Of the way of the creator

CREATIVITY IS PERHAPS the only existential religion. The moments of creativity are the moments when you are one with the universe. In a way you are lost, you are no more your old ego; in another way you have found yourself for the first time.

Only the creator knows the depths of life and the heights of love. Those who do not know the dimension of creativity remain unaware of what true religion is. True religion is not worship. True religion is not contained in the scriptures. True religion consists only of one thing: when you participate with the creator, howsoever small your participation may be. It has a significance, because only you can do it, and nobody else can do it.

God is not a person somewhere - God is only a collective name of the whole creative energy of the universe. The moment you are creative you are part of it, and the people who are not creative remain separate from the flow of existence. And the people who are destructive are not only separate, but they are against existence. They are the real sinners.

The only virtue worth calling virtue is creativity. What you create does not matter, but it should enhance life, beautify existence, make living more joyous, the song a little more juicy, the love a little more glorious - and the life of a creator starts becoming part of eternity and immortality.

Zarathustra is talking about the way of the creator. Millions of people live, but they don't create anything. And it is one of the fundamentals of life that unless you create - it may be a painting, a song, a dance - you cannot be blissful, you will remain in misery. Only creativity brings to you your dignity. It helps you to blossom in your fullness.

MY BROTHER, DO YOU WANT TO GO APART AND BE ALONE? The creator cannot be part of the crowd. The creator has to learn to be alone, to go apart, to learn the beauty of solitude, because only in that space your potential starts changing into actuality.

DO YOU WANT TO SEEK THE WAY TO YOURSELF? The way of the creator ultimately leads you to yourself, because you are going away from the crowd, away from the mass - you are going into aloneness.

A painter is absolutely alone in his vision.

A dancer is absolutely alone in his dance.

One of the great dancers, Nijinsky, was asked once, "You dance before big audiences - don't you feel nervous?" He said, "As far as I am concerned, I feel nervous, but only to the point before the dance starts. Once I am in my dance I am absolutely alone, there is nobody else. Not only do others disappear, a moment comes sometimes, and that is the greatest moment, when I myself disappear - only the dance remains."

This has been observed about Nijinsky, by scientists, that there were some moments when he would jump so high that it was not physically possible, because of gravitation. And more amazing was the part when he would come down: he would come down so slowly - just as if a leaf is falling slowly towards the earth; there is no hurry. That, too, gravitation does not allow: gravitation pulls things forcibly.

He was asked about this and he said, "It is a mystery to me. Whenever I try, it never happens, because I am there. Perhaps I am the weight on which gravity works. When I forget myself completely, suddenly it is there - I am just a watcher as you are a watcher, full of wonder. I don't know how it happens."

Perhaps the ego is the heaviest thing in you. In the moment when Nijinsky felt that he himself had disappeared - only the dance was there, the dancer no more - he touched on the same experience as Zarathustra or Gautam Buddha or Lao Tzu, but from a very different dimension. His dance became a mystic experience.

PAUSE JUST A MOMENT AND LISTEN TO ME.

'HE WHO SEEKS MAY EASILY GET LOST HIMSELF. IT IS A CRIME TO GO APART AND BE ALONE' - THUS SPEAKS THE HERD.

The crowd hates those people who want to be individuals, who want their own way, who want their own style of life. The herd wants you to be just one of them. Your separation reminds them of their inferiority, and it is not surprising that the herd has always been against the individual.

Jesus was not crucified because he was saying anything against Judaism. He was born a Jew, he lived a Jew, he died a Jew, and all that he was saying was contained in the Jewish scriptures. There is not a single thing that can be pointed to as being against Judaism. Why did this young man have to be crucified? What was his crime?

His crime was that he was going alone; he was establishing himself as an individual; he was not following the crowd; he had made his own footpath. He was not on the superhighway with everybody, behaving in the same way, talking about the same things, living the same life.

There is a very clear-cut psychology behind it: All those who suffer from inferiority want to be with people who are the same as they are; then they can forget their inferiority. But anybody who does not suffer from inferiority stands alone, needs no coziness of the crowd, no support of the people, finds himself "enough unto himself" - becomes a dangerous reminder that you are hollow within yourself and you are trying somehow to lose yourself in the crowd.

