RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL PRACTICES

The forms of Hindu art are filled with the beauty and variety of all life and Nature. The music is not somber or rarefied but full of vitality. The sculpture can be voluptuous. It is hard for people to tell the difference between Hindu religious art on one hand, and art of a folk or personal nature on the other. The two were never separate.

Art is one of the doors to the spiritual life. Creativity is step toward Divinity. Such art, however, should be done as an act of worship or as a means of seeking Truth, in which case it can embrace all the beauty of Nature and wisdom of Awareness. Art done out of selfish or commercial motives, or which comes from the intellect only, cannot take us to the real fountainhead of creativity that lies within us.

Today we need a creative renaissance in the world, in which art in all of its forms, abstract and representational, is once more taken up as part of the spiritual life. Art should be a form of worship, filled with devotion, and carrying the power of the Cosmic Being. Otherwise we have failed not only in the realm of art but in the realm of spirituality as well, and our culture will remain immature.

[ Back ] [ David Frawley ] [ Up ] [ Next ]