DELETED TEXT AND CHAPTERS ARE MARKED IN RED AND ADDED TEXT HAS BEEN MARKED IN BLUE

LIFE’S MYSTERIES

The Search

Chapter #2

Chapter title: Dropping the Why

2 March 1976 am in Buddha Hall

          Archive code:          7603020

          ShortTitle:     SEARCH02

          Audio:           Yes

          Video:            No

          Length:         76 mins
 

                                                    On creativity 

Creativity can never be indifferent. Creativity cares– -- because creativity is love. Creativity is the function of love and care. Creativity cannot be indifferent–. Iif you are indifferent, by and by all your creativity will disappear. Creativity needs passion, aliveness, energy. Creativity needs that you should remain a flow, an intense, passionate flow.

If you look at a flower indifferently, the flower cannot be beautiful. Through indifference, everything becomes ordinary. Then one lives in a cold way, shrunken in oneself. This calamity has happened in the East, because religion took a wrong turn and people started thinking that you have to be indifferent to life.

One Hindu sannyasin came to see me once. He looked around my garden, and there were many flowers, and I was working in the garden when he came to see me. He said, " ‘Are you interested in the flowers and in gardening?’" On his face there was a look of condemnation. He said, " ‘But I was thinking you must be indifferent to all these things.’"

I am not indifferent. Indifference is negative, it is suicidal, it is escapist. Of course, if you become indifferent many things will not bother you; you will live surrounded by your indifference. You will not be distracted, you will not be disturbed; , but just not to be distracted is not the point. You will never be happy and overflowing.

In the East, many people think that to be indifferent is the way of religion. They move away from life, they become escapists. They have not created anything. They simply vegetate and they think they have attained something. – t They have not attained anything.

Attainment is always positive and attainment is always creative. God is creativity– -- how can you reach God by being indifferent? God is not indifferent; . H he cares about even small blades of grass, he cares about them also. He takes as much care to paint a butterfly as he takes care to create a b Buddha.

The whole loves. And if you want to become one with the whole, you have to love. Indifference is a slow suicide. Be in deep love, so much so that you completely disappear in your love, that you become a pure creative energy. Only then do you participate with God, hand in hand you move with him.

To me creativity is prayer, creativity is meditation, creativity is life.

                                                                 –From The Search, Discourse 2 

So don't be afraid of life, and don't close yourself in indifference. Indifference will desensitize you, you will lose all sensitivity; your body will become dull, your intelligence will become dull. You will live in a dark cell, afraid of the light and the sun, afraid of the wind and the clouds and the sea -- afraid about everything. You will wrap a blanket of indifference all around you and you will start dying.

Move! Be dynamic! And whatsoever you do, do it so lovingly that the very act becomes creative and divine. I am not saying that you all should become painters and poets; that's not possible. But there is no need also. You may be a housewife -- your cooking can be creative. You may be a shoemaker -- your shoemaking can be creative. Whatsoever you do, do it so totally, so lovingly, so intimately; get involved into it so your act is not something outside. You move in your act, your act becomes a fulfillment. Then I call you religious. A religious person, a religious consciousness, is immensely creative.

Never use the phrase: Who cares? That attitude comes from the ego -- who cares? No, if you really want to grow, care more. Let care be your whole style of life. Care about each and every thing. And don't make any distinction between the great and the small. Very small things... just cleaning the floor, do it with deep care, as if it is the body of your beloved, and suddenly you will see you are being born anew through your own creativity.

Each creative act becomes a rebirth for the creator, and each indifferent act becomes a suicide, a slow death. Be overflowing. Don't be misers. Don't try to hold -- share! And let care be your very center of life. And then there is no need to go to the church, no need to go to the temple, no need to kneel down before any god and pray. Your butterfly life, your way of life, is prayer. Whatsoever you touch will become sacred. I say whatsoever, unconditionally.

Love makes everything sacred. Carelessness makes everything ugly.

Enough for today.