What Constitutes a Genuine Creation?

Vladimir – Here you are, Anastasia, answering questions from readers, and you speak of human as a creator, but you’re a woman, don’t you see? You know what the leader of one of our religious denominations said about women?”

Anastasia – “What did he say?”

Vladimir – “He said that women are incapable of creating – their proclivity; then, is to look beautiful and inspire men to various achievements and creativity; but it is only men that do the actual creating.”

Anastasia – “But you, Vladimir, do you agree with statements such as those?”

Vladimir – “One could agree with them, I suppose. You know about statistics, which is an impartial science. Well, if you go by statistics, you come up with this”

Anastasia – “What?”

Vladimir – “Andrei Rublev, Surikov, Vasnetsov, Rembrandt and other famous artists were all men – there simply aren’t any women among them – at least, I don’t recall any women artists. The inventors of the airplane, the car, the electric engine, the space satellite, the rocket-ship – they’re all men, too. Right now one of the most popular art-forms in our society is the cinema, and in order to produce a film you need a director, and he’s one of the most important figures in film-making. And once again, all the best film directors are men. Occasionally you find a woman director, but they’re very rare. And unlike men, they don’t produce any really outstanding films. And the best musicians are invariably men, just like the philosophers – both the ones we know from antiquity and in our modern world – they’re men, too.”

Anastasia – “But why are you telling me all this, Vladimir?”

Vladimir – “Well, I just had a thought. Maybe it’ll help you.”

Anastasia – “What is your thought? Could you share it with me?”

Vladimir – “It’s like this. Maybe you, Anastasia, should concentrate more on some kind of home improvement here, along with child-raising, and not burden yourself down so much with concerns about the outside world and other people – after all, men can take care of everything there. Men alone, according to statistics, which is an exact and impartial science. Historically, too, all the important things have been done by men, and we can’t get away from history. Do you understand how irrefutable this argument is?”

Anastasia – “I understand what you are saying, Vladimir.”

Vladimir – “Just don’t you go and get upset, now. Better understand everything right off the bat, so that you can busy yourself with your own affairs and not with those that others can do better. You’re trying to change the world for the better, but only men can do that, you see – they are better inventors and better creators than women. Do you agree?”

Anastasia – “Vladimir, I agree that men appear outwardly to be creators. If you look at it from a material viewpoint, that is.”

Vladimir – “What do you mean, “outwardly”? And from what other viewpoint can you look at irrefutable facts? You’d better not get philosophising here. Just tell me out-and-out: can you at least create something? For example, can you at least do embroidery? Can you embroider a beautiful design on a piece of fabric with a needle?”

Anastasia – “I would not be able to embroider a design with a needle.”

Vladimir – “Why not?”

Anastasia – “I would not be able to take a needle in my hands. A needle that has been manufactured out of the depths of living Nature. What is the point of creating something if it involves first destroying a great, living creation? Think, Vladimir, when a demented person takes a work by one of the Great Masters, as you said, and rends the canvas to pieces to cut out rabbit figures, would you call his actions creativity, making an allowance for his dementia? But if another person, this one rational and aware of what is around him, did the same thing, then his actions would be defined in quite a different way.”

Vladimir – “How?”

Anastasia – “Think about it. For example, his actions could be termed vandalism.”

Vladimir – “Come on, now; you’re not serious?! Does that mean that all creators and artists are vandals?”

Anastasia – “They are artists and creators in their perception of the world as seen on their own level. But if their consciousness should rise to a higher level, they would create by entirely different means.”

Vladimir – “And what ‘different’ means would these be?”

Anastasia – “The means by which the Creator has created all in His own impulse of inspiration. And the power to perfect His creations and to make new creations of their own is something.

He has given to human, to human alone.”

Vladimir – “And just how did the Creator create everything? And what instrument did he give to Human for creativity?”

Anastasia – “Thought is the chief instrument of the Great Creator. And thought has been given to human. Creations are true when thought is brought to fruition through the soul and intuition and feelings, and the main factor here is and will always be the purity of one’s awareness.

“Look how the little flowers thrive at our feet their splendid shapes and colours and tints are constantly changing in creation alive. These are something you can perfect with your thought. Concentrate, try to change them, give them a better look.”

Vladimir – “What look? For example?”

Anastasia – “Indulge your fantasy, Vladimir.”

Vladimir – “Well, I can at least do that. Let this camomile here, for example, take on one red petal, and the next one stay as it is, so the alternation will make it better, more cheery.”

And all at once Anastasia fell stock still. She began concentrating her gaze on the white camomile. And you know, the camomile – slowly and quietly as could be, but still, right before my eyes – began to change its colours. There they were, alternating – first there was a red petal, then a white, then a red one again. At first the red petals were barely noticeable, then the colour became stronger, and the red hue kept getting brighter and brighter until finally they were simply blazing with a shining red radiance.

Anastasia – “You see how it happened, Vladimir – you came up with the idea, and I created it all with my thought.”

Vladimir- “What are you saying, Anastasia – that everybody can do this?”

Anastasia – “Yes! And they are doing it. But they use material for this, which they first slay, and dead material can only deteriorate. So mankind through the ages has struggled to stop his creations from deterioration, even as human thought becomes more and more preoccupied with just plain rot, and human has no time to think about what constitutes genuine creation.

Everything is preceded first by thought. It is only with time that it gets embodied in matter or the changing strands of the social order. But whether they are creating for better or for worse they do not immediately understand.

Look how you wanted to change the colour of the camomile’s petals. I changed them with my thought – the camomile obeyed human’s thought. But look closely now, did you really think up something better? More perfect than it already was?”

Vladimir – “In my view, it’s splashier and more cheerful.”

Anastasia – “But why are you not excited when you talk about the new Creation?”

Vladimir – “I don’t know, maybe it’s because there’s still something lacking, maybe some kind of colours I can’t tell right now.”

Anastasia – “The colours have come into conflict with each other – the tenderest tints have paled for the sake of splashiness. A loud splashiness fails to evoke calm and tender feelings.”

Vladimir – “Okay; okay. Try to change everything back the way it was.”

Anastasia – “It is not I that shall do it, but the camomile itself will be able to. The red will fall away. After all, we did not slay the camomile. It is alive. Nature itself will bring everything back to a state of harmony where it can thrive.”

Vladimir – “So, in your view, Anastasia, are all men ignorant vandals and are women the creators?”

Anastasia – “All men and women are one – in each of them two principles merge into a single one. And in the creativity they feel, they are inseparable – earthly existence is there for them both.”

Vladimir – “But how can that be? I don’t understand. I, for example, I am only a male of the species.”

Anastasia – “And what do you consist of, Vladimir? The flesh of a male and the flesh of a female have merged into one, they are united in you; similarly the spirit of two has merged into one spirit within you.”

Vladimir – “Then why do people go and state in treatises exactly what a woman is and what a man is, and state which of them is stronger and more important?”

Anastasia – “Think about it yourself, who would want to, and for what purpose, replace your awareness your consciousness which the Creator gave to everyone in the beginning – with his own dogma?”

Vladimir – “Well maybe the Creator just happened to give someone more than others, and this person, as a teacher, is striving to share his wisdom and awareness with everyone?”

Anastasia – “Every little sprout on the Earth the seed of a birch tree, a cedar tree or a flower – is filled with the knowledge of the Creator. So how could the thought come to you that the Creator could deign to withhold something from His Supreme Creation? What could be more insulting for a Father than a complaint like that?”

Vladimir – “What are you talking about? I’m not complaining about anyone. I was just consulting with myself, thinking out loud.”

From the book of Vladimir Megre “The Space of Love”