The herd is going to say to any creator, "He who seeks may easily get lost himself. Don't move away from the crowd."

THE VOICE OF THE HERD WILL STILL RING WITHIN YOU. AND WHEN YOU SAY: 'WE HAVE NO LONGER THE SAME CONSCIENCE, YOU AND I', IT WILL BE A LAMENT AND A GRIEF. The creator has to depart.

One great Dutch painter, van Gogh, wanted to be a painter. He belonged to a poor family. The family said, "We cannot afford it." The father worked in a coal mine. But van Gogh was absolutely certain that that was his destiny; it was not a question of affording or not affording - he was going to be a painter. The family renounced him. His younger brother would pay him just enough for seven days, every Sunday, to eat and to find a shelter. Three days he would fast, and four days he would eat.

He had to fast three days to purchase paints, canvasses, for his paintings.

His paintings were so ahead of time - the genius is always ahead of time - that in his whole life not a single painting was sold. Now only two hundred paintings have survived, and each painting is worth more than one million dollars - and the man lived in utter poverty, just like a beggar.

His brother thought that he must be suffering deeply a great pain and agony, that nobody understands his painting. People laughed at his paintings. He was a new beginning in the world of paintings - a pioneer. And the pioneer is always laughed at; a creator who is not repeating the past, but bringing in the future, is bound to be misunderstood.

His brother told a friend, "I will give you the money; at least purchase one of his paintings. He will feel happy that at least one person understands his paintings." The man had no sense about paintings, but he went. Van Gogh was very happy, and showed him this painting, that painting, but the man said, "Any will do. Don't waste my time; here is the money." It was a shock. The man did not even look at the paintings: "Any painting will do - you just take the money and give me the painting."

Van Gogh said, "These paintings are not for sale, and tell my brother not to waste money unnecessarily. This is not your money, because I can see you don't have any sensitivity. You have been sent by my brother just to give me some consolation. Just get out of this place! My satisfaction is not in my paintings being sold; I am utterly content in creating them."

The creator's joy is in creation itself; there is no other reward. And the moment you start thinking of any reward beyond your act, you are only a technician, not a creator.

The crowd is bound to be afraid of such people because they don't follow the social morality, they don't follow the social norms. They are no longer part of the herd. They have no obligation to go to your church, to read your holy books. They have found their own religion, and their religion is their creativity. The herd cannot understand it and tries to persuade them: "It is better you come back.

Don't go alone. You can be lost."

THE VOICE OF THE HERD WILL STILL RING WITHIN YOU. AND WHEN YOU SAY: 'WE HAVE NO LONGER THE SAME CONSCIENCE... no longer the same "I" - I don't belong to you; you are just cogs in the wheel. I am an individual and I want to live my life according to my own inner voice, not to be dictated, dominated, manipulated by others.

FOR SEE, IT IS STILL THIS SAME CONSCIENCE THAT CAUSES YOUR GRIEF: AND THE LAST GLIMMER OF THIS CONSCIENCE STILL GLOWS IN YOUR AFFLICTION. There WILL be problems. All the great painters, poets, singers, musicians, have either gone mad or have even committed suicide. Their madness is simply because everybody thinks they are abnormal.

Van Gogh has fallen in love with one of his faraway cousin-sisters. There was nothing wrong in it, but he was a poor man, and on top of it he was a painter. Nobody liked his paintings, nobody could even understand what he is painting - nor could he explain.

He used to say, "It is strange, nobody asks the trees 'What is your meaning?' Nobody asks the flowers, 'What is your purpose?' The flower is just beautiful! To be beautiful is enough; no other purpose is needed. My painting is a flower. Why should you ask me the meaning, the purpose? It is not a commodity, it is a creative act. Just as nature creates, I am also part of nature. It is also a creation of nature."

He proposed to the girl. She could not believe that he would dare to do such a thing. Everybody thought that he was abnormal. It was evening the sun had set, and they were sitting by the light of a beautiful candle. The girl simply joked. She said, "Do you really mean you love me? Then keep your hand on the flame of the candle as long as I want. That will be a proof." Van Gogh put his hand on the candle and burnt his hand. The girl could not believe... she removed the candle. Now it is absolutely certain that the man was mad.

