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 observer. The intensity in her paintings is undeniable. Her paintings are her, there is no division and she lives through them. She comes alive in her paintings, more alive than in everyday life. Her soul soars while she paints and the extremely fortunate perceiver of the art tastes her life. Her fierce stare, her confidence, beauty, and character—all that she is and all that her paintings assume—is the state she paints in, is her expression in the world. She is that but unfortunately, her body cannot relay what she is fully. But her paintings can. The state she paints in is the state we plunge into when we absorb into her paintings. What a delight. Picasso is the embodiment of his art. Frida Kahlo is her art. There is no separation. 

Pain transmutes until the pain is gone and the state of joy gets encapsulated into the art. If the artist holds torment, then torment is on the canvas. If the artist is bliss, then the canvas is bliss. The spiritual path of art is healing through art creation by creation. The past transmuted to free authentic healthy, natural soul expression. The past burning in the face of God.

Make art to heal yourself until the scales tip and your art heals the world. You free yourself of your past creation by creation. Eventually, you flow with life and come alive through your work. When the past keeps knocking, you surrender it to God. You observe the self screaming until it falls away. You observe friction until the act is left. Your past self and the self you are becoming are at war. Who will win? Who are you becoming? 

I try to relay through direct experience the state of pure being. You can nurture that state by making art. It is my wish that you bathe in bliss while making art and plant seeds to make that state your every waking moment. I just launched ‘The Road For Artists Community’ and clarified selflