In beginning a conversation about creativity, I would like to be clear about what I mean when I use the word. ‘Creativity’ is perhaps something most often associated with the capacity we have, as humans, to use our imagination to ideate, conceive, and bring forth new creations. This is certainly an aspect of creativity; however, I am using the word in a broader context to mean the process by which all things come into existence; the process that brings any kind of thought form or idea (new or old) from the non-physical to the physical.

The creative process is that which brings non-physical thoughts or ideas into the physical realm to appear as something that exists, and it is the process that first created, and continues to create, the Universe of which we are an inseparable part. It is a powerful, fundamental process; indeed, it is a mechanism of sorts. And although it is not a physical mechanism that can be seen and understood―like the engine in an automobile, for example―it is one that still has a reality as being non-physical, or psychic. It is a mechanism that enables creativity in every being or entity, no matter if that creativity is simply the process of making a cup of tea, or if it is the rolling out of a grand event called ‘Life on Earth’ in a Universe that we, as human beings, are a part.

There are some key components of the creative process that I would now like to name and explore. Of course, there are many words that could be used to explain or describe aspects of creativity, but the ones I have chosen to help us understand and continue our exploration are; information, imagination, idea, desire, intention, and attention. To define them:

Information is the ingredient that enables or facilitates the formation of ideas

Imagination is the act of playing around with that information

Idea arises from this playing around, this imagining

Desire is a strong feeling to experience something

Intention is an initiating force that begins the movement towards manifestation of an idea

Attention is a concentration, or focus, of energy that 'makes reality' wherever that focus is

So, for us to see how these components work together to become an ongoing creative process, lets now go in and have a closer look ...

Creativity is a process that essentially has two facets, aspects, or dimensions. The first is that which occurs by way of simply playing around with the first key component―information. And that information can be either psychic, or physical. Let me explain.

You will know from your own experience that you can work with, or play around with, information in your mind, which is to say, you can use your imagination to form new ideas. This is a mental, or psychic, process that is the reality of thinking and thought. In addition, you will also know from experience that you can work with, or play around with, things in the world around you―physical information―in the way you might have played in the sandpit as a child, or that as an adult you might play in the kitchen with various ingredients to discover a new dish to eat.

Whether psychic or physical, we can say that this kind of ‘playing around’ with information is an undirected or passive, imaginative undertaking, and anyone who might discover something new from this behaviour would certainly be considered to be very creative.

The other dimension of creativity is one that is more directed, or purposeful. It is an active process that brings into existence clear intentions that specifically make the physical world what it is. Together with the passive process, these two dimensions overlap and interact with each other to allow the full power of creativity that you experience and know.

For example, you might be thinking and wondering one day about a whole bunch of things (passive creativity), from which an idea will eventually arise to do something specific (active creativity). You then go about doing it, or making it, and when it is done, you get to experience the result. That result becomes information that then feeds back into a passive process of creativity from which another idea might then arise. And so on, and so on.

There is not much else to be said about passive creativity apart from the fact that it gives rise to new ideas. Active or directed creativity, however, is something quite different, and it can be broken down further to reveal the mechanism that is at work in greater detail.

To begin with, active creativity is a process that always begins with strong desire and clear intention. That intention may be there consciously as a result of a desire born of ideas formulated in the imaginative, thinking process of passive creativity, or it may have simply ‘popped’ into your awareness for reasons unknown. Either way, it is the beginning of a process.

An intention of its own accord, however, is something that is ‘not real’, in the sense that it is not substantial or physical, not yet manifest. And without it being real in this way, what it represents is of little experiential value to you.

For an intention to become real something else is required, some kind of energy input into the equation. Unless or until this occurs, nothing is ever going to happen. To give an example, if you are sitting around one day and an intention arises in you to make a cake, then that cake is not going to become real unless you do something about it. You can sit there all day, or for the rest of your life, but the cake is not going to manifest until you give it some energy that will then flow through you and move you to get up, gather the ingredients, mix them all together, and put this mixture in a tin in a heated oven for an appropriate period of time. This is how the idea then becomes real. Another word for the energy that is required to do this is attention. It is your attention to your intention that will get the job done.

Perhaps you are unaware of the process I have just described, and this may simply be because it is just something that happens so automatically and easily through you that you have never stopped to consider it. But whether you are aware of it or not, life will go on as an endless series of creative processes that bring about your experiences, for better or for worse. To better understand this process, and bring awareness to it, will help you create better experiences in your life.

