Question 2:
Osho,
I feel an urge for artistic expression and have had a disciplined, classical training in western music. often i feel this training imprisons spontaneous creativity and ihave found it very difficult to practice regularly lately. i am not sure anymore what the qualities of true art are and by which process the artist produces and delivers authentic art. how can i feel the artist in me?
Barbara Limberger, the paradox of art is that first you have to learn its discipline and then you have to forget it totally. If you don't know its ABC you will not be able to move very deep into it. But if you know only its technique and you go on practicing the technique your whole life you may become very skillful technically, but you will remain a technician; you will never become an artist.
In Zen they say, if you want to be a painter, for twelve years learn how to paint and then for twelve years forget all about painting. Just completely forget - it has nothing to do with you. For twelve years meditate, chop wood, carry water from the well. Do anything, but not painting.
And then one day you will be able to paint. Twenty-four years training: twelve years training in learning the technique and twelve years training in forgetting the technique.
And then you can paint. Now the technique has become just a part of you; it is no longer technical knowledge, it has become part of your blood and bones and marrow.
Now you can be spontaneous. It will not hinder you, it will not imprison you.
That's exactly MY experience too.
Now don't go on practicing. Forget all about classical music. Do other kinds of things:
gardening, sculpture, painting, but forget about classical music, as if it does not exist at all. For a few years let it remain deep down in your being so that it becomes digested. It is no longer a technique then. Then one day a sudden urge will take possession of you - and then start playing again. And when you play again, don't be bothered too much about the technique, otherwise you will never be spontaneous.
Be a little innovative - that's what creativity is. Innovate new ways, new means. Try something new that nobody has ever done. The greatest creativity happens in people whose training is of some other discipline.
For example, if a mathematician starts playing music he will bring something new to the world of music. If a musician becomes a mathematician he will bring something new to the world of mathematics. All great creativity happens through people who move from one discipline to another. It is like crossbreeding. And children that come out of crossbreeding are far healthier, far more beautiful.
That's why in every country for centuries, marriages between brothers and sisters have been prohibited; there is a reason in it. A marriage is better if it is between people who are very distantly related or not related at all as far as blood is concerned. It will be good if people from one race marry into another race. And if some day we discover people on some other planet, the best way will be a crossbreeding between earth and the other planet. Then newer kinds, newer people will be coming into existence.
The prohibition, the taboo against brother/sister relationship, their marriage, is significant, scientifically significant. But it has not been worked out into detail to its extreme, to its logical extreme. The logical extreme is that no Indian should marry another Indian, no German should marry another German. The best thing is that a German marries an Indian, an Indian marries a Japanese, a Japanese marries a Negro, a Negro marries an American, a Jew marries a Christian, a Christian marries a Hindu, a Hindu marries a Mohammedan. That will be the best thing. That will raise the consciousness of the whole planet. It will give better children, more alert, more alive, richer in every possible way.
But we are so foolish that we can do anything, we can accept anything. Then what am I saying...?
Chauncey, a handsome, almost pretty young man, was speaking earnestly with his mother.
"Mumsie, the time has come - it really has - when we must have a heart-to-heart talk about my relationship with Myron. To be quite candid about it, our relationship has blossomed into - how shall I say it without sounding indelicate? - well, into something beautiful and good and even holy. The truth is, Mumsie dear, I love Myron and Myron loves me in return. We want to be married as soon as possible and we both hope you will give us your blessings."
"But Chauncey," the mother protested, "do you realize what you are saying? Can you honestly expect me to condone such a marriage? What will people say? What will our friends and neighbors think?"
"Ah, Mumsie, you are going to be dreary - I can feel it in my bones. And after we have been such good pals, too. I never would have believed it of you - of all people. I could just cry!"
"But, son, you can't go against convention like this!"
"Alright, Mumsie, let us have it right out in the open like civilized persons. Exactly and precisely what possible objection could you or anyone else have to Myron and me becoming husband and husband?"
"You know perfectly well why I object: he is Jewish!"
She is not objecting to a homosexual marriage; she is objecting because he is Jewish.
People are so much against each other. They have been conditioned for this antagonism for so long that they have forgotten completely that we are all human beings, that we belong to the same earth, to the same planet.
The greater the distance between the wife and the husband, the better will be the by- product of the marriage.
