One feels art and beauty is not required because one is so identified with the ugliness, with the pain, the suffering that’s all around. Denying art, one is not going to make any contribution towards the betterment of mankind. I understand where Aristotle came from when he said that all artists should be banned. It is the perception that creates the separation- that artists live in a world of their own, in their own ivory towers. Not advocating ivory towers nor advocating insensitivity. An artist is an artist because he is sensitive. But the way you choose to use your sensitivity is the problem. If directed within to understand the dynamics of your own self, before you preach to the rest of the world you might be of some help to somebody. Otherwise it’s a case of the blind leading the blind.
An artist is someone who flirts with art, with life; and that is the most difficult thing to do. The training is always about seriousness, struggle, fight, work. Not necessarily someone who wields a musical instrument or a paint brush, it could be a bearded bespectacled squash playing NGO. So if you have to banish someone you will have to banish the artist for the reason that he sometimes slips out of the ‘cycle’ of life and is not part of the grind. But the grind is what we all aim to get out of in the end, artist or not, and the artist slips out only because that’s his job, that is the only way he can touch upon art. What does that mean?
It means art or beauty is not about the harmonious mingling of colors on the wall. Art is in the process, in the leap from one painting to another, which is similar to breaking mind sets. So it’s a mind game, the same every other individual on earth plays, only the artist is limited with a medium through which he chooses to bring forth his experience of the peaceful and expansive state of being that he touches upon. It’s a state of being in love, in joy, if you need to put it in words. But words like emptiness and nothingness are equally fulfilling! It’s just a no thing; and therefore, simple, uncomplicated, and it is another way to describe the experience. It’s just beautiful to be in an expansive state; period.
Art is not emotional puke. Though we think that’s what it’s about. But who wants to enjoy what the other has puked? People want to see how you’ve gone beyond your emotions. That understanding might touch a cord somewhere. Might. The same holds true when we try to help others (with or without the medium of art.) If you’re as emotional as he is, if you’re as identified with the pain as he is, if you’re as violent as he is, who can help whom? That’s why it has failed time and again, that’s why the frustration of trying to help others. The only way really is individual growth. For that you yourself have to grow first. And one doesn’t take a course in growing up in three months or 6 months. It’s a constant effort. That’s why while you’re growing, someone out there is dying. That is reality. Each one of us lives off the other, and there is no such thing as a self made man. It’s just a short sighted view through the peephole. We’re all climbing on each others backs, without the other, we are nothing.
Back to the artist, the point that they are using a medium is the only limitation that I see in it. If you can enter that space on a daily basis, that’s even better. You’re a walking painting! And we’re all here for that; problem is we don’t trust that space. You have to choose on a daily basis to remain there like an alcoholic who has to choose not to drink every single moment perhaps. Society (a mind set)will always pull you down, will want you to identify with a million causes, each equally deserving, will want you to take a position, to conclude, to define yourself and when you define yourself, you’re back in pain again, back in the cycle and all is well!
The trick is to be in the cycle, yet out of it. On the ground and in air. That’s the tight rope walk the wise talk about.
In times like these when there’s more and more violence, yes, it was always there, its out in the open now, because people have chosen not to suppress it any more, they have come to a point where they cannot turn back,(mob violence, herd mentality) you’re part of a whole, the wave is so huge. So it’s in times like these that we need to stay more and more with art and beauty, with laughter and fun. Sounds terrible, yes, but that’s the only way out. Otherwise you’ll be swept away in the current of unawareness, that’s what violence is about isn’t it? Unawareness. It’s already happening around us, the earth is shifting, if we don’t shift in favor of love, we perish. No one can stop what’s happening, but my personal experience is that emotions peak and then they die for good. One needn’t move an inch from love.
There’s a story of Buddha – an army of soldiers and elephants is rushing towards him. He sits quietly (not identified with the fear, the violence) not moving an inch and the army falls at his feet as rose petals. So can we do something to help the other? Will punishment work? Jails? We have tried all this and failed. Why? Because we’re in the same space that he is. We are equally violent. Now this sounds like a wonderful recipe for idleness, for justifying your not ‘doing’ anything. That’s where one has to walk the tight rope of awareness, of a balance of the right brain and the left. We are both, we can choose.
