Eckhart Tolle

an excerpt transcript from the Findhorn Retreat

“…the original reason for all art is the sacred, to be a portal, an access point for the sacred… in it you see yourself reflected, the formless reflected, shining through the form, that is true art…“

Some music can have a divine function too… in some rare cases it still has.
Music that comes out of the stillness, that when you listen to music that came out of the stillness, whoever created it or whoever is playing it or singing it, it comes out of that state of consciousness, and then it assumes a form, and yet the form is fresh and new, and it has come out of that and the stillness still clings to it as a fragrance, it still emanates that, even if its sound.

And that’s the beauty of all art, true art, it reflects still that state of consciousness out of which it comes.

And then you have a lot of pseudo-art in this world where clever minds are trying to be even more clever – ‘lets think of something new, what can we do here? Maybe we can put that here or that could go there, that would look clever…’ They call it art, but it lacks something, its totally trapped in form, there’s only manipulating old forms, nothing new has come in, and nothing that can lead you back to the formless, which is the original reason for all art is the sacred, to be a portal, an access point for the sacred, so that when you see it or experience it, you experience yourself, in it you see yourself reflected, the formless reflected, shining through the form, that is true art, always there is more than what you see or hear…there is more than that, and that shines through the form, and that is what can happen to you, what is happening to you. Ultimately it’s not everybody’s purpose to create works of art, a few humans do that, that is their function, partly, in this world, but much more importantly is for you to become that work of art, your whole life, and you’re very being becomes transparent so that the formless can shine through, and that happens when you are no longer totally identified with the world of form, and that happens when you have access to the realm of stillness within yourself.

And then something emanates through the form that has nothing to do with the form, it may emanate only as a silent emanation and not assume any form as such… there have been very few in the past, holy people…

What is the new state of consciousness that is arising?
It is the state that is balanced – the two dimensions, the manifested and the unmanifested, balanced in a human being. And that is such a radical transformation that when a certain number of humans live in that way so they become what before was a work of art, you become the work of art, you become that which is transparent to the formless, the divine… that will change the entire world, the human-made world will be changed completely… the important thing is for us to enter that new state.
What that does to your story who knows?
You cannot predict, nor do you need to predict that. Are you going to become a great artist, are you going to win Wimbledon? Bear in mind that great artists and the tennis players are not enlightened masters – they have access to that which is greater than the limited human mind in the small field of their activity, and most of them, when they go back into normal life, away from where they have mastery, they are just as mad as everybody else – and sometimes even more mad – because sometimes the mind-made entity gets in there and looks at what they did and says ‘I did that, that was me’ – the greatest illusion. Then of course… the ego identifies with whatever came out of the state of no ego… and then begins to believe what other people are saying about you, and that you are the greatest – they project their images of specialness onto you…

…where there’s even a glimpse of aliveness and freshness, yes there’s something there, and then the personality, the person comes back the moment they step back from the act of creation or the performance, they step back and there’s the old personality, and sometimes it’s a dreadful burden for some ability that comes from the non-personal realm to be integrated into the person, and they just can’t do it, it’s totally misperceived, just as the world misperceives it, and then they believe themselves to be very special – and there comes a huge conflict between power that comes out of the formless and the limited person that misinterprets it and claims something out of that.

The magic that comes from the formless realm into your life, when you look at our civilization, seems to be gone completely, because the civilization is almost totally not sacred, it is profane – it is a dreary burdensome structure that humans have created – when you look at the mainstream civilization. So many humans seem to be tired… there’s a weariness that they carry, the civilization is grinding them down, another day of pointless running around, and even those that are still running around, they know that it is pointless – what’s the point?

And so there are many reasons why the entire civilization is reaching a point of collapse, and one is that the humans that are still sustaining it, they can’t carry the burden of their self-created structures anymore – absurd complexity for the sake of complexity – mind created, just a reflection of their state of consciousness, in which there is no gap in the stream of one thought after another – the voice in the head that never stops speaking becomes a civilization that is obsessed with form, that is obsessed with things – and it therefore knows nothing of that which you could say is the most important dimension of human existence – the sacred – the stillness – the formless – the divine – all these have become meaningless in our civilization. And yet, many humans are beginning to realize what’s happening, and so there is in many a search for something else – and that number of humans is growing everyday – and that’s the beauty of it.

…you could say there is the canvas on which the perception is painted, there is a background of spacious stillness, that’s yourself, that’s the consciousness that you are – formless… there is something within you that recognizes the impermanent nature of all life forms… and the more you realize the impermanence of all forms, the more you are aware of the formless within yourself… awareness aware of itself.