A conditioned mind may be inventive; it may think up new ideas, new phrases, new gadgets; it may build a dam, plan a new society, and all the rest of it; but that is not creativity. Creativity is something much more than the mere capacity to acquire a technique. It is because this extraordinary thing called creativity is not in most of us that we are so shallow, empty, insufficient. And only the mind that is free can be creative.
The music of Mozart is of such purity and beauty that one feels he merely found it - that it has always existed as part of the inner beauty of the universe waiting to be revealed.
We are asking a really fundamental question whether thought can ever be creative. If thought is not the ground of creation then what is creation? Is love the only factor that is creative?
Yes, of course [this age] is materialistic, but the only way to counteract it is to create spiritual things. Don't worry yourself about the materialism too much. Create and stir other people to create!
It is always the young that make the change. You don't get these ideas when you're middle-aged. Young people have daring, creativity, imagination and personal computers. Above all, what you have as young people that's vitally needed to make social change, is impatience. You want it to happen now. There have to be enough people that say, ‘We want it now, in our lifetime.’ This is your moment. This is your opportunity. Be adventurists in the sense of being bold and daring. Be opportunists and seize this opportunity, this moment in history, to go out and save our country. It's your turn now.
When I put something into motion, the creativity starts to make other people want to jump in, and then a lot of people get employed. I'm just like a shark, in that way. If I stop swimming, I'll die.
I've known great happiness in my life along with great darkness, and a question that has repeatedly entered my poetry has been, how do we use the direct experience of happiness that may be given us, whether of love and sexuality or creativity or the sense of connectedness with other beings, human and otherwise?
It's so important to unclutter the mind. For me, creativity is greatly impeded just by the chatter and visual clutter of life. It's really important to have a space that is really clear for whatever is emerging to come.
Creativity is basically a feminine process. I'm convinced that we have in our soul, everybody, this masculine side and this feminine side. So at the end of the day, you always use this feminine creative energy to write or to do any type of art or creativity. So if I see that my protagonist is feminine, it's not more difficult, no. And even when my protagonist is masculine, I'm writing from using this feminine energy.