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Creativity And Meditation

I would like my sannyasins to live life in its totality, but with an absolute condition, categorical condition: and that condition is awareness, meditation. Go first deep into meditation, so you can cleanse your unconscious of all poisonous seeds, so there is nothing to be corrupted and there is nothing inside you which power can bring forth. And then do whatsoever you feel like doing.
If you want to become a painter, become a painter. Your painting will have a difference; it won't be like Picasso. Picasso's paintings are insane - he IS insane! In fact, if he had been prevented from painting he would have been in a madhouse. Through his paintings he is catharting, throwing out his insanity onto the canvas, getting rid of it. Yes, he feels better - it is a kind of vomiting! After vomiting you feel better, but what about others who look at your vomit! But the world is so stupid that if Picasso vomits, people say, "What a great painting - something never seen before, something unique!"
Vincent van Gogh really went insane, had to be hospitalized for one year, and then he committed suicide. And he was not more than thirty-seven. Now, what kind of paintings had this man been doing? Certainly he had the art, the skill, but the art and the skill were in the hands of a madman, suicidal. Watching his paintings you will feel restless, uneasy. Keep a Picasso painting in your bedroom and you will have nightmares!
A meditator can become a painter, but then something totally different will come out of him - something of the beyond, because he will be capable to receive God. He can become a dancer; his dance will have a new quality to it: it will allow the divine to be expressed. He can become a musician... or he can go into political action, but his political action will be rooted in meditation. Hence there will be no fear of a Joseph Stalin or Adolf Hitler or Mao Zedong coming out of it; that is impossible.
I don't tell anybody to go in a certain direction; I leave my disciples totally free. I simply teach them meditation. I teach them being more alert, more aware, and then it is up to them. Whatsoever their natural potential is they will find it, but it is going to be with awareness. Then there is no danger.

(Osho - The Dhammapada: The Way Of The Buddha, volume 6 #4)