Alternative thinkers about creativity

Outstanding alternative thinkers and authors about creativity

The truth of Zen, just a little bit of it, is what turns one’s humdrum life, a life of monotonous, uninspiring commonplaceness, into one of art, full of genuine inner creativity
Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki (October 8, 1870—July 12, 1966), Japanese author of books on Zen Buddhism and Japanese culture

I am an artist at living – my work of art is my life.
Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki

Emptiness which is conceptually liable to be mistaken for sheer nothingness is in fact the reservoir of infinite possibilities.
Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki

No great work has ever been accomplished without going mad-that is, when expressed in modern terms, without breaking through the ordinary level of consciousness and letting loose the hidden powers lying further below. These powers may be devilish sometimes, but there’s no doubt that they’re superhuman and work wonders. When the unconscious is tapped, it rises above individual limitations
Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki

Zen Makes use, to a great extent, of poetical expressions; Zen is wedded to poetry.
Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki

Art always has something of the unconscious about it.
Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki

The greatest productions of art, whether painting, music, sculpture or poetry, have invariably this quality-something approaching the work of God.
Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki

Technical knowledge is not enough. One must transcend techniques so that the art becomes an artless art, growing out of the unconscious
Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki

Put your heart, mind, and soul into even your smallest acts. This is the secret of success.
Swami Sivananda (September 8, 1887 – July 14, 1963), Hindu spiritual teacher

Do not love leisure. Waste not a minute. Be bold. Realize the Truth, here and now!
Swami Sivananda

You must not let your life run in the ordinary way; do something that nobody else has done, something that will dazzle the world. Show that God’s creative principle works in you.
Paramahansa Yogananda (January 5, 1893 – March 7, 1952), Indian yogi and guru

Before embarking on important undertakings sit quietly calm your senses and thoughts and meditate deeply. You will then be guided by the great creative power of Spirit.
Paramahansa Yogananda

An artist doesn’t really create anything – he just rearranges what is already there.
Paramahansa Yogananda

Without freedom, there is no creation.
Jiddu Krishnamurti (May 11, 1895 – February 17, 1986), Indian writer, spiritual philosopher

Only the mind that has emptied itself of the known is creative. That is creation. What it creates has nothing to do with it. Freedom from the known is the state of a mind that is in creation.
Jiddu Krishnamurti

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.
Jiddu Krishnamurti

Surely, it is only when the mind is creatively empty that it is capable of finding out whether there is an ultimate reality or not. But, the mind is never creatively empty; it is always acquiring, always gathering, living on the past or in the future, or trying to be focused in the immediate present: it is never in that state of creativeness in which a new thing can take place. As the mind is a result of time, it cannot possibly understand that which is timeless, eternal.
Jiddu Krishnamurti

You may be perfect in playing the piano, and not be creative; you may play the piano most brilliantly, and not be a musician. You may be able to handle color, to put paint on canvas most cleverly, and not be a creative painter. You may create a face, an image out of a stone, because you have learned the technique, and not be a master creator. Creation comes first, not technique…
Jiddu Krishnamurti

If you have something to say, you create your own style; but when you have nothing to say, even if you have a beautiful style, what you write is only the traditional routine, a repetition in new words of the same old thing. So, having lost the song, we pursue the singer. We learn from the singer the technique of song, but there is no song; and I say the song is essential, the joy of singing is essential. When the joy is there, the technique can be built up from nothing; you will invent your own technique, you won’t have to study elocution or style. When you have, you see, and the very seeing of beauty is an art.
Jiddu Krishnamurti

The origin is nameless; the origin is absolutely quiet, it is not whirring about making noise. Creation is something that is most holy, that is the most sacred thing in life, and if you have made a mess of your life, change it. Change it today, not tomorrow. If you are uncertain, find out why and be certain. If your thinking is not straight, think straight, logically, Unless all that is prepared, all that is settled, you cannot enter into this world, into the world of creation.
Jiddu Krishnamurti

Meditation is the emptying of the mind of all the things that the mind has put together. If you do that -perhaps you won’t, but it doesn’t matter, just listen to this- you will find that there is an extraordinary space in the mind, and that space is freedom. So you must demand freedom at the very beginning, and not just wait, hoping to have it at the end. You must seek out the significance of freedom in your work, in your relationships, in everything that you do. Then you will find that meditation is creation.
Jiddu Krishnamurti

Creation is a word that we all use so glibly, so easily. A painter puts on canvas a few colours and gets tremendously excited about it. It is his fulfillment, the means through which he expresses himself; it is his market in which to gain money or reputation and he calls that “creation”! Every writer “creates,” and there are schools of “creative” writing, but none of that has anything to do with creation. It is all the conditioned response of a mind that lives in a particular society.The creation of which I am speaking is something entirely different. It is a mind that is in the state of creation. It may or it may not express that state. Expression has very little value. That state of creation has no cause, and therefore a mind in that state is every moment dying and living and loving and being. The whole of this is meditation.
Jiddu Krishnamurti

You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing and dance, and write poems and suffer and understand, for all that is life.
Jiddu Krishnamurti

If we can really understand the problem, the answer will come out of it, because the answer is not separate from the problem.
Jiddu Krishnamurti

We want to be famous as a writer, as a poet, as a painter, as a politician, as a singer, or what you will. Why? Because we really don’t love what we are doing. If you loved to sing, or to paint, or to write poems, if you really loved it you would not be concerned with whether you are famous or not.
Jiddu Krishnamurti

It is important to do what you don’t know how to do. It is important to see your skills as keeping you from learning what is deepest and most mysterious. If you know how to focus, unfocus. If your tendency is to make sense out of chaos, start chaos.
Carlos Castaneda (December 25, 1925 – April 27, 1998), Peruvian-American author

Learn to see, and then you’ll know there is no end to the new worlds of our vision.
Carlos Castaneda

It is important to have a perspective then only through seeing the world is it possible to transcend ideas such as the Flyers, and other aberrant thought forms. With ruthlessness, cunning patience and sweetness, it can be cracked.
Carlos Castaneda

Things don’t change. You change your way of looking, that’s all.
Carlos Castaneda

Discipline, as understood by a warrior, is creative, open, and produces freedom. It is the ability to face the unknown, transforming the feeling of knowing into reverent astonishment; of considering things that exceed the scope of our habits, and daring to face the only war that is worthwhile: The battle for awareness.
Carlos Castaneda

Seeing energy as it flows is an imperious need on the path of knowledge. Ultimately, all the effort of sorcerers is guided to that end. It is not enough for a warrior to know that the universe is energy; he has to verify it for himself.
Carlos Castaneda

All paths are the same, leading nowhere. Therefore, pick a path with heart!
Carlos Castaneda

We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.
Carlos Castaneda

A man of knowledge lives by acting, not by thinking about acting
Carlos Castaneda

When a warrior learns to stop the internal dialogue, everything becomes possible; the most far-fetched schemes become attainable.
Carlos Castaneda

We are men and our lot in life is to learn and to be hurled into inconceivable new worlds.
Carlos Castaneda

A truly creative person rids him or herself of all self-imposed limitations.
Gerald G. Jampolsky (born 1925), American esoterischer author and physician

Nothing is impossible when we follow our inner guidance, even when its direction may threaten us by reversing our usual logic.
Gerald G. Jampolsky

The world does not have to change…. The only thing that has to change is our attitude.
Gerald G. Jampolsky

What matters is to live in the present, live now, for every moment is now. Your thoughts and acts of the moment create your future. The outline of your future path already exists, for you created its pattern by your past.
Sri Sathya Sai Baba (November 23,1926 –April 24, 2011), Indian guru

The world is for newness, not for oldness. New, new things we have to create. Then only the world will progress. If not, we will come to feel that there is nothing new under the sun. We have to create new things to keep our joy. If there is no newness, how can we have enthusiasm? And if there is no enthusiasm, do we make any progress?
Sri Chinmoy (August 27, 1931 – October 11, 2007), Indian spiritual Master

If you can create harmony in your own life, This harmony will enter into the vast world.
Sri Chinmoy

You and I create the world by the vibrations that we offer to the world.
Sri Chinmoy

If you have inner peace, nobody can force you to be a slave to the outer reality.
Sri Chinmoy

Music is the language of God. God’s language, music, is not like mathematics or geometry. It is a language of love. If we love music, that is enough.
Sri Chinmoy

Only by our positive thinking, by our bringing the positive qualities of others to the fore, will this world be able to make progress.
Sri Chinmoy

Do you want to change the world? Then change yourself first. Do you want to change yourself? If so, remain completely silent inside the silence-sea.
Sri Chinmoy

Paradise is not a place; it is a state of consciousness.
Sri Chinmoy

Destroying something, any idiot can do. Creating needs intelligence.
Osho (December 11, 1931 –January 19, 1990), Indian spiritual teacher and guru international following

You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want to enhance its beauty.
Osho

Creativity is the quality that you bring to the activity that you are doing. It is an attitude, an inner approach – how you look at things . . . Whatsoever you do, if you do it joyfully, if you do it lovingly, if your act of doing is not purely economical, then it is creative.
Osho

You become more divine as you become more creative. All the religions of the world have said God is the creator. I don’t know whether he is the creator or not, but one thing I know: the more creative you become, the more godly you become. When your creativity comes to a climax, when your whole life becomes creative, you live in God. So he must be the creator because people who have been creative have been closest to him. Love what you do. Be meditative while you are doing it – whatsoever it is!
Osho

To be creative means to be in love with life. You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want to enhance its beauty, you want to bring a little more music to it, a little more poetry to it, a little more dance to it.
Osho

A creative act enhances the beauty of the world; it gives something to the world, it never takes anything from it. A creative person comes into the world, enhances the beauty of the world – a song here, a painting there. He makes the world dance better, enjoy better, love better, meditate better.
Osho

Creativity has nothing to do with any activity in particular – with painting, poetry, dancing, singing. It has nothing to do with anything in particular.
Osho

Anything can be creative – you bring that quality to the activity. Activity itself is neither creative nor uncreative. You can paint in an uncreative way. You can sing in an uncreative way. You can clean the floor in a creative way. You can cook in a creative way.
Osho

Creativity is the quality that you bring to the activity you are doing. It is an attitude, an inner approach – how you look at things.
Osho

So the first thing to be remembered: don’t confine creativity to anything in particular. A man is creative – and if he is creative, whatsoever he does, even if he walks, you can see in his walking there is creativity. Even if he sits silently and does nothing, even non-doing will be a creative act. Buddha sitting under the Bodhi Tree doing nothing is the greatest creator the world has ever known.
Osho

Whatsoever you do, if you do it joyfully, if you do it lovingly, if your act of doing it is not purely economical, then it is creative. If you have something growing out of it within you, if it gives you growth, it is spiritual, it is creative, it is divine.
Osho

You become more divine as you become more creative. all the religions of the world have said: God is the Creator. I don’t know whether He is the Creator or not, but one thing I know: the more creative you become, the more godly you become.
Osho

Have you seen Paras cleaning this floor of Chuang Tzu auditorium? Then you will know: cleaning can become creative. With what love! Almost singing and dancing inside. If you clean the floor with such love, you have done an invisible painting. You lived that moment in such delight that it has given you some inner growth. You cannot be the same after a creative act.
Osho

Creativity means loving whatsoever you do – enjoying, celebrating it, as a gift of existence!
Osho

Very few people are accepted as creative: A few painters, a few poets – one in a million. This is foolish! Every human being is a born creator. Watch children and you will see: all children are creative. By and by, we destroy their creativity.
Osho

When ambition enters, creativity disappears – because an ambitious man cannot be creative, because an ambitious man cannot love any activity for its own sake. While he is painting he is looking ahead; he is thinking, ‘When am I going to get a Nobel Prize?’ When he is writing a novel, he is looking ahead. He is always in the future – and a creative person is always in the present.
Osho

To be and to be creative are synonymous. It is impossible to be and not to be creative. But that impossible thing has happened, that ugly phenomenon has happened, because all your creative sources have been plugged, blocked, destroyed, and your whole energy has been forced into some activity that the society thinks is going to pay.
Osho

A creative act enhances the beauty of the world; it gives something to the world, it never takes anything from it. A creative person comes into the world, enhances the beauty of the world – a song here, a painting there. He makes the world dance better, enjoy better, love better, meditate better.
Osho

Even trees are creative, rocks are creative. You are man, the very culmination of this existence. You are at the top, you are conscious. Never think with wrong beliefs, and never be attached to wrong beliefs, that you are uncreative.
Osho

Be a giver. Share whatsoever you can. And remember, I am not making any distinction between. small things and great things. If you can smile whole-heartedly, hold somebody’s hand and smile, then it is a creative act, a great creative act. Just embrace somebody to your heart and you are creative. Just look with loving eyes at somebody; just a loving look can change the whole world of a person.
Osho

