Ultimate Creativity

This practice will discuss the two aspects of creativity: ordinary creativity and ultimate creativity. Common creativity has its origins in our day-to-day ego structure. We draw upon our past experience, capacities, and skills to formulate a "creative" project. This is more like rearranging furniture in the same room. Our aim here is to develop the capacity to access unconditioned vital and unique creativity that arises from a free and expansive consciousness.

Transcript

This is Elliot Dasher welcoming you to my podcast Meditation and Beyond.

Our topic today will be creativity.

We must first distinguish between two types of creativity.

The creativity that we would call conventional and the creativity that we would call ultimate,

Authentic or true.

They're both quite different and it's important to know the difference.

Now conventional creativity is based upon my ego structure.

It harnesses my past experiences,

My beliefs,

My values,

My conditioned learning and it takes these and begins to work with them perhaps in a way it hadn't quite worked with them before to come up with a novel solution to a problem or to a creative moment.

So let me give you an example.

When I was leaving my medical practice many years ago,

I went through a period of time which I simply sorted out how I could make things work.

Could I just work half time or quarter time?

Could I rent some space to help with the income?

Could I do this?

Could I do that?

So all these alternatives were within the realm of my previous understandings,

Capabilities and skills.

But I also decided to reread some of the self-growth or personal development or psychological or spiritual texts I had read over the years.

I discovered a common theme and that was in order to create new change you had to go into the unknown for a period,

Which means you had to go into a mental space,

A place in consciousness which was still free of past experience,

Free of patterns,

Free of past ideas,

Free of memory,

Just open and spacious.

Now we've talked about this in the past as being pure awareness with the ego structure and all of its past history.

I'll put it aside for the moment.

We're at a place of freshness,

Of newness,

Of complete possibility.

Of course you can't organize a creative moment in this space,

This still point,

This space of openness and all possibilities.

But what you can do is remain quiet,

Aware and present.

When a creative answer comes to you in the form of a realization,

It will have several characteristics.

One,

It will be complete.

It will have the entire experience,

The entire answer to what you're looking for or the creative moment will come complete,

Finished,

Whole.

You of course have to use your usual skills to translate that into your life,

But the actual knowing is spontaneous.

It's like,

Ah,

That's it,

That's it,

That's the answer,

I know that.

It comes with a sense of personal assurance that you know,

That you know,

That you know,

And nobody can change that.

That creative moment also has a kind of timeless quality to it.

It just pops out of the air.

So we think about Einstein's often famous quote about his equation E equals MC squared.

He will say,

I got that in a moment,

A moment perhaps between two thoughts,

In stillness to space,

And then it took me many years to translate that so that others could understand it.

The same could be said of many musicians and artists who will say that inspiration,

That creative knowing came to me in a moment,

And then I set it down to music or I use paints to try to put it in a form that could express it to others.

But the actual experience was there directly,

Fully,

Completely in the moment.

And it's unrelated to past learning,

Past experience,

It's fresh and vital,

Could not have been predicted,

Could not have been arrived at through any logical or cognitive means.

Now there is another aspect to this,

When viewing that creative moment that another has come up with as a revelation.

If we can experience that work of art,

Sculpture,

Writing,

As we approach it in the same still space as it was created,

That is we experience it,

We allow it to resonate,

To echo within us,

To just move through us,

We remain still,

Open hearted,

Fresh,

And aware.

That moment that we have with that artwork will bring us to the same place of stillness,

Or point to it at least,

That was there for the artist at the time that the painting was done or the music was written.

So great art written from stillness,

Painted from stillness,

Spoken from stillness,

Also takes us in our own experience of it to stillness.

So I remember a time many years ago when I was at the Uffizi Museum in Florence looking at the Venus that Botticelli painted,

Looking at that face and something came over me,

I didn't know what it was for many years,

It was a sense of calmness,

Serenity,

Stillness,

Almost otherworldliness.

Many years later I was able to look back at that painting and understand that Botticelli painted that face from places of stillness within him,

The face itself contains stillness,

No personality,

No ego structure,

A kind of open awareness and stillness,

Not allowing for any projection,

But allowing you to experience that same stillness that inspired the Venus within yourself,

Within myself in that situation.

So that's both ends of the creative experience,

When it comes from a place of openness,

Stillness,

The unconditioned awareness of our deeper self,

It comes naturally,

Spontaneously,

Full and feels quite right and final to us.

That doesn't have to be an artwork,

It could be our life,

Because our life is also a creative endeavor,

And as we,

In this place of stillness,

Full awareness,

We will time to time and time here and time there,

We will experience as well a place of understanding,

Knowing,

Realization,

Insight regarding a life that would have been unpredictable,

Could never have been achieved in our ego structure through our logic and through our reasoning process.

