the CREATIVE SOURCE OF OUR REAL BEING
California, USA September13, 1997.Iwas mostly an introvert when I was young. I didn't talk too muchthe way I do now - only rarely. I also didn't know what to talkabout. Remember I told you how my husband's friends talked toeach other about everything for so long and how I always wishedI could talk about half that much to my husband? Things wouldhave been more lively that way. But normally I didn't talk. Ididn't know what to talk about. I've really changed. I've reallychanged into a different person. I don't know how, but thingshave changed.
Even many people who knew me before, from thetimes when I ran around Indian ashrams, were surprised that Italk so much. When these people read my lectures that you printin the magazines, or when they got some tapes from someone, theywere surprised. They said, "Oh, Jesus! This girl - she talks?"Because when I ran around the Himalayas or different ashrams inIndia or elsewhere, I rarely talked to people. I didn't even haveclose friends. I was always very quiet, and very shy toward people,shy toward the public. God has changed me, really. Hes has changedme completely into a different person. I never talked like thisbefore. I never knew how. I really couldn't talk. I never did.I am surprised myself.
So this is how God can change us if we justlet it be, just put complete trust in the name of Christ, thename of God, or the name of the Buddha. Then everything will bearranged the way it should be. We should just become like kids.Don't forget the child inside you. It is always there, and wheneverwe call, he comes out. He peeps out. That is the God nature. Thatis the nature of purity. We shouldn't worry so much. We shouldn'tcalculate so much - "If we do this, what will we get in return?"A child doesn't do that. A child never worries about tomorrow.
The Bible also says the same thing. Don't worryabout tomorrow. It is enough that you take care of today. Considerthe lilies in the fields and how they grow! Even the little bladesof grass, God takes care of. How would Hes not take care of you?But most of us cannot become childlike in this way. That's whywe have a lot of sorrows, a lot of problems. Even if we ourselvescan be childlike, but our relatives, our close ones and our lovedones are not childlike, it also can cause us problems, pullingus back into the frigid kind of world in which we sometimes feelsuffocated. It is difficult to live together when we are lessthan childlike.
Being childlike doesn't mean that we don'ttake responsibility or we don't do what we have to do. It meansthat we just do it with a very pure joy and without expectations,because knowing God as God is, we should not really worry. Hesmade the whole universe in seven days, but what a mess! (Masterand all laugh.) Don't tell Hirm, okay? This is just a bad jokebetween us. Perhaps Hes should have taken more time. Hes was likea child and too much in a hurry, creating things in a quick fashion.So now we have to fix it a little. It is okay, though.
Actually, Hes did that on purpose because supposeGod had made everything too perfect, what would we have to do?We'd be even more bored, with no cinema to watch and no soup todrink. No one would ever be hungry or thirsty; we would have noneed to amuse ourselves, no need to do any sculpture, paintingor any artwork because everything would already be there, alreadyperfect, and we wouldn't have to do anything.
Yes, everything is already there in the universe.Everything is already perfect. But sometimes we choose to ignorethat, we choose to close the curtain between us and the perfectionso that we can see some flaws, some mistakes, something imperfectso that we can create something new, or make it into perfection,into the likeness of the original one from God. That is why weare here as humans, or else we don't need to be here, really.
Many times when you enter samadhi, when youenter the childlike state that I have mentioned, the real childlikestate when you are like an angel, like God, when you are in thepure joy of existence, when you just exist alone, at that time,we truly know everything is perfect. At that time, everythingwe wish for can be fulfilled but then we would never wish foranything in that state. You remember those times when you werein samadhi, and you really enjoyed it.
Do Without Doing It is true that for people who have wisdom,who meditate, who become childlike, and entrust everything toGod, things go just the way the wind blows, just the way the sunrises and sets. There is no need, really, for effort. I thinkof all the painters, for example, the professional ones, who takedays or weeks to paint one painting, yet I do it in a few hours,sometimes half an hour, depending on the situation. And I havenever learned any techniques. I have not even read books aboutpainting, and other people still like them - outside people, thatis, not only us.
