Art and Meditation

Art and Meditation
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Lama Anargarika Govinda

Art and meditation are creative states of the human mind; both are nourished by the same source.

The primary influence of art in the life of humanity and as part of human civilization is its power to inspire all those who open themselves to it. Great works of art have had a more lasting impact on humanity than have mighty empires or even ancient religions, which have been survived only by their art creations. The language of art speaks to us across the millenniums, even after all other languages of the time have fallen into oblivion.

The enjoyment of art is an act of re-creation, of creation in the reverse direction, toward the source of inspiration. It is an act of absorption, in which we liberate ourselves from our small self in the creative experience of a greater universe and the interrelationship of all life.
It is the truly beautiful coupled with a clear consciousness of universality which enables the contemplative as well as the artist to enter into spiritual relations with the hills and rivers, trees and rocks, human beings and animals, gods and demons.
Art as the manifestation of the truly beautiful, of inner truth, and the purity of inner vision is, therefore, the greatest creative power.

It is not the subject of a work of art which decides its value; rather it is the inspirational impetus, the spontaneity of inner experience, with which it has been created and which it arouses and reproduces in the beholder. But the faculty of responding to the inner meaning of such works of art has to be cultivated in the same measure as the faculty of creating them. Just as the artist has to master the material and tools with which he creates, so the one who wants to enjoy art has to prepare and to tune the instrument of spiritual receptivity in order to achieve that profound resonance which is possible only if the mind has been emptied of all distracting thoughts and petty cares.

The enjoyment of art and the contemplation of an artist’s creation become part of spiritual training, without which no one could claim to be really cultured."


Excerpts from
"Creative Meditation and Multi-Dimensional Consciousness"