Love is one thing, but you don't have to give such proofs, and anybody who can give such proofs can be dangerous. Her father told him never to come to his house again. Van Gogh said, "But what wrong have I done? Your girl has asked me to give proof of my love. I can give proof even by my death. My love is greater than my life." Although he was saying tremendously meaningful words, he was pushed aside and the doors were closed.

His brother loved him very much, and he felt deep compassion for him; he was not harming anybody.

Still, everybody seemed to be against him. The only thing that he was doing was not following the crowd. His father wanted him to go to a Christian seminary where he could learn to be a Christian priest, and he said, "Priest? I want to be a painter. I am not mad enough to be a priest." His father was ready to give him money to be a priest, but he was not ready to give him money to be a painter or to send him to a painting school. His brother felt deeply for him. He asked a prostitute, "In his whole life" - Van Gogh was thirty - "he has never known love. It would be very kind of you... I will give you the money... you pretend to love him." The prostitute was willing; it was her profession, and there was no problem. She met him as if by accident and started talking to him about his paintings, saying they were great..."And by the way," she said, "you are so beautiful." Nobody had ever said that. Van Gogh said, "What do you think is beautiful in me?" Even the prostitute was in difficulty to say what was beautiful in him - Van Gogh was not a very beautiful man. She said, "I love your ears"

- finding nothing else.

In the middle of the night, van Gogh came with both his ears - he had cut them off and put them in a packet - and offered those two ears to the woman, and he said, "In my whole life somebody has loved something in me. I want to offer them to you; you can have them." Blood was coming from both the ears... the woman freaked out. She thought that he was really mad. What more proof do you need?

He was forced into a madhouse where he lived for one year. But the paintings that he did in the madhouse are his best, because there was no question of food, shelter, clothes; everything was provided by the madhouse. Those are the two hundred paintings that have survived.

The psychiatrist and other experts in the madhouse found that he was not mad; he was simply not normal. The whole day he would paint, from morning till evening - not even a coffee break, and he would eat at night. They said, "He was a little abnormal, but not dangerous to anybody." He was released, and after after a few days he committed suicide; but it was not a suicide. He wrote a letter to his brother: "The painting I wanted to paint, I have painted."

He wanted to paint the sun as nobody had ever painted it. For one year continuously he painted, painting only the sun in all its moods, in all its different colors - in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening, at sunset - hundreds of paintings. And when he was satisfied that he had done what he wanted to do, then there was no need to live. His life was to create something that he had created - now he was utterly fulfilled. "So please don't think of it as a suicide. It is not a suicide. Just, now I don't have any reason to live. Forgive me, I am not part of the crowd where people go on living for no reason at all."

If you think about it yourself, you will find his point significant: Are you living for some meaning? Are you living for some creativity? Are you living to make life more beautiful? Are you going to contribute something to existence? If not, then why go on unnecessarily burdening the earth?

It was not a suicide; it was a great insight of a creator who could not live without creating. Creating was his life, and because it was fulfilled, life had no more meaning for him.

Naturally, such people live with a great affliction. BUT YOU WANT TO GO THE WAY OF YOUR AFFLICTION. - still, they want to go to the way of their affliction - WHICH IS THE WAY TO YOURSELF?

It is painful, it is condemned, you become a laughingstock, but still you want to go to yourself.

IF SO, SHOW ME YOUR STRENGTH FOR IT AND YOUR RIGHT TO IT! To be a creator one needs strength - the strength of a lion, not the slavery of a camel.

ARE YOU A NEW STRENGTH AND A NEW RIGHT? A FIRST MOTION? A SELF-PROPELLING WHEEL? CAN YOU ALSO COMPEL STARS TO REVOLVE ABOUT YOU?

ALAS, THERE IS SO MUCH LUSTING FOR EMINENCE! THERE IS SO MUCH CONVULSION OF THE AMBITIOUS!

The creator is not ambitious and he is not lusting for eminence. Those who are ambitious and who are lusting for eminence are only third-rate people: they may be composers, but they are not creators. A creator has no intention of being famous, has no intention of being respectable. His whole energy is involved in only one thing: his creation.

