Creativity and Silence

 

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Creativity and Silence

Creativity and silence are not antagonistic; real creativity comes only out of silence. The creativity that is against silence is nothing but the feverish activity of the mind. It is just the noise of the mind, it is not much, it has no value really. When something is born out of one’s silence then it has significance. And one has to live in silence before one can write or say something valuable, because only in silence does one gather, the juices of one’s being become integrated… and then one day we are capable of overflowing. That is creativity: overflow is creativity, overflowing energy is creativity. One can write, one can compose, one can sculpt, one can paint, just from the mind. Then they are therapeutic. It is good therapy, art is good therapy; it unburdens us, it makes us feel relaxed.

Just understand – there is a creativity that comes out of relaxation – that is real creativity – and there is a relaxation which comes out of so-called creativity; that relaxation happens only because we unburden ourselves. Something was haunting us -  we have written it; it is a catharsis. Something was torturing us, and we have painted - we have thrown it out. Now it no more haunts us, no more tortures us; we feel good. It was like a burden on our head. We have put it into a poem, into music, and our head feels unburdened, but the causes which created the burden in the first place are still there; they will create it again. Within a few days we will again be burdened, again tensions will accumulate and again we would like to do something. And always when we do something we will feel relaxed.

For real creativity, one has to go into silence. It is so in every direction; in every creative direction these two things are to be remembered. For example, one can speak out of silence, as realised Masters speak, but there are orators who don’t speak out of silence; in fact, after speaking they feel relaxed. They have unburdened themselves. And there is a subtle law, a fundamental law of life: when one is speaking one cannot think. One cannot do two things together; the mind can either think or speak.

So, people who are too burdened with thinking will always feel relaxed after they have spoken, because while they are speaking, they cannot think. Thinking is nothing but speaking to oneself. What else is thinking? - speaking to oneself; it is a monologue. When we start speaking to somebody else there is no need to speak to ourselves, so thinking stops. Hence people love talking, gossiping. Everywhere all around the earth people are just talking and talking. It is a catharsis, it is therapeutic. That’s why one always feels good when friends meet and there is a good conversation; after the conversation one feels very relaxed. For a few hours one really feels good, but again the tensions reappear.

After a great silence one may become capable one day of creating something which will be of some significance to somebody, which will become a lighthouse to those who are stumbling in the darkness. Otherwise, at the most one’s creativity can be just a kind of entertainment. And unless one can create something which becomes an enlightenment to others it is not worth much.