Episodes

  • Non-Duality And Art: Who Are You Becoming?

    Non-Duality And Art: Who Are You Becoming?
    Jan 31 2025
    The Song From Today's Episode: I'll End In My Heart'The Road For Artists' Community 📿The 'God And Art' Book SeriesTranscripts Mastery in an area of life is you dying to yourself in that area of life. You've surrendered yourself to your work and are no more when you create. You freely create without the mask of identity boxing you in. You are your soul when you create. You enter the flow of life and disappear into the work.The resistance you feel creating and mastering any field is the past self dying to itself. The past gets surrendered and you are free of that layer of past. The past comes up as emotional turmoil and with each step towards your goal, you burn it away. Eventually, you sail freely and create without the past; without the mask of identity. That is mastery. You walk the road until you become the road.When Picasso paints, he paints like a child. He paints in utter freedom. He paints without knowing what he’ll paint, he just paints. He absorbs into the painting and the activity of painting is left. There is the painter, the activity of painting, and the physical object (the painting). But perhaps there is just God. All collapses into the flow of life. You are the dance itself and you submit. You leave your intellect at the door. Your ego cannot enter the dance. Your past burns in the face of God.The painting dictates Picasso's every move. I watched him paint a cubism painting in five minutes (see the video in the show notes HERE). He has no clue what the painting is going to be but paints and the painting comes together. Magically the moves fall together in one effortless dance of painting. The painting starts one thing and ends quite unexpectedly embodying an entirely different shape and character. What’s the mystery of Picasso?He learned from the greats; learned technique, imitated, and replicated. That phase I call ‘The Box’. Then he rebelled, broke all rules and norms, and developed his own style and character. Let’s call this phase ‘Breaking The Box’. But the past burns in the face of Mastery. The identity melts, and the ego is surrendered to the act of divine creation. Now there is no more box left only art. And that is art. Death is not art; art is alive. Art created free from the past, without the mask of identity comes from a deep intuitive space. Making art becomes meditation and an ecstatic expression of the soul for its own sake. That state gets captured into the piece of art and that piece of art comes alive and emanates God. That is art. Death is not art. In mastery, the voices subside and the intellect submits. All moves are dictated by the art. A very high level of intuitive action arises at the right time and the art births itself. It is a very divine experience. It is action that tastes like non-action. You merely submit and observe the art being birthed through your very hands. You enter the flow of life and come alive.A master has to unlearn everything to be free to create art as his authentic soul expression. Authenticity is art. But to establish self in authenticity is hard. To get good the artist accumulates, assimilates, and replicates. But to be authentic he has to die to himself and to everything he has accumulated. The firm ground he established needs to be demolished. It is scary to face the unknown. The ego is terrified to surrender to God.This is way beyond intellectual capacity. It is meditation. A direct expression of the soul for its own sake. It is yoga, union, the yoga of action (non-action)—the merging of artist, art, and creation into the flow of life. Art conceived alone. The result of such work is potent work—alive, emanating work that gives a taste of God as it was created with the soul. The road to mastery is the inner battle of the identity dying to the soul. Art becomes beautiful when it is created without the filter of identity. Art is beautiful when it emanates God. Art gives a taste; direct experience of the state the artist is in when creating art. Living art is holy art. Death is not art. You die to yourself until you are your work. You become your work. To make art or to be art? To be or not to be? (Shakespeare) That is the question. In other words, the past self dying to the emerging self. The past self screams through thoughts and emotions until those thoughts and emotions exhaust themself to resolution and fall away. You have emerged freer and lighter than before—each art session—a purge. You transmute your past through your painting, molding, singing. Your pain becomes an artifact. When the pain is burnt your joy becomes an artifact. I am currently reading a biography of Frida Kahlo. She suffered most of her life tremendously from polio first and then from an automobile accident. She was bedridden and painted her pain. Her paintings are her autobiography. The life she craved to expel by tasting life, she expelled and encapsulated in her paintings. Her paintings ooze and emanate life even to the blind, novice ...
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    14 mins
  • Complete Self-Expression Is The Key To Success: To Make Art Or To Be Art?

