"The words are merely a catalyst to the real formulation which takes place in the reader." So beautiful, and so true. Jean Klein was not only one of the best teachers of real spirituality in the nondual tradition, but also one of the best commentators on art and literature. His perspective and words on our real nature, and on awakening, were inseparable from his perspective on artistic and creative practices and productions. And he was of course himself a musicologist and an accomplished musician. I find this combination of qualities to be utterly winsome.
A similar case is found in Rupert Spira, who was one of the most widely renowned modern ceramicists before moving into full-time spiritual teaching. His art and his teaching both flow from the same source and understanding, and mutually illuminate each other. Just yesterday, btw, he released a short video titled "Poetry: Expressing the Inexpressible," that might be of interest. It shows him in private conversation with a Chinese poet who asks for some advice regarding his attempts to translate one of Rupert's poems into Chinese. Rupert says things like this: "A poem is much more than just the meaning of the words. Don’t think of my version as something static. It's fluid, and therefore the translation should also be fluid. In your translation, you are really trying to do the same as I was in the original: to express the inexpressible....If you feel that in order honor the incantatory aspect of the poem, that you have to depart from the original language, the original form, the original structure, the original order of verses, then feel free to do so." https://youtu.be/CVEMHXpp9rk?si=bEm0nN_DzYz0Y0j9
Matt, I find the idea of a poem being more than just its words—fluid and open to interpretation—really resonates. It’s like art and spirituality are two sides of the same coin, each enhancing the other.
It’s fascinating how art and spirituality intertwine like that. Do you think a deep understanding of one’s inner nature naturally enhances creative expression, or is it the other way around?
The question is a deep one, isn't it? I think ultimately creative expression and spirituality are mutually enhancing. It's not a one-way street. Each can enhance the other. However, it's also the case that a dose of real awakening can sometimes disrupt a person's creativity and lead to a sense of quietude or becalmedness as the vision or insight integrates, because all action can come to seem useless or superfluous in the light of the Absolute and the realization that one's individual identity is a kind of projection. Maybe this is just a stage. But it's a deeply important passage in a person's creative and spiritual life.
This is actually a subject that has occupied my attention for many years. I've written about it several times in my newsletter. For example:
The Wisdom of Silence in the Age of Online Writing
A couple of my main writings about it are behind the paywall. The potential conflict between spirituality and creativity is also the subject of the second part (out of three) in the new book that I'm currently writing and developing, in which I incorporate material originally published at my Substack (and elsewhere). The title is Writing at the Wellspring.
Thank you for the encouragement, Michelle! I was deeply inspired by Campbell as well. I hope my forthcoming book speaks to your interests. I will soon start serializing some of it at my newsletter, while also giving updates on the progress of the book proposal and publication process.
Yes indeed. That’s a profound observation—how creativity and spirituality feed into each other, yet can also clash at times.
It makes sense that a deep spiritual awakening could disrupt creative flow, as if the realization of something greater than the self might make previous creative impulses seem trivial.
But maybe that stillness is necessary, a phase where the new insights need time to settle before they can inspire fresh creativity.
Thanks for sharing such a thoughtful perspective! Also, it seems like my question brought you new readers-I'm glad! And yes, to deep questions, that's why we are on Substack right? 😊 Thank you for the links, I will check the out.
Words have baggage, loaded down with often incongruous connotations. Depending on context or etymological orgins or history, there are millions of nuances in a single word. AND SOUND. Each one vibrating in a frequency unique from all other words because, essentially words, and their cousins, ideas, are bundles of totally individualized energy.
Thank you! This post struck a nerve within me of how the reader interacts with the words of a poem. Fifty-six years ago sitting in my high school English class, I had a teacher who was as narrow minded as they come. He asked for our interpretation of a Robert Frost poem. When he called on me, I gave him an answer how I interpreted the meaning to be. Without any question to why I thought what I said, he abruptly cut me off to tell me I was further from the truth than anyone could possibly be. I replied by telling him that poetry was meant to invoke different perspectives to many people. He then began to admonish me in front of the class after turning to the notes for teachers at the back of his manual, and read what Frost's real interpretation of the poem was, written by another academic. One other time, for an assignment, we had to write a poem expressing an inner pain we felt. I did. It was about rape. He said it was garbage. It went something like this:
My never forgotten lover,
Broken by that four letter word f-u-c-k.
The sun rose, when it set, my world turned black
And was left no day.
Words upon words, I lay on once more
Promises of a life all gone with the morn
When that day arrived, a boy came with promises in poem,
He was wild with rage, crazy and scorned.
Telling me of his world where I will not mourn.
The boy made me a woman, the boy killed my life
Flying in mid-air he slashed my soul with his knife.