I didn't even make much effort. And those professionalpainters can mostly paint only in one style. Sometimes you seesomeone's exhibition at a gallery, and you see almost the samestyle from the beginning to the end. It is just the angles thatare different.
For example, a person specializes in paintingforests with the sun rays penetrating through them, and thereis a little pond underneath. Then he does that all the time, maybefrom different angles. He cuts the pond into many pieces, andin one painting he puts in the picture of the pieces on the leftside, and in another painting, he puts in the pieces from theright, and in yet another one, he puts in the middle part. WhenI look at one, I don't even need to look at the signature. I knowit is his, most of the time. I am not saying that every painteris like that. And it takes him a lot of time to learn to do that,and a lot of time to finish that picture. But most of the paintersare like that.
I don't need to do that. I could paint thesame thing again but I'd never want to. It's boring enough topaint one already. To repeat it again, I couldn't do that. Imaginespending your whole life painting almost the same thing all thetime, and even taking so long, with all your expertise and yourexperience in the field. That is something I worship. People arereally patient; they really have endurance. I couldn't do that.It would bore me to tears. And then these painters cannot getmoney too.
But this is all different. That is techniqueand know-how. And mine is just natural, childlike, and I do itfor the pure joy of doing it. I don't even think of making moneyor pleasing the public. I have no one else in mind at the timeand I don't have any idea what I'm going to paint next. I haveno fixed idea or subject. I just do it the way I want, the wayI feel at that time and it just feels good. Every time I finishone painting, lousy as it looks, I like to look at it for manydays, until all the paint naturally dries. And sometimes I goaway, but I still miss it. I want to come back and look at NowI've grown up a little. I don't miss little things anymore. ButI used to miss my paintings. Can you believe it? I don't knowif all the other painters miss their paintings or not. It mightnot mean much to you, because you have different ideas about art.Everyone is different, of course. But when I first painted a picture,no matter how lousy it looked to you, it meant something to mebecause I was so happy when I did it. I did it just for the pureenjoyment of seeing how it came out. So I didn't exert any effort,really.
Perhaps, sometimes I made an effort. I'll tellyou what gives me a headache - when I do some still like pictures,imitations, painting flowers, fruit or things like that, makinga copy. At that time, I feel tired. I think, Jesus, no wonderthe painters charge a lot of money for them.
Painting fruit is not so bad but flowers aredifficult. I thought it was easy: Just put the flower here andit looks easy; I'm going to do that, just for fun. Oh, it wasn'tfun. It wasn't as much fun as when I wanted to do my own creation.When I create something, I can do it more freely. I enjoy it more.But when I started on the flowers, I had to finish it. I had toproject them, and oh, I couldn't believe it.
I don't know how other painters enjoy paintingbecause if you have to copy something, the inspiration is no longerthere. I had to pay attention to minute details of the flowersand still couldn't make them look real. Mine look better, though,because I also put a little revolutionary touch in there somehow.I didn't want to make the picture look exactly like the flowersbut I wanted to express something through the flowers to at leastfind a little comfort in that inspiration, that motive. Or else,I would say I could never paint like this again. Painting flowersis so difficult. I never knew it was that difficult. When yousee Van Gogh or things with sunflowers, don't think that it wasan easy job. It looks easy, but it is not. Maybe it is easy forthe painters; I don't know, because they are used to copying things.
Now I know why things that are not originalmake us tired. That is why this world makes us tired, becauseit is not original. This is the shadow of the real thing and wehave to do things according to rules and regulations. That iswhy it makes us tired. And that is why driving makes me tired,because it is just like copying. I cannot do what I want. I haveto do exactly the way it should be done. It is okay now, but that'swhy I am not talented.