    Complete Self-Expression Is The Key To Success: To Make Art Or To Be Art?
    Jan 24 2025
    The Song From Today's Episode: A Higher Choir'The Road For Artists' Community 📿The 'God And Art' Book SeriesTranscripts Complete self-expression is the key to success.Actions that are complete cast no shadows. Complete actions arise as spontaneous, natural expressions of the soul without any filter through the image we hold of ourselves. When such work meets the world, authenticity shines through and connects naturally with the hearts that it is for. Limiting self-expression by trauma responses is the root of unnatural, sporadic, and distorted manifestations of that expression in the world. The world is your state of being. Once falseness is shed, your natural self-expression naturally occupies its niche and nurtures you and the right hearts. Entrepreneurship is but a natural autonomous expression of being. Our past and our traumas cloud that expression of the soul. When you create freely and share your work, watch your emotional responses acutely and withhold opposing currents and resulting opposing actions. Don‘t delete your work; let it be, and work on your inner responses instead. Free yourself, creation by creation, and manifest your destiny. The destiny that is meant for you. You are your destiny! Don‘t be ugly and add to the ugliness, but be a source of light and bring love to the world by becoming love yourself. Face your falsehood, face resistance, and choose your soul. You are that. Who will take it from you but you? No one is a victim of circumstance. The world is not cruel. It's simply inside-out, not outside-in manifestation. Understand that, claim back your power, and fight for your soul. Don‘t play cat and mouse. You are playing alone.Why do I say ‘You Are Your Destiny?’Well, I also say you are your art. You are your business. Your authentic soul expression in the world is a manifestation of the authentic you in the world. It is very hard to project forth your authentic self as layers of past (accumulated identity) infringe and obstruct the light of your soul. When you face those layers of falsehood and surrender them to the flow of life you become more organic and free in your expression. Eventually, what is left is your effortless, flowing, natural soul expression in the world and you become your art. You are your business. You don’t copy and imitate but you are you. That is the only action that casts no shadows. All other actions are derived from your collected past. You are in a box, inorganic, and your creations are ugly. Creating from your soul feels like you are reentering the dance of life. You paint in ecstatic divine meditation. You experience non-action. You submit yourself to the painting and you become the painting.To make art or to be art?Isn’t that the question? You can either be meditation or your accumulated past which becomes your prison. Lighten the load by shedding the past by making art. Remove all layers of obstructed, inorganic self-expression by making art. Face your screaming emotions and share your art. No one cares about your art just yet, so what? Do it to free your little soul. No one cares because you create work from your accumulated past and not with God. Moments of great art will eventually slip through. Stay humble and make art to free your authentic soul expression. Use art as your spiritual discipline.Fierce freedom.I don’t judge others, consequently, I don’t judge myself and create in utter freedom. My self-expression is not dampened by my fears as I am melting them in my heart. I am free as I am freeing myself of my past. I am free as I walk without my given name. Can fierce freedom be named? How can the world mask freedom? How can the world put freedom in a box? I am not a mask; I am not a box.Crystal clear clarity.Clarity means I know what to do and how to do it. The only thing keeping me from the action is my past conditioning that I need to face along the way in the form of opposing thoughts and emotions. Intelligence means awareness. The more aware one is, the more one sees reality as it is and can make decisions independent of one's identity (past conditioning). Clarity truly is intelligence. Your identity keeps you from seeing reality as it is.The ocean.The still water is clear. The moving water is cloudy. Clarity is stillness. Movements cloud clarity. The ocean's surface is wild and unpredictable. The deeper we sink into the ocean, the more stillness and potent silence we find. Only the surface fragments; stillness collapses the many into one. The deeper we sink into ourselves, the closer we are to truth and God. The further we disperse, the more fragmented we are.To see or not to see.Reality is always different from one's personal distorted view. The bigger the distance between reality and distortion, the more neurotic and less sane the person. The closer you match your filter with reality (best take it off from time to time), the clearer you see and the smoother you move within your little world. To be or not to be. To...
