When understanding dreams, we have to know the meaning of psychological creativity. Through psychological creativity, we can take care of our day-to-day problems more effectively. If we handle our worldly problems well, they stop disturbing us. As a result, the intensity and number of problems get substantially reduced to a manageable level. Naturally, it proves useful in improving the quality of our meditation practice.
Psychologists often say that there is nothing wrong in daydreaming and letting our minds drift a little bit. They recommend ‘purposeful dreaming’ for improving creativity. During specially designed training programs on psychological creativity, the participants are encouraged to develop their power of creative imagination.
Firstly, we have to understand the difference between the power of imagination and dreaming. While dreaming, we are far removed from reality. Dreaming is not a conscious and purposeful act of creative imagination. The power of imagination, however, can be extremely useful for solving our problems.
There is a definite logic behind using the power of imagination for problem solving. If we approach any given problem with a prejudiced mind, we will only get a stereotypical answer to it, which cannot be a real answer. Such answers are not useful for solving our problems. Every problem is unique, so we cannot afford to approach it with a prejudiced mind, otherwise we may get an answer that is an outcome of our prejudice rather than the right answer. Naturally, such an answer can never be a real and lasting solution.
While working on a given problem, if we let our mind run free completely, we can brainstorm without any difficulty. Brainstorming essentially means creative imagination.
During a session on creative imagination, we are supposed to temporarily suspend all the extraneous controls over our mind, let go completely and allow all thoughts to emerge without any resistance or hindrance. Then we are expected to write down all the answers that come to mind, without any analysis or censorship. We need not even worry about whether they are right answers or wrong.
After the session is over, we end up with a long list of possible solutions to our problem. Now we have to pick the solutions that are most appropriate for the problem we are facing. We have to examine the solutions further, to decide which among them is the best solution, which is the second best, and so on until we have a prioritized list of solutions. Then we have to go through a phase of complete relaxation, before we conclude the brainstorming session.
The power of imagination is a powerful asset when it is properly utilized for finding creative solutions to our problems. But if it leads us into a negative mode of thinking, it is likely to be very harmful for our growth and wellbeing.
If our session on free imagination is followed by daydreaming, it is highly detrimental to us. Our mind may get flooded with thoughts like, ‘What will happen if I do this?’, ‘What will happen if I do that?’, ‘What will I do if I do not succeed?’ or ‘How will I celebrate my success?’ It is like building wonderful castles in the air. What is the use of such castles if they are not built on a solid foundation of reality? They will have no value or use. However, if we do not waste our time in daydreaming and make proper use of our power of imagination, it will help us find creative solutions to our problems.
Abraham Lincoln once said, ‘If you want to be successful, keep your head above the clouds and feet firmly grounded on the floor.’ This means that one should be bold enough to think big about scaling the highest peaks of achievement in life. But, while doing so, one should never forget the basic realities of life.
In other words, our power of imagination must go hand in hand with the actual hard work we have to do to achieve great success in life. If we want to make our dreams come true, mere daydreaming will not be sufficient. We will have to ensure that our dreams concur with the factual realities of life. If we lose our contact with the ground, there is every possibility of endlessly drifting in the dream world of imagination. Moreover, the power of imagination or psychological creativity cannot improve if we keep dreaming about something all the time.
In conclusion, we may say that well-directed, focused and conscious dreaming is known as the free play of imagination. In contrast, the usual sort of dreaming is a wild, uncontrolled and unconscious display of the power of imagination.
Well-directed dreaming is primarily useful in the worldly life and indirectly useful in meditation.
Regular practice of meditation improves psychological creativity. Psychological creativity helps us understand and solve many problems in day-to-day life. Our worldly life becomes less stressful and less problematic. The quality of meditation improves in proportion to the improving psychological creativity and improving day-to-day life. Once the quality of meditation improves, spontaneous expression of spiritual creativity begins.
The philosophical contemplation and reflection of the seers and sages can be considered as the most exalted manifestations of spiritual creativity. The towering heights of spiritual literature produced by the seers are essentially a combined effect of the power of imagination and an experiential knowledge of the inner world. Both these powers reach the highest level of perfection in the sages and seers.
