The Last Gift of the Master Artists - Ben Okri

By Ben Okri.

The book was released as Starbook in 2007. And re-released, edited, updated as The Last Gift of the Master Artists in 2022. That is the form I first borrowed it a few months ago. But could not read it then. Then found Starbook at a second-hand book sale. And as I started reading it I realised it is the same book as Master Artists. Since Master Artists is the updated version by the author, I began the book again, and this time, finished reading it. 

It begins with a beautiful, gentle instruction of 'Read Slowly'. And it talks about the unspeakable miseries and yet the regeneration and healing. 

The rythms of storytelling is sometimes different in authors. Perhaps different countries and cultures tell stories in their own way. And that at times seeps into the way a novel or a story is written. 

Many, many sentences are inspiring. Some copying here for future-ref.

Destiny conceals strange illuminations in the suffering that life visits on us.

 

The young all have clear eyes, but hers had a touch of paradise.

 

He felt he carried within him the wisdom of multitudes, a thousand forms of dying, a million ways of living, an understanding of the simplicity of all things. He had the lucid feeling that the many ways led to the one. The many forms were one formless harmony. The thousand histories were all one moment, one breath. All suffering and living was just one astonishing tale of illusion.

 

The heron made the subtlest movement, enough for its magnificence to be revealed, and the prince saw it as a radiant thing in a dying world. Appearing to have no interest in anything at all, it struck the water swiftly, and casually swallowed down a fish. It did this with great economy.

As it flew it changed all things and restored a new attention to the world.

But love which is felt for apparently no reason, felt because of an ineffable affinity, because a people can’t do otherwise, is a love inspired by the gods.

The prince sat and waited patiently for time to turn him into nothing or into everything.

She learnt also from the mood he created around him.

My daughter, if God cracks the sacred vessel, God leaks into it. What God breaks, God fills. We break that we may be blessed. We have to make a choice about who we are going to be, but we have not made it. We suffer because we have not chosen. We could be powerful on this earth. Instead we scratch the soil, like animals.

At the shrines of creativity and truth, they were humble. To them the god of art ensured balance and harmony in the universe.

Maximum effect from minimum effort was the artistic principle on which war was conducted.

The tribe was therefore fundamentally serene about all things. They lived in the freedom of a knowledge that was more than knowledge.

The greatest masters say nothing about their work because there is nothing to say. There is nothing to say save that it was done. It was seen, rendered, and remembered. It was carried across, brought here, imperfectly.

She would sit quietly on the floor and watch him work, or pace, or stare at the wall. Then suddenly he would pounce on an unfinished work. With swift sure motions he would carve from the block of wood a living form that a moment ago didn’t want to live.

They ended a task with the same tranquillity with which they began it. They were never tired, never elated. They began and ended in the same mood, engaged in an infinite work in which beginnings and endings were merely illusions.

We seek the source. That’s why we are detached about what we create. It serves a higher purpose than we understand. The artist who creates is not important. Through our works must shine not the power of the person, but the power of the source.

The true quest is for peace and simplicity, an intuition in which all things are clear.

Understanding is a glass of pure water. All great truths have no taste.

He was an outsider who had thought more deeply about art and life than any of the age.

She saw the heart of things without trying. She knew that true mastery comes once or twice in a hundred years.

Masters are born only once or twice in the life of a people. The truly gifted are rare. There are at best very hard workers who have found a personal language with which to say nothing profound.

As her father had said for as long as she could remember, the deep can only come from the deep.

Many want to understand, but few have the character for it,’ she said, at last. ‘And it takes character to receive. It takes character to wait, to listen, to learn, to master, to keep on the right road, to make mistakes and to correct them before they have gone too far. It takes character to always remember, beyond wealth and success, what the most important things in life are.’

If the foundations are not strong, the house will fall, with or without the rats.

I must show her, without showing her, how to make time a friend, a guide, a magician, by using the art of delaying. It is something the new generation is forgetting.

A woman must learn the art of making time stand still. Of stretching time out. You must learn to make time live in your house, while history is being made. Keep it under your pillow, with your dreams. Make time a great friend. And how do you do this? This is something you must learn for yourself. It’s the only way you will learn it. But I will tell you why you must learn it. It’s because everything goes. Beauty, earthly power, fortune, wealth, happiness, clans, tribes, empires. Everything goes away. Disappears. But you can make them disappear more slowly. You can make them wait longer. You can charm them to stay for one more day. And if you do this, day after day, then you can manage a modest eternity. Only with love can you do this. But not an ordinary love. A love greater than life itself.’

Even things that go, you can charm them back, their fragrance, their spirit. If their spirit is here then they are here too, and soon their form will return in another way.

