Anglo-American Catholic writer and mystic Thomas Merton wrote: “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”
Our mystics also talk about achieving the state of self-realisation through losing oneself in meditation. This is something common between art and spirituality. Meditation may begin with a certain method but when it grows or ripens, the method is left far behind and is totally forgotten. One enters a natural state of meditation.
The same is true about art. One does need certain training for practising the art of one’s choice, but the real maturity or blossoming happens after the artist has transcended the training and the practice — it becomes his Being.
I am reminded of a certain gathering of artists recently. There were discussions to create a suitable natural place for such an international spiritual community of artists where art blossoms out of meditation and a natural environment. Artists discussed everything, all the details, about how they visualised this dream-project and what they could do to realise this dream. During these light discussions, I realised that the artists who were present there did not think of writers as artists. Writers were not being included as artists.
Among this group of people there was a sanyasi who got into a passionate discussion with a potter-sculptor and was making a case with her that everything in the universe was a piece of art and there was an artist in everybody, and that we are all artists. Right that moment some ducks came out of a pond nearby and walked majestically towards the sanyasi and the potter-sculptor. The discussion got interrupted for a few moments to appreciate the beauty of the ducks.
The sanyasi remarked: “Look at these ducks, they are walking so artistically! Look at their movements. Is this not sheer poetry? And these ducks are not even aware of their artistic walk! All your models with all their costliest costumes on the ramp look pale in comparison to these naked ducks. Everything natural is the most artistic thing in the universe!”
The sanyasi had a strong point to make and he tried his best to open the eyes of the artist to a certain dimension of art, which we all tend to forget. There is a tremendous art in being just natural. The nudity may be ugly, obscene and repulsive to many people — but there could be art in just being naked and unpretentious. Mystics such as Lord Mahavira and Lalla in Kashmir both lived in their natural nakedness, but they were the most beautiful and spiritual people.
The real art originates from the sphere of aatma and natural atmosphere.
And, yes, there is an art in writing too. A writer or a poet is also an artist. This art consists of artificial writing and natural writing. We get to see both kinds of writings daily in our newspapers and magazines. Some writers articulate in a very artificial manner — and that’s the art of the artificial. One acquires this art after a long practice. And being a natural writer or a poet comes naturally to some gifted people or to those who have been deeply meditative.
Osho concludes: “And by being poetic I don’t mean that you have to write poetry. Writing poetry is only a small, nonessential part of being poetic. One may be a poet and never write a single line of poetry, and one may write thousands of poems and still not be a poet. Being a poet is a way of life. It is love for life, it is reverence for life, it is a heart-to-heart relationship with life.”

Swami Chaitanya Keerti, editor of Osho World, is the author of Osho Fragrance