in the dark, I know. It is not very clear-cut what your destiny is — but that’s how life is. And it is good that one has to search for it — in the very search, something grows.

If God were to give a chart of your life to you when you were entering into the world — this will be your life: you are going to become a guitarist — then your life would be mechanical. Only a machine can be predicted, not a man. Man is unpredictable. Man is always an opening… a potentiality for a thousand and one things. Many doors open and many alternatives are always present at each step — and you have to choose, you have to feel. But if you love your life you will be able to find.

If you DON’T love your life and you love something else, then there is a problem. If you love money and you want to be creative, you cannot become creative. The very ambition for money is going to destroy your creativity. If you want fame, then forget about creativity. Fame comes easier if you are destructive. Fame comes easier to an Adolf Hitler; fame comes easier to a Henry Ford. Fame is easier if you are competitive, violently competitive. If you can kill and destroy people, fame comes easier.

The whole history is the history of murderers. If you become a murderer, fame will be very easy. You can become a prime minister; you can become a president — but these are all masks. Behind them you will find very violent people, terribly violent people hiding, smiling. Those smiles are political, diplomatic. If the mask slips, you will always see Genghis Khan, Timur Leng, Nadir Shah, Napoleon, Alexander, Hitler, hiding behind.

If you want fame, don’t talk about creativity. I am not saying that fame never comes to a creative person, but very rarely it comes, very rarely. It is more like an accident, and it takes much time. Almost always it happens that by the time fame comes to a creative person, he is gone — it is always posthumous; it is very delayed.

Jesus was not famous in his day. If there were no Bible, there would have been no record of him. The record belongs to his four disciples; nobody else has ever mentioned him, whether he existed or not. He was not famous. He was not successful. Can you think of a greater failure than Jesus? But, by and by, he became more and more significant; by and by, people recognized him. It takes time.

The greater a person is, the more time it takes for people to recognize him — because when a great person is born, there are no criteria to judge him by, there are no maps to find him with. He has to create his own values; by the time he has created the values, he is gone. It takes thousands of years for a creative person to be recognized, and then too it is not certain. There have been many creative people who have never been recognized. It is accidental for a creative person to be successful. For an uncreative, destructive person it is more certain.

So if you are seeking something else in the name of creativity, then drop the idea of being creative. At least consciously, deliberately, do whatsoever you want to do. Never hide behind masks. If you really want to be creative, then there is no question of money, success, prestige, respectability — then you enjoy your activity; then each act has an intrinsic value. You dance because you like dancing; you dance because you delight in it. If somebody appreciates, good, you feel grateful. If nobody appreciates, it is none of your business to be worried about it. You danced, you enjoyed — you are already fulfilled.

But this belief of being uncreative can be dangerous — drop it! Nobody is uncreative — not even trees, not even rocks. People who have known trees and loved trees, know that each tree creates its own space, each rock creates its own space. It is like nobody else’s space. If you become sensitive, if you become capable of understanding, through empathy, you will be tremendously benefited. You will see each tree is creative in its own way; no other tree is like that — each tree is unique; each tree has individuality, each rock has individuality. Trees are not just trees — they are people. Rocks are not just rocks — they are people. Go and sit by the side of a rock — watch it lovingly, touch it lovingly, feel it lovingly.

It is said about a Zen master that he was able to pull very big rocks, remove very big rocks — and he was a very fragile man. It was almost impossible looking at his physiology! Stronger men, very much stronger than him, were unable to pull those rocks, and he would simply pull them very easily.

He was asked what his trick was. He said, “There is no trick — I love the rock so the rock helps. First I say to her, ‘Now my prestige is in your hands, and these people have come to watch. Now help me, cooperate with me.’ Mm? — then I simply hold the rock lovingly… and wait for the hint. When the rock gives me the hint — it is a shudder, my whole spine starts vibrating — when the rock gives me the hint that she is ready, then I move. You move against the rock; that’s why so much energy is needed. I move with the rock, I flow with the rock. In fact, it is wrong to say that I remove it — I am simply there. The rock removes itself.”

