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Be a Work of Art
Great scriptures like the Bhagavad Gita can be looked upon as artist’s manuals. Just as painters study their color and drawing manuals, you can read the Gita or the Ser¬mon on the Mount as a living manual to help you make your life a flawless work of art.
This is truly the supreme art. When your life becomes a work of art, your family will benefit from it every day. Even if you are the only person in the family using these artistic tools, like meditation and the mantram, your partner will benefit, as will your children, your friends, and, interestingly enough, even your enemies.
I have been to few homes where the resident was the greatest artwork. When I entered Gandhi’s ashram in central India, close to my university, there was not a single artistic artifact there – not even driftwood. In those days I was very culturally oriented, looking for beauty in all kinds of external objects, but when the cottage door opened, at five in the eve¬ning, and a brown, blessed figure came out, I saw the greatest statue I have ever seen in my life. The greatest painting I have ever seen came to life. That’s the highest ideal for a human being.
The most difficult of the three harmonies is harmony with oneself. It is the real basis for harmony with others and the environment. I love music, but when somebody tells me about a great symphony they have heard I want to say, “I wish you could listen to the divine symphony I hear when my mind becomes still in the depths of meditation.” St. Fran¬cis used to say, after he heard that symphony coming from the depths of consciousness, “If it had continued a little more, my life itself would have melted away.”
