According to Osho, to be creative, become a child again: drop mind-made certainties, borrowed knowledge, and social respectability. Give yourself freedom to play, try the new—and even the 'wrong'—without fear of looking foolish. Don’t be a efficient 'robopath' producer; wander, risk, learn from detours. Creativity flowers in innocence, experimentation, and courage to defy the right way.
Be playful and brave like a child—experiment, make 'mistakes,' and ignore what others expect—then new ideas will come.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
I want to be creative. What should I do?
Now this is something to be understood: you can vomit the same thing only if you have not digested it, remember. If you have digested it you cannot vomit the same thing, something else may come. Blood may come but not the same Vrindavan bread. That will not come. It has disappeared. So you have to simply keep it down there in your stomach without digesting it. Then you are thought to be very, very intelligent. The most stupid are thought to be the most intelligent. It is a very sorry thing, a sorry state of things. The intelligent may not fit. Do you know Albert Einstein could not pass his matriculation examination? Such a creative intelligence -- it was difficult for him to behave in the stupid way that everybody else was behaving in. All your so-called gold medallists in the schools, colleges, universities, disappear. They never prove to…
I believed I was uncreative. What else can be creativity besides dancing and painting and how to find out what my creativity is?
CREATIVITY has nothing to do with any activity in particular -- with painting, poetry, dancing, singing. It has nothing to do with anything in particular. Anything can be creative -- you bring that quality to the activity. Activity itself is neither creative nor uncreative. You can paint in an uncreative way. You can sing in an uncreative way. You can clean the floor in a creative way. You can cook in a creative way. Creativity is the quality that you bring to the activity you are doing. It is an attitude, an inner approach -- how you look at things. So the first thing to be remembered: don't confine creativity to anything in particular. A man is creative -- and if he is creative, whatsoever he does, even if he walks, you can see in his walking there is creativity. Even if he sits silently and does nothing, even non-doing…
What is creativity?
That's the paradox of creativity. If you see a painter painting, certainly he is active, utterly active, madly active -- he is all action. Or if you see a dander dancing, he is all action. But still, deep down there is no actor, no doer; there is only silence. Hence I called creativity the state of paradox. All beautiful states are paradoxical. The higher you go, the deeper you go into the paradox of reality. Supreme action with supreme relaxation: on the surface great action is happening, in the depth nothing is happening, or ONLY nothing is happening. Creative quietude is the supreme action -- the precious suppleness, simplicity, spontaneity and freedom that flows from us, or rather through us, when our private egos and conscious efforts yield to a power not their own. Yielding to a power not of your own, surrendering to a power that is beyond you,…
Osho, in the past all famous artists have been well-known for their bohemian side of life. Osho, please can you say something about creativity and discipline?
Santosh Sneh, the bohemian life is the only life worth living! All other kinds of lives are only lukewarm; they are more ways of committing slow suicide than ways of living life passionately and intensely. In the past it was inevitable that the artist had to live in rebellion, because creativity is the greatest rebellion in existence. If you want to create you have to get rid of all conditionings, otherwise your creativity will be nothing but copying, it will be just a carbon copy. You can be creative only if you are an individual, you cannot create as a part of the mob psychology. The mob psychology is uncreative; it lives a life of drag, it knows no dance, no song, no joy; it is mechanical. Of course, there are a few things you will get from the society only if you are mechanical: respectability you will get, honors…
How to be creative while doing jobs which seem not to leave any space for creativity, like cleaning, etc.?
It is from Krishna Radha. She cleans. But I also do the same thing: every morning, every evening, twenty-four hours -- cleaning your mind, cleansing. But I never feel that there is any need for any other creativity. Cleaning a floor can be a tremendously creative act. Remember, creativity has nothing to do with any particular work. Creativity has something to do with the quality of your consciousness. Whatsoever you do can become creative. Whatsoever you do can become creative if you know what creativity means. Creativity means enjoying any work as meditation; doing any work with deep love. If you love me and you clean this auditorium, it is creative. If you don't love me then of course it is a chore, it is a duty to be done somehow, it is a burden. Then you would like some other time to be creative. What will you do in…