ACE
Alternative Creative Experience

Bad news, Wednesday had arrived! I reluctantly packed my scores and left home to the piano lessons. My teacher was an old single lady who passed on all her frustrations and bad temper to her students. I was a shy seven years old boy and I was terrified.. I had worked on the same piece for more than a month now, and I still couldn’t make it as perfectly as she wanted me to do. I was going to make some false notes and I was scared she would again yell at me. It is no wonder that after three years of piano lessons, utterly bored and discouraged, I finally quitted and stopped playing music altogether.

But in my later years, the virus of music caught to me again, and I got a compulsive desire to buy a keyboard.. Then I started to play with it every day, of course not following the rules or partitions I was still so disgusted about. Instead, I started playing freely, trying to express the feeling of the moment. In reaction to my previous piano teacher, I was not censoring any notes as false, but welcoming all sounds as original expression of my self. After playing for a while in this way, something fantastic happened: the timid and somehow mechanical playing of the beginning had suddenly given way to some kind of creative flow: my playing though technically simple, became aligned to my feelings, and for the first time, I liked what I was playing. I was in a kind of musical trance and I was happy. The realization that I was able to express myself musically and that my creativity was developing day by day, brought me a tremendous joy and purpose. I felt that I had finally found a missing part in my life.

As I feel this kind of experience could bring a lot to individuals as well as educational institutions, I would like to share my thoughts about the way this experience works and how it can be incorporated in people’s daily life as well as in educational curricula.

It is a sad reality that in school, no space, no systematic training is given to develop creativity.

If any artistic education is given at all, the students always stay in the passive role of appreciating, reproducing or criticizing the works of « great » writers, musicians, painters, etc... who are « out there », part of an elite of unattainable uniquely gifted people. We, the common mass, have been taught to think ourselves as deprived of any artistic gift worth mentioning and that it will stay this way until we die. Indeed, how many of us were never put and will never be put into the situation of creating something original, and how many beautiful paintings, sublime pieces of music or poetry were destroyed in this way by an unjust educational system , before even having a chance to be created?

To rectify such a situation, we need to understand the beliefs that support and justify such a system.

Then a more positive thinking have to be proposed in alternative to the negative one.

Finally a resultant positive synthesis or new course of action has to be derived from these alternative positive beliefs.

There are two ways of playing music. One way is to repeat exactly the piece made by somebody else. The player will strive not to make the slightest mistake. One has to forget one's own soul and feelings to try to put oneself in the soul and feelings of the composer. This can be a very rewarding experience for the player and the audience,, especially when the composer is a highly evolved being with the power to bring all minds to a higher plan. But if the composer is functioning on a cruder level than you, the reproduction of his work will certainly be a crudifying experience for you and some of your audience ( the player being much more involved in the music than the audience, will certainly be more affected by it). So as long as the composer and his pieces are carefully selected, this reproductive playing and listening might constitute an uplifting activity. But it can never help you to develop your own creativity, or to start producing your own new pieces for the benefit of all.

But an other way of playing music is to just play freely on the instrument, forgetting all limiting rules. Each time the piece will be a unique expression of the feelings or ideation of the moment. In the beginning, the piece may be simple but can become more and more elaborate as the player get to know the instrument and as its velocity or technic improves naturally improves with the daily playing.

The important thing is never to think you are playing a false note or that your playing is poor compared to so called professional musicians, and that you should better be learning first perfectly all the classics before diving into composing. But actually, most of this classical players never compose anything. They are to dependent of the very secure classical perfection to do that. They will rationalize their behaviour by saying that they are not Beethoven. This is probably true but the "Alternative Music Experience" or AME is a way to develop that creativity. First, we have to break our cultural conditioning that says making music is the reserved area of a few genius or born musicians. We have to consider AME more like a new interactive game with the purpose of making some interesting sounds;

What you have to do is just to connect mentally with that Infinite Consciousness and start playing with love for the amount of time set aside for it. . While you play you think each note you play as played perfectly by that universal Spirit. Loose yourself in the flow, enjoy the sublime energy, and you will see musical jewels coming out of "inexperienced musicians" in no time.

By listening to an AME, one can understand and share the state of mind of the player. Everything would be recorded for the benefit of mankind. Spiritual people have the duty to start doing AME daily, because they have the capacity to influence, to uplift others through their music. Not only their words but their music will help them along their path towards perfection. And the time investment is short.

The same principle apply for writing poetry, delivering speeches and any kind of creative activities. For example, if you want to learn how to give inspirational talks, don't just study spiritual books. Take some time every day to let your voice go and let yourself speak with total freedom what you always wanted to say but never did in front of others because of shyness and the feeling that you may speak some nonsense. So we take refuge in the prepared talk, cutting off a good deal of the inspiration and enthusiasm coming with a spontaneous talk.

