By Swami Nirmalananda & Rukmini Abbruzzi
Musicians, artists and writers base their livelihood, even their life, in their creativity. Yet everyone is creative, even if you don’t think of yourself that way. For example, coming up with a solution to a problem is creative: that moment where you think, “Oh! I know what to do about that.” That aha moment is an inner arising; it bubbles up just as joy and happiness do. You have an amazing potential hidden inside you. So how do you tap into that potential and become more creative?
You currently use your creativity in a limited way: to plant a garden, to decorate your home or your body, or even to bring a new life into the world. Creativity is blissful! This is why there are so many arts and crafts stores with so many options for you to explore and enjoy.
Rukmini remembers how much her children loved to be creative: “They’d come home from pre-school with more drawings and paintings and macaroni art than could ever fit on the refrigerator, excited and happy to share each one with me.” Do you remember the joy and pride of showing your mom, ”Look what I made!” Being creative feels wonderful, because in your own small way you’re being Brahma. You’re experiencing the flow of Consciousness, being Shiva and manifesting something from your own being.
Swami Nirmalananda says, “When my Guru was living and teaching in Los Angeles, we held many programs on creativity, which were well attended by actors, screenwriters, producers, cinematographers, musicians, set designers, etc. The famous and the wannabes came. They wanted to tap into their creativity and Baba showed them the way to the source of their creativity — inside.”
Your Svaroopa® yoga and meditation practices progressively dissolve your creative blocks. Energetic blockages in your spine keep you from your own creativity and worse, keep you from experiencing the source of your creativity — your own Self. Especially once Kundalini is awakened, your yogic openings clear the way for your creative capacity to blossom forth from within, along with the radiance and bliss of your own being. Meditation is particularly effective because it is the direct route to your own source, plus it clears and reconditions your mind, so the light of creative consciousness can shine into your life and into the world.
Don’t allow yourself to get sidetracked along the way. It’s easy to lose track of your goal to know your own Self when a solution to a problem, an idea for a song or other creative impulse bubbles up during your meditation. Your mind has a catcher’s mitt, so you start catching the arising bubbles, which makes your meditation be merely about your life, a way to solve problems or make money. This is a trap.
Remember the goal — to know your own Self as Consciousness-Itself. Meditation will take you all the way in, but you have to put down your catcher’s mitt and meditate longer. Get past the rising bubbles of creativity to find the source they’re coming from – your own Self which is Consciousness-Itself. You will not only get one answer from there; you’ll find all answers there. You don’t merely have the capacity to be creative for a few moments. You are the Source of creativity itself. When you base your life and being in that inner reality, you live in an endless flow of creativity that never dries up. You won’t have to wait until you meditate. You will live in the experiential knowing (svaroopavidya) of your own Divine Essence.