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

THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 99
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;