WHILE
PAINTING, EACH MOMENT can be totally satisfying. But once the painting is complete it can
never be totally satisfying, because if it is totally satisfying the painter will have to
commit suicide. There will be no need to live any more.
That's why I say life is longing, pure longing -- longing to attain higher and higher
peaks, longing to go deeper and deeper into existence. But each moment can be utterly
satisfying; that difference has to be remembered. When you are painting, each brush, each
color that you throw on the canvas, each moment of it, is totally satisfying. There is
nothing more to it. You are utterly lost, possessed, if you are a creator.
If you are only a technician then it is not so. The technician is not lost while he is
painting, he is separate from his painting. He is just using his knowledge. He knows how
to paint, that's all. There is nothing in his heart to paint -- no vision, no poetry, no
song. He has nothing to create, but just the technology. He is a technician, not an
artist. He can paint -- but while painting it is not meditation for him, it is not a love
affair for him. He is doing it; he is a doer, separate. But the creator is not separate
while he is creating, he is one with it. He is utterly lost, he has forgotten himself.
That's why when painters are painting they forget about food, forget about thirst,
forget about sleep. They forget about the body so much that they can go on painting for
eighteen hours without feeling at all tired. Each moment is absolutely satisfying.
But once the painting is complete, a great sadness descends on the real painter. These
differences have to be remembered. When the painting is complete, the technician feels
very happy: a good job done, finished. He is feeling tired; it was a long tiring process,
no contentment on the way. He was just waiting for the result, he was result-oriented. He
wanted to finish it somehow, and now it is finished. He takes a deep sigh of relief. He is
happy, not while he is painting but only when the painting is complete.
Just the opposite happens to the creator. He is happy while he is painting; once the
painting is complete, a great sadness descends on him. "So it is over? That peak,
that climax, that orgasmic experience is over? That thrill, that adventure, that going
into the unknown is over?" ... just as lovers feel sad after a deep orgasm: a subtle
sadness, beautiful in itself, of tremendous value -- far more valuable than the happiness
of the technician, because out of this sadness another painting will arise, out of this
sadness another longing to soar high, another aspiration to reach beyond, another search,
another inquiry, another pregnancy. The painter will be pregnant soon, will feel full, so
full that he will have to share it again.
It is said that when Gibbon, the great historian, finished his great work about world
history.... Thirty-three years it took to finish it, and he was so tremendously happy for
those thirty-three years that it is said that he didn't age. He remained exactly the same,
as if time never passed, as if time has stopped.
But the day it was finished he started crying. His wife could not believe it. She said,
"You are crying? You should be happy, you should dance! The work is complete."
Gibbon said, "The work is complete. Now what is left for me? My life is
complete." And within five years he aged so much, and by the seventh year he was
gone.
IT IS SAID that Vincent van Gogh, the great Dutch painter,
committed suicide when he felt that he had done the perfect painting. It is possible. If
the painter feels the perfect has happened, then there is no point in living. The creator
lives to create. The singer lives to sing, the dancer lives to dance, the lover lives to
love, the tree lives to bloom -- if it has bloomed and the perfect flowers have come, then
what is the point of prolonging a futile, meaningless existence?
Your question is significant. You ask: "Is it possible to paint a totally
satisfying painting?"
Yes and no. Yes, while you are painting it will be totally satisfying. And no, once it
is over you will feel great sadness. But that sadness is also creative, because it is only
out of that sadness you will again start moving towards the sunlit peaks.
And in this life nothing really is ever perfect or can ever be perfect.
You will be surprised that I believe in an imperfect God. You will be shocked, because
at least all the religions are agreed on one thing, that God is perfect. I don't agree,
because if God is perfect then Friedrich Nietzsche is right that God is dead. God is
perfectly imperfect -- that much I can say. Hence there is growth, evolution; hence there
is movement. It is always, always coming closer and closer to perfection, but it is never
perfect and it will never be perfect.
Nothing ever is perfect. In fact imperfection has a beauty of its own, because
imperfection has a life. Whenever something is perfect -- just think, contemplate --
whenever something is really perfect, life will disappear from it.
Life can exist only if something is still imperfect and has to be perfected. Life is
the effort to perfect the imperfect. Life is the ambition to make the ugly beautiful.
Something of imperfection is a must for life to exist, for life to go on growing and
flowing.
Nothing ever is perfect. Or if something any time happens to be perfect, in the East we
have a right vision of it. We say whenever a person becomes perfect, that is his last
life. The scriptures give different reasons for it; my reason is totally different. I say
yes, when Buddha is perfect he will not come back, because perfection means life is no
more possible. He will disappear into the cosmos.
