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:
This is an excerpt from the transcript of a public discourse by Osho in Buddha Hall, Shree Rajneesh Ashram, Pune.
Discourse Series:
A Sudden Clash of Thunder
Chapter #4
Question 1
Chapter title: Man is Always an Opening
14 August 1976 am in Buddha Hall
References:
Osho has spoken on ‘creativity, worship, love, prayer’ in many of His discourses. More on the subject can be referred to in the following books/discourses:
- The Book of Wisdom
- The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol 2
- From Unconciousness to Consciousness
- The Path of Love
- Sat Chit Anand
- Tao: The Three Treasures, Vol 2
- The Divine Melody
- From Bondage to Freedom
- The Supreme Doctrine
- Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 3
