Creativity: A Process of Love.
December 20th, 2007Abraham Maslow said:
“The key question isn’t “What fosters creativity?” But it is, why in God’s name isn’t everyone creative? Where was the human potential lost? How was it crippled? I think therefore a good question might be not why do people create? But why do people not create or innovate? We have got to abandon that sense of amazement in the face of creativity, as if it were a miracle if anybody created anything.”
In most of my previous posts I have stated (in one way or another) that creativity is mans natural state. When I found this quote while surfing the internet, it jumped out to me instantly. What IS stopping us reaching our innate creative potential? As soon as I write that question, a whole host of reasons bursts into my head, but let’s break it down.
I will write a series of posts on the following questions:
First of all where does creativity come from?
Second, what is actually going on when you are engaged in a creative process?
Third, why do people stop being so creative?
And finally how can we maintain our naturally creative urges and desires?
Where does creativity come from?
“The ultimate truth in man is not in his intellect or in his material wealth; it is in his imagination of sympathy, in his illumination of heart, in his activities of self-sacrifice, in his capacity for extending love far and wide across all barriers of caste and colour, in his realizing this world not as a storehouse of mechanical power but as a habitation of man’s soul with its eternal music of beauty and its inner light of a divine presence.” -R. Tagore
This question is a lot like “where does love come from?”.
“God is Love and Peace. God is Truth. God is Omniscience. God is without beginning and without end. God is uncreated and uncreating, yet the Source, the Causeless Cause. God is pure Essence, and cannot be said to be anywhere or in any place.
God is infinite; and as terms are finite, the nature of God cannot be expressed in terms, but as man desires to express God in some way, he calls God “Love” and “Truth,” because these are the highest things he knows. Life is eternal; so man, in order to express God’s infinity, calls God “Life.” But these things in themselves are not God. God is the Source of all, and all things that are, are mirrors reflecting His Glory.
- Abbias Effendi, His Life and Teachings, by Myron H. Phelps, pp. 153-157.
Anyone who is creative will tell you that creativity is about the search, the journey, not the end destination.
What propels us to go on this search? How do you feel when you are on this search called creativity?
“The progress and development of the soul, the joy and sorrow of the soul, are independent of the physical body.
If we are caused joy or pain by a friend, if a love prove true or false, it is the soul that is affected. If our dear ones are far from us—it is the soul that grieves, and the grief or trouble of the soul may react on the body.
Thus, when the spirit is fed with holy virtues, then is the body joyous; if the soul falls into sin, the body is in torment!
When we find truth, constancy, fidelity, and love, we are happy; but if we meet with lying, faithlessness, and deceit, we are miserable.
These are all things pertaining to the soul, and are not bodily ills. Thus, it is apparent that the soul, even as the body, has its own individuality. But if the body undergoes a change, the spirit need not be touched. When you break a glass on which the sun shines, the glass is broken, but the sun still shines! If a cage containing a bird is destroyed, the bird is unharmed! If a lamp is broken, the flame can still burn bright!
The same thing applies to the spirit of man. Though death destroy his body, it has no power over his spirit—this is eternal, everlasting, both birthless and deathless.” – (Abdu’l-Baha, Paris Talks, p. 65)
The reality of this world is that of our souls. Our souls are happy and joyous when we exercise virtues, such as love, kindness, generosity, trustworthiness etc. Love gives life to creation. It is out of love that we strive, search, and create, love is the driving force dominating a fulfilled and happy human being. Love fuels the creative process, thus creation is a process of love.
Creativity is another virtues, another faculty of our souls, hence the similar feeling you can get when you are engaged in creativity as to when you are being treated kindly or treating someone else kindly, or loving someone or being loved. The feeling is spiritual. Your mind and body disengages and your soul takes more control directly.
So this is where it starts, as with everything, at the soul. The soul desires to reflect the virtues of God, and creativity is one of them, just like the souls desire to love.