RABINDRANATH, a great Indian poet and mystic, prayed his last
prayer to God: "Send me back. Remember, I am not perfect. Send me back. Your world
was too beautiful and you gave me such a precious life. And I don't want to disappear yet:
I have yet to sing many songs, I have yet to paint many paintings, there is yet much in my
heart which needs to bloom. Send me back, I am not perfect! Send me back."
That was his last prayer; he died praying this way. It is one of the most beautiful
prayers and one of the most beautiful ways to die. How can one thank God more than this?
"Your world was beautiful, I loved your world; I was not worthy of it but you made
me. I am not worthy to be sent back, but still, your compassion is great. At least one
time more, send me back."
LIFE KEEPS GROWING. Nothing ever is perfect -- or whenever
something is perfect it disappears, it goes into annihilation. The Buddhist word is
nirvana. Nirvana means annihilation, nirvana means cessation. Literally, nirvana means
"blowing out the candle." Just as you blow out a candle and suddenly the light
is gone, gone forever, has disappeared into nothingness -- that is nirvana. All the
buddhas say whosoever becomes perfect moves into nirvana, goes into annihilation.
Don't hanker for a perfect painting, otherwise the painter will die. And you have yet
to sing many songs.
And the painting cannot be perfect, the song and the dance cannot be perfect, for a few
more reasons. One: when you visualize it in the deepest core of your heart, it is a
totally different thing. When you start painting it, you are translating it from the
subtle to the gross. In that very transforming, in that very translation, much is lost.
Hence no painter ever feels satisfied when he finishes his painting. It is not the same
as that which he wanted to paint -- similar, but not the same. He has some vision to
compare, it has fallen very short. Hence he starts another painting.
RABINDRANATH again has to be remembered. He wrote six thousand songs -- seems to be the
greatest poet the world has ever known -- and each song is a beauty. But when he was dying
he was crying, he was saying to God, "The song that I wanted to sing, I have not sung
yet."
An old friend was by the side of the bed, and the old friend said, "What are you
saying? Have you gone mad? You have sung six thousand songs. In Europe, Shelley is thought
to be one of the greatest poets. He has sung only two thousand songs. You have defeated
him three times. You should be happy and contented!"
Rabindranath opened his tear-filled eyes and he said, "I am not. Yes, six thousand
songs I have sung, but you don't know the inner story. The inner story is, I wanted to
sing only one song! But because it never was possible.... I tried once, failed; I tried
again, I failed. Six thousand times I have failed. Those are all efforts, and I am not
satisfied with any of them. That which I wanted to sing is still unsung."
In fact nobody can sing it.
Buddha used to declare in every town, wherever he would go, "Please don't ask
these eleven questions." In those eleven questions, all important questions were
included: God, soul, death, life, truth, everything important was included. Why?
"Because," he would say, "they cannot be answered. Not that I don't know,
but to bring them to words is impossible."
There was an ancient mysterious wall which stood at the edge of a village and whenever
anyone climbed the wall to look onto the other side, instead of coming back he smiled and
jumped to the other side, never to return. The inhabitants of the village became curious
as to what could draw these beings to the other side of the wall. After all, their village
had all the necessities of living a comfortable life.
They made an arrangement where they tied a person's feet, so when he looked over and
wished to jump, they could pull him back.
The next time someone tried to climb the wall to see what was on the other side, they
chained his feet so he could not go over. He looked on the other side and was delighted at
what he saw, and smiled. Those standing below grew curious to question him and pulled him
back. To their great disappointment he had lost the power of speech.
THOSE WHO HAVE SEEN cannot say. That which has been seen cannot be painted,
cannot be reduced to words. But still each one has to give a try. The world goes on
becoming more and more beautiful because of these efforts. The world is beautiful because
of the six thousand songs that Rabindranath tried, although he failed to sing the song
that he wanted. Those six thousand failures have made the world far more beautiful than it
ever was. It will not be the same world again, those six thousand songs will go on
resonating.
So go on painting, go on creating. Yet I tell you again and again, you will never be
satisfied. I bless you that you should never be satisfied, but let each moment of your
creativity be a great contentment. But when something is finished, move ahead. You have
infinite capacities to create; you are unlimited, you don't have any limits to your
potential. You are not aware what you can do, and you will never be aware unless you do
it!
Hence the greatest creators are aware how poor has been their creation, because they
become aware, more and more aware, how much more is possible. The ordinary person who has
never created anything is not aware what he can do. There is no other way to know what you
can do unless you do it. And while doing it you can see that what you wanted to do, what
was very clear in your inner world, has become very dim and ordinary when it has been
brought to the outer.
You will try again. Each effort will become better and better and better, more and more
perfect, but never perfect.