In a very deep sense, spirituality and art
have a great deal in common. Certainly, both are creative ways
of being and seeing. Since our awareness is socially conditioned,
a radical shift in our attention is necessary in order to perceive
novelty. We must see the ordinary in a new light, if we ever
hope to regain a sense of the mystery and majesty of creation.
I believe that a truly spiritual person is an artist of life.
Of course, as Homo sapiens, we use a variety of symbol systems
to express ourselves. We externalize our understanding, emotions,
and fears through the framework of music, art, common everyday
language, mathematics, and rituals in one form or another.
At some point in our lives, perhaps our greatest challenge is
to cast-off the yoke of authoritarianism in order to live a
creative life. It is very easy to repeat conditioned patterns;
however, sooner or later, we must emancipate ourselves from
the chains of illusion.
"In art, truth and reality begin when you no longer understand
anything you do or know..." (Henri Matisse) Every religious
or artistic soul must be touched by the grace of freedom to
function authentically in the world. Christians call this grace
unconditional love. Buddhists call it sunyata or emptiness.
It is definitely an "o-zone" of mystery.
To some extent, we live in a world of our own making. Our ideas
and projections set the limits for our imagination. This superimposed
structure in which we normally function seems secure, well-defined,
and solid; yet, this context is the death knell to the creative
life. Artists and religious personalities must live within "the
unknown" dimension of life, not "the given" and
"the known".
What is creativity? The most common definition is an activity
which brings something into existence from nothing. What is
this nothing? It is the great mystery that is the ontological
ground of being and source of infinite possibility.
How can we realize this mystery and live a creative life? Well,
to say "how" is to desire a methodology, and all methodologies
are projections of thought. They are of the world of time. Thus,
how can we realize the timeless through time? It is an impossibility?
Deeper realization is not the result of any methodology or technique.
The realization of higher truth requires a silent mind, because
it is only through silence that emptiness can be comprehended.
It is important to understand that emptiness is not a negative
idea. In this regard, emptiness is also fullness (sunyata
and tathata).
The mind cannot be forced into silence through concentration,
which is only the practice of exclusion. It is through meditation,
awareness, intelligence, understanding, love, and compassion
that the mind becomes silent. Meditation is the art of being
creatively present, and it creates an opening for an awareness
of "just being" without any supports. Seeing, being,
and doing become the fabric of an enlightened life for the artist
and the religiously sensitive.
"Great love is needed to inspire and sustain this continuous
striving towards truth, this concurrent generosity and profound
laying bare that accompany the birth of any work of art. But
isn't love at the origin of all creation?" (Henri Matisse)
"All of life is a miracle. It is a miracle that we don't
dissolvein our bath water." (Pablo Picasso)
