The unmanifest canvas: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on the arts, creativity, and perception 1970-2006

The unmanifest canvas: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on the arts, creativity, and perception 1970-2006

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi has a unique and holistic view of art, creativity and perception, and his contributions to the discipline over more than 40 years have been profound. His ideas about art and the education of artists have attracted the attention of some of the best minds of their generation, and artists, scholars and historians have engaged him in a lively dialogue of investigation and creative understanding. These ideas are expressed here in the form of 22 lectures and written statements.

At the basis of Maharishi’s contribution is his introduction of the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi program to artists around the world and his exploration of what this practice could mean to their personal and professional lives. As evidenced in this book, this natural and easy program of personal development provides a systematic method for accessing the field of pure consciousness, the field of infinite creativity and the basis for enhanced perception, thereby spontaneously developing the creative potential of the artist as well as providing a fundamental platform upon which he or she can live a healthy, productive and blissful life.

Maharishi’s views on art and the importance of his Vedic Science for the arts and human creativity have revolutionized the disciplines of art and education, and his emphasis on the 'art of living' provides a remarkable model for integrating the best of art practice while living the fullness of a creative life. As Maharishi reasons:

'In order to express creative intelligence we do not have to take a brush to a piece of paper or a hammer to a stone. Creative intelligence sings the glory of life in every phase of perception and action. There is a wave of creative intelligence, and life expresses itself through that wave. In order to be creative, we do not have to start writing. Living life is the expression of the full value of creative intelligence.

'Not allowing ourselves to be dumped into the inertia of stresses and strains and suffering—this is the art of living, and this belongs to the developed value of creative intelligence…What we are—that is the expression of our life. The artist, scientist, economist—they commonly belong to the professional value of creative intelligence, but the real art of displaying the full value of life lies in how much life we express in every thought, word, and action.'

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