Osho,
What is creativity?

“Creativity is a very paradoxical state of consciousness and being: it is action through inaction, it is what Lao Tzu calls wei wu wei. It is allowing something to happen through you.

It is not a doing, it is an allowing. It is becoming a passage so the whole can flow through you. It is becoming a hollow bamboo, just a hollow bamboo.

“And then immediately something starts happening, because hidden behind man is godliness. Just give it a little way, a little passage, to come through you. That is creativity: allowing godliness to happen is creativity.

“Creativity is a religious state. That’s why I say that a poet is far closer to godliness than a theologian, a dancer even closer. The philosopher is the farthest away, because the more you think, the greater the wall you create between you and the whole. The more you think, the more you are. The ego is nothing but all the thoughts accumulated in the past.

“When you are not, godliness is. That is creativity.”

To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: The Bridge of Love and Laughter

Is creativity an essential part of mysticism then?

“For the mystic, his very existence is creativity. He walks, and that is creativity. He talks, and that is creativity. He remains silent, and that is creativity. Buddha, sitting in silence, is far more creative than Rabindranath writing poetry, far more creative than Picasso doing his painting, far more creative than Moore working on his sculpture… just sitting silently!…

“At the ultimate peak of being a mystic, creativity is just a climate. Lower than that is the poet; then creativity brings great songs, sculpture, architecture, poetry, music, painting. And even the scientist, the lowest in this categorization – lowest because he works with the lowest form of existence, matter – even the scientist, when he is creative, has a few glimpses like the mystic….

“So creativity has three layers: the ultimate is the mystic – he lives in a climate of creativity. The poet, once in a while, brings some treasures from the beyond. The scientist, also very rarely, but whenever he can visit the ultimate he brings something precious to the world. But one thing is certain – mystic, scientist or poet, whatsoever comes into this world comes from the beyond.

“To bring the beyond is creativity. To bring the beyond into the known is creativity. To help the beyond to be manifested in some form is creativity.”

To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: Creativity Is When You Are Not

I was brought up to believe I was uncreative. Do we all have the possibility of being creative?

“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.”

To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: Creativity Is an Inner Approach

If every human being is a born creator, what happened to us?

“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.”

To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: Creativity Is an Inner Approach

Is there a way to overcome this upbringing by our society?

“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 continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: Creativity Is an Inner Approach

How to find out what direction our creativity will take?

“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.”

To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: Creativity Is an Inner Approach

Is there a way to learn creativity?

“You need not go to any school to learn creativity. All that you need is to go within and help the ego dissolve. Don’t support it, don’t go on strengthening and nourishing it. And whenever the ego is not, all is truth, all is beautiful. And then whatsoever happens is good.

“And I am not saying that you all will become Picassos or Shakespeares, I am not saying that. A few of you will become painters, a few of you will become singers, a few of you will become musicians, a few of you dancers – but that is not the point. Each of you will become creative in his own way. You may be a cook, but then there will be creativity. Or you may be just a cleaner, but then there will be creativity. There will be no boredom.

“You will become inventive in small things. Even in cleaning there will be a kind of worship, a prayer. So whatsoever you do then will have the taste of creativity. And we don’t need many painters – if all turn out to be painters, life will become very difficult. We don’t need many poets; we need gardeners too, we need farmers too, and we need all kinds of people. But each person can be creative. If he is meditative and egoless then existence starts flowing through him. According to his capacities, according to his potential, existence starts taking forms.

“And then all is good. You need not become famous. A really creative person does not care a bit about becoming famous; there is no need. He is so tremendously fulfilled in whatsoever he is doing, he is so content with whatsoever he is and wherever he is, that there is no question of desire.

When you are creative, desires disappear. When you are creative, ambitions disappear. When you are creative, you are already that which you always wanted to be.”

To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: The Bridge to Love and Laughter

It seems as if creativity is another way of describing life lived to the full?

“You can be a creator, then you feel a certain fulfillment – that comes to a mother when she gives birth to a child, that comes to a poet when poetry is born, that comes to a sculptor when he has created something a beautiful piece in marble, in stone, in wood. Whenever you create something, you feel enhanced; you reach towards peaks, you get high.

“All people who are creative are close to religiousness. Religiousness is the greatest creativity because it is an effort to give birth to yourself, to become a father and mother to yourself, to be born again, to be reborn through meditation, through awareness. Poetry is good, painting is good – but when you give birth to your own consciousness, there is no comparison. Then you have given birth to the ultimate poetry, the ultimate music, the ultimate dance. This is the dimension of creativity. On the rung of creativity, religiousness is the last. It is the greatest art, the ultimate art – that’s why I call it ‘the ultimate alchemy.’”

To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: Life, Death, and Love

“To me creativity is prayer, creativity is meditation, creativity is life….

“So don’t be afraid of life…. 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….

“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.”

To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit:  Drop the Never Ending Why

END

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