Let’s talk about some piece of music or work of art that comes out of connectedness with Stillness, or Presence. To some extent, the work of art or the piece of music still carries that energy field. It can put [one] in touch with the deeper dimension within. But there’s a little bit of an opening required. If there’s only the density of the ego, then the transformational possibilities of art or music are not realized.

A little opening is required in the viewer, or the listener, and then it can be quite a wonderful thing to listen to music or to contemplate a work of art. You can be transported, if only for a moment, into that alert stillness out of which it originally came. That’s a beautiful thing.

Another aspect is ‘losing oneself’ — going too deep, almost losing oneself in the ground out of which creativity comes. In the creative process, there’s always a balance that’s needed, so that you don’t lose yourself in Being. It could happen to an artist, it can happen to some people who awaken spiritually — they suddenly plunge so deeply into Being that they lose all interest in doing. […]

As long as you go within, and give form to that which is resting in the formless, be used by it — so that through you it can come into this world of form. Don’t stay down there and lose yourself in it — that’s not necessary. […]

You can see it wherever it is — no matter in what form it is hiding. You can see the truth shining through wherever it is hiding.

– Eckhart Tolle

Artwork by Robert Ryman