Selected Questions and Answers
Lead
a Life of Fulfilling
Worldly Duties
While Practicing Spirituality
Q: Dear Master, why are creative people such as artists and writers often mentally or emotionally disturbed? Is it because most of them are trying to create something without doing spiritual practice, meaning without having God's blessing and love? Or is this just a part of their karma?
M: Not all of them are disturbed. Disturbed people are disturbed anyway, be they artists or not. The reason you notice that artists are disturbed is because artistic people are more famous and are more in the public's gaze. If a normal person is disturbed somewhere, like if your neighbor is disturbed, you probably don't notice because you don't even know they're there. It's not that they're artists and so are more disturbed. It's not like that. That's one thing.
Another thing is probably that artistic people are more "in the clouds." They live in their own worlds, are more into creative things, and are much more oblivious to mundane problems and practical ways of living. So when they have to deal with these things, they kind of get confused. The pressure is too much for them. The pressure is too much for many of us, but because we work in the world every day, we're more used to or more immune to it.
But artists or creative people are more in their own world, more into the beautiful things they create. Or they try to create beautiful things, and they're just more into the beauty and the music and so on. And when they have to crash into the harsh reality of mundane living - like making money, paying the rent and paying the bills - they become almost alarmed and probably don't know very well how to deal with it. So it seems as if they're out of the ordinary. But if it were us, we'd be the same way.
It's just that the reality and the dream are much different sometimes, and some people can't balance the practical, mundane life of dealing with money and bills with the beauty of their inner creativity. So there's a little balancing that they need to learn, and some people don't know how - not just artists - anyone. Some people are more emotional and others are less emotional. Some people are more on the inside of dreaming; others are more practical and down to earth. And if we don't balance these two, we'll be in trouble, any of us.
That's why it's better for you to meditate and go into the inner world of beauty, but continue with your worldly obligations. In that way, you're more balanced. Even all the resident practitioners in the Centers, I make them work, too.
There's a time to meditate, to go into God's kingdom, and there's a time to bring that blessing out and to operate in the world. Otherwise you lose touch with the physical world, and whenever you have to go back to get in touch with it again, you become confused, and that's how people think you're disturbed.
