The Flowering of Creative Life Force

April 18, 1974
Daisaku Ikeda

"Today I should like to elaborate on what we mean by a creative life. I am not about to launch forth upon a difficult philosophical disquisition or try to give you a definitive explanation of life. I only want to urge you to become cheerful travelers on life's long road. Let me suggest something from my own experience that may help bring honor and glory to your future. "I feel most deeply that I have done something creative when I have thrown myself wholeheartedly into a task and fought it through unstintingly to its conclusion and thus have won in the struggle to enlarge myself. It is a matter of sweat and tears.

The creative life demands constant effort to improve one's thoughts and actions. Perhaps the dynamism involved in effort is the important thing. "You will pass through storms, and may suffer defeat. The essence of the creative life, however, is to persevere in the face of defeat and to follow the rainbow within your heart. Indulgence and indolence are not creative. Complaints and evasions are cowardly, and they corrupt life's natural tendency toward creation. The person who gives up the fight for creativeness is headed ultimately for the hell that destroys all life. "You must never slacken in your efforts to build new lives for yourselves. Creativeness means pushing open the heavy door to life. This is not an easy struggle. Indeed, it may be the hardest task in the world. For opening the door to your own life is more difficult than opening the doors to the mysteries of the universe. "But the act of opening your door vindicates your existence as a human being and makes life worth living. No one is lonelier or unhappier than the person who does not know the pure joy of creating a life for himself.

To be human is not merely to stand erect and manifest reason and intellect; to be human in the full sense of the word is to lead a creative life. "The fight to create a new life is a truly wonderful thing, revealing radiant wisdom, the light of intuition that leads to an understanding of the universe, the strong will of justice and a determination to challenge all attacking evils, the compassion gushing forth from the cosmic source of life and creating an ecstatic rhythm in the lives of all men. As you challenge adversity and polish the jewel that is life, you will learn to walk the supreme pathway of true humanity. He who leads a creative life from the present into the future will stand in the vanguard of history. I think of this flowering of the creative life as the human revolution that is your mission now and throughout your lives."