And the same happens in music, in painting, in mathematics, in physics, in chemistry: a kind of crossbreeding. Whenever a person moves from one discipline to another discipline he brings the flavor of his discipline, although that discipline cannot be practiced. What can you do with your music when you go into physics? You have to forget all about it, but it remains in the background. It has become part of you; it is going to affect whatsoever you do. Physics is so far away, but if you have been disciplined in music, sooner or later you will find theories, hypotheses, which somehow have the color and the fragrance of music. You may start feeling that the world is a harmony - not a chaos but a cosmos. You may start feeling, searching into deeper realms of physics, that existence is an orchestra. Now, that is not possible for one who has not known anything of music.
If a dancer moves into music he will bring something new, he will contribute something new to music.
My suggestion is that people should go on moving from one discipline into another discipline. When you become accustomed to one discipline, when you become imprisoned with the technique, just slip out of it into another discipline. It is a good idea, a great idea to go on moving from one discipline into another. You will find yourself becoming more and more creative.
One thing has to be remembered: if you are really creative you may not become famous.
A really creative person takes time to become famous because he has to create the values - new values, new criteria, only then can he be judged. He has to wait at least fifty years; by that time he is dead. Only then people start appreciating him. If you want fame, then forget all about creativity. Then just practice and practice, and just go on doing the thing that you are doing more skillfully, more technically perfectly, and you will be famous - because people understand it; it is already accepted.
Whenever you bring something new into the world you are bound to be rejected. The world never forgives a person who brings anything new to the world. The creative person is bound to be punished by the world, remember it. The world appreciates the uncreative but skillful person, the technically perfect person, because technical perfection simply means perfection of the past. And everybody understands the past, everybody has been educated to understand it. To bring something new into the world means nobody will be able to appreciate it. It is so new that there are not any criteria against which it can be valued. No methods are still in existence which can help people to understand it. It will take at least fifty years or more; the artist will be dead. By that time people will start appreciating it.
Vincent van Gogh was not appreciated in his day. Not even a single painting was ever sold. Now each of his paintings is sold for millions of dollars - and people were not ready even to accept those paintings as gifts from Vincent van Gogh - the same paintings. He had given them to friends, to anybody who was ready to hang them in their room. Nobody was ready to hang his pictures in their rooms because people were worried. Others would ask, "Have you gone mad or something? What kind of painting is this?"
Vincent van Gogh had his own world. He has brought a new vision. It took many many decades; slowly slowly, humanity started feeling that something was there. Humanity is slow and lethargic; it lags behind time. And the creative person is always ahead of his time, hence the gap.
So, Barbara, if you really want to be creative you will have to accept that you can't be famous, you can't be well-known. If you really want to be creative, then you have to learn the simple phenomenon: art for art's sake, for no other motive. Then enjoy whatsoever you are doing. If you can find a few friends to enjoy it, good; if nobody is there to enjoy, then enjoy it alone. If YOU are enjoying it, that is enough. If you feel fulfilled through it, that is enough.
You ask me, "I am not sure anymore what the qualities of true art are."
True art means: if it helps you to become silent, still, joyous; if it gives you a celebration; if it makes you dance - whether anybody participates with you or not is irrelevant; if it becomes a bridge between you and God - that is true art. If it becomes a meditation, that is true art. If you become absorbed in it, so utterly absorbed that the ego disappears, that is true art.
True art comes very close to religion. So don't be worried what true art is. If you rejoice in doing it, if you feel lost in doing it, if you feel overwhelmed with joy and peace in doing it, it is true art. And don't be bothered what critics say. Critics don't know anything about art. In fact, the people who cannot become artists become critics. If you cannot participate in a running race, if you cannot be an Olympic runner, at least you can stand by the side of the road and throw stones at other runners; that you can do easily.
That's what critics go on doing. They can't be participants, they can't create anything.
I have heard about a Sufi mystic who loved painting, and all the critics of his time were against him. Everybody would come and show him, "This is wrong, that is wrong."
He became tired of these people, so one day, in front of his house he hung all his paintings and he invited all the critics and told them to come with brushes, with colors, so that they can correct his paintings, because they have criticized enough; now the time has come to correct.
Not a single critic turned up. It is easy to criticize, it is difficult to correct. And since then critics stopped coming and stopped criticizing his paintings. He did the right thing.
People who don't know how to create become critics. So don't be worried about them.
The decisive thing is your inner feeling, inner glow, inner warmth. If making music gives you a feeling of warmth, joy arises in you, ego disappears, then it becomes a bridge between you and God. And art can be the most prayerful thing, the most meditative thing possible. If you can be in any art, music, painting, sculpture, dance, if any art can take a grip of your being, that's the best way to pray, the best way to meditate. Then you don't need any other meditation; that is your meditation. That will lead you slowly slowly, step by step, into God. So this is my criterion: if it leads you towards God, it is true art, it is authentic art.
- Osho, "The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 10, #2"