All the old, great pieces of art... for example, we don't know who was the architect of the Taj Mahal, the most beautiful architecture in the whole world. We don't know who created Khajuraho, a temple which has statues which are incomparable in beauty. Seventy temples were destroyed by Mohammedans; thirty were saved because they were deep in the forest.

Each temple has thousands of statues; the people who created them have not even signed their names - they were fulfilled by creating them.

We don't know who created the UPANISHADS, the most beautiful statements about the ultimate experiences of man. They thought themselves simply vehicles, mediums of existence, only instrumental to the creativity of existence - they never thought that they were the creators. It is ugly even to sign your name.

And you see the masses... they have not created anything, but in every public toilet they have signed; in movie houses they have engraved their names on the seats. Such a desire that your name should remain after you are gone, such a desire to be eminent, to be ambitious, is not part of a creative soul, it is part of the mundane and the mediocre.

ALAS, THERE ARE SO MANY GREAT IDEAS THAT DO NO MORE THAN A BELLOWS: THEY INFLATE AND MAKE EMPTIER.

DO YOU CALL YOURSELF FREE? I WANT TO HEAR YOUR RULING IDEA, AND NOT THAT YOU HAVE ESCAPED FROM A YOKE.

He is making a very important distinction which very few people realize. He is saying: ARE YOU SUCH A MAN AS OUGHT TO ESCAPE A YOKE?

Millions of people have a deep desire to be slaves, because slavery has some compensations: you are free of all responsibility; you need not bother about yourself - somebody else is your master.

And this kind of slavery exists in many forms. There are seven hundred million Catholics who believe that Jesus is their savior. Do you think it is different from slavery? To be saved by somebody else, you cannot be a man of freedom. It is the same situation for others too. Hindus believe that Krishna will come and deliver them from darkness, ways of sin....

But what are you for? Don't you have a soul? Don't you have a consciousness? Can't you get out of darkness yourself? Somebody has to come and bring light to you? And do you understand the implication? If somebody saves you, he can push you back. If somebody else brings the light, he can take the light away. It is not your light. Unless something grows within you - the freedom, the light, the love - you cannot rely on it. You are bound to be a slave, and you will have to pay for it.

And the payment is not small: you will have to pay for it with your very soul.

ARE YOU SUCH A MAN AS OUGHT TO ESCAPE A YOKE? THERE ARE MANY WHO THREW OFF THEIR FINAL WORTH WHEN THEY THREW OFF THEIR BONDAGE. Their only worth was their bondage; they were useful only as slaves - the moment they are freed they don't know what to do.

It happened in the Bastille, in France, in the French revolution... the Bastille was the greatest prison in France and it was for the prisoners who were sentenced for life, so their handcuffs and their chains had no keys. They were not going to be opened; they would die with them. They would live with them and they would die with them. And there were three or four thousand prisoners in the Bastille.

Revolutionaries thought that it would be a great joy for those poor people to be freed. So they went to the Bastille.... People were living in dark holes, somebody for thirty years, somebody for forty years - somebody has even lived there for seventy years; he was ninety years old. And when they heard about freedom they did not want it, they refused. They said, "We have become so accustomed to the darkness, to dirtiness, to inedible food - to all kinds of indignities. We are beaten; we are not treated like human beings, but in fifty years we have become accustomed to it. And now to begin life again in the outside world is too much of a task. Forgive us and just leave us as we are."

But revolutionaries are revolutionaries. They would not listen: they cut off their handcuffs; they cut off their chains; they freed them against their will; they threw them out of the jail. And you will be surprised to know that by the evening half of them came back, asking to be allowed in, because they could not sleep without their handcuffs and without their chains - it felt like something was missing - just as you cannot sleep without your pillow, a child cannot sleep without his teddy bear. Fifty years, seventy years... those chains were no longer chains, they had become part of their bodies. The revolutionaries could not understand, but they had to give them back their chains. The prisoners were immensely happy; they went into their dark holes and slept peacefully.

The whole day had been a day of torture. Their eyes had become weak; they could not see... the glaring sun. The gap between them and the people outside had become so big, they could not understand what was happening. In fifty years so much had changed. And who was going to give them food? Who was going to give them employment? Who was going to give them their destroyed dignity?

