"It depends upon how much creativity is able to be passed on by the artist onto the leaf; on that will depend how much the leaf could sing the song of life to the artist."—Maharishi

"One single, simple expression of creative intelligence is enough to sing the song of the unbounded, infinite value of creative intelligence. But it only needs that neat and clean ear to hear the whisper of infinity at any single stroke of the finite value."—Maharishi

Maharishi speaks on the role of the artist and the scientist
by TM Magazine, issue 7
27 July 2012

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi gave this lecture in Fiuggi, Italy, in 1972.

The artist feels the object is a very good basis of expressions, but the expression has to be of life. He finds a stone and he wishes to put life into it. He puts a line here and there and creates a living face on the dead stone. The artist wants to speak with the object. He wants the object to speak to him. He wants to have a message from everything in creation, because maybe, the artist thinks, because everything is the expression of creative intelligence, maybe something will whisper to him the full value of life.

The Feelings of the Artist and the Mind of the Scientist

When the full value of creative intelligence is present there in every fiber and fabric of creation, maybe he can make a particle sing in the song of life. Maybe he can inscribe a message of full value of life in a stone, on a flat sheet of wood, on anything—on a leaf. Maybe he can make the leaf rise to the glory of life, sing the song of life for him. So he just sits and carves a singing man, maybe with the guitar in hand. Now it depends upon how much creativity is able to be passed on by the artist onto the leaf; on that will depend how much the leaf could sing the song of life to the artist. It’s the object with which the artist plays, but he plays the game of life onto the surface of the object.

A scientist wants to know what it is made of. Maybe he says, the chemist analyzes, “Oh there is carbon in it, there is nitrogen in it, there is hydrogen in it, there is calcium in it.” The artist asks the scientist what the leaf is. “Oh, I know it is a combination of carbon and oxygen and calcium and nitrogen.” The scientist asks the artist, “How do you find the leaf?” The artist says, “The leaf I find swinging and swinging in the song of life. All that the wind whispers to the leaf, the leaf passes it on to its environment and sings the transcendental value of the song of life—infinite, eternal. For men may come and men may go, but I go on forever.”

The vision of an artist is fixed on the blossom of life, on the value of life. If he inscribes something, he inscribes the living aspect of life. A sculptor, a painter: every stroke of the brush smiles with a fresher wave of life. And this is how every smile, a little bit more of life; every stroke, a little bit more expression of life. This is how by every innocent expression of an artist, life gets built in. The expression of life begins to smile on the gentle strokes of the artist. . . .

Objective and Subjective: Uncovering the Infinite Value of Life

The scientist and artist are very good examples of two different fields of creative intelligence: the objective and the subjective. One is the champion of the objective field; the other is the ringleader of the subjective field. And when the artist and the scientist meet, they are a great inspiration to each other.

Actually, a scientist is not always objective and an artist is not always subjective, because life is not compartmentalized in its character. Both the values of the heart and mind are always present in everyone. No man is devoid of feeling. And no man is devoid of the value of clear, truthful perception of sameness of knowledge; this is the vision of the scientist. He wants to see the reality—verifiable reality—sameness of reality everywhere. And that he declares to be reality. But this is all right: there is no quarrel with the basic feature of domination of objective values in the mind of an artist.

But no scientist is devoid of the heart: working in the laboratory for eight, ten, twelve hours of the day because the whole thing is so fascinating. And this fascination belongs to the joy that the heart of the scientist enjoys. Looking to the display of the electrons around the nucleus, or to the wild and uncontrollable great display of energy in the atomic reactors—the whole thing is so fascinating. Like the cinema to a child, he is just glued to the screen. This is the grip of knowledge. Thirst of knowledge is there in everyone. As life grows, it grows for knowledge, because knowledge brings happiness, it brings satisfaction—it brings fulfillment. It’s a very great fulfillment to a scientist when he comes across some new phenomenon which he is able to interpret.

The same thing is in the life of an artist. In one stroke on a flat, white sheet of paper, he could locate the infinity. The artist feels so proud of that stroke. One innocent dot from the brush of an artist immediately locates the expression of the unbounded expansion of life. No one notices the unboundedness of the screen until a small dot appears somewhere in it. It’s a dot, but it speaks for the unboundedness of the whole screen. No one notices the white of the screen to that value until one black spot comes on the screen and immediately the white shines up. The environmental glory comes to be appreciated when something less or more is there. This is the pride of an artist: with one simple, innocent stroke he can make infinity appear on the scene. It’s beautiful.

The same thing is in the life of the scientist. One single, small observation somewhere, either in the very subtle field of creation or somewhere in the galactic movements of cosmic life—something, some one observation—and it reveals the story of the infinite. If not the whole story, then at least some whisper of the reality of infinity.

Enlivening Awareness by Refining Perception

Every field of the intellect and the heart is a reminder of the existence of infinity. Only it takes a neat, clean eye to see; a neat, clean heart to feel; a neat, clean mind to understand. And as with the practice stresses are rooted out, this neatness, this cleanness of the heart, this neatness and cleanness of the mind and perception increases. Every little observation leaves a deep impression of the unbounded reality of life. Every little experience in life is an inspiration for making lively that field of omnipresent creative intelligence to be enjoyed.

The situation that the unmanifest field of creative intelligence is present everywhere—the situation is there. But this situation has to be made lively on the level of one’s awareness. And that liveliness begins to be with the ability of heart and mind to appreciate one single boundary. And the appreciation of one single boundary on that neat, clean state of the heart and mind tickles the infinity and tells the story of the unbounded state of life. One single, simple expression of creative intelligence is enough to sing the song of the unbounded, infinite value of creative intelligence. But it only needs that neat and clean ear to hear the whisper of infinity at any single stroke of the finite value.

© Copyright 2012 Maharishi Foundation USA, a non-profit educational organization.