:: CREATIVITY ::

Is music just an arrangement of sounds, poetry an arrangement of words and painting a stroke of brush and colours? Bringing out the essence of creativity, Osho says that music is more than the sum total of notes, poetry is more than the certain arrangement of words and a painting more than the visible colors. It is transcendental. Osho says “Between two sounds is music, and between two words is poetry, and between two lines is all that is significant. It is never in the lines but always between the lines. And one has to learn to read the intervals, the gaps.” And in poetry Osho says that the words are used as an occasion for the poetry to happen. The real music and real poetry is in the gaps, the moment of interval and soundlessness. The whole play is between sound and silence. A real painting is something that has to be read between the lines. That experience is beautifully termed as “Nado”, the transcendental experience. 
The enlightened mystic Osho has beautifully brought out in a language simple and understandable, the meaning of Nado………… 

“Nado means the soundless sound of existence. The Zen people call it the sound of one hand clapping; that is nado. It cannot be heard but still it can be experienced. It cannot be heard because it is not available through one sense. It can be experienced because it is only available to your totality.
Eyes can see, ears can hear; these are specialised parts of your body, they are only parts. But there is a subtle way of experiencing things in which specialised parts are no more in use, in which you function as a total organic unity. Eyes are dissolved into it, ears are dissolved into it; all senses are dissolved into it. You are just like a cloud, with no specialised senses. Then something is experienced; that is nado. Think of the child when he is conceived in the mother's womb. He has no eyes yet, no ears yet, no nose, nothing. It will take time for those specialisations to develop. But even the one-day-old child in the mother's womb experiences. That is nado. Experience comes first and then the specialisation. Experience is so complex and so tremendously overwhelming that the child has to develop special senses to classify the experience, to define the experience, to be able to manage it.
The same happens in a reverse process when one goes into meditation: slowly slowly ears disappear, eyes disappear, nose disappears. All senses disappear into a very deep chaos, but that chaos is immensely creative: it is out of that chaos that stars are born. It is immensely pregnant. In that chaos one becomes a Buddha or a Krishna or a Christ. That chaos is the goal of all meditations.
So one is no more a specialised being: in that experience all the senses have dissolved, poured themselves. It is a kind of seeing and a kind of hearing and a kind of taste and a kind of smell and a kind of touch all together. It is tremendous, because all these senses are functioning simultaneously and not in separation. It is the greatest synthesis possible; it is the synthesis we come from and this is the synthesis we have to reach again. The moment it is reached again the circle is perfect. And the perfection of the circle is fulfilment. Then there is nothing left to know, nothing left to desire. This perfect circle automatically produces immense contentment.
Nado is one of the most important words in the East. It also means music, melody, but that too with a very special meaning. When you hear music and you are overwhelmed by it, it is not the music, the noise, that overwhelms you; it is something else that comes in the gaps surreptitiously. It is not the music heard that overwhelms you; it is something unheard that penetrates you. The greatest musician is one who can manage this miracle, who can make available the soundless sound through sound.
The greatest painter is one who can make available the invisible through the visible colours. Those visible colours are only indicators, fingers pointing to the moon. The painting is not really in the paint; the painting is something that has to be read between the lines. So those who focus on the painting miss the whole point. It cannot be known directly; a totally different kind of look is needed. That's why the critic goes on missing, because his very approach makes him focus on the material part of the painting; the paint, the canvas, the composition, the style and all that. He becomes focused on the material part of the painting and the real painting exists as a non-material phenomenon, just by the side of the material; just as the body is there and just hidden behind the body is the soul. If you focus too much on the body you will miss the soul. That's how physicists go on missing: they become caught up in the gross. They can't read between the lines. They can't see the beauty of the blanks, the intervals.
When you are hearing music there are two things continuously being poured into you: one is the visible, that which is heard, the tangible, the sound. But between two sounds there is a moment of soundlessness, the interval, and that interval is really the music; that is nado. It is just as we write music on paper as a score: those who know how to read it will be able to read it, but it is not music. It simply represents music. The score on the paper simply represents music, it is symbolic; it is not music itself. You can go on looking at it but you will not be overwhelmed by it. Although it represents, it points to, something tremendously beautiful, in itself it is nothing.
In exactly the same way, music in its own turn is nothing. It is again a score, it again points to something higher than itself. Unless you hear that you are hearing only noise. And modern music has become more and more noise; nado has disappeared from it.
That is the beauty of classical music. If you go into Eastern music then it is just incredible. The whole beauty consists in there being less and less sound and more and more silence. The master musician manages with the least sound, the optimum soundlessness. He uses sound just as a jumping board, and then the ocean of the soundlessness is there. The sound leads you only to the jumping board, and then the real thing happens. If a musician can help one to go into silence through sound then he is really a maestro; only then is he a maestro, otherwise he is just a technician. So is the case with all kinds of art.
Poetry is not the words it is composed of. Poetry is something that is not there in the words but which hovers around the words. You need a very unfocused state to catch hold of poetry. If you become too interested in the words then you may know the grammar, the language, and you may know the metre and everything, but that is only the edifice. It is only the house, not the deity. You become too interested in the walls of the temple and you forget all about the deity.
So nado represents the invisible, which is everywhere. In music it is silence; in poetry it is not in words but in the wordless rhythm that lingers. And it only whispers; it is not very loud. Words are very loud, but nado is a fragrance; it is not even a flower. You cannot catch hold of it: you have simply to allow it to happen to you. You have to be just tuned in to it, available to it, in a passive alertness. So whether it is music or painting or poetry the goal is always nado; and if nado is achieved, god is achieved.

That is why Zen people tried to go into meditation through many many arts -- calligraphy, painting, sculpture, gardening, flower arrangements, archery even. Zen has done something immensely creative. No other religion has been able to rise to such heights of creativity; all other religions have remained poor in that way. And the height consists of only one thing: Zen people became aware that nado can be achieved through as many ways as possible. It is not a question of what you do; it is a question of reading between the lines in whatsoever you are doing.
For example, in archery you are not to concentrate on the target; you are not to concentrate on being successful; you are not even to concentrate on the bow and the arrow. You are not to be a doer; you have to let it happen. You are just there, passively alert, and some unknown energy takes possession of you. Some unknown energy starts flowing through your hands, through the arrow, through the bow, and you are not motivated at all towards reaching the target. There is no question of it; it is as if the arrow on its own reaches the target. But whether it reaches or not is irrelevant; the real thing is that you were not a doer -- you allowed it to happen. Whenever somebody allows something to happen, nado descends, and that is the whole secret of meditation.
It can happen walking if you simply allow the walking. You are not going somewhere... just for a morning walk, with no hurry, with no motive; with not even health as the motive. There is no motive at all -- it is just for the sheer joy of the rising sun and the birds and the trees and the people and the dogs barking and the street warming up and people starting to move and the trees waking. With just the sheer joy of this beautiful, waking morning you are in a let-go, and you will be in nado!

Osho -The Sacred Yes, # 8