Nobody was ready to give employment to a man who had been fifty years in jail for a life sentence.

Already he was seventy years or eighty years old - almost a corpse. For seventy years he had not taken a bath; he was stinking. People avoided them; nobody wanted even to talk with them.

Naturally, they came back home, and they told the revolutionaries, "Now this is our home, and this is going to be our grave too."

Your worth may be your slavery. Zarathustra is saying, "Before you throw your yoke, think twice; perhaps that is your worth." Before you throw off your bondage, wait; give a little thought.

FREE FROM WHAT? ZARATHUSTRA DOES NOT CARE ABOUT THAT! These words should be remembered carefully. FREE FROM WHAT? ZARATHUSTRA DOES NOT CARE ABOUT THAT!

BUT YOUR EYE SHOULD CLEARLY TELL ME: free for what? Not from, but for: unless you have a for, it is better to remain as you are.

In this country, forty years of freedom, and I have been asking people like Jaiprakash, Ramamanohar Lohia, great leaders of the revolution in this country, "You are continually saying that we have to be free from the British Empire, but I never hear anybody saying for what? Freedom FROM... I understand, but you don't have a program for when you are free; what are you going to do?" And that's what happened. Freedom from the British Empire happened, but for forty years what has India done? It has had no program.

Even today it does not know what to do with the freedom - kill each other? Mohammedans killing Hindus, Hindus killing Mohammedans over trivial matters - fight and kill. But in forty years there has been no creativity. In forty years this country has gone down more than it has ever been.

People have only been producing children, and each child brings more poverty. When the country became free, there were four hundred million people; now there are nine hundred million people. In forty years, five hundred million people have been added. The poverty has grown immensely. By the end of this century, for the first time in the history, India will be the most populated country. China will be defeated for the first time. It is going to be beyond one billion people.

The earth is so exploited it cannot yield more. Forests are cut, rains are disturbed, seasons are no longer the same, and no politician has the guts to say.... All the religions are against birth control. If you say anything against birth control you will lose the election; to be elected is more important than facing the fact that by the end of this century, half of the country will be dying from starvation and hunger - just like Ethiopia.

Ethiopia is a small country - still, one thousand people are dying every day. In India, when the process of hunger and starvation starts, for every two persons, one person is going to die - five hundred million people will die. And what kind of life will it be when you are surrounded by corpses?

There will be nobody to even take those corpses to the funerals to burn them. And when so many people die, millions of diseases will spread. It will be beyond the capacity of anyone to save the remaining living ones. But no politician will even hint about it.

We are always thinking to be free from something, but never thinking what we are going to do out of our freedom. FREE FROM WHAT? ZARATHUSTRA DOES NOT CARE ABOUT THAT! BUT YOUR EYE SHOULD BE CLEARLY TELLING ME: FREE for WHAT?

CAN YOU FURNISH YOURSELF WITH YOUR OWN GOOD AND EVIL AND HANG UP YOUR OWN WILL ABOVE YOURSELF AS A LAW? Are you capable of becoming a law unto yourself?

If not, then you cannot be a free man. Can you create values for yourself of good and evil?

Otherwise, you have to follow the ten commandments.

CAN YOU BE JUDGE OF YOURSELF AND AVENGER OF YOUR LAW?

Are you capable of being a judge and even punishing yourself if you do something wrong? Otherwise your freedom will be simply committing suicide. It was better that you were a slave. Somebody else was taking care that you did not commit wrong; somebody was taking care that you did right.

Somebody was taking care about the law, about values.

A man who wants to be totally free - and a creator needs to be totally free - has to find enough strength in himself to create values, to judge himself; if need be there, to punish himself.

IT IS TERRIBLE TO BE ALONE WITH THE JUDGE AND AVENGER OF ONE'S OWN LAW. IT IS TO BE LIKE A STAR THROWN FORTH INTO EMPTY SPACE AND INTO THE ICY BREATH OF SOLITUDE.

TODAY YOU STILL SUFFER FROM THE MANY, O MAN SET APART: TODAY YOU STILL HAVE YOUR COURAGE WHOLE AND YOUR HOPES.