Dnyaneshwar, one of the greatest seers from the state of Maharashtra in India, wrote a classic commentary on the Bhagavad Gita called Dnyaneshwari. Bhagavad Gita is an enlightening dialogue between the warrior Arjuna and Lord Krishna during the battle between Kauravas, as the bad guys on one side and Pandavas as the good guys on the other. The main treatise is written in Sanskrit, which is difficult to understand for the common man. Having noticed this problem, the great seer Dnyaneshwar, driven by empathy for the general populace, wrote a commentary, known as Dnyaneshwari, on Bhagavad Gita in the local language.
After the divine experience of the highest state of consciousness, or samadhi, he developed great love and deep concern for the wellbeing of the whole of existence. Profound compassion flowed in the form of spiritual creativity and was expressed as the outstanding scripture popularly known as Dnyaneshwari. It is one of the most profound, lucid and beautiful commentaries on the Gita. The outpouring of spiritual creativity continued after completion of Dnyaneshwari and was expressed in several other wonderful treatises on yoga philosophy and spiritual life that he wrote later.
This great man left his mortal body more than 700 years ago while he was sitting in a deep state of samadhi. People still remember, worship and adore him and his literature: hundreds of thousands of people still follow his teaching and derive great benefits from it.
Once we understand what is meant by spiritual creativity, we can easily understand and appreciate the difference between worldly and spiritual creativity. One of the hallmarks of worldly creativity is its focus on ‘usefulness’. It is the prime consideration behind all that comes under worldly creativity.
As we all know, some industrial corporations encourage and promote what are known as ‘suggestion boxes’. If anybody working in the company comes up with an innovative idea about improving the product of the company or its working, he or she is supposed to write down his/her idea on a piece of paper and put it into the box. The box is opened every week or every month, depending on how full it is. All the suggestions are read and discussed in a group meeting. If a particular idea is really useful, it is usually accepted, implemented and ultimately incorporated in the working of the company. The person who thought of the idea receives a handsome prize as a token of appreciation for his/her contribution.
This concept is quite popular in the corporate world because it is very useful in solving different problems related to different areas of an organization.
There is nothing wrong in making use of the creative talents of people in this manner. But the motive behind such creativity is usually reduced to its potential usefulness to the person who receives the prize and the company which benefits from his contribution.
It may, however, prove harmful for the overall growth of that person. Once the specific application of the innovative idea is over, he/she may go through a stage of stagnation in creativity. The innovative solution one has offered to a given problem becomes stale after a time. It remains useful only in a limited context, for a limited period of time and at a specific place within the company where it is being used. This kind of creativity is useful in solving certain industry-specific problems – it can never enjoy the privilege of universal application and use.
Spiritual creativity is far more spontaneous than material creativity. We can never develop such creativity with a utilitarian motive in mind. It manifests on its own, after realization of the ultimate truth. The highest truth is eternally beyond all restrictions of time, place and person. Realization of the highest truth is the same as revelation of the all-pervasive life principle residing in all the ‘existential units’ of this creation. It comprises all living creatures, plants, animals and humans as well as apparently non-living objects like oceans, mountains, rocks, stones, soil and rivers. The life principle remains the same everywhere.
Essentially, there is no qualitative difference in the ‘level of life’ or ‘aliveness’ among different creatures from this universe. It may appear to manifest differently in different parts of creation, but their basic factual existence – or what we can call their ‘beingness’ – remains the same for all. The difference is only in the particulars, not in the substance.
The life principle found in a man residing in London is neither more nor less than a person residing in the USA. As this principle is equally distributed in all parts of our body, we cannot say that our legs are more alive than our hands or the other way round. We cannot say that a 15-year-old boy is more alive than a 70-year-old person. A 15-yearold boy certainly appears more energetic than the old person does. But the difference between them is only at a manifest level. ‘Aliveness’ is the same in both, but there is a difference in the manifestation of this aliveness through their bodies. A young body is more capable of giving full expression to the aliveness than the old body can and therefore the young person appears more full of energy than the old person does. But the quality and quantity of the life energy remains the same in both.
In the same manner, the manifestation of aliveness is different in different objects that constitute this universe. The manifestation of aliveness is relative in nature and it varies with respect to time, place and person. But at a pure existential level, it remains the same. Its distribution is also the same everywhere.
The experiential realization of individual life energy and universal life energy brings about a radical transformation in our attitude towards life. After such realization, for example, Dnyaneshwar went into a state of spiritual creativity, which flowed through him in the form of classic spiritual literature. After the highest experience of samadhi, whatever Dnyaneshwar said or did became a holy offering of selfless service to the whole of existence as well as God.
