The paintings of Picasso are nothing but his nightmares.

The arts can be immensely helpful in therapy, in spiritual growth, in your meditations. But it is taking a hard and long way unnecessarily. The shortcut is: first, meditation, and then out of meditation comes creativity of its own accord. Otherwise, it is a long journey; even one life may not be enough.

For example, the paintings of Picasso are nothing but his nightmares, as if somebody is not painting but vomiting. It has helped him to relieve himself of his tensions, schizophrenia, paranoia and all kinds of mental repressions. But it is not of much use to you. In fact, if you go on looking at a Picasso painting for a long time, you will feel sick, because it is vomiting. You will start feeling nauseous. This is not real art.

The people who created the Taj Mahal – that is real art. They were Sufi mystics who knew what meditation is. And they created the Taj Mahal in such a way that if on every full-moon night, exactly at nine o’clock in the evening, you just sit looking at the most beautiful architecture in the whole world, you will find suddenly you are becoming silent, peaceful, serene. Something is transpiring between you and the Taj Mahal.

Gurdjieff used to call the Taj Mahal, objective art. It means: created by people who are fully aware,able to create something which can help people to grow. He would not call Picasso an objective artist. Picasso is a subjective artist, he is just throwing up whatsoever is in his mind. It is not going to help anybody. Picasso feels relieved, but for how long? Soon he will gather tensions again. Soon he will be again in a state of insanity, and then he will paint. Painting is a release for him.

The people who built the Taj Mahal – it is not a release for them; it is their experience. And they are trying somehow to make something which can also give you the same experience – at least a

glimpse of it.

Right now you don’t know even what areas of creativity can bring out your potential for spiritual growth. To paint? – everybody is not a painter. To write poetry? – everybody is not a poet. To play music? – everybody is not a musician. How are you going to choose in your confusion? But if you are silent through meditation, utterly silent, suddenly you feel a tremendous urge to create something, to become a musician.... It comes spontaneously!