A person should cultivate a creative attitude in order to successfully advance along the path of love.This is a positive mental attitude, a dynamically charged state of mind, which derives its potency from the recognition that there is meaning and purpose of life. This attitude could be called the cosmic optimism. It consists in recognizing and identifying with the primal energy source that has created all things. The creative attitude puts us in touch with the source of our being and endows us with a limitless capacity for evolution.
Creative attitude should always remain with us and be the touchstone by which to gauge our actions in the world. It is a feeling of self-confidence, recognition of the Divine within each of us, a conviction that we are projections of higher principles that we can come to know. It is part of the process of evolution. Worldly or physical limitations can be overcome by invoking the creative attitude and making it work for us. Such mental attitudes have been, and can be utilized to achieve success in your chosen field of performance.
A creative attitude works wonders in eliminating doubts or uncertainty and acts as a potent virile energy. Impotency and sexual frustration are direct effects of lack of self-confidence which stems from a sense of emptiness, a negative feeling that life has no purpose. It has to be avoided once for all. Looking to high spiritual ideals for inspiration, we strengthen the creative attitude. An exquisite joyfulness accompanies this state of mind, so remember to evoke it at all times. Open yourself to the marvelous creative possibilities that will manifest. As the creative attitude is brought to bear during love-making, a wealth of variety unfolds……….!
The Sixty-four Arts
Kama Sutra, the classical Indian treatise on the Art of Love, enumerates the Sixty-four (64) Arts.These should be studied along with the Kama Sutra preferably under the guidance of a teacher. These arts and sciences include singing, music, dancing, writing, drawing, painting, sewing, reading, recitation, poetry, sculpture, gymnastics, games, flower arranging, cooking, decoration, perfumery, gardening, mimicry, mental exercises, languages, etiquette, carpentry, magic, chemistry, mineralogy, gambling, architecture, logic, charm-making, religious rites, household management, disguise, physical sports, and martial arts plus many specialized activities related to the culture and time. The accomplishments expected of young women in Victorian times echoed this idea. To update this, the arts related to more recent technical innovations, such as photography, could be added.
Both men and women should be well versed in as many of the Sixty-four (64) Arts as possible. A person who is accomplished in them is automatically given an honorable place in society. Through the application of these arts one can easily win over the object of desire – be it husband, wife or lover, and provide more fulfillment. Moreover, a single person can easily be self-supporting by the application of these skills. Even a bare knowledge of these arts adds to the charm and interest of a person.
In the West today, over-specialization has become a problem, which tends to inhibit the mind’s capacity to intuitively express the many facets of knowledge. Yet the Art of Love relies on the other arts for its support. Without these modes of expression, our existence would be boring and restrictive. Humanity depends upon these arts as a means of communication and self-expression. There is no Western equivalent of the Kama Sutra, and perhaps for this reason, sex as an art form has yet to mature in the West. Social repression and internalized guilt have prevented Westerners from a frank and joyous exploration of sexuality, today’s “liberated attitudes” notwithstanding. Practically all that the Occident offers in this area is pornography, or clinical sex manuals, so filled with anatomical details and “techniques” that they would be sufficient to put a person off the sex for life. One result of this repression is inhuman sexual perversion. The sexual act is rarely tastefully portrayed in Western art or literature. We either reject sex altogether as a subject proper to art or, in lieu of better, accept mediocre treatment of it.
The Orient did not consider sex apart from spirituality or religion. The sex act was given a place of honour and was intimately connected with the other arts. Men and women alike studied the Kama Sutra and similar texts. In the temples, all variations of sexual postures were openly portrayed and venerated as ideals. In the privacy of the home, the entire range of erotic art and literature was considered a normal and respectable subject of study. The parameters of sexual behaviour in the East extend way beyond the West’s narrow spectrum of normalcy, without the least debasement of the sexual function. Celibacy, monogamy, polygamy and polyandry – all had a place in Oriental culture.
The Sixty-four Arts should be conceived as the Paths of Creative Energy. They are the emanations of the goddess Saraswati. They can be likened to the flames of an inner sun, blazing from the solar plexus. Burning up all negativity, these flames of the creative attitude purify the psyche and bring about an inner transformation. As practical skills of the outer world, they delight others and fulfill the talented practitioner.