But after practicing ASE (real speech experience) your capacity of speaking freely (converting ideas as they come into spoken sentences) increases, and you will come to a level when it will be safe for you to do that in public because you realize that your speeches repeatedly meet the requisite standard.

If such beautiful experiences as AME or ASE exists, then why aren’t they practiced by more than an extreme minority of « avant garde » artists  or new- agers? The reason lies in our cultural beliefs:

- first as I said earlier, most of us believe there are two kinds of people: the creators, artists, etc... and the others, deprived of talents. We see this as a static situation, not an evolving process in which we could get this talents by developing them.

- We also believe this talents are arbitrary gifts of God, and not the result of our own work to develop them. But we have our lifetime to develop them as much as possible, and if our goal is not achieved in this life, we will have to continue our development work in our next incarnation.

With such a perspective, it is now easier to understand the advent of a Mozart, a Renoir or a Shakespeare as the result of a preparation work done in their previous lives.

So whatever is our present level of growth, we need to grasp this chance of having a human body to develop all our latent creative and artistic talents.

- Another reason why many of us don’t do this, is that we are not generally aware of the greatness of our mental potentiality. Our culture teaches us that our intelligence is mostly defined by our IQ as revealed by IQ tests or our educational achievements (diplomas etc...).It is also believed that this IQ cannot be developed, that in fact this qualities (logic, reasoning, rationality...) are going to decrease with the old age.

Actually we all possess a vast untapped mental potential that can be used and developed with proper practice. Far from being limited by our IQ, we also possess qualities like intuition, discrimination, love and compassion, creativity, leadership, courage, persistence in action ...which altogether constitutes our real intelligence. The great achievements of the « Rsis », the sages, inventors, poets, musicians who have contributed to the progress of all, is a proof that such a level is a reality attainable by humans.

So practically, what can we do to increase our creative talent, and what kind of systematic programs can be included in school curriculum, to give to each child a best chance to become a great personality.

The theory behind a ACE(Alternative Creative Experience), is that when we want to do something, we usually think: « I don’t know how to do it, and until I learn first how to do it, I won’t be able to do it ». Because of that common fear of failure, we delay and sometimes abandon our plans all together. But, I feel that the best way is to set aside our fears of doing wrong, of being judged by others, and to plunge into the action, to « just do it ».

Now, to be able to apply that theory in a ACE, you first have to work on your fear, shyness etc..

Meditation and yoga postures are excellent to balance the hormonal flow and help you control your emotional state, and meditation (ideating on Infinite Consciousness) will bring quietness to your mind and connect you with the deeper, more creative and intuitional levels of your higher self.

You can also clear your fears and other unwanted negative emotions like guilt, self-depreciation, and depression, with psychotherapies and other « clearing the past » exercises.

Of course you should not wait for your meditation and yoga to make you a perfectly balanced individual before starting ACE. You still should start it as soon as possible, as well as the other practices, and supporting each other, both will evolve simultaneously.

For the ACE, you can choose the media you are most comfortable with. If you had some piano education, you might opt for a piano, if you always liked drawing, you can use paper and colors, if you feel like writing, take a pen or turn on your PC.

It’s best to fix a time and practice daily at the same time and for the same duration. It’s important to experiment which time, period, and environment work best for yourself, and then stick to it. My suggestion is that, from the vibrational point of view, the best would be a beautiful natural setting, as wild as possible, with many trees, on the mountain top or the river side. The best times would be the sunset or the sunrise as these mysterious moments between day and night are more conducive to creative endeavor. You can do your ACE just after meditation, when your being is filled with Cosmic Energy. Also it’s best to be alone in the quietness, to avoid being affected by negative mental reactions from other people, like judging and criticizing.

But this perfect setting is a rare thing to obtain, so meanwhile, you can just start ACE in any place you feel best and at any convenient time.

Now you can start creating on your own chosen medium. For example, if you are at the piano, you just keep playing according to your feelings. Don’t stop playing because you think you are making false notes. In a AME everything you are playing is your own. What is false? Just a concept invented by people who are trying to reproduce exactly the classics or some previously composed piece. In that case, any extra notes that would not be in the original piece who be considered as « false ».

But in an AME, you are making your own original piece, so no note can be called « false ». Just appreciate each new note, welcome them as they will guide you to some deeper level of sound and harmony, a totally new musical dimension. So, you keep on playing in this way, and experience the   total  freedom of the AME!

The same process and the same spirit can be followed for the other media of expression, like painting, poetry, writing, singing, speaking etc...

Best is to record your work, so as not to loose the invaluable piece of arts that are bond to come out sooner or later.

All these different ACEs can be included in school programs, as well as meditation and yoga postures. Some more research are needed for ways to introduce ACEs to different age groups. If this is done in the systematic way, the benefit for the children and the society as a whole will be tremendous.