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| | | Book Name: Yoga - The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 7 | Previous Next | |
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outside world, not with himself. The artist is concerned with himself, not with the outside world. Then a scientist brings something, he brings it from the objective world. When an artist brings something he brings it out of himself. A poem: he digs deep in himself. A painting he digs deep in himself. Don't ask the artist about being objective. He is a subjectivist.
Have you seen Van Gogh's trees? They almost reach to the heavens; they touch the stars. They overreach. Trees like that exist nowhere -- except in Van Gogh's paintings. Stars are small and trees are big. Somebody asked Van Gogh, "From where do you create these trees? We have never seen such trees." He said, "Out of me. Because, to me, trees always seem desires of the earth to meet the sky." "Desires of the earth to meet the sky" -- then the tree is totally transformed, a metamorphosis has happened. Then the tree is not an object; it has become a subjectivity. As if the artist realizes the tree by becoming a tree himself.
There are many beautiful stories about Zen Masters, because Zen Masters were great painters and great artists. That is one of the most beautiful things about Zen. No other religion has been so creative, and unless a religion is creative, it is not a total religion -- something is missing.
One Zen Master used to tell his disciples, "If you want to paint a bamboo, become a bamboo." There is no other way. How can you paint a bamboo if you have not felt it from within?... if you have not felt yourself as a bamboo standing against the sky, standing against the wind, standing against the rains, standing high with pride in the sun? If you have not heard the noise of the wind passing through the bamboo as the bamboo hears it, if you have not felt the rain falling on the bamboo as the bamboo feels it, how can you paint a bamboo? If you have not heard the sound of the cuckoo as the bamboo hears it, how can you paint a bamboo? Then you paint a bamboo as a photographer. You may be a camera, but you are not an artist.
Camera belongs to the world of science. The camera is scientific. It simply shows the objectivity of the bamboo. But when a Master looks at the bamboo he
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