THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 The ...

98 THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12
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!”
”All right, 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.