Question: Can an artist realise the Supreme through the perfection of his art?

Sri Chinmoy: You have to know what kind of art he creates. Suppose I am an artist and I have drawn a cucumber. It is an excellent cucumber because I am very fond of cucumbers. Immediately you can see that it is a cucumber; even a blind person can see it. But no matter how perfect a cucumber I draw, it cannot give me realisation. Impossible! Suppose I drew a wonderful chair. Even a child could say, “Oh, yes, it is a beautiful chair"’ But by drawing this chair I am not going to realise God. Everybody will say it is perfect; even if a carpenter examines it, he will say that it is perfect. Perfection is there, but this perfection is not going to give me God-realisation.

I have to know, while I am creating art, how much soul’s height I have. I may be a very bad artist, the worst artist in the world, and I may not draw well at all. But what is important is how much of my intense aspiration is in my effort to create. Not the creation itself, but how much aspiration I have used will take me to God.