In contrast to this, material creativity, which is nurtured on utilitarian motives, has no lasting value. It remains useful in the context of a particular situation or a specific problem. It becomes redundant once its usefulness is over.
Patanjali, the greatest of all the yogis, created a monumental scripture on yoga, known as the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. He never worried about getting his treatise on yoga published. He was not worried about the book being liked by people or making enough profits for himself or for his publisher. His book was not an ordinary contemporary book. It was a very special kind of book – a scripture on yoga. The scriptures do not have any superficial entertainment value: their ‘value’ lies in being ‘invaluable’. Scriptures are meant for spiritual enlightenment and nothing less than that.
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali were composed about 400 ce, but it is still very useful to millions of practitioners of yoga living in all parts of the world. It is eternally invaluable, which is why it has crossed all man-made national and geographical boundaries and religious barriers to become such an internationally acclaimed treasure of human understanding and wisdom. It is not a sovereign property of India, but a precious heritage of all humanity.
One peculiarity of spiritual creativity is that it may or may not be manifested in the form of a tangible result or product. It is enough to be in a state of such creativity, though – there is absolutely no need to try anything special to express it in a tangible way.
A famous author who was also a critic once went to meet J. Krishnamurti. While introducing himself to Krishnamurti, he said he was an author and a poet. Krishnamurti asked him, ‘Is it necessary for a poet to write poems?’ The famous author had no answer to this basic question. He was completely flabbergasted. A question like this had never occurred to him in his life.
Human history has seen many saints and seers who were well known for the substantial contributions they have made to human understanding and wellbeing through their literature. But there must have been an equal number of lesser-known seers and sages who were in every other respect comparable except that they did not create any tangible literature. But just because they did not create any literature does not mean that they were not as spiritually evolved as those who did. They could also have had the same creative ability, except that it was not expressed in the form of any literature. Maybe their role in the overall scheme of things was just to be creative and not to actually create something. That is why creating something need not be considered as the only hallmark of creativity. This difference is not readily visible to our mortal eyes.
In a spiritual sense, the only goal of human life is self-realization. That is the only and ultimate objective of life. If we have reached this goal, it hardly matters whether we have created any literature or not. In contrast, if we have created a lot of literature and have done good work for society, but have not had self-realization, it is not worth anything at all. It is not essential that we are known through our literature or our work.
Self-realization may or may not be followed by a tangible creation. But it certainly brings us a lot of joy, profound peace of mind, a deep sense of contentment and real meaning to our life. If we are in possession of such precious treasures, it does not matter whether we are well known or unknown in this world.
My personal experience of being in the company of so-called realized individuals who are also in the limelight has been very disappointing. They appeared less spiritually advanced to me than those who are realized but are not well known. I have noticed a definite streak of arrogance in their behaviour, because they are famous. Being prominent is a highly nourishing food for our ego, which expands as people begin to recognize us in public. Arrogance grows along with the growing ego.
In contrast, those who are not very famous or who are more or less anonymous, are extremely comfortable and completely at ease with themselves. Maybe it is because they don’t have to worry about maintaining an image in the eyes of the people who gather around them. They can afford to be what they actually are. They are full of love and wisdom, which they share with those who come into contact with them. Their actions and thoughts are in total harmony with each other. Their life speaks for itself about their inner state of spiritual enlightenment. They are incredibly strong and powerful from inside, but equally polite and gentle in their demeanour. They never let others feel uncomfortable in their presence. Being warm and luminous is their very nature.
For proper understanding of the philosophy of yoga and to live up to the concepts described in the scriptures of yoga, what we need most is a high degree of individual sensitivity.
Poets are generally endowed with such sensitivity and therefore they are highly creative. But just because they are sensitive and creative does not mean that they have to produce poems all the time. In fact, whether they write verses or not is not so important. What is most important is to enjoy the state of creativity from where the poems really originate. The joy of creation lies more in the process than in the product.
A famous author was once interviewed on TV. During the interview he said, ‘As soon as I am done with the writing of a book or a script or a verse, I prefer to get completely disconnected from the related thoughts. I do not like to waste my time thinking about how it will be received by the readers. I don’t even expect them to like everything I write. Naturally, I do feel very happy when somebody tells me that he liked what I wrote. But I leave it at that and prefer to focus my attention on writing on some new subject and remain absorbed in it.’
In short, we may say that spiritual and material creativity are both quite useful and important, and we can decide which one we want most and develop it accordingly. But the best way is to develop both and strike a balance between them. Once we do that, they will help and complement each other.