Crude I know, I was 17, but this teacher's words and actions almost completely destroyed my ability to ever write again. ✍️
I'm glad to have found platforms such as yours where people are not admonished to express their inner selves.
Ahh. That is the song, the music, and the dance that occurs between the musician, the poet lauriat of the cosmos who can read the notes and can create new. I could see glimpses of light through the fog. It is becoming clearer with practice.
Jean Klein was an early (and continuing) influence in my spiritual unfolding. For those who might like a bit of information about him from Wikipedia:
Jean Klein (October 19, 1912 – February 22, 1998) was a French author, spiritual teacher and philosopher of Nondualism and Neo-Advaita. According to Jean Klein, it is only in a "spontaneous state of interior silence that we can open ourselves to our true nature: the 'I Am' of pure consciousness."
Biography
Jean Klein was born in Berlin and spent his childhood in Brno and Prague. He studied musicology and medicine in Vienna and Berlin, becoming a physician. Having left Germany in 1933 for France, he secretly worked with the French Resistance in the Second World War. After the war, Klein again left for India to study Yoga and Advaita Vedanta for three years. During those three years he met a spiritual teacher of Advaita, Pandit Veeraraghavachar Rao, a scholar at the Sanskrit College in Bangalore, and returned to the West to become a spiritual teacher himself. He died in 1998 in Santa Barbara, California.
Poetry is what poetry brings. There is nothing to analyze. It’s not is a poem …good. It’s what was the poem good for? What did it open up inside of the reader? What did the poem bring out in us? It’s definitely more magical when the words are read out loud. Poetry opens up the spaces where transformation is possible. Listening beyond the eyes and ears out on the edges of being 🙏❤️
"The words are merely a catalyst to the real formulation which takes place in the reader." So beautiful, and so true. Jean Klein was not only one of the best teachers of real spirituality in the nondual tradition, but also one of the best commentators on art and literature. His perspective and words on our real nature, and on awakening, were inseparable from his perspective on artistic and creative practices and productions. And he was of course himself a musicologist and an accomplished musician. I find this combination of qualities to be utterly winsome.
A similar case is found in Rupert Spira, who was one of the most widely renowned modern ceramicists before moving into full-time spiritual teaching. His art and his teaching both flow from the same source and understanding, and mutually illuminate each other. Just yesterday, btw, he released a short video titled "Poetry: Expressing the Inexpressible," that might be of interest. It shows him in private conversation with a Chinese poet who asks for some advice regarding his attempts to translate one of Rupert's poems into Chinese. Rupert says things like this: "A poem is much more than just the meaning of the words. Don’t think of my version as something static. It's fluid, and therefore the translation should also be fluid. In your translation, you are really trying to do the same as I was in the original: to express the inexpressible....If you feel that in order honor the incantatory aspect of the poem, that you have to depart from the original language, the original form, the original structure, the original order of verses, then feel free to do so." https://youtu.be/CVEMHXpp9rk?si=bEm0nN_DzYz0Y0j9
Matt, I find the idea of a poem being more than just its words—fluid and open to interpretation—really resonates. It’s like art and spirituality are two sides of the same coin, each enhancing the other.
It’s fascinating how art and spirituality intertwine like that. Do you think a deep understanding of one’s inner nature naturally enhances creative expression, or is it the other way around?
🤔
The question is a deep one, isn't it? I think ultimately creative expression and spirituality are mutually enhancing. It's not a one-way street. Each can enhance the other. However, it's also the case that a dose of real awakening can sometimes disrupt a person's creativity and lead to a sense of quietude or becalmedness as the vision or insight integrates, because all action can come to seem useless or superfluous in the light of the Absolute and the realization that one's individual identity is a kind of projection. Maybe this is just a stage. But it's a deeply important passage in a person's creative and spiritual life.
This is actually a subject that has occupied my attention for many years. I've written about it several times in my newsletter. For example:
The Wisdom of Silence in the Age of Online Writing
https://www.livingdark.net/p/wisdom-of-silence-in-age-of-online-writing
The Endgame of Creative Pursuits: Reaching the Flashpoint of Stillness
https://www.livingdark.net/p/the-endgame-of-creative-pursuits
On Feeling the Call to Absolute Stillness
https://mattcardin.com/2023/05/09/on-feeling-the-call-to-absolute-stillness/
A couple of my main writings about it are behind the paywall. The potential conflict between spirituality and creativity is also the subject of the second part (out of three) in the new book that I'm currently writing and developing, in which I incorporate material originally published at my Substack (and elsewhere). The title is Writing at the Wellspring.
You write about an area and an experience and an exploration that fascinates me. Thank you for your writing. Please continue.
Thank you, Dominique. So glad it resonates.
🧡
Your insights are a wellspring! I will be exploring your work...much gratitude for it.
