The art and spiritual life- Fadi karnaby

"Art is the organization of sensory impressions, which expresses the sensitivity of the artist and communicates to its audience a sense of values ​​that can change their lives" . Using its own definition, Sangharakshita explores the relevance of art and the artist for personal and spiritual evolution of man.

The Buddha by Odilon Redon

Through art we mean all the arts. We take this term to cover painting, sculpture, poetry, music, architecture, etc.. And the spiritual life we ​​mean the whole process of higher evolution. In this regard, I must admit that I am not very happy with the word 'spiritual'. When I was writing down the track list for these readings, I really hesitated before writing the word and spirit of art and spiritual life, because I know that for many people the word spiritual has a bad connotation. When we speak of spiritual life people begin to believe in spirits and spiritualism and turntables and voices from beyond and shapes and appearances. So I could not help but think it is better to avoid the word spiritual. Unfortunately, there is no one in everyday language equivalent term for the word spiritual. I thought perhaps we could begin to popularize the term 'meta-biological' I had already used. I know it's a bit long, meta-biological, but the month has the merit of covering all the higher manifestations of the human spirit, not only art but also religion and philosophy.

So when we talk about art and spiritual life, or art and higher evolution, we are not suggesting that these are really two separate things. Not that you have art on one side and the spiritual life of another. The art here and the spiritual life there, rather superficially united by that little word "and". Not that art and religion are in a superficial relationship. We can even say that art is included in the spiritual life, the arts are just one aspect or manifestation of the higher evolution as such. It does not mean, of course you can not live a spiritual life, can not participate in the higher evolution of humanity, without being an artist. It does not mean it, but it means we can not be an artist without participating in the same time to the spiritual life, the evolution later. To the extent that is an artist, a true artist, a genuine artist of any discipline, is involved in the higher evolution of man.

Now I'm sure this idea is not obvious to most people. They could see it as an unnecessary glorification of the artist, and even they may not agree at all. We know that people generally have little regard for art and the artist. In truth they do not see too much, not compared with other more important things, other activities that really matter. Many people have a tendency to have a contemptuous gaze on the arts and the artist and think that the artist deals with things rather trivial, not the "real man's job". In this context, I remember a little story, I think of the autobiography of Sir Osbert Sitwell, who is a long work in several volumes, very prolific, but contains some very good stories well told. Perhaps you know that Sitwell was one of those very, very bright family where almost everyone seems to be a genius and all your brothers, sisters, aunts, cousins, uncles etc.. are geniuses - it must be a wonderful way to grow. So you Osbert and Sacheverell and the famous Edith, all currently living together when they were young in this huge old dilapidated family home, one lives in a wing, the other in another wing, with one kilometer of corridors them with many servants. Then, as reported by Osbert Sitwell, one morning he wanted to communicate with her sister Edith in her wing to her. So it sounds to call a maid and gives her a little note, saying: Give the paper to my sister if she is not busy. But if she does something, do not give, do not disturb. Just come right back and tell me: when a quarter of an hour later, after crossing all lanes in both directions, the maid comes. Sir Osbert and ask him you gave him the message? "She said, oh yes. My sister was not doing anything? Oh no, she did nothing at all, she was just writing. So it 's is often the attitude when you are writing or painting, or if you do something of this sort, you do nothing really.

In light of this sort of common misconception on the theme of arts in general, so try to go a little deeper into this whole subject, and try to see how or in what sense the art is part of spiritual life, the higher evolution of man. And also how the artist is, in fact, the new man? Now it will require a consideration of the question of what is art? But we put it aside for now and we will observe the artist as a new man, the artist regarded as sharing the characteristics of the new man.

The new man is distinguished by five characteristics. Surely there are many more, but apparently they are more clearly recognizable. The characteristics are the awareness of self, true individuality, creativity, loneliness and unpopularity common. So take a break before returning to the question of what is art and look briefly at how we can apply the five characteristics of the new man to the artist, he is a poet, painter, sculptor or musician etc.

by- Fadi Karnaby