Introduction (Part 2)
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org, please feel free to visit the school website)
Continued from part 1. Click here.
It should be
noted here that there is a serious drawback in writing and communicating
an idea, and especially in writing about creativity. Creativity is usually
impulses and instincts that carry a certain—if not emotional, then
certainly intellectual—essence; a rightness and a directed purpose
or wholeness. But words are a different medium, and written and spoken words
are even different from each other. For that reason many great creative
thinkers have had great difficulty and an aversion to expressing themselves
in language. They can express themselves in symbolic representation—pictures,
visual medium, music, numbers and so forth. But words are relatively ineffective
in explaining or defining anything not so material, unless it be through
the use of symbolic writing, i.e. metaphor, analogy etc… In fact,
many creatives, when entering or existing in that world of imaginative non-tangibles,
find themselves temporarily at a loss when forced to confront a material
picture. (This is manifest in the anecdotes of Einstein staring at a doorknob
for several moments as he tried to understand what it was for.)
Creativity is a “radical act of freedom.” This freedom is not
achieved by mining in shafts already well explored. It resides in the realms
of the unknown. Creativity holds both pleasure and pain. The pleasure can
be immeasurable and is accompanied by an inevitable opening of perspectives
and new ideas, almost as if a new road has been forged in the pathways of
our thinking, giving us more freedom and access to cover more and different
terrain in our explorations. However, creativity can be dangerous in the
sense that we must be ready and willing to accept rejection and disapproval,
including dissatisfaction with old ways of seeing and thinking, perhaps
even a degree of disenfranchisement from people, lifestyles and activities
that no longer fit within our new and broader (perhaps deeper) perspectives.
As an extreme example, think of Galileo, whose creativity evoked questions
that led him to upset the established “facts” of the day that
were established by science and the church. He suggested that the world
was round and that the planets revolved around the sun rather than the Earth.
He was actually arrested, stood trial and had to retract his statement if
he did not want to face dire consequences.
Consider for a moment that you have suddenly been inspired that a certain
key fact upon which our society and scientific knowledge, both as controlled
and defined by a higher authority as the Church, in this instant, is wrong.
Suppose that you began an inquiry as to why certain people are more susceptible
to colds, or melancholy, and delve into the little known or understood science
of the brain. Here you are led through sudden insight into great discoveries
that demonstrably prove that the earth and its people are an insignificant
sub-species among a larger cluster population of intelligent beings, whose
primary philosophy and society is based on the fact that living beings are
not created equal. There is, in fact, a genetic code that predetermines
value and usefulness to advance society and therefore all roles are predetermined
and opportunities will be defined, controlled and limited. Though an exact
analogy is perhaps impossible, this breadth and implication of such a scenario
is at least parallel with Galileo’s dilemma.
His knowledge broke the back of everything the known world believed about
itself and the “natural” command and order of the power structures.
He found himself, while able to prove the assertion, without friend, neighbor
or family to encourage or comfort him, for his discovery threatened them,
their beliefs and status as well.
While few of us need fear that our pursuit of unlocking creativity within
ourselves will set the world on its edge, be assured that it will, at some
point, undoubtedly set our world on its edge. Imagine the struggles
of blacks and abolitionists within slave societies, or of feminists bound
by law and custom in a traditional marriage. “The strokes of genius
are but the outcome of a continuous habit of inquiry that grasps clearly
and distinctly all that is involved in the simple things that anyone can
understand.” (Bernard J. F. Lonergan) Many who have questioned and
have evolved their thinking to find ideas and ways, better than an accepted
and established tradition, have encountered turbulence amid a sometimes
untenable situation. Employment, relationships, religion… day to
day expectations of order and structure are invariably affected within our
thinking and so affect our ability to function comfortably within them.
Ken Wilbur, in The Spectrum of Consciousness (1977), proposes that
there should be A Grand Unification Theory of Consciousness, just as a Grand
Unification Theory was developed in physics to reconcile and unite the various
demonstrable theories that existed within entirely different camps of thought.
This Grand Unification Theory would reconcile Western and Eastern philosophies
together with the sciences of physiology and psychology that have presented
us with certain ideas and data.
William James, in his oft quoted literary works says, “Our normal
waking consciousness is but one special type of consciousness, while all
about it and parted from it … there lie potential forms of consciousness
entirely different. We may go through life without suspecting their existence,
but apply the requisite stimulus and at a touch they are there in all their
completeness.” What is the touch or stimulus that unifies these seemingly
disparate forms of consciousness? Certainly, times of great stress, or need,
or despair or hope have parted those “flimsiest of films”, and
have broken through that perspective we insist on to provide ourselves and
others what we needed.