BUT ONE DAY SOLITUDE WILL MAKE YOU WEARY, ONE DAY YOUR PRIDE WILL BEND AND YOUR COURAGE BREAK. ONE DAY YOU WILL CRY: 'I AM ALONE!' One needs tremendous strength to be alone, but without being alone you are not really a human being.

Your dignity consists in being alone.

ONE DAY YOU WILL NO LONGER SEE WHAT IS EXALTED IN YOU; AND WHAT IS BASE IN YOU, YOU WILL SEE ALL TOO CLOSELY; YOUR SUBLIMITY ITSELF WILL MAKE YOU AFRAID, AS IF IT WERE A PHANTOM. ONE DAY YOU WILL CRY: 'EVERYTHING IS FALSE!'

It has happened to many people - those who have called the world an illusion, maya, false. The basic reason was not philosophical; the basic reason was psychological. These were the people who lived in solitude. Living in solitude needs so much strength to keep yourself sane. Your sanity depends on the crowd.

Many experiments have been done: If you are put in a solitary cell... that seems to be the greatest punishment in a jail. Nobody is torturing you, you are just put in a solitary cell - dark, and you alone.

Soon you start losing your intelligence, your strength. After three weeks you start seeing illusions, hallucinations. You start talking to those hallucinations and you also answer from their side, and there is nobody.

The people who created the philosophy of maya, the philosophy of the world as illusion, are the people who lived too long in solitude. These were the monks living in the Himalayas, far away in the mountains. They lost contact with humanity and all they had that was given by the humanity. Slowly, slowly all that disappeared. They were so alone, they started creating a hallucinatory companion or a crowd around themselves. They knew it was false, but they also knew it was needed. It was this experience that created the philosophy that everything is false.

To be alone and remain sane, one thing is absolutely needed: that in your aloneness you should also be a creator. If you are not a creator, you will go insane. If you are a creator, even in your solitude you will be able to maintain your intelligence - not only maintain, but bring it to its fullest expression.

THERE ARE EMOTIONS THAT SEEK TO KILL THE SOLITARY; IF THEY DO NOT SUCCEED, WELL, THEY MUST DIE THEMSELVES! BUT ARE YOU CAPABLE OF BEING A MURDERER? - murderer of your own illusions, murderer of your own emotions. In your aloneness you will desire your friends, you will desire your wives, your husbands, you will desire your children, you will desire a thousand and one things that you have never thought about. And these desires will kill you; these emotions will kill you, unless you are able to kill them. That is why Zarathustra is asking, "Are you capable of being a murderer of your own emotions?"

YOU COMPEL MANY TO CHANGE THEIR OPINION ABOUT YOU; THEY HOLD THAT VERY MUCH AGAINST YOU. YOU APPROACHED THEM AND YET WENT ON PAST THEM: THAT THEY WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU. People never forgive anyone who surpasses them. That's why humbleness has been so much praised by the crowd, humility has been so much praised by the herd. When Jesus says, "Blessed are the humble and the meek," he is speaking the language of the herd. The herd wants you to be humble. The herd wants you to be lower than they are, to be meek, to be submissive, to be surrendering. If you pass them in any way, they will never forgive you.

The only people they have not forgiven are those who stand like Himalayan peaks, so high above them, like Socrates, or Al Hillaj Mansoor, or Gautam Buddha, or Krishna. It is very difficult for the crowd to forgive these people. Socrates they poisoned, Mansoor they killed; so many attempts were made on Gautam Buddha's life. And the same remains true about all authentic, superior human beings amongst us.

It is not that they are different from us - we have not developed our superiority; we have not developed our being. We are also potentially as great as any Gautam Buddha, but we have not taken the trouble. And when somebody takes the trouble, sharpens his being, brings his genius to flowering, it hurts us. We cannot forgive.

YOU GO ABOVE AND BEYOND THEM: BUT THE HIGHER YOU CLIMB, THE SMALLER YOU APPEAR TO THE EYE OF ENVY. AND HE WHO FLIES IS HATED MOST OF ALL....

AND BE ON YOUR GUARD AGAINST THE GOOD AND JUST! THEY WOULD LIKE TO CRUCIFY THOSE WHO DEVISE THEIR OWN VIRTUE - THEY HATE THE SOLITARY.

