The word nobility points to the best humans are capable of: developing our full creative potential by realizing our divine nature, an infinitely long ongoing process. How noble I am is how much I surrender to Leela, to god in me. As my first step of surrender Leela demanded I give up trying to guide myself via spiritual books, teachers, systems, or trying to figure it out for myself. All that gets hopelessly distorted by my thinking, which is formed and driven by human culture: everything I'm taught, everything I read, watch, or hear about. Once I began surrendering to Leela I found my way to all the guidance I needed, right here in my own body, via muscle testing and body sensing.
Nobility and creativity. Creativity is god in me. I am ennobled, at least momentarily, any time I let god pass through me, out into the world. Not just via works of art, but through my work on everything I do. When I approach whatever I'm doing creatively I'm doing god's work. But I don't get inner benefit out of my own creativity unless I'm actively making progress with love. The energy released by doing creative work is extraordinarily high voltage. That's why artists burn out. To bear that kind of ecstasy and ground it out into progress I need an active spiritual practice and a very grounded, healthy lifestyle. I also need to be entirely free of recreational drugs because of the havoc they wreak on my body's reward system. I can't feel much less cultivate the subtle pleasure of being if I'm still trying to catch a crude buzz from booze, pot or other drugs.
Nobility and privilege. The idea of nobility has been tainted by its association with privilege and wealth: the self-serving notion people can be noble merely because of an accident of birth or an aptitude for fleecing the rubes. But obsession with pedigree just leads to inbreeding, vestigial tails and such, and greed just leads to more greed. None of that has anything to do with human potential, with real human nobility. Making progress with love and being present with whatever I'm doing so I can do it creatively are the two greatest challenges, the two hardest tasks: real nobility does not come cheap.
Artistic skill. Art is ennobling; artists are the real human nobility. Art is a perfect meritocracy, a nobility that can't be inherited, only earned by hard work. Artists start young and train hard to develop the skill required for their art. Skill is the hallmark of a mature artist, skill that takes decades to acquire and refine. Young people learn skills easily because they're not fully formed. The skills they acquire form them, becoming part of who they are. Older people are already fully formed, so the skills they acquire can't penetrate nearly as deeply. Their skills remain superficial and so does their art. Success and popularity don't mean someone's an artist. Most successful, popular so called artists are wannabes who have taken Barnum's famous quote about the taste of the American public to heart.
I am not an artist. I do consider myself an artist of living, but living well is not considered an art, more's the pity. This isn't false modesty, it's an important distinction. Writing is my only well developed artistic skill. I write these stories under Leela's close editorial supervision. Maybe they're a work of art, but if so Leela is the artist here, not me. I'm a good partner dancer, but I'm not nearly skilled enough to be an artist of dancing. My musical background lets me taste what life as an artist of dance might be like. It is a wonderful taste. I can only be a consumer, not an artist, of painting, sculpture, music and cinema. However, I can be ennobled by them. Especially by music, because of my musical background.
I'd call Hilary a force of nature but she's not. She's a force of profound, refined human culture. The opposite of nature.
Ennoblement. Anyone willing to study art can be ennobled by it. I was ennobled by listening to Max Richter's music. I found myself in despair at the state of the world and my lonely place in it. I had broken up with my sweetheart just as the pandemic was beginning. Max's sad music helped me love the world the way it is. If I put conditions on loving the world, I'm loving a fantasy world. Fantasy is just words, there's nothing real in fantasy. His music ennobled me by showing me beauty in the sad world just the way it is.
Training for ennoblement is training anyone can do. Classical music requires training because it's deep, rich and subtle. It invites me in to explore and learn. I need training to be able to grasp its depths. Because I'm a lifelong meditator, grasping those depths helps me make progress with love. Before I can grasp its depths, I have to do a lot of listening and a little study. That's the training. I have to put my time and energy into the best human creations rather than settling for the most accessible ones, like the pop tunes we're bombarded with. Investing my time and energy is critical. It's the training required for ennoblement, and it's a way I can make progress with love.
Reincarnation and art. This ties in with reincarnation. If an artist made progress with love in previous lives, that progress is likely to be in the realm of art. If an artist has made progress, it's probably because art and making progress have become united for that artist, as they are becoming united for me. That would enable the artist to become a better artist faster via wisdom accumulated regarding how and what to study. That's why I found it so easy to write. It also explains why some artists are prodigies, like Mozart, able to create works of art at a very early age.