Rassouli: Scientists were male
so they call it the Big Bang. But
what does Big Bang mean? Somebody
hit something and a Big Bang
happened? The truth is that it was
a Big Birth. It was the divine
feminine power that gave birth to
the universe. We have the
masculine power and we have the
feminine power and they’re in
complete balance. It’s just like
darkness and light. They’re
completely opposite of each other
and they coexist. Life is the
union of opposites.
Kerri
Blackstone:
Do problems and chaos come to be
because the powers are out of
balance?
Rassouli:
Chaos and problems are
judgments. The truth is the
chaos, problems, potential – all
of this is one. The union of
opposites. Is a sunset
beautiful? Is a sunset ugly? A
sunset is a sunset. It’s the way
we see it that makes it
beautiful or ugly. If you were
to be executed at sunset, the
sunset would be ugly to you. Why
does the sun shine? It doesn’t
have any reason. We must accept
that the darkness and the light
co-exist. One cannot destroy
each other.
KB:
Sometimes it feels like we have
an obligation to fight against
the darkness. What do you say to
people who
feel that accepting something,
maybe a bad thing, is
the same as giving in to it?
R:
There are two ways of fighting.
One is to retaliate; the other
is to prevent the attack. To
prevent is absolutely necessary
which means we have to become
enough to face that opposition.
If I’m mad at somebody because
they destroyed something that I
had, then I’m going to be
attacking them out of
retaliation. That is what is not
right.
KB:
By attacking out of retaliation,
we’re just causing more hate and
anger instead of trying to solve
the problem?
R:
Right. Instead I develop myself
so that I’m able to face it. I’m
working on a book that is about
how we can become empowered
through the opposition. I talk
about the power of limits. We
think limits limit us but it’s
the limits that make an artist
begin to express herself.
KB:
When we’re given limits –
creatively, financially or
personally – they force us to
become even more creative in
order to get around them and
reach our goals. Maybe those
limits that seem like a bad
thing, actually are helping us
go further than we might have
gone without them?
R:
Exactly. It is the union of the
two – the body and the soul. The
spirit and the body have become
one and that’s how we create.
Imagine if existence were just
gases – hydrogen, oxygen – it
wouldn’t have any meaning. The
union of these things together –
the outside and the inside –
gives it meaning, like a
balloon. The air and the skin of
the balloon together make the
balloon. The air without the
skin would expand to infinity.
The skin without the air would
be a piece of rubber that we
usually bury six feet under.
That air is the soul, infinite,
no limits. The skin is the body
that the soul goes into and
gives it form.
KB:
Do you believe the soul is
eternal? Is it something that
has always been there and then
it comes into our bodies for a
time to allow us to create in
this form and then returns to
being infinite?
R:
Soul is the flow. Soul is
energy. It has no identity, no
personality. Imagine the soul is
a river that’s flowing.
Whatever’s inside that river
isn’t aware of anything; it’s
just in the flow. But then it
comes into a little brook and it
ends up somewhere, like a dead
end. That part of the river that
is inside the brook is us. That
part of the river is not happy
and it wants to join the flow.
If it has big high rocks or
mountains around it, it gets
trapped and can’t get back to
the river. If it doesn’t have
any of these, then it finds its
way back.
KB:
What are the rocks and edges in
our lives? Fears, doubts and
limits we put on ourselves?
R: No,
those rocks and edges are our
culture, heritage, upbringing,
education, what our mothers
taught us from childhood, what
teachers tell us, what society
tells us, what our religion
tells us, what everything tells
us. The more we’ve learned, the
more difficult it is for our
spirit to get back to the flow.
KB:
That makes it sound like
learning is a bad thing that
keeps us separated from our true
nature.
R: Learning
is not a bad thing or a good
thing. Education is one thing,
training is something else.
Learning (or education) is to
unify us. You and I read the
same book, 30,000 people read
the same book, three
million people see the same
movie or listen to the same
lecture. That’s one side. On the
other side, training is to
individualize us.
KB:
By training, do you mean doing
what we need to do to prepare
for our profession?
R: I
mean doing what you love to do.
Doing what you love to do has
nothing to do with your
education. You might love to
cook or you might love to
meditate. Developing yourself to
do what you love, developing
your deepest self – that’s the
training. Education and training
have to work together for us,
for the individual.
KB: A
lot of people today feel stuck
inside a consumer lifestyle
where we’re convinced we need to
spend our lives working for the
things that will supposedly make
us happy. They follow that path
but at the end of the day,
there’s no meaning to it. How do
we get away from that?
R:
We have to accept it. Accepting
it means bringing it into our
life. We adjust ourselves to the
night. We’re not saying night is
bad or night is good. We accept
it and we deal with it. I could
yell and scream at night
forever, “Why are you here? I’m
going to destroy you! I’m going
to blow you up!” I could do that
but the truth is we have to live
with night. This is not a matter
of destroying day or night. It’s
a matter of living with both.
Yoga is finding a balance
between my physical being and my
spiritual being.
KB:
Do you feel like you were born
an artist or is it something
that developed as you were going
through your training and
education?
R:
First, let’s define artist. I
don’t consider myself a painter.
I am an artist. Art is a verb.
Art is bringing the two
together. Art is about union. So
when you say ‘I’m art-ing’,
that’s bringing the two hearts
together.
Imagine
a necklace of pearls. Each pearl
has two holes for the string to
go through. This pearl is called
heart. If my pearl does not have
a hole, the string is not going
to go through it. The string
that goes through these pearls
is what we call love. Some call
it God. Michael Beckwith calls
it Agape, which is a Latin word
for unconditional love.
Now
if there is only one hole, the
string is going to go in there
and stop. There’s got to be
another hole for that string to
come out in order for the
necklace to be formed – the
union of the pearls – which is
what I’m calling
‘heart-storming’. The medium
that does that is God or love or
Yoga – which are all the same.
KB:
Are we all born with two holes
in our pearl? If so, what causes
one of both of these holes to
get blocked along the way?
R:
We’re all born with the two
holes but very quickly we begin
to lose the child within us. We
begin to not use the holes so
they get rusty and pretty soon,
they close.
It’s
the
same as the blood that goes
through the heart. The mystics
call it the wine. That wine or
blood goes into your heart, gets
purified and comes back out. The
same thing happens with love.
We’ve got to put love into
everything we do in order to
experience that pure oneness, to
develop that unity, to be part
of that Yoga. Just like this
magazine which is called Los
Angeles Yoga: the union of the
angels.
KB: Why
do you think some people are
able to realize that God is
inside of them, when most spend
their time searching for God in
the external world or some other
dimension?
R: Because
I am a mystic, I know that God
is inside of me. Whenever I need
to ask something, I ask my
heart, “What do I do next” and
my heart tells me what to do.
Nobody’s heart is ever wrong.
Even when it seems to be going
the wrong way, it is going the
right way.
KB:
How are we able to tell the
difference between what our
heart and what our rational mind
is telling us based on what
we’ve learned and been
conditioned to believe?
R:
The soul is on Earth to enjoy
it. The tree is doing its
treeing because it enjoys
treeing. The roots are rooting,
the branches are branching, the fruit
is fruiting. They’re not
thinking about anything but
loving what they’re doing.
The
tree is making love all the time
– whether its winter or fall, it
is still making love. ‘God-ing’ is
what we call love. To ‘God’
means loving because that’s what
God does – loves. We are created
to enjoy every moment, to be the
creator, to love. God has made
us to be God. The whole idea for
us is to love.
We
have this rational mind for the
protection of the body, that’s
it. Without the rational mind, I
might walk into the street and a
car hits me, or I walk into a
wall or I go outside in the
winter and catch cold. My soul
doesn’t need protection – my
soul is connected with my heart.
If my mind wants to decide for
my heart, it’s going to be
wrong. And if my heart wants to
decide for my mind, it’s going
to be wrong as well. The two
have to work together.
On
Sundays early in the morning, I
climb the mountain in the dark,
sit on the peak of the mountain
and wait for the sun to come. I
love walking in the dark because
mystery is the essence of
creativity. Without mystery
there would not be artists or
scientists – it’s the mystery
that attracts us. I watch the
transition from darkness to
light, from cool to warm, from
blues into yellows. I watch and
I meditate. I am asking the Sun,
my creator to wash away all the
darkness inside me, whatever has
captured me this last week. I go
through my complete Yoga,
knowing I’m being cleansed in
the process. I have become one
with everybody and everything –
mountains, sea, sky. In
that waiting for the beloved to
appear, I experience true union.
That is the unity that prayer
brings to us; that Yoga brings
to us. Then I come to my studio
and begin to paint.
KB:
Do you feel you’re still in a
trance and/or meditative state
when you come down from the
mountain and start painting? How
do you keep yourself into that
state?
R:
Oh yes. But it depends. Whenever
I feel good, I paint and
whenever I paint, I feel good. I
don’t paint to make a painting.
When I paint I’m dancing. And as
I’m playing with paint, I begin
to fly. I’m conscious, but I’m
not aware of what I’m doing.
That’s
the problem with people who use
external means of getting high.
When you’re using internal means
of being high, it’s empowering,
and the next morning you can
build up on it. If I drink and
get drunk, in those moments it
feels good but next morning it’s
a problem because I’m down
again. If I get high from my
inner being, the next morning I
build up on it and get even
higher. Every painting I do is
in a different zone and at a
different level than the one
before. Everything keeps
building up so I’m transforming
constantly.This
is how you can judge a work of
an artist. Does the work come
from a divine power or someone
who is under an external
influence?
KB:
It’s fairly common for people,
especially in the arts and
music, to try to reach that
trance state through the
external influence of drugs and
alcohol. How can they begin to
find inspiration from an
internal high instead?
R:
Again, it’s the relationship
of creation and destruction.
The creative one puts things
out there and the editor is
the destroyer who takes things
away. If the editor leads the
way, you’re in trouble because
it shuts off the process
before it even starts. This
happens with many artists,
they start editing themselves
before they begin to create.
It took Brahms twenty-five
years to compose his first
symphony because he was
comparing himself to
Beethoven.
KB:
How do we keep our editor on the
sidelines until it’s his time to
help?
R: Leila,
creation and destruction, is
going to take place at the same
time. If you watch me paint, I’m
creating at the canvas, and then
I stand back and the editor can
see, then I’m back at the canvas
and painting. I’m in the trance
state this whole time and the
editor is well trained to do his
job. It’s like when you’re
driving. Your driver is your
editor. You’re in your own
world, putting lipstick on,
talking on the phone, thinking
about your day, but the driver
is your editor. The editor knows
how to handle things without
hurting the creative being.
Let’s say I take the pink brush
and put some pink paint here, at
the same time, I’m destroying
the blue paint that was
underneath. I am destroying and
creating at the same time.
KB:
When you’re in the trance,
creating and editing a painting,
do you have an idea or vision in
your mind of what the end
product will be?
R: Not
at all. Actually, when I’m
painting, a lot of times, I will
turn the canvas upside down and
work from that perspective and the
painting becomes something totally
different. I do this with students
at my workshops and they see that
what they were painting was an
entire landscape that they didn’t
even see.
KB:
When you teach, how do you help
people get themselves into the
trance state so that their
creative energy can start to
flow?
R:
It’s always different.
Sometimes, I have them close
their eyes, get close to the
canvas and paint without looking
at the canvass. I tell them, “If
you open your eyes, your
painting is finished.” Once it’s
done, they can open your eyes
and find out that it is
completely different that it was
in their mind. Now the editor
starts comparing what you’ve
done to what you had in mind and
now the creator can stand with
the editor and really see what
is there.
I
often see things that I didn’t
know I had painted, they just
come through. I’ll see for
example the shape of an old man
leaning over with a book in
front of him and he seems to be
writing on something. Now when
my editor sees that, he can
eliminate the parts that don’t
belong to that, the parts around
it, so that what came through me
can really pop out. This is the
process of creating.
KB: I
read a quote you gave that said
“I’m not painting something
abstract, but something more
real than what we see.” Do you
mean that what we see is an
illusion and, if so, is there
any value in it?
R: Reality
is only one manifestation of the
truth. For example: a bird and
flight. The bird is only a
manifestation of flight. Flight
never dies but the bird dies.
Truth is immortal but reality is
mortal. What I paint is the
truth. Not the changing reality.
What you see in my paintings is
not abstraction. Abstraction is
not dealing with the reality or
the truth or anything. It is
innocent painting – I’ll just
paint and people will see
whatever they want to see in it.
It’s their thing and whatever
they want to do with it is there
business. That’s why painters
who paint abstraction don’t
usually title their paintings.
My paintings are about the truth
beyond the reality.
Many
students
and artists follow my school of
teaching and we have retreats
and workshops. It’s all about
play and I get them in the zone
to play. At the end everybody
discusses their process so the
others can benefit from it. It’s
a safe zone for people to play
and it’s a place of healing for
everyone. No one is judging.
KB:
Would you consider your
workshops and retreats to be a
form of art therapy?
R: With
art
therapy you are trying to open
up the mind and here I am trying
to open up the heart. I am a
vehicle that allows people to
take the journey of
transformation. I explain that
they’re doing the act of
creativity which is ‘God-ing’.
What do they have in the
dictionary instead of ‘God-ing’?
Love. You want to be giving
love. That is the creative
process. I gave them pastels and
paper and told them to do the
act of love-making with the
paper and the chalk. I told them
not to create anything like
anything else. Create like God.
Play like God. That’s how you
can expand your love. And they
got it.
KB:
If you could share one piece of
advice with people who want to
follow their heart, what would
it be?
R:
Know that you are greater than
even you think you are. You were
the winner amongst infinite
numbers of creatures in that
drop of sperm. You were the
messiah among millions.
So act upon it.
Whatever you do, be the best at it.
Rumi says, “Footprints lead you to
the shore of the sea, from there on
no trace remains.” Learn from
others, so you can find a way to get
to the shore of the sea. There you
are on your own. Dive in. And
experience that infinite sea. |