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    12 mins
  • Potent Work: Potency Vs. Force

    Potent Work: Potency Vs. Force
    Jan 6 2025
    The Song From Today's Episode: Unapologetically Me'The Road For Artists' Community 📿The 'God And Art' Book SeriesTranscripts I used to think that hard work was the root of great work. That force was necessary to create work worth sharing. I have come to a different conclusion. I realized that when I am aligned with my authentic/natural being, work flows effortlessly. I realized that when I force, I am not in complete alignment. Forced work pales in comparison to work created naturally. We are diverted and perverted and as far from our soul as it gets. Every soul has a unique fragrance and a unique gift to bring to the world. Self-discovery lies at the root of uncovering the soul and its inherent gift. Most are not aware of their dilemma. When perverted and twisted into an image, everything takes effort and great force. When shedding layers of falsehood, the right work eventually finds and nurtures us. The more in alignment, the less effort the creation takes. Through the work, we uncover our part, and by carefully sailing towards soul alignment (natural being—no effort—authentic self-expression), we eventually arrive at our part. And our part is unique to us. That part is direct experience of the soul in complete self-expression (total vulnerability); hence is created effortlessly like a flower emits its fragrance. In total vulnerability (without images/ direct experience of soul), I speak the truth confidently, my songs carry themselves, and I disappear into the words. The work meditates on me as much as I meditate on the work. I disappear into the act, and that is Yoga. That is devotional work. The result of that selfless act is potent work. Potent in the sense that it was not created by an image but by direct experience. Bathing in meditation, I create work, and that work comes alive. That potent work draws the right hearts naturally. Neither the creation nor the distribution of the work takes effort. A potent song eventually finds its audience. Think ‘Sound Of Silence’, by Simon And Garfunkel.The song was a flop until it slowly caught on. A potent song takes you from the busy world, and your neurotic mind right to the core of you. It shocks to silence. A song composed in deep meditation captures sanity and directly relays sanity to the listener. Such a song is alive and lives on its own. Such a song in time will find its audience. Such songs appear effortlessly and the artist feels he has not touched the work, simply brought it to the world. To create in such fierce freedom the young artist has a long path ahead of him. He has to face himself with each creation. Each creation is a purge of the past and a step towards greater creation. The past keeps the artist from creating freely. Past restrictions of authentic/ natural self-expression keep the artist from creating freely. Today’s restrictions are purged by making art and surrendering emotional blocks to God. Layers of, ‘What will others think of me?’, ‘What is deemed okay to share and within acceptable parameters?’, ‘Who am I to create taste and stand for something?’ and all further robotic expressions of self are to be surrendered and faced. Artists are sitting in boxes of their own making. A sad thing really. Break the box! Art is not created in a box but in total free fall. Forget the rules and your education and make art with your soul. Face every emotion in the way of pure authentic self-expression. It will be easier to create in meditation with each shedding of a layer of past. In time you’ll witness that the you in meditation is the true you, as the you in pain melts in the face of God. Your spiritual practice of surrendering your ego to God is making art. Making art is scary and sharing art? Even more so. It is the fastest path I know of to carve an artist into an angel. Long hard looks in the mirror in darkness with only God to lead. You know the path, you’ve walked it. Keep walking and don’t stop. The part of me that forces, wants to grasp, understand, dissect, rationalize, have control, and take credit - I surrender to God. What takes over when I release the layer of petrified control-seeking is a deeper part of me. My ego fights and creates problems and complexity and yet when I sit in my soul the words form naturally. Quite a paradox to surrender and leap into the unknown and not intellectually understand and be in control. It is scary but that fear I surrender also. Staring at a blank Google doc my ego has no control, knows not what to do, feels stuck, and cries for firm ground. Then I close my eyes and meditate and surrender all force to find myself in the flow of life and after my session, a wonderful podcast episode typed itself through my very hands. How incompetent the little ego compared to my soul sailing in wild freedom. That is my honest experience of creation. I believe that what you are most suited to do you have no idea how you do, for it simply happens through you. And that is ...
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    13 mins
  • The Spiritual Discipline Of An Artist & Where Is My Muse?

