on creativity-osho

Osho
What is is the relation ship between artistic creativity and perfection? Is not creativity in music, painting and poetry an attempt to reach perfection in visible and audible form? Is the artist simply creating a more ego as the so called saints you often talk about?


Yes , ordinarily the artist is the most egoistic person in the world. But then he is not a true artist either. He has used art as a means for his ego trip. Artists are very egoistic, constantly bragging about themselves, and constantly fighting with each other. And everybody thinks that he is the first and the last . But this is not true art.

The true artist disappears utterly. These people are only technicians: I will not call them artists but technicians . I will not call them creators: I will call them composers. Yes, to compose a poem is one thing, to create a poem is quite another . To compose poetry one needs to know language, grammar, rules of grammar- rules of poetics. it is a game with words. And if you know the whole game , you can create poetry. It will not be very poetic, but it will have the appearance of poetry. Technically, it may be perfect, but it will have only the body- he soul will be missing.

The soul happens only when the artist disappears into his art - he is no more separate. When the painter paints with such abandon that he is not there, that he even feels guilty to sign his painting- because he knows he has not done it. Some unknown force has done it through him . He knows that he has been possessed- that has been the experience of all the really great artists down the ages: the feeling of being possessed . The greater the artist , the more clear the feeling is.

And those who are the greatest- a Mozart,a Beethoven, a Kalidas, a Rabindranath- these who are the greatest, they are absolutely certain that they have been nothing but hollow bamboos, and God has been singing through them.They have been flutes, but the song is not theirs. It had flowed through them, but it comes from some unknown source. They have not hinderd - that's all they have done. But they have not created it. The paradox!


The real creator knows that he has not created it. God has worked through him. he has possessed him, his hands, his being, and he has created something through him . He hasbeen intrumental.

This is real art , where the artist disappears- then there is no question of ego. And then art becomes religion. Then the artist is a mystic- not only technically right but existentially authentic.

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I think the concept God here is not an antropomorphic god but Nature .