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Towards the end of 1974, on November 19th, Sri Chinmoy launched into a new field of creative activity: painting. With his total literary output standing at two hundred books of poems, plays, short stories, essays and lectures, Sri Chinmoy now applied the goals of self-discovery and life-perfection to the medium of art. Calling this art jharna-kala, a term which he translated from the Bengali as "Fountain-Art," Sri Chinmoy aspired to produce paintings that stemmed from the source, from the fount of creation. As in his poetry, he proclaimed that in order to accomplish this lofty goal, he needs must become a clear and perfect instrument of the Self within. This is not a studied mental process. Rather, it is a process of expansion so that one may become wide enough to accommodate the new thoughts, new visions, new ideals and new forms that flow directly from the Source.

To become an instrument in Sri Chinmoy's sense does not mean that the poet or artist is an amanuensis, simply transcribing his inner experiences in a mechanical or "automatic" way Sri Chinmoy relates:

Everything is in seed-form in the inner world first, and then only can it become manifested in the outer world.[21]

In giving expression to this seed-form, the artist or poet confers a delightful form upon it at the same time. He is both a seer and an artist or poet. The tradition of the "seer-poet" is one that is firmly implanted in Indian culture and dates from Vedic times. In his study of the Vedas, J. Gonda writes:

The ancients were well aware of the resemblance between, and in many cases practical identity of, poets and visionary sages, the rather extensive terminology in this field often admitting of both translations. A Vedic poet is a seer ... a gifted man who with his inner or spiritual eye sees things divine and transcendental, and who through the power of his vision brings the past into the present.[22]