They saw better when they did not understand. For understanding stopped them looking. Consequently they liked to delay their understanding.

She was taught that wisdom is greater than force, grace more magical than power, love stronger than hate.

She was searching for something which could not be sought, but could only be received.

She asked no questions, sought no answers, forgot all techniques, discarded all craft, abandoned her heart, left behind her mind, ceased to be a woman, or even human, became blind, refused speech, and in complete emptiness, like one without beginning or end, she received what emerged from her dreaming in wood.

THROUGH ALL THIS her father was silent. He made his art with his usual serenity. He appeared not to register that anything unusual was going on. He didn’t seem to notice the fury directed at his family. He went about his business as though he lived in a separate realm. In that realm the significance of events was radically different from that of the real world. He was invincible. This strengthened his mystique, and magnified the power around him.

The moment people are unjust to you, they have lost the fight. The moment they attack you, they have lost the war. The moment they try to humiliate you, invalidate you, or destroy you, that moment they have lost the truth. Then they lose all spiritual protection. That moment they surrender power and authority to you, but they do not know it.’

Carry on your work. Be serene. Follow your conscience, and have no fear. The laws that operate in the world are invisible laws. But they are greater than the force of nations. You can depend on these laws.’

Like some flowers, some babies, she had an air of innocent invincibility, as if she knew that she could and could not be destroyed. As if she knew some simple secret of eternity. A new smile appeared on her face.

The masters sought therefore only to be open. They made themselves open to the work’s secrets, its language, its inspiration, its guidance.

It’s not being a prince or a king that is special, my son. It’s being alive to the mystery of life.’

When he wanted to express that which was beyond expression, he kept silent.

A season of humility will do you good. A season of humiliation would put power in your veins and some ripening rage in your heart.’ The king was no longer laughing. ‘To be all things is to be human. Exile, slavery, warfare, madness, folly, grandeur – these are the food of the brave. All will be tasted at the feast before you become king. But the greatest fruit of all, my son, is love. If through love you learn the art of being human, then you will be a great prince and a joy to the gods.’

This charged atmosphere, seeping into the statues and masks and carvings, was what created the highest mystery in the works. When finished, the works were not complete. They needed to absorb an atmosphere richly treated in enchantments and sorceries and dark beautiful suggestiveness. They needed to be treated in ancient moods.

This was the most important work that the spirits performed. They steeped the finished sculptures in enigmas.

It demanded utmost stillness and concentration. For the master, concentration was a form of humility. An acute receptivity.

Time seemed a river in which past, present, and future were all one. The artists bathed in that stream, drawing from it inspiration without end.

They were drawn to the beauty that a work creates in the mind. They were fascinated by the mental and spiritual beauty created by the work but not residing in it.

They were interested only in what exalted states the work of art could induce

Everything in the workshop was eager to teach him. Stones yielded the secret of structure, spiders the secret of making, walls the art of the vertical. The air taught invisibility, feathers taught flight, and the light that came in through chinks in the wall revealed to him the underlying secret of all things, in hints and fragments of illumination.

Everything was eager to teach him. He was eager to learn.

The master was pondering how high a thing can be before human beings begin to grasp it; he was thinking how invisible a thing must be before human beings can see it;

There are many other arts greater than the art of making art out of wood or stone.’ ‘Like what?’ ‘Like the art of making life out of death, wisdom out of suffering, good out of evil.’

‘He has no interest in creating art. He wants to become art. I don’t know what art he wants to become.

Tranquillity in a person is an achievement. It is the result of great insight.’

Intelligence can be a form of blindness; it can prevent people from seeing truth. People value their mental powers even as they increase their fundamental errors. Trust those who have simplicity of spirit, goodness of soul, and an inquiring mind.

People’s opinions don’t amount to much. Their plans work for a while then pass into nothing. Only convictions on the side of life really amount to anything. Do not fear sorcerers or those who conjure for the devil. As long as you do not believe in evil they cannot harm you. Fear is the most powerful form of belief. Do not fear anything. There is only one cure for fear, and that is wisdom.

All time is here. Don’t trouble yourself about passing sufferings, fashions, ideas, disasters, failures, successes, or triumphs. All are illusions. Maintain a sublime detachment from all things and the greatest love will shine through you. Be silent. Be still. Sometimes our minds are our worst enemies. Do not hold preferences too strongly. Be guided by that still small voice within. Learn to listen to it. Drink the cup of suffering life gives you when it does. Pass through the narrow space. Do not cling to any fixed ideas of who or what you are. You are more than whatever you think you are. Being a prince is nothing compared to a man or woman who has discovered that deep down in them there are gods. Humility makes you great.

In spirit and in deeds, be light.

All Excerpts From

Okri, Ben. “The Last Gift of the Master Artists.” 

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