Thanks so much, my friend. 🙏
🧡
I devoured Joseph Campbell’s insatiable desire to understand the spark of the meeting of these two universes.
When he passed away, I have been looking for who would carry the torch.
Matt, I am quite hopeful for your book! 🧠🕊️🫀🫶🏻
Thank you for the encouragement, Michelle! I was deeply inspired by Campbell as well. I hope my forthcoming book speaks to your interests. I will soon start serializing some of it at my newsletter, while also giving updates on the progress of the book proposal and publication process.
Yes indeed. That’s a profound observation—how creativity and spirituality feed into each other, yet can also clash at times.
It makes sense that a deep spiritual awakening could disrupt creative flow, as if the realization of something greater than the self might make previous creative impulses seem trivial.
But maybe that stillness is necessary, a phase where the new insights need time to settle before they can inspire fresh creativity.
Thanks for sharing such a thoughtful perspective! Also, it seems like my question brought you new readers-I'm glad! And yes, to deep questions, that's why we are on Substack right? 😊 Thank you for the links, I will check the out.
Appreciate you, sol. And I hope the links reward your investment of time.
Words have baggage, loaded down with often incongruous connotations. Depending on context or etymological orgins or history, there are millions of nuances in a single word. AND SOUND. Each one vibrating in a frequency unique from all other words because, essentially words, and their cousins, ideas, are bundles of totally individualized energy.
I appreciate you sharing this.
🙏⚡❤🔥🤙
I'm glad it resonated, Celeste.
🧡
Wonderful! Thanks for this dditionall insight.
Thank you! This post struck a nerve within me of how the reader interacts with the words of a poem. Fifty-six years ago sitting in my high school English class, I had a teacher who was as narrow minded as they come. He asked for our interpretation of a Robert Frost poem. When he called on me, I gave him an answer how I interpreted the meaning to be. Without any question to why I thought what I said, he abruptly cut me off to tell me I was further from the truth than anyone could possibly be. I replied by telling him that poetry was meant to invoke different perspectives to many people. He then began to admonish me in front of the class after turning to the notes for teachers at the back of his manual, and read what Frost's real interpretation of the poem was, written by another academic. One other time, for an assignment, we had to write a poem expressing an inner pain we felt. I did. It was about rape. He said it was garbage. It went something like this:
My never forgotten lover,
Broken by that four letter word f-u-c-k.
The sun rose, when it set, my world turned black
And was left no day.
Words upon words, I lay on once more
Promises of a life all gone with the morn
When that day arrived, a boy came with promises in poem,
He was wild with rage, crazy and scorned.
Telling me of his world where I will not mourn.
The boy made me a woman, the boy killed my life
Flying in mid-air he slashed my soul with his knife.
Crude I know, I was 17, but this teacher's words and actions almost completely destroyed my ability to ever write again. ✍️
I'm glad to have found platforms such as yours where people are not admonished to express their inner selves.
I also have the same curriculum , I have a better explanation of that poem than my peers
Your poem lives on unveiled truth from within the realms of time.
Ahh. That is the song, the music, and the dance that occurs between the musician, the poet lauriat of the cosmos who can read the notes and can create new. I could see glimpses of light through the fog. It is becoming clearer with practice.
defines my attempt at writing poetry for sure, I must be on my way, lol
Jean Klein was an early (and continuing) influence in my spiritual unfolding. For those who might like a bit of information about him from Wikipedia:
Jean Klein (October 19, 1912 – February 22, 1998) was a French author, spiritual teacher and philosopher of Nondualism and Neo-Advaita. According to Jean Klein, it is only in a "spontaneous state of interior silence that we can open ourselves to our true nature: the 'I Am' of pure consciousness."
Biography
Jean Klein was born in Berlin and spent his childhood in Brno and Prague. He studied musicology and medicine in Vienna and Berlin, becoming a physician. Having left Germany in 1933 for France, he secretly worked with the French Resistance in the Second World War. After the war, Klein again left for India to study Yoga and Advaita Vedanta for three years. During those three years he met a spiritual teacher of Advaita, Pandit Veeraraghavachar Rao, a scholar at the Sanskrit College in Bangalore, and returned to the West to become a spiritual teacher himself. He died in 1998 in Santa Barbara, California.
Wise words. Thank you for sharing.
So perfect! Jean Klein's word and your words...
Poetry is what poetry brings. There is nothing to analyze. It’s not is a poem …good. It’s what was the poem good for? What did it open up inside of the reader? What did the poem bring out in us? It’s definitely more magical when the words are read out loud. Poetry opens up the spaces where transformation is possible. Listening beyond the eyes and ears out on the edges of being 🙏❤️
Another clue why some writing, and even some paintings. make me cry and I don't know why.
Only in this openness
This is great.