The agony of creation: its origin and death. Part 1

Open Yoga Journal

































































































































Realizing a creative idea, quite often we are confronted with a situation where at first, everything goes “like clockwork”, and then at some point we get stuck and can’t move forward. This state is sometimes called “the agony of creation”. Why does it happen? Why, in some cases, we can easily bring our ideas to life and in others we are fighting over them and cannot find a resolution? What is the nature of creativity and what does it depend on? We will try to understand these questions by resorting to the teachings of Yoga.

Creativity is not intrinsic to art only!


Strangely enough, even if we don’t consider ourselves creative natures – we don’t write manuscripts, music, poetry and we don’t create masterpieces of art, it doesn’t mean that we can’t feel the “agony of creation” because creativity is not an exclusive privilege of artists. Developers, engineers, inventors, scientists, mathematicians and even doctors – anyone who creates something or makes a new discovery may face this difficulty. We all know the funny story of how Newton struggled for a long time over the discovery of his law, until one day an apple fell on his head – and it dawned on him!

“I keep the subject constantly before me, and wait ’till the first dawnings open slowly, by little and little, into a full and clear light.” Sir Isaac Newton, English physicist, mathematician


It turns out that creativity is something broader, going far beyond the common boundaries of our perception of art. Quite often we are not fully aware of the deep essence of the creative process. The teaching of yoga tells that the ability to create is intrinsic to each one of us from the moment of our own creation.

The ability to create is our original ability that we inherited from the Absolute itself!

According to the axioms of yoga, at the time of Creation, the Absolute ided Itself into an infinite number of independent particles – Higher Selves, remaining at the same time a single entity. He endowed each Higher Self with all his qualities and abilities to the full. One such ability is creativity! This ability is colossal, like the Absolute itself and has no limits. But we often do not know about our creative abilities and do not know how to use them. That is because the Absolute gave us complete, unconditional freedom from everything, even from the knowledge of our capabilities. Therefore, we are free to dispose of our ability to create as well as to know nothing about it. It is because of our primordial freedom that we are subject to ignorance and are mistaken in believing that we have some limitations in manifesting ourselves.

If we do not know about the presence of some qualities in ourselves, this does not mean that we do not possess them or there is something we can’t do!

“Do you know the expression “you can’t jump above your head”? It’s a delusion. A man can do anything.” Nikola Tesla, Serbian, American inventor and physicist.

Will and prana are the necessary components for the creative process!


Just like the Absolute Itself, we create our own Universe every moment, even if we are not aware of it. We do this by means of our will – the quality that we also inherited from the Absolute. Our Higher Self has unlimited power and is capable of creating in any of its multifaceted aspects, should we express our will! The fact that we do not feel the full force of this ability to create through the expression of will, is just an indicator that we are not yet aware of our Higher Self. Out of ignorance, we consider ourselves to be our manifestations: we identify ourselves with our body, mind, emotions — anything, except for the omnipotent particle of the ultramundane  Absolute. However, we have something that can help us understand our original power and reveal all the abilities that we have embedded in us – this is our life force, prana.

Prana is the very first manifestation of our Higher Self that connects it with our bodies, giving us the opportunity to be alive, manifest and create in this world. When the level of prana is low, we are not in the mood for creativity and we don’t confront any “agony of creation”. Prana in this case is consumed primarily to maintain our life, health, neutralize possible ailments.  When the level of Prana increases, we often feel its excess as a surge of strength, “spouting” vitality and inspiration! The more prana we possess, the more we feel our will and we act more confidently and become charismatic. We are more aware of our Higher Self and in all our actions we rely on it, feeling our power, comprehending new knowledge about ourselves and about the world around us. In such an elevated, sublime state, we increasingly discover our ability to create in various areas.

But in other cases, the thought dawns on us suddenly, without effort, as inspiration.” Hermann Helmholtz, German scientist


In a similar way, under the effect of higher inspiration, the history of mankind has seen world-wide recognized masterpieces of art and great scientific discoveries, when suddenly, truth disclosed to men from nowhere, and they embodied it in a real form, in a formula, or deduced another law and created a piece of art.

To be continued in the next article.

Authors: Olga Belous

Author of the picture: Svetlana Ulybina

Editors: Anna Prema, Evgenia Lakshmi, Eva Rati, Maria Gayatri, Alla Taruna

Chief editor: Mirra

Project curator: Kerigona

Translators: Nat Satcitananda, Alex Vijaya, Teya Sweet

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