BE ON YOUR GUARD, TOO, AGAINST HOLY SIMPLICITY! EVERYTHING WHICH IS NOT SIMPLE IS UNHOLY TO IT: AND IT, TOO, LIKES TO PLAY WITH FIRE - IN THIS CASE, THE FIRE OF THE STAKE.

The people who have been praising holy simplicity - remember, they are dangerous, because anything that is not simple seems to them unholy. All great creativity is unsimple; it is complex.

To be simple is not a great virtue; any idiot can do it. But to be a mathematician of the caliber of Albert Einstein is a very complex phenomenon.

You cannot forgive these people. The small people never try their own talents, because it is arduous; it needs work and continuous refinement.

Once a great musician was asked - because in India classical music is one of the most complex things, one of the most subtle, and even the masters don't stop practicing - and it was a great master who was asked, "If you don't practice one day, what will happen?" He was practicing six to eight hours every day. He said, "If I don't practice one day, I will notice the difference: it will no longer be of the same depth; it will not go to the same height. Nobody else will notice it.

"But if I don't practice two days, then the critics of music will be aware that something is missing, it is not the same. And if I don't practice for three days, then even lovers of music will start noticing that something is missing."

Eight hours a day for years a man practices and plays music that is almost not of this world; creates out of sound such silence, such sweetness; touches your heart to its deepest point. It needs patience and effort. It is not simplicity: it is one of the most complex things.

One of my friends, Dr. Ramamanohar Lohia, went to see Albert Einstein, who had given him an appointment. He reached exactly on time, but Einstein's wife told him, "You will have to wait a little, and I cannot say how long this little is going to be, because he is in his bathtub. And once he is in his bathtub, then sometimes two hours, sometimes four hours, sometimes six hours... and we are not allowed to disturb him, so please excuse me. You wait, you take tea, and you relax. He can come any moment."

It took exactly six hours for Albert Einstein to come out of his bathroom, and he asked Ramamanohar Lohia, "Have you come so late... six hours?" The wife said, "He has not come late; he has been waiting for six hours, but you were in your bathtub." Ramamanohar could not understand what was going on.

Albert Einstein explained, "Whenever I am in my bathtub playing with soap bubbles, nobody is allowed to disturb me, because all my theories about the stars I have discovered playing with my soap bubbles in the bathroom. Completely undisturbed, knowing that nobody can disturb me, just being playful with the soap bubbles, my mind functions at its best and I forget the time completely.

So just forgive me. You are fortunate that I have come early."

Anything that is of great value is going to be complex. The greater the value, the greater is going to be the complexity. But the people who have been praising holy simplicity are bound to condemn it as unholy complexity.

AND BE ON YOUR GUARD, TOO, AGAINST THE ASSAULTS YOUR LOVE MAKES UPON YOU!

THE SOLITARY EXTENDS HIS HAND TOO QUICKLY TO ANYONE HE MEETS.

TO MANY MEN, YOU OUGHT NOT TO GIVE YOUR HAND, BUT ONLY YOUR PAW: AND I SHOULD LIKE IT IF YOUR PAW HAD CLAWS, TOO....

YOU MUST BE READY TO BURN YOURSELF IN YOUR OWN FLAME: HOW COULD YOU BECOME NEW, IF YOU HAD NOT FIRST BECOME ASHES?...

GO APART AND BE ALONE WITH MY TEARS, MY BROTHER. I LOVE HIM WHO WANTS TO CREATE BEYOND HIMSELF, AND THUS PERISHES.

To create something beyond yourself means you have to disappear. Only when you are absent can something greater than you be present in you. When all your false personality is dropped, your real individuality arises.

He is simply making you aware of three things: one, without being a creator you are not religious; without being a creator you are not really alive; without being a creator you are not free. Your creativity brings freedom, strength, intelligence, consciousness; but it also brings dangers of which he is making you aware.

It is the path for the courageous, for those who want to live dangerously, because there is no other way to live.

Cowards only exist; only the brave live.

The greatest bravery and strength is needed when you transcend yourself. You will have to become a flame in which you are burnt to ashes, and a new being, a new man - what Zarathustra calls the superman - arises out of you.

Creativity is the way to yourself and to your superman. Unless a man finds his superman, he has lived in vain.

... THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.