So all great creativity,

Whether that is artwork,

Whether that is the creativity of a life,

Comes from this deeper space.

It's not to say that there isn't a value in creative solutions that come conventionally for conventional problems,

But that's much different than the larger,

More comprehensive,

More holistic levels of creativity that are available to us at this deeper level of being.

The more we practice living and dropping into this space of stillness,

Of full awareness,

The more it will work itself into our life,

So we will find that even at odd times during the day,

Realizations will just pop in,

That are creative,

That are novel,

That came in that little space of openness between two thoughts,

Or when our mind slows down,

Stops,

And we go into this place of stillness,

Sharing practice.

So it will become more and more a part of our life.

So I'd like to invite you to join with me in doing a little meditation now,

Aiming ourselves towards that still point,

Not with the intention of gaining a particular insight or realization,

Because that's the ego wanting something out of that open consciousness.

That's not the openness.

What comes there just comes spontaneously.

So we start,

As we usually do,

By quieting the loud noise of the mind,

Taking a deep breath in,

Blowing it out and emptying out the mind,

And holding the breath for a comfortable period.

Holding the breath deactivates the neural default mode,

Which is the restless center of the brain,

Brings a natural and effortless quietness,

Stillness,

Peacefulness.

So it's an easy way to quiet the gross noise of the mind.

So deep in,

Blow it out,

Hold as long as you can,

And just dwell in that stillness.

Nothing to do,

No place to go.

Just remain still.

The longer the hold is,

And it must be a comfortable hold,

The longer you can just dwell in that sense of openness and spaciousness,

Emptiness of activity,

Peace,

Serenity.

So let's do it for a minute or two,

At your own pace.

After the out-breath you can remember that feeling of openness,

Spaciousness and stillness on the in-breath,

Take it through the next out-breath,

Enhance it in the next hold.

You can do this during a day,

Even for just a few moments.

That hold will give you the space between two thoughts,

That awareness,

That presence.

When you're meditating,

If you have a problem with your mind getting overactive or out of control,

You can do a few rounds of the breathing then as well.

So this process is effortless.

Just follow the instructions and the physiological effect of stillness will take place.

You can continue this as long as you need it,

To still the mind,

Or at least the coarse noise of the mind.

And now we're going to go into a normal breathing,

We're going to keep it low,

Quiet,

Harmonious and smooth,

Because that also acts to deactivate the neuro-deformed mode and the restlessness of the mind.

So we can still maintain that control by just having a harmonious breath.

We come into the current moment,

Into the present moment,

Just here,

Just now,

Just still,

No place to go,

Nothing to do,

No one to be.

Let our personal I,

All our knowledge,

All our past history,

All our identities and roles just drop away for the moment.

So what's left is a beautiful,

Open,

Spacious,

Deeper self that has no name,

No personality,

But has an enduring awareness and presence.

What we have to remember is that when there's mental activity,

That's a normal function of the mind.

We let it come and let it go.

We let it come into our mind,

We let it go.

We don't grasp it because we like it.

We don't push it away because it shouldn't be there,

We don't like it.

We don't struggle with it.

We just look at it with kindness,

Care,

And let it go.

Our still mind is Teflon,

Nothing sticks to where hope and presence.

When we pay no attention to things that move in and out,

When we approach them,

Mental activity with a neutrality,

An indifference,

Passivity,

We don't feed it with attention,

Things just come and go.

We remain aware,

Still,

Observer.

I'd like to read you the following words from a poem by T.

S.

Eliot.

I ask you to listen with a complete awareness,

Openness,

No interpretation,

No trying to figure out,

No analyzing,

Just let the words resonate.

Let them touch you,

Let them be with you,

And pick up the space from which they came.

At the still point of the turning world,

Neither flesh nor fleshless,

Neither from nor towards.

At the still point,

There the dance is,

But neither rest nor motion,

And do not call it fixity where past and future are gathered,

Neither movement from nor towards,

Neither ascent nor decline,

Except the point,

The still point.

There would be no dance,

And there is only the dance.

Let that point towards the space of awareness from which it came,

Which it touches in you.

Relaxed,

Mind relaxed,

Everything can flow freely,

You're just open and receptive.

As you practice remaining in this deeper self,

This still point,

This place of pure awareness,

There'll be moments in which these experiences of creativity or realization simply come naturally and spontaneously.

They come with grace,

You can't create them,

But as you remain in stillness,

They will naturally arise when the moment is right.

I'm going to leave you now,

But you can continue with this meditation on your own,

And visit this space of awareness,

Of presence,

Of your natural self,

Your creative self,

As frequently as you can,

Dropping in for brief moments during the day,

And for longer periods during your day-to-day practice.