Inspiration and Creativity

 

Photo Credit: RollaDank

Inspiration and Creativity

When I was in school, I used to draw quite well and then as I grew up and my interests changed and I gave up drawing. I am a physical person by nature and all my inspiration comes on the field of sport, while playing some game or the other. The question here is what does spirituality have to do with inspiration and creativity? We are all aware that several studies have taken place to establish the link between inspiration and creativity.

After I started meditating, I would see words forming in my mind, subconsciously I knew that these were the words for some poem. This happened on and off for quite some time – then one day I decided to consciously record these words on the mobile phone’s voice recorder. I would be ready daily in the morning while sitting for meditation, and then one day the words started forming in my mind and I picked up the phone with awareness and recorded the words and went back into meditation. Later, out of curiosity I played back the recording and it turned out to be quite a beautiful poem, my first titled ‘Inner Journey’.

I have never considered myself to be a creative person, but after starting meditation I have written several poems and was inspired by Swamiji to write and publish a book on spiritual experiences. So, basically where does the inspiration come from? It is said that the sacral chakra governs one’s emotions, creativity, sensitivity, sexuality, intimacy, emotional well-being and self-expression. Once this chakra is fully developed the creativity which lies within each and every person comes to the fore.

Whenever I spoke self-deprecatingly about myself a close friend in Samarpan would always scold me and say, “Don’t say that, be positive.” She was right of course, but I have this habit of cracking jokes at myself – because it is extremely important to be able to laugh at oneself and witness the laughter. This I feel is a very important aspect of spiritual development – the ability to laugh at oneself.

If I try and analyse where the poems come from, I have no clue – they just come – so is it inspirational creativity? What is it? I have no rational explanation for it as it just happens! Similarly, this year due to circumstances created by Covid, I was forced to live alone as my wife and daughter went to stay at my in-law’s place to look after her mother's severe illness. I could not go as my office set-up server, the home-office network was all set up at home.

But the beauty of it was after a couple of days cooking with the help of YouTube videos, from the third day I got a message from Swamiji, to cook the food as ‘prasad’ (blessed food) and he would vibrate it from wherever he was. You won’t believe that from the next day recipes started swirling in my mind and I started cooking accordingly and the dishes turned out to be extremely yummy – I got third party validation too several times from sudden visitors. So, where did this culinary skill suddenly pop-up from? All His Grace!