    The Spiritual Discipline Of An Artist & Where Is My Muse?
    Dec 30 2024
    The Song From Today's Episode: The Tale Of Times'The Road For Artists' Community 📿The 'God And Art' Book SeriesTranscripts The spiritual journey of art has its ups and downs; is unpredictable and non-linear. Weeks of struggle and force accumulate to a revelation, the surrender of obstructions, and an experience of greater creation. Pain humbles with each successful or failed attempt; the lesson is the point. As the artist grows, so does the art. The art becomes beautiful in an artist's hands that are clean. A clear vessel creates great art. It is the artist that needs to change; the art is available to all; grace surrounds and encompasses all artists. Some are just tuned to grace well. The tuning is so fine that it is missed by most. Taking part in the dance of creation by submitting oneself to it fully and giving oneself to the art completely is the ultimate goal and purpose of every artist— self-dissolution into the work. Karma jog. The yoga of action (non-action), service, and giving. An artist gives gifts. First, he gives misery, as all he knows is misery. In time, by washing the clothes of his past, he gives light. That light will awaken hearts and be visible to hearts tuned to the light. Such is the journey of the arts—the journey of the soul.To break the mold of the past, the artist purges by creating art. The great purge happens when art, artist, and grace meet. Meditation is the merging, the dissolution of the artist into the art. The great three are but one. The art, the creation, and the artist flow with life and emanate grace. That grace gets captured in the work of art, and that work of art comes alive. Living art is holy art. Holy art is a sacred object infused with grace. Grace awakens, grace nourishes, and lets the receiver meet God through the art, through you. You are the introduction. You are the friend that opens the door—be a good friend—That is the highest act, the non-act, the meeting as one through art conceived alone.When the artist grows internally by facing pain, that growth is reflected in the art. Making art causes growth by showing and mirroring the artist’s state back to him. It is the perfect learning tool: undeniable, solid personal proof that the process works, that love is the way, that God is the truth; his work changes, and he will witness it; he will feel the change internally; he will be freer, more joyous and light; the world will not be such a dark place anymore. The change is undeniable; hence, grace becomes a reality, not a distant dream.All obstructions can be cleared, and genuine talent uncovered. With ease and like magic, the right action at the right moment arises. Great hits of inspiration, spontaneous speaking, writing, composing, and collaboration happen. When bathing in grace, even the mistakes sound beautiful. The book writes itself, and the arrangement falls into place.Meditate to experience who you are and meditate through art to express who you are. Meditation is an exceptional first step. Most spiritual journeys start with a meditation practice. The meditation practice of an artist is making art. The goal of the practice is to disappear into the art: Non-doing/meditation or supreme flow.I’ll link my book ‘The Road For Artists: It Starts Within’. It will guide you to create your meditation practice and is an art journal that offers space for you to document 70 Art Sessions.And so the big question: Where is my muse? There is no muse. Look within. Meet God through your own being in your flesh and live religion, then make art.Art is your spiritual discipline, your way home. Home to God, home to yourself. Making and sharing art is devotional work and work that, when created selflessly, lets you enter into a bond. That bond is a life of service where you shall disappear. Engaging in the infinite game breaks the chains of your selfishness and lets you return to your Father. You made up a dream and played many roles and devotional work, and work that flows without your involvement puts you into deep mediation; great art springs forth from you, and great riches are bestowed, but you, dear reader, disappear. That is the part of the art: to make you commune and be no more. Let the illusion end. And make art.Art is one layer away from God. But when it is done right—it is God.Meditation: Meditation is not forced. Meditation happens to the seeker naturally. When one relaxes into oneself, one meditates. It is natural, but worldly dramas create a person that lives in his head. That is the only barrier. Sit and be. But the person in his head has no idea what I mean. To overflow and create art in total absorption is meditation. Full involvement lets you enter into union, into yoga, into liberation, even if just momentarily or while you get lost in your work. The term ‘Flow’ (Csikszentmihalyi) was coined for such occurrences when time disappears and the act flows naturally. The practitioner is in his own way. Total-freedom-self-expression ...
