Is spirituality an art?

Spirituality is not only an art but a divine, illumining and fulfilling art. The human artist expresses his personality, his indiv [individuality] through his art. In a sense he expresses himself through his art. The divine artist expresses God the Beauty, God the Divinity and God the reality through his art. To a human artist art is the expression of his desire-life. To a divine artist art is God-manifestation-aspiring life.

 

 

 

2. Hu. [Human] art either surrenders to fate or revolts ag [against] fate.

  
     

 

D. [Divine] Art accepts fate [and] transforms fate. D. art is inspired by and energised by God’s supernal vision and energised by his adamantine will.

 

3. Art is creation. Creation is art. In the divine art there is no forced physical effort, no vital effort, no mental effort. There is only [one] effort and that effort is called psychic effort. The body, the vital and the mind may co-operate with the psychic art. When they consciously co-operate the art reaches an acme of perfection [and] becomes perfect perfection.

  
     

 

4. Emerson: in art the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can inspire.

In the divine art, the heart can never execute anything higher than the soul can aspire. Of course there is a yawning gulf in the ordinary art [between the] heart-capacity of receptivity and the hand-capacity of expression. In the spiritual life the soul-capacity of assimilation and the heart-capacity of revelation perfectly complement each other.

 

 

5. In a human being the divine artist and the human artist play quite often hide and seek. When the human artist appears he wants to fascinate the world

  
     

 

with his artistic capacity. When God the artist appears He wants to (   ) illumine and nourish human consciousness and earth consciousness.

 

 

6. Both spiritual art and unspiritual art deal with beauty. In the unspiritual art beauty is the effect of a (   ). In the spiritual art beauty is. In the uns. [unspiritual] art beauty is a (   ) power. In the spiritual [art] beauty is an illumining power. The human in the artist feels beauty is skin-deep. (   ) beauty is not only soul-deep

 

 

 

 

 

  
     

 

but God-deep.

The soul-deep reality opens our heart to the ever-transcending Beyond. The God-deep reality reveals to us the ever-tr. beyond in the eternal Now.

 

  
     
 

Note:

The above draft formed the basis of Sri Chinmoy’s lecture, entitled ‘Spirituality as an Art’, which he delivered at the University of Birmingham in England on 25 June 1974. The lecture was subsequently published in My Rose Petals, Part 3, by Agni Press in 1974.