In a way, a certain kind of stubbornness is in play here. Though that seems
an odd word to describe something that our understanding tells us is very
unusual—the sudden appearance of new insights and avenues of thought
that seem to come “from nowhere”—it does indeed seem,
at bottom line, to be nothing more than our own stubborn insistence on believing
a certain thing that deprives us from bounteous fields of creative inspiration.
James continues his observation: “No account of the universe in its
totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite
disregarded. How to regard them is the question… At any rate, they
forbid our premature closing of accounts with reality.”
Our environment is flooded with numerous types of radiation: X rays, gamma
rays, cosmic rays, infrared, ultraviolet, etc., but we don’t see them.
That doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Once we discovered these
and became aware of them, we swiftly developed ways to harness and use them:
microwave ovens, growing lamps, health care… Interestingly, all of
these are either profoundly different or subtly the same, depending on how
you look at them. The spectrum difference between ultraviolet and infrared
appear profoundly different when we put them on a chart and analyze them
with the spectrum of our own “seeing.” But what separates them
is the relatively minor amplitude of a wave or frequency, both of which
have little meaning to us who cannot recognize their presence anyway. The
difference is also profound if one tries to use X rays to cook a frozen
TV dinner. Of course, a major point in all this is the profound influence
of creativity upon others; that once the very first radiation outside of
the visible spectrum was discovered, it was fairly quickly that many were
discovered. In other words, once it was established as “there,”
it became easier for people to accept that other things could be “there”
too.
As with the spectrums of radiation, consciousness may be thought of to be
different band of vibration. Some, the “normal” or “everyday”
level of consciousness we employ, is scarcely aware enough to even be labeled
as consciousness. Most of our daily activities are carried about in a state
of automatonic habit without any real conscious choice or perception taking
place.
As there are differing
levels of vibrational consciousness, so the methods of approaching, cognizing
and relating to and tapping into these levels are varied. One may study
Buddhism or Christianity or both. Neither is “right” or “wrong”
and both access and are directed to differing types of awareness. These
levels of awareness affect the way we function, for we act in accordance
with our perspective. To refer to the earlier examples of the radiation
spectrum, we generally see what we’re expecting to see. If we don’t
expect possibilities, we don’t find possibilities. If we are limited
to unquestioningly reacting to what we believe is established as fact—from
the occurrence of natural phenomena to the behavior of individuals and organizations—then
we, for the most part, do not and cannot play a truly active part in our
own existence. While there is ample evidence of our material lives being
affected by our creative consciousness projecting outward, there is also
the matter of our perception of the material world being creatively affected
and thus enriching our lives.
As an example, some years ago, the Christian Science Monitor newspaper ran
a series on art in the inner city. Through the exploration, which involved
giving art materials to poor inner-city youth. The expectation was, undoubtedly,
to see the gritty poverty and struggle for existence through the eyes of
those experiencing it. But the astonishing result was—if not epitomized—then
aptly illustrated in one result: a soft-focus, black and white photograph
of dust floating through the light of a dirty, cracked window. Not only
was this not a dramatic struggle illustrated harshly, this was
art. And beyond art, here was beauty, imaginatively created through a perspective
that the readers and project coordinators could not have anticipated. That
is, not only was the anticipated result not experienced, but in this instance
those who were anticipating a certain preconceived result were forced to
reexamine their own perceptions, as in “What is beauty?” and
“Where do I look for beauty?” Here, some very intelligent and
thoughtful people came up against one of their unconscious “walls,”
a barrier of prejudice, a preconceived expectation that limited their view
and therefore their understanding—a barrier in perception that infringed
upon their daily expectation and experience.
Ultimately, the goal of unlocking creativity in ourselves is for us to tear
through these barriers. Each of us, as a specifically attuned instrument,
will respond better or more readily to a particular approach. A particular
key sentiment or structure may resonate more strongly within us. And we
need to be aware enough of ourselves to know not only when such devices
are attuned to our natures, but to also know our own strengths and weaknesses
in terms of where we intrinsically rebel against a prescribed “formula”
of activity in our lives, and where we lazily accept a status quo, even
if it seems innocuous or justifiable. In fact, it is usually the very things
that we casually accept in the day-to-day routines of our lives that provide
the most opportunity for changing, and practicing change in, our thinking.
This self knowledge lends itself to developing our own “instinctive
knowing,” a feeling about where and how to begin, where and how to
turn, what and when to unlock and let go.