To continue the ‘making a cake’ analogy, then what might be the point of such an exercise? Why would you, or anyone, want to make a cake?

The primary reason for making a cake is so that you get to eat it! Of course, you might not want to eat the cake at all; it might simply be your job to make it, or you may want to give it as a gift to someone else. But either way, the reason you made it―in the broader context―is so that you’d get to have an experience of the cake as a physical reality.

Many people are not aware of the fact, or do not believe, that they are powerful, creative beings. They may say things like, ‘Oh, I’m not a very creative person’, usually because they are not imaginative or artistic in some way. If you are one of these people, then I hope I can show you that it is simply not true. Everybody has ideas, desires, and intentions about the things they might want to do in life. They then go about making them happen as best they can. Some of those things might be very achievable, others more difficult. Some people are very successful in making their ideas happen, some meet limitations, others lose sight or hope entirely and get lost along the way. But no matter the outcome, it does not alter the underlying fact that you are a creative being capable of consciously experiencing your life as a function of what you intend. Everything you do in life is a function of this creativity. It is your own personal art and expression of energy as a contribution to the whole.

If you are feeling any resistance to this, or are having trouble seeing it, it is possibly because the process of creativity in you has not been sufficiently examined yet, and consequently, what I am saying sounds unreasonable. Perhaps it might be that what you are experiencing in your own life now is not very enjoyable, and it is inconceivable or unacceptable to you that you have played any intentional part in it. This is a very common resistance. Or, perhaps it may also be that so many things you do in life are just simply repeated behaviours and, therefore, they do not seem very ‘creative’. However, just because something is repeated does not mean that the event is not a creative act. The repetition of something is still the creation of that something in the moment, and this is a fundamental functionality of the creative mechanism.

Everything that exists in the world appears to you only because it is continually being created in the way that it appears. This creative repetition is what keeps the whole show rolling and gives consistency and continuity to your experience. Without it, your body and the physical world around you would disintegrate, or rather, it would not even ‘integrate’ in the first place. Everything you can see in the world is being created the way it is, in every living moment, always.

To define it, then, the creative process is simply one of ideas being made real for the purpose of experiencing them. This experience becomes knowledge, that can then be drawn upon to create new and different events when required at any time in the future. The movement of energy from thought to idea, through intention to attention, experience and more knowledge from which new idea might emerge describes a cycle, phase, or energy wave of creation that is the powerhouse of evolution.

A logical question that might arise in you now might be, ‘If it is intention for something that holds or continually creates itself as its own physical reality, then who or what is it that holds the intention, and therefore the reality, of this Earth and the body I find myself in?’

This is a brilliant question, and one that will be answered as the work develops. But the question I have for you right now is this; 'Can you identify and acknowledge these things we have been talking about in your own experience?’ To do so will be to position yourself for a faster, deeper understanding of both Yourself and the Universe.

Can you see and acknowledge that you can think and that ideas will appear or form within you? Can you see that from those ideas a desire may arise? Can you see that when a desire is sufficiently strong in you, it will become a clear intention that then moves you to do something about experiencing your idea? Can you see that this ‘something’ you are moved to do is that you begin to focus your attention on what needs to be done, and begin doing it? Can you see that over a period of time, and with a continued focus of your attention, you eventually bring into existence the reality of the initiating intention? Can you see that from the things you do, make, and experience in life, you then have the knowledge and capacity to make or do even more complex things in the future?

If you can see these things in your own experience, then they simply must be true for you; the truth for you.

So, for us to now understand creativity more deeply, would be to see that at the point where an intention is set to experience something, it effectively creates a potential or ‘invitation’ in the Universe―an opportunity for the idea to take place somewhere, sometime in the future. That inner intention is then met with conscious attention to the matter from the outside and, over a period of time, the intended creation or event manifests or occurs.

Another way of seeing it, or saying it, would be that the force of intention creates a probability wave of a specific nature. And then, your attention effectively finds and meets with this intention to make it real as something physical and particular in time and space. This would be the quantum mechanical description of the creative process; however, it has never been expressed so succinctly and meaningfully as this before.

Creativity is a process that brings about things and events which you then have the opportunity to experience. If you are genuinely interested in understanding how and why you are here, then for you to understand this process is essential. Any pursuit of knowledge that does not address this will be forever incomplete, and the answers to the big questions we seek will remain ever elusive.

In the next section we look at the mysterious notion of Consciousness and the relationship between it and creativity.