Creative Surrender

Anyone who has read my book, Freeing the Creative Spirit, knows that my approach to the creative process encourages spiritual centering and awareness. When you think about it, creativity and religious or spiritual belief have a lot in common. For one thing, they are both dealing with invisible forces. Both require a commitment to creating a better or beautiful world. Creativity, like spiritual faith, has an appreciation for the past as well as the future even though the paramount concern is the present moment.
Is it any wonder, then, that so many people lose faith in their capacity for creativity? I mean, spiritual seekers can go to weekly worship services, or study with meditation teachers. They can read sacred texts like The Bible, The Torah, or the Upanishads. The faith in creativity, however, has to be self-sustaining.
The greatest testaments to creativity are experience and evidence. Evidence is not necessarily a studio full of paintings or an archive of films, it can be as simple as looking at the hair on your head. The body shows us that creativity is our natural state. The body is constantly creating and discarding. It is part of the transforming universe. The body doesn’t create art directly, but it teaches us that art is only one form of creativity. The body creates hair, water, carbon dioxide, and some bodies even create children. And it does all that without permission from the ego.
When it comes to the creation of art, the ego is the ogre that stands in the doorway. If we can be in charge of our own ego, we have at least a fighting chance of succeeding. Unfortunately, too many of us suffer from an ego that has been influenced, maybe even abused, by other people. If we could get that ego to stand out of the way, most of us would have a far greater enjoyment of our creativity.
Often the ego latches onto a religious or spiritual practice and uses it as a crutch. This can be dangerous. And when the ego latches onto creativity, we lose all autonomy in the creative process. We start trying to please people, always looking for compliments. Our creativity becomes a process of creating a product, not original, authentic expression.
The key to adult creativity, is just like the key to spiritual happiness: surrender. When we are toddlers we have no control of anything, so surrender comes naturally. Consequently, human beings in the toddler state, play day in and day out. Watch toddlers with their food: they play with it! This is where we all began. If we can surrender that ego, we can return to that naturally creative state at chosen times.
I’m not suggesting that you play with your food, but I am suggesting that you surrender your ego from time to time. Whether in prayer or in creative play, the ego appreciates a vacation, and the rest of you will too. Creativity becomes a healthy past time, lowering blood pressure, calming the body, and engaging the mind away from worries and social and financial demands.
Creativity can be meditation, a time of prayer. Try it! It may not come easy at first, but making it a practice can help teach surrender in small doses.