One great Zen master was a carpenter, and whenever he made tables, chairs, somehow they had some ineffable quality in them, a tremendous magnetism. He was asked, “How do you make them?”
He said, “I don’t make them. I simply go to the forest: the basic thing is to enquire of the forest, of trees, which tree is ready to become a chair.”

Now these things look absurd — because we don’t know, we don’t know the language. For three days he would remain in the forest. He would sit under one tree, under another tree, and he would talk to trees — and he was a mad man! But a tree is to be judged by its fruit, and this master has also to be judged by his creation. A few of his chairs still survive in China — they still carry a magnetism. You will just be simply attracted; you will not know what is pulling you. After a thousand years! — something tremendously beautiful.

He said, “I go and I say that I am in search of a tree who wants to become a chair. I ask the trees if they are willing; not only willing: cooperating with me, ready to go with me — only then. Sometimes it happens that no tree is ready to become a chair — I come empty-handed.”

It happened: The Emperor of China asked him to make him a stand for his books. And he went and after three days he said, “Wait — no tree is ready to come to the palace.”

After three months the Emperor again enquired. The carpenter said, “I have been going continuously. I am persuading. Wait — one tree seems to be leaning a little bit.”
Then he persuaded one tree. He said, “The whole art is there! — when the tree comes of its own accord. Then she is simply asking the help of the carpenter.”

You can go and ask Asheesh — he has a feel for wood, and wood also has a feel for him. If you are loving you will see that the whole existence has individuality. Don’t pull and push things. Watch, communicate; take their help — and much energy will be preserved.
Even trees are creative, rocks are creative. You are man: the very culmination of this existence. You are at the top — you are conscious.

Never think with wrong beliefs, and never be attached to wrong beliefs, that you are uncreative. Maybe your father said to you that you are uncreative, your colleagues said to you that you are uncreative. Maybe you were searching in wrong directions, in directions in which you are not creative, but there must be a direction in which you are creative. Seek and search and remain available, and go on groping — unless you find it.

Each man comes into this world with a specific destiny — he has something to fulfill, some message has to be delivered, some work has to be completed. You are not here accidentally — you are here meaningfully. There is a purpose behind you. The Whole intends to do something through you.

Source – from Osho Book “A sudden clash of Thunder”

Question – BELOVED OSHO, WHO CARES? IS THIS CREATIVE INDIFFERENCE, OR SLEEP? PLEASE COMMENT.

Osho – Creativity can never be indifferent. Creativity cares — because creativity is love. Creativity is the function of love and care. Creativity cannot be indifferent. If you are indifferent, by and by all your creativity will disappear. Creativity needs passion, aliveness, energy. Creativity needs that you should remain a flow, an intense, passionate flow.

If you look at a flower indifferently, the flower cannot be beautiful. Through indifference, everything becomes ordinary. Then one lives in a cold way, shrunken in oneself. This calamity has happened in the East, because religion took a wrong turn and people started thinking that you have to be indifferent to life.

One Hindu sannyasin came to see me once. He looked around my garden, and there were many flowers, and I was working in the garden when he came to see me. He said, “Are you interested in the flowers and gardening?” On his face there was a look of condemnation. He said, “But I was thinking you must be indifferent to all these things.”

I am not indifferent. Indifference is negative, it is suicidal, it is escapist. Of course, if you become indifferent many things will not bother you; you will live surrounded by your indifference. You will not be distracted, you will not be disturbed, but just not to be distracted is not the point. You will never be happy and overflowing.
In the East, many people think that to be indifferent is the way of religion. They move away from life, they become escapists. They have not created anything. They simply vegetate and they think they have attained something — they have not attained anything.

