"A creative person is one who has insight, who can see things nobody else has ever seen before" ❤️

Creativity | Sautoy, Osho & Cleese

#reflections

16th June 2025

This morning, I had reached college a bit early, just to spend some quiet time reading Osho’s lovely book titled, Creativity: Unleashing the Forces Within.

It is a real unputdownable read, you see! And yes, I strongly recommend this book to anyone who strives to steer down the highway of creativity.

I finished the first part titled, “Preparing the Canvas”, up until page 38, and placing the book on my office table, I had to quickly leave for a series of meetings in College.

But before that, had coffee in the Staff Tiffin Room with my lovely colleagues, Prof. David and Prof. Arun!

At 9.30 am, all the new office bearers for this academic year were introduced by our Principal Dr. Paul Wilson, in the Anderson Hall, and they were given their Letters of Appointment as well.

Then, at 10.30 am, we had the inauguration of the refurbished Council Room.

This was followed by the HoDs Meeting that started at 10.45 am and went on until 1.30 pm.

So happy and proud to share the good news that, our placements are at an all-time high - 98.2%

Moreover, a proposal was put forth for organizing ‘Green Events’ from this academic year.

Congratulations Ms. Benitta and Dr. Amirthavalli. We are so proud of you.

Our Principal also emphasized on the importance of Value Creation as Innovation!

Which gels well with what I was reading today on the topic of Creativity!

Hence this post! 😊

By 12 noon, I was so overjoyed to meet my classmate T. Karthikeyan from my school days – of more than 30 years ago, visiting me today in Campus.

TeeKay as we fondly call him.

I opened our Office, and made him comfortably seated there, gave him a cup of hot filter coffee, and then, handing him my copy of Osho’s Creativity, I promised that I will be back as soon as possible.

When I returned, I was so happy to see him engrossed in the book. He said the book is marvellous and highly inspiring.

Added reason for discussing the book here on our blogpost today.

Well, to Osho,

If you want to create, you have to get rid of all conditionings. You can create only if you are an individual, you cannot create as part of the mob psychology. The mob psychology is uncreative; it lives a dragging life, it knows no dance, no song, no joy; it is mechanical.

The creator cannot follow the well-trodden path. He has to search out his own way, he has to inquire in the jungles of life. He has to go alone; he has to be a dropout from the mob mind, from the collective psychology.

In the past, creators of all kinds – the painters, the dancers, the musicians, the poets, the sculptors, had to live a kind of bohemian life, the life of a vagabond; that was the only possibility for them to be creative,

says Osho.

Now, I would like to compare Osho’s take on creativity, with yet another 2019 book on Artificial Intelligence titled, The Creativity Code, by Marcus du Sautoy.

Marcus Sautoy defines creativity as follows - 

“Creativity is to come up with something that is new & surprising and that has value”.

Yet another book on Creativity, titled, Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide by John Cleese, has more interesting insights on the term.

To Cleese, Creativity is -

A new way of thinking about things. Most people think of creativity as being entirely about the arts—music, painting, theatre, movies, dancing, sculpture, etc., etc. But this simply isn’t so.

Creativity can be seen in every area of life—in science, or in business, or in sport. Wherever you can find a way of doing things that is better than what has been done before, you are being creative!

Cleese adds to say that,

The greatest killer of creativity is interruption. It pulls your mind away from what you want to be thinking about.

Research has shown that, after an interruption, it can take eight minutes for you to return to your previous state of consciousness, and up to twenty minutes to get back into a state of deep focus.

Once you start chasing away any distracting thoughts, you’ll discover, just like in meditation, that the longer you sit there, the more your mind slows and calms down and settles,

says Cleese.

Among the three we had discussed, I found Osho’s take quite relatable and appealing as well. So I add more from Osho -

A creative person is one who has insight, who can see things nobody else has ever seen before, who hears things that nobody has heard before – then there is creativity.

Once pathology disappears, everybody becomes a creator. Let it be understood as deeply as possible: only ill people are destructive.

The people who are healthy are creative.

Creativity is a fragrance of real health.

When a person is really healthy and whole, creativity comes naturally to him, the urge to create arises.

Consciousness is being, compassion is feeling, creativity is action. My vision of the new human being has to be all the three simultaneously. 

I am giving you the greatest challenge ever given, the hardest task to be fulfilled.

You have to be as meditative as a Buddha, as loving as a Krishna, as creative as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci.

You have to be all together, simultaneously. Only then your totality will be fulfilled; otherwise something will remain missing in you.

You can attain a very high peak if you are one-dimensional, but you will be only a peak.

I would like you to become the whole range of the Himalayas, not just a peak but peaks upon peaks,

says Osho.

Awesome, ain’t it!

To be continued…

PS: You may want to read more on Sautoy’s take on Creativity on our past blogpost HERE