Every time I give a lecture, I can just speaknaturally the way I do to you now. That is okay. But if I haveto think ahead of time and draft a speech, oh God - I never thoughtit could be so difficult. I wasn't very bad at essay writing inschool. I was always number one. I could write, but I never wantedto, except in school when I was young and forced to do it. I cando it, very easily, and at any time.
If you have to describe something or describean occasion, then it is okay. But when you have to describe God,and think ahead of time what God looks like, it is not naturalanymore. When I was in Europe, how difficult it was for me whenI had to draft a speech in German or in French! Especially whenI have not spoken the language for a long time, it was like aheadache. Even if I have to write in English, I feel so weird.I feel so fake, like it's not real.
Express Our Creative Talents WithA Childlike Heart Because we were originally the creator, thespark of the creative energy and the divine, so anything thatforces us to go by rules and regulations, to draw like some otherperson, to copy, we do not like it. That is like being a copymachine. So if we do not have the creative energy flowing outof us, which is more natural and lets us make use of our own creativetalents, then we feel tired. That is why all the jobs in thisworld make us tired, no matter how much money you are offered.I just realized that it is not that you are lazy; it is not thatyou don't want to work; it is not that you don't want to contribute,but many jobs really drag you down and drain you because you haveto do exactly what they say. Sometimes it is really tedious.
I feel very sorry for us sometimes, that wecan't be childlike, even though we want to. Sometimes the reality,the world, just wants to drag us back into this very heavy kindof material existence, and we feel very tired. Even though sometimeswe work only four hours, part-time, we get tired. At the end ofthe day, we have kind of used up all our energy. We become moretense, more critical, more stressed. Of course, and then we cannotbe so innocent anymore. We have a lot of preconceptions abouta lot of things, which sometimes might not be true, and sometimeswe know it, but at our cost later on.
Everything hits us in the face and tells usthings are not good, things are so hard, money is difficult toearn, and you have to fight, you have to compete, and you haveto do this, you have to do that, in order to get ahead. Thereare many schools that teach you how to be a billionaire in notime, how to earn money without working.
Actually, it is not like that. We don't needto really exert so much effort with the mind; instead, we justtry to remember the creative source of our real being, and thenwe can create anything. Actually, energy can create subjects andit can even make things materialize. In Tibet there are some kindsof traditions, some kinds of sects, where people teach you howto visualize things. You can visualize anyone you want. You canpick up a guy like that,imagine him, and then make another one.The cloning machine is not necessary. You can do that with yourown imagination until that person becomes a reality, and you caneven touch him. That's the problem.
But that is not even the highest level yet.That is where all the magic comes from. You can imagine anythingyou want if you concentrate hard enough. This is just an example.A guru in India sometimes can materialize things and give it toyou out of thin air. It is not that he tricks you; he really cando it, or at least produce some ash.
This is really not the super level of consciousnessyet we can do that. What more can we do if we can go back to thereal, the highest source of creation of all things in the universe--from the small worm to the big sun that warms the whole world,without the energy ever being used up?
So actually, all this know-how is very nice,but why we rely only on that, we'll be in trouble. But some peopleare successful. They know how to talk and if they don't know whatelse to rely on, and if they've forgotten God and wisdom, thenmaybe they should try that.
For us, we can try it if we want to; but wemust remember the child inside is the real God. Unless you becomepure as a child, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God. You remember?That is just a way of saying that we have to rely on God for everything.That is the only thing that can give us everything we want, really.We just naturally encounter something and it brings us joy andbenefit. We don't even have to do any kind of work or exert anykind of effort.
So this is the child that we should become- not the irresponsible one, but the wise child. When we becomeso wise, we become so pure, because when we know everything, thenthere is nothing that we should know, nothing we seek to know,and nothing that we want to know. That is why we become so contented- because we feel at least that we know whatever comes is fine,whatever arrives is okay. God will arrange everything. God isthe master in us. God is ourselves, the creative energy that madeus in the beginning, and that is part of us, that is us, and thatforever will be.
