Religion, Creativity and Music
Religion to me is creativity. And all creativity basically is musical. Only the medium differs: the poet creates music through words, and the sculptor creates music in stone, and the painter through colors but basically art is music. Music is the foundation of all aesthetics and all creativity.
Snap Your Fingers, Slap Your Face and Wake Up
To me, aesthetics is the closest neighbour of religiousness, not ethics.
The Secret of Secrets
I was raw, now I am cooked and burnt.
Jalaluddin, the greatest Sufi, says, "These three words contain my whole life."
If you are separate, you are raw. If you join together with existence, you are cooked. And if you disappear absolutely, without leaving even a shadow of the ego, you are burnt.
People of the Path
The word "Sufi"
A few things about this word 'Sufi'. An ancient Persian dictionary has this for the entry 'Sufi'... the definition given goes in rhyme: SUFI CHIST -- SUFI, SUFIST. WHO IS A SUFI? A SUFI IS A SUFI. This is a beautiful definition. The phenomenon is indefinable. 'A Sufi is a Sufi.' It says nothing and yet it says well. It says that the Sufi cannot be defined; there is no other word to define it, there is no other synonym, there is no possibility of defining it linguistically, there is no other indefinable phenomenon. You can live it and you can know it, but through the mind, through the intellect, it is not possible. You can become a Sufi -- that is the only way to know what it is. You can taste the reality yourself, it is available. You need not go into a dictionary, you can go into existence.
Sufis: The People of the Path
