Can the birds claim copyrights over their compositions?
Can the mountains claim credits for their magnificence?
Or, do the Northern Lights bother charging the audience for the show they put on?
Do the elements of existence, barring humans, even care about their uniqueness getting noticed?
The question of obtaining “rights” arises only when one assumes the role of a creator/originator of any idea/work or process. However, little does one bother to go behind the source of these “original” pieces of creation.
Stimulation of the senses and application of accumulated information is essential to set the process of creation in motion. When a poet is struck by the scenery of the clouds merging into the hills, his emotions get ignited and he comes up with a passionate formulation of words. Where is the database of these words and emotions? The first trigger is the stimulation of the senses. Next comes application on the basis of accumulated information. Those metaphors and analogies are supplied through the interconnections between the scene recorded, and the area of activation of the mind. Memory is set into action and the process of creation starts. When action precedes thoughts, the process is at its most efficient and one gets into “the flow”.
Every single idea, concept, or thought is drawn from the ever-existing database of the mind. If one looks closely, what is unique or original here? Has credit been given to those hills, flowers, sounds, and waterfalls for how they are? Have they been acknowledged for triggering that area of awareness in one’s subconscious mind? Where is the originality here, other than the jugglery of mental concepts? Aren’t humans just the product of their conditioning? Isn’t every mind composed of a similar background?
Who is supplying this raw material to all minds? Don’t we make the mistake of treating our mental content as unique, which in fact remains the same for everyone if variations of time, place, and context are catered to? Isn’t there this Universal Mind which is the source and the supplier of all that we play with? Aren’t the stories in one part of the world strikingly similar to the other if we just account for the contextual variations? Aren’t the primitive expressions of emotions the same across regions? Aren’t the questions in front of Man the same for ages? The Source is the same, how can anything new come up then?
This Universal Mind allows its content to be played with, used, and utilized. Whatever has been said, thought, done, felt, or produced will trace its origin to a common source. The same goes for the future. The context will always create a facade of uniqueness though and that is how illusions work.
Let us stop at the invocation of the Isa Upanishad :-
ॐ पूर्णमदः पूर्णमिदं पूर्णात्पूर्णमुदच्यते ।
पूर्णस्य पूर्णमादाय पूर्णमेवावशिष्यते ॥
ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः ॥
“That is full, this is full,
From that fullness comes this fullness,
If you take away this fullness from that fullness,
Only fullness remains”
What is present in that whole is present here too. Whatever is present here has been derived from that whole. That source. Which is ever full. The Sun of that universal mind illuminates the candles of all worldly minds. The same white light of reality is being reused by all of us . Nothing else,or “new” exists.
What propels creativity? Connecting with the Source of sources leads to those real and unique works. This process is beyond normal learning. All the greatness and beauty that has been unearthed to date is due to that direct connection, which just got established in those moments of mindfulness, when the intervening levels got short-circuited, leading one to the ultimate source.
No one can take away any credit from those individuals involved in the “wow” process – those ideas, works, and creations have made the world liveable and beautiful. At the same time , that white light which gets dispersed into various colors and allows us to play with different aspects of it – that too deserves salutations.
Copyrights are a necessity in a “short of time” world where people look to grab ideas from the intervening levels rather than opening up themselves and getting connected with the Universal Mind. However, the next time the musician, painter, photographer, or poet in you gets moved by appreciation, remember to be grateful to the elements of nature, your five senses, and the Universal Mind for helping you manifest a product from the ever-existing raw material. You are composed of that fullness which never hesitates in sharing its fullness. You too are full. Share your fullness and feel the abundance of being.