Attainment is always positive and attainment is always creative. God is creativity — how can you reach God by being indifferent? God is not indifferent. He cares about even small blades of grass, he cares about them also. He takes as much care to paint a butterfly as he takes care to create a buddha.

The whole loves. And if you want to become one with the whole, you have to love. Indifference is a slow suicide. Be in deep love, so much so that you completely disappear in your love, that you become a pure creative energy. Only then do you participate with God, hand in hand you move with him.
To me creativity is prayer, creativity is meditation, creativity is life.

So don’t be afraid of life, and don’t close yourself in indifference. Indifference will desensitize you, you will lose all sensitivity; your body will become dull, your intelligence will become dull. You will live in a dark cell, afraid of the light and the sun, afraid of the wind and the clouds and the sea — afraid about everything. You will wrap a blanket of indifference all around you and you will start dying.

Move! Be dynamic! And whatsoever you do, do it so lovingly that the very act becomes creative and divine. I am not saying that you all should become painters and poets; that’s not possible. But there is no need also. You may be a housewife — your cooking can be creative. You may be a shoemaker — your shoemaking can be creative. Whatsoever you do, do it so totally, so lovingly, so intimately; get involved into it so your act is not something outside. You move in your act, your act becomes a fulfillment. Then I call you religious. A religious person, a religious consciousness, is immensely creative.

Never use the phrase: Who cares? That attitude comes from the ego — who cares? No, if you really want to grow, care more. Let care be your whole style of life. Care about each and every thing. And don’t make any distinction between the great and the small. Very small things… just cleaning the floor, do it with deep care, as if it is the body of your beloved, and suddenly you will see you are being born anew through your own creativity.

Each creative act becomes a rebirth for the creator, and each indifferent act becomes a suicide, a slow death. Be overflowing. Don’t be misers. Don’t try to hold — share! And let care be your very center of life. And then there is no need to go to the church, no need to go to the temple, no need to kneel down before any god and pray. Your butterfly life, your way of life, is prayer. Whatsoever you touch will become sacred. I say whatsoever, unconditionally. Love makes everything sacred. Carelessness makes everything ugly.
Enough for today.

Source – from Osho Book “The Search”

[The sannyasin therapist says: But between groups it seems that I don’t seem to be able to find a comfortable space to be in. I don’t have the same relationship with myself that I have in the groups.]

Osho – It is very indicative and has to be understood. When you are working with people, you are so much involved in the work that you forget the sense of self. That happens to many reative people. They forget their work. A painter painting, a singer singing, a dancer dancing… here come moments when their whole energy suddenly is flowing into the work, has become a reative rush, and the self is no more there, because the self exists only when the energy is tagnant.

The stagnant energy becomes the self. When the energy is like a river, you have no self. So self is a sort of a block. Whenever there is no flow, energy is not going anywhere, suddenly the block is there; one feels confined. Then you will feel negative. You will feel a little restless because this self is like a rock on the chest. But this happens only to creative people. For uncreative people just the reverse is the rule.

If an uncreative person forces himself into any creativity, he becomes very self-conscious. He becomes very anxious, worried and tense, restless. When he is out of the work he is okay; he is at home. So the difference between a creative and a non-creative person has to be understood.
And it is good that one is a creative person. Your meditation, your growth is through creativity.

These groups are not just groups – these are your canvases on which you are painting. These are your poems that you are composing. When you see somebody flowering, somebody radiant, a poem is born and you feel fulfilled. You suddenly feel enhanced. You recognise, you realise your worth, mm? – this man has flowered, this woman is smiling so beautifully. Then you are happy. This is the happiness of a creative person.

A creative person is happy only when something beautiful is created. A creative person’s heaven is in creativity. If you throw Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci into heaven – the heaven of the uncreative people, who are just sitting there doing nothing – they will run out of it! They will say, ’What is this? This is hell!’ They may even like to go to hell if some creativity is possible – somewhere where their energies can stream, flow, can create new patterns of life; where something can be invented, discovered; where something can be added to existence as it is.

Maybe it is a very small thing, it doesn’t matter. A creative person feels good, fulfilled, arrived, when he can make this world a little more beautiful… just a small touch somewhere. So that simply shows your state of energy and your type. So whenever you are not creative, you will
feel a little restless, because the same energy that was moving into creativity will not find anywhere to move or anything to do. Your rest will become restless. In fact, when you will be tremendously deep in your work – howsoever hard – you will be resting. So rest is not always rest for everybody.

For a creative person, his creativity is his rest. Maybe sometimes he can change. He has been
painting for the whole week. For one day he simply writes poems, or just goes into the garden and starts working there. A change of activity is his rest. His rest is not no-activity. So if you really want to be rested, change the activity. Rush from one activity to another, and let your river tumble from one place into another. When you are alone write poems, paint, sing, play the guitar, dance – any crazy thing will do – but something; just don’t sit there. Sitting there won’t be of much help to you.

You will come out of it more tired than rested. Change of activity – that’s your rest – and losing yourself in creativity is your meditation. This is something very complicated. In the East meditation has existed for thousands of years, but it seems that only non-creative people became interested in it because it doesn’t give one any creative channel. So science never arose. Everything creative lagged behind. Only people who could sit silently and could lose themselves in non-activity moved into this meditative dimension.

And because of them the whole East became a little uncreative. In the West creative people have never tried meditation because they think it is not for them. Their instinct says to them ’This is not for you. You have to be creative. This will be an escape.’ So they become more and more tense, more and more worried.

Now it is possible that East and West can meet. The human consciousness has come to a point where vision is more clear, where we can look at the past as a total perspective. For the creative person, meditation has to become a part of his creativity, then only can it be meditative. And for a non-creative person, his silence is his only creativity; his inactivity is his only creativity. He creates himself in that inactivity. Both come to a realisation, but their paths are very different.

So simply go on working, and now work knowing more that this is your meditation. While working don’t simply think that you are helping the group, and that after the group you will rest and meditate for one week. That’s a wrong idea. While working, remember that this is your meditation. And you are not only working on the group and on other people; simultaneously, side by side, you are working on yourself. This is your way of working on yourself. This is just a technique for you to work on yourself.

Source: from Osho Book “The Passion for the Impossible”

[A sannyasin said that when she meditated, many pictures would emerge which she liked to draw and become involved with.]

Osho – If pictures come it is a good release, so paint them; you continue it. Just go wild in it, and don’t paint through reason. Don’t be worried about what you are making, because it is not a performance. It is not going to be exhibited, and you are not going to show it to anybody. It is just an outpouring. Paint just like small children. If you give them colour and crayons, they will paint, not even knowing what they are doing.

It will be a natural thing: just as grass grows, and birds sing, children paint. That is the beauty of modern painting. It is more child-like and more primitive than painting has ever been before. The classical painters were very much concerned with the form, with the geometry and mathematics of it, but the modern painter has forgotten everything and all technology has been dropped.

Modern painting is just like a child painting, and tremendously beautiful things have come up. They are meaningless, remember – beautiful, but meaningless. In fact aU beauty is meaningless. Wherever meaning enters, mean-ness enters. Wherever there is reason, things become limited. So just paint, mm? And next time you come, bring some painting But don’t paint with the idea that you are going to show them to me Only bring those that you have painted without any idea, just irrationally.

Just the other day I was reading about a man, a very rich man, who asked Picasso to paint his portrait. So Picasso painted it. When the man came to see it, he said that it was good except that he didn’t like the nose – so Picasso said he would change it, and the man should return in a few days time. Picasso became very worried, and the woman who was living with him in those days asked him what he was worrying about. He said, ’I am worried because I don’t know where I have painted the nose.’ So like that, mm? Good!

Source: from Osho Book “Hammer on the Rock”