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    14 mins
  • Creative Output And Becoming A Child Again

    Creative Output And Becoming A Child Again
    Dec 19 2024
    The Song From Today's Episode: The Water Of Life'The Road For Artists' Community 📿The 'God And Art' Book SeriesTranscripts The best artists have no walls to creation; no curtain of self; no fear of perceptions of others. They are in direct communion, and so their art vibrates with life and emanates God. When artists create, they free fall. Creation is dampened by, 'What will others think of me and my art?' Creation is boxed in by, 'Is this okay to share?' Creation is halted creating through the mask of identity. When all perceptions cease, creation creates itself. That I call free fall. This episode we explore Picasso. The prolific genius that destroys the old and invents the new. We’ll explore the madness of his creative output, his selfishness and ego mania as a trap on the spiritual path of art, and examine the unlearning of everything to become a child again. In Picasso’s words: ‘Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist when he grows up.’ Picasso was born and raised in Spain in the 1880s. He learned painting from his father at a very young age. The myth goes he painted before he could talk. First, he learned realism and painted with marvelous accuracy only to destroy all norms, and rules, and invent his own style of painting. To pour his soul onto the canvas. You can only create what you are and he was his paintings. His most immediate and authentic soul expression was his art. That divinity is what we can still marvel at today. In his 91 years, he created anywhere between 20,000 to over 30,000 creations (sources differ). That is almost one creation per day for the entirety of his life. He painted a painting each morning. That puts art into perspective for me. When was the last time I wrote a song a day? And there I thought my ‘song a week’ was impressive. I am astonished by Picasso’s prolific creative genius. It almost seems like an obsession; a deep internal need to express his soul through painting. I imagine that when he created art he felt most like himself. Perhaps his world wasn’t the ease of flow that painting offered. Painting, being his communion with God. The rest of his life (from multiple sources states) he was an egomaniac and used people for his career advancement and women for creative energy and pleasure. If that is true he mistook the vessel for God. He called himself ‘God’ many a times. But the vessel is just a vessel, not God. He accessed God in one area of life and failed to bring it to the rest of his life. Egoism is the greatest trap. To take the divine and attribute it to oneself, brought unhappiness to the rest of his life. I marvel at his creative output and his divine creations but I wouldn’t want to experience his life. I revere his shattering of the old. His bravery to birth his soul's expression regardless of all the resistance his early modern paintings were met with. It takes guts to break the rules and invent the new. The crowd didn’t yet know what it wanted and he invented taste. Yes, he shaped the future of art. He followed his instincts throughout. He stayed true to himself. He was unapologetically, Picasso. By painting every day, painting became Picasso’s identity. He could relax into his work more and more until, finally, he disappeared into his work, and the painting was left. To flow with life and give oneself fully to the task at hand is meditation, non-action/ non-doing. Life takes the lead and you are the witness to the divine unfoldment through your hands. Painting, painting, painting. Gain mastery, then forget it all and paint. Learn from the best then break the mold and paint like your soul paints. Paint like a child! Step aside and meditate deeply through your work. If I have learned one thing in my 15 years of songwriting it’s this: I am not supposed to make art but be my art. My work is not an accumulation but my practice of dissolution. To master my skill, then give it back to God and let life work through my hands in divine alignment. My work meditates on me. It is my greatest joy and my salvation. With each creation I heal and those creations seem to impart that healing to the world. The experience of meditation and love seems to rub off on people. That is the true value of art. When I give my life to serve others I heal through my work and add beauty to the world. I dissolve my ego through my work, and my work saves me. It heals my soul and liberates me from my accumulated crust of past. Each creation I am a little more soul and a little less past. My work truly is my salvation. By delighting myself, I delight the world. The world responds to my sharing my soul through authentic self-expression. Love can only be met with love. The right people get attracted and the wrong people are repelled. My work of making and sharing art is my spiritual discipline. Hide it all in your art. Conserve it with your heart. Let it enter the world. And repeat. Create living artifacts. And create a lot ...
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    13 mins
  • The Value Of Art In The World

    The Value Of Art In The World
    Dec 11 2024
    The Song From Today's Episode: Only Me As I Am'The Road For Artists' Community 📿The 'God And Art' Book SeriesMy Diary The Secret To ImmortalityDivine River Of LifeWill you carry me?Divine Ocean Of BlissWill you bury me?Divine Water Of KnowledgeWill you reveal to me?The Secret To ImmortalityHail, River DivineYour stream sounds so pureHail, Ocean SupremeShall I just let me go?My splintered, scattered selfAt once, your waves devourI am just a tiny birdPainted on your skyI am just a loyal slaveYour one and only wifeYou stripped me of my sanityNow, I forgot my nameA minute drop of bloodWipe away the stainNow I'm drinking of your holy wineYou are all I seeA drunken fool in ecstasyA leaf upon your treeWith nothing left to doBut playing dead with youUntil you kick me outTo write a song or two A Little Story Painting The Value Of ArtYou have your house, and it’s firm.You live in it as if it were your kingdom.You cherish it. It’s all you know. An artist comes along and opens a window.The rays of the sun peek in and poke you gently.With time, you, the inhabitant, notice the light.Is there more outside of your house?More time passes, and you realize that life is found outside of your house.What you’ve built is not your kingdom but your prison, and your prison keeps you from life.You demolish your house fiber by fiber.There was no house to begin with; there is just God, and walls are made of clay. God is the world. Grace is the sun.The house of clay is the poor state of the lost inhabitant.By the grace of God, an artist opens a window. If you were to put a price tag on it, how would you value such an act? You forgot your part. Just maybe you forgot who you are. Who, and who as an artist. Incalculable is the value of potent art in the world. Incalculable is the value of a living artist. An artist that has tasted God, bathed in love, embraced love in the flesh—brings God to the world. When you bathe in bliss like Rumi you write poems of bliss. When you are divine love like Milarepa you sing poems of eternal love. Rumi and Milarepa are my favorite poets for their poems are alive. I call that ‘Poetry Of Dissolving Identity’. When words take you from individuality to the collective being. When you disappear into the work of art, that is art. That is the task of the artist: to become whole and to heal through art. Death is not art. Art is alive. Words that point to God. You give a taste. That is art. The poet gives a taste and the poem comes alive in you.When you are alive you create living work; work that lives on its own. Work that plants seeds in the receiver of the art. That is how art enlivens the world. A window from God to individual souls.Why is art beautiful? Because it rings true. Somewhere in your heart, you feel the love that connects you with individual souls through the thread of God. Art emanates the state the artist is in when creating art. In deep meditation you are life, and what you create in meditation is the representation of life itself. It points to life; life that cannot be claimed but lived. Art conceived from the collective state of being brings that very state to the world. An artifact of God. Living Artifacts. That is art. Death is not art. The highest potential of a living artist is to create living art. The journey is long and internal. The journey of art is a spiritual journey to your soul. I will write more on spirituality and shedding the past through making art in further episodes. For now, know that your art is a representation of your current state of being. The more you shed your past, traumas, and restrictions of authentic self-expression the more potent your art becomes. Self-discovery lies at the root of it all. Through the spiritual path of art, you may awaken to love and, in time, awaken through your art. Demolish your house and permeate love. Potent art will make you abundant within and in time without. Once you know yourself, you know your part in the world. By uncovering who you are by demolishing layers of falsehood, you uncover your soul. By uncovering your soul, you uncover your unique part. By serving that part, you will generate money for yourself. Falseness breeds falseness. Love can only be met with love. The truth is simple. Uncover who you are, uncover your part, and humbly serve. Your greatest joy also happens to be the world's greatest joy. This podcast is about the spiritual path of art. It will lead you to consciously face yourself and uncover the truth of your being by gently and patiently making art. Your art is a mirror of your state of being—a wonderful learning tool! In time, you uncover the gift your soul holds, and by sharing that gift, you will support the world and yourself. Everyone, as they truly are, beyond delusions, has a part to serve by being their authentic self. That part is unique as you are, but one. There is just one authentic you. Uncover that and serve your unique God-given gift. Delight the world by ...
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    11 mins
  • Cogs To Artists

    Cogs To Artists
    Dec 3 2024
    The Song From Today's Episode: Darkness Can't Touch Me'The Road For Artists' Community 📿The 'God And Art' Book SeriesMy Diary Cogs to artists. Tribes were connected and held sacred as one big family. Once a tribe was too big to call a family, it split in two, and one tribe moved to a different location and established another settlement.The Industrial Age connected the world and made it rich and fruitful, but that feeling of a familiar bond beyond the family vanished. The Big Fish had the power; most humans were mere cogs in the system. The Information Age brought us the internet and connection online. Production and distribution are available to all. Cogs turn to artists. And artists connect the world.Where will you hide if there is nowhere to hide? The information age, with the leverage of the internet, puts production and distribution at your fingertips. Power is scary; it is safer to hide behind ‘it is impossible’ or ‘I don’t know.’ That game is long over. The internet removed all the middlemen. The record labels, the bookstores, the art galleries, the venture capital, and the news channels. You’ve got the microphone. You own your art. To ignore and hide is almost a sin.As long as you are searching, you are not finding. If you must write, you must write.If you must express, you must express. There is no other way. Pick an outlet, pick a craft, and practice every day. Find the courage to share your work. Then do it again. If you do not know who your work is for, share your work selflessly, and your people will find you. What you seek seeks you. Just take action. Find an outlet and create what you must create, then share your creation in one or more forms on the internet, not to participate in being social but to establish your identity as an artist; as you believe in yourself more, you will share more easily of your craft.The best (purest) works are the hardest to share; doubt kicks in, and you run away and perhaps delete everything and come back anew when the storm has settled. Eventually, you stop running and share your work because that is what you do, and that is who you are. Welcome to the life of an artist.Feedback at this stage is futile. God is the way; call it a gut feeling. Pure work pops in and does not knock. The only feedback that will be of use is from the group you seek to delight. Ignore all other opinions. Sometimes, ignore their opinions, too.Who you create for will be established by sharing your most intimate works. As long as you are searching, you are not finding.You must put your creations into the world. You must take action. You must poke the universe. Your creations are your meditations. Your disciplines. Your ritual. Let’s call them ‘meditations of an artist’.Meditations of an artist. Put your point of view on display. Stand for something. Be specific. Genre matters. Delight someone.Not everyone.What is the gift you bring to the world? Once you know why you exist, everything becomes simple. The noise subsides, and you can quietly serve your people. Always remember, as long as you seek, you shall not find. Do and become. Create and learn. Find and serve.A life of service. It is not about you. And as you focus on serving others, you uncover more and more of yourself. Perhaps it was all about you to begin with. Serving others is your way home. As you serve others, you heal the world.What a delight. The Industrial Age is over. The Big Fish are dying. You own the means of production.You own the means of distribution.No one can stop you but you. No gates. No keepers.What will you uniquely provide? Who will you uniquely delight?The choice is yours. Every emotion/mood is a problem; the answer is the album/ the body of work. Art is for the recipient. A specific someone. One you seek to delight with your specific work. You intend to cause change to a specific someone. You choose who you serve, but you need to choose. Selfish art, on the other hand, has no intention to serve or help. It is created selfishly without the purpose of delighting someone specific. That work will find no footing and fade away in all the noise. It won’t give money or fame to the creator of the art. Selfish artists often crave money and fame but fail to notice their selfishness is precisely why they get left behind. Selfish work is about the creator of the work. Selfless work is for the person the artist seeks to change. The choice is yours.Real commerce is gift-giving. Give gifts. That’s the game.The more you give, the more you become the artist you seek to be. Your songs, your works of art, your paintings, and your pamphlets are gifts. Gift-giving is real commerce, given that the gift is complete work. When creating complete work, you give and you get at the same time. When complete work finds its host, it appears effortlessly. The host simply steps aside. The host feels he has not touched the work, simply brought it to the world. The host steps aside and conceives the gift. The ...
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    20 mins
  • Selfless Service And The Carving Of One's Place In Art

    Selfless Service And The Carving Of One's Place In Art
    Nov 28 2024
    The Song From Today's Episode: The Inevitable'The Road For Artists' Community 📿The 'God And Art' Book SeriesMy Diary There is a shift that happens when you don't do it for yourself anymore but you do it for them. Duty. No matter your mood. No matter the circumstance. You show up for them. When you are scared to show up, you face those fears for them. By healing them, you heal yourself. Your dedication is serving your people. And as your good aligns with the world’s good, you are helped and supported. When selfishness turns to selflessness you get what you want as you don’t need it anymore. Great selfish force turns to actions for somebody else’s sake, turns to flow and joy of service. When own energies wane, a new surge of energy carries you to the next day. The greater good is the only good. In such alignment, the world helps you get what you want because it is what the world wants. The people you serve will help you as you help them. Selfless service is performed in a selfless state. You disappear into the work and the work flows effortlessly from your being. Selfless work is potent and emanates the state the artist is in when creating the work. The path is from selfish to selfless, dissolving the ‘I’ into the work. That is how your real work heals you. It sheds the past with each creation. That is how your work heals others because it points to the truth; love; God.Who you are is your gift. That gift is God-given and inherent in your soul. Your task is to uncover that gift and share it with the world. You are your path. You are your task. You are your destiny. By walking your path you return to yourself. When all shadows fall and you stand in your soul, you are life itself.I would love to introduce you to a hero of mine: John Coltrane. Little John lost his father very young and grew up in a time where his skin color and impoverished upbringing restricted the free natural unfoldment of his beautiful little soul. He found music, or rather music found him—his saving grace; his only love. In all of his free time, he practiced the saxophone. Day and night he played and that dedication led him to play with Jazz bands around America. He wasn’t exceptional, but he practiced every waking hour. He didn't have his own sound, he imitated his heroes. Soon he played on stage backing his heroes. His life started to reflect his hard work. By his own hands, he now played and recorded with the greats. But he himself was not a star, not a legend, not a hero, but a heroin addict. His life started falling apart. It wasn't until he surrendered his gift to God that Coltrane became the beacon of Jazz. I recently read his biography and here are my takeaways:I. The Spiritual Path Of ArtColtrane surrendered his struggle with Heroin and his music to God. His 'Spiritual Awakening' led him to live a life of service. He now existed to 'make people happy through music.' I directly attribute his purity of performance (transmission) to his surrender. He became a vessel for the greater good. His personal identity melts in the face of God, and that purity is captured in the recording. His music puts tears in my eyes.I will link one of my favorite recordings of his in the show notes; just listen. He puts me in meditation instantly. The purity of his performance is divine. He is no more when he plays. He is the music and the music carries him. And so when you listen, you are no more. The music carries you. There is just God. Why is Jazz so divinely beautiful? Because there are no multiple players. Jazz is one.John Coltrane: My Favorite Things (Stereo, 2022 Remastered) II. The Carving Of One's Place In Art A box is a beautiful frame until it becomes my prison. Mastery requires demolition, undoing, and liberation. Masters fly like birds, and so I, too, must let go and fly. Coltrane received great resistance upon innovating music (finding, and establishing his sound). First, it was messy, then it turned to divine. He followed his instincts throughout. 'If I was going to put anything on record, then it ought to be me.' - John Coltrane III. The Road To MasteryPrivate art and public art are two different worlds. Private art is comfortable growth at one's own pace, while public art is compressed, pressured growth, leading to leaps in artistic development if not abandoned by facing pain publically. Mastery is establishing one's voice through one's chain of art (portfolio) and, by that, carving one's place in the history of art.Who are you as an artist?—You are your portfolio of work. Media compounds and is a leveraged flywheel. Put all your art on the internet. The internet is magical, removes all middlemen and distribution is at your fingertips. I will write more on my contemplations on this subject in further episodes. Back to Coltrane: By his own hands he became excellent at playing the saxophone. After he surrendered to God he became a master. I will add a recent diary post of mine here so you feel mastery ...
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    16 mins