Be creative. Don’t be worried about what you are doing. One has to do many things, but do everything creatively, with devotion. Then your work becomes worship. Then whatsoever you do is a prayerfulness. And whatsoever you do is an offering at the altar.
Osho

People have a very limited idea of what being creative is – playing the guitar or the flute or writing poetry – so people go on writing rubbish in the name of poetry. You have to find out what you can do and what you cannot do. Everybody cannot do everything. You have to search and find your destiny. You have to grope in the dark, I know. It is not very clear-cut what your destiny is, but that’s how life is. And it is good that one has to search for it – in the very search, something grows.
Osho

So if you are seeking something else in the name of creativity, then drop the idea of being creative. At least consciously, deliberately, do whatsoever you want to do. Never hide behind masks. If you really want to be creative, then there is no question of money, success, prestige, respectability. Then you enjoy your activity; then each act has an intrinsic value. You dance because you like dancing; you dance because you delight in it.
Osho

The psyche of the individual is commensurate with the totality of creative energy. This requires a most radical revision of Western psychology.
Stanislav Grof (born July 1, 1931), Czech hylotropic psychiatrist, one of the founders of the transpersonal psychology

To bring anything into your life, imagine that it’s already there.
Richard Bach (born June 23, 1936), American writer

A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.
Richard Bach

Every problem has a gift for you in its hands.
Richard Bach

Ask yourself the secret of your success. Listen to your answer, and practice it.
Richard Bach

To fly as fast as thought, you must begin by knowing that you have already arrived.
Richard Bach

Enlightened leadership is spiritual if we understand spirituality not as some kind of religious dogma or ideology but as the domain of awareness where we experience values like truth, goodness, beauty, love and compassion, and also intuition, creativity, insight and focused attention.
Deepak Chopra (born October 22, 1947), Indian-American physician, a holistic health, “New Age guru”

So the universe is constantly moving in the direction of higher evolutionary impulses, creativity, abstraction, and meaning.
Deepak Chopra

What keeps life fascinating is the constant creativity of the soul.
Deepak Chopra

Instead of asking “what’s the problem?” ask “what’s the creative opportunity?
Deepak Chopra

The more boundless your vision, the more real you are.
Deepak Chopra

Losing touch with spirit does nothing to the field of creativity, which is beyond harm; but it can do much to damage a person’s chance in life.
Deepak Chopra

With spiritual growth comes new creative potential, leading to the realization that you are pure potential, able to fill any creative impulse.
Deepak Chopra

Everybody has a creative potential and from the moment you can express this creative potential, you can start changing the world.
Paulo Coelho (born August 24, 1947), Brazilian novelist

And my angel has said: “Start moving so that I may start blessing.
Paulo Coelho

Everybody has a creative potential and from the moment you can express this creative potential, you can start changing the world.
Paulo Coelho

Intuition is really a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life.
Paulo Coelho

To become really good at anything, you have to practice and repeat, practice and repeat, until the technique becomes intuitive.
Paulo Coelho

Once a problem is solved, its simplicity is amazing.
Paulo Coelho

A philosophy of life: I’m an adventurer, looking for treasure.
Paulo Coelho

We will discover the nature of our particular genius when we stop trying to conform to our own and other’s people’s models, learn to be ourselves and allow our natural channel to open.
Shakti Gawain (born September 30, 1948), American New Age author and the author of “Creative Visualization”

Every moment of your life is infinitely creative and the Universe is endlessly bountiful. Just put forth a clear enough request and everything your heart desires must come to you.
Shakti Gawain

What I am actually saying is that we need to be willing to let our intuition guide us, and then be willing to follow that guidance directly and fearlessly.
Shakti Gawain

Art. Its definitions are legion, its meanings multitudinous, its importance often debated. But amid the many contradictory definitions of art, one has always stood the test of time, from the Upanishads in the East, to Michelangelo in the West: art is the perception and depiction of the sublime, the transcendent, the beautiful, the spiritual.
Ken Wilber (born January 31, 1949) American writer and public speaker

Art is a window to The Infinite, and opening to the goddess, a portal through which you and I, with the help of the artist, may discover depths and heights of our soul undreamed of by the vulgar world. Art is the eye of the spirit, through which the sublime can reach down to us, and we up to it, and be transformed, transfigured in the process.
Ken Wilber

Art, at its best, is the representation of your very own soul, a reminder of who and what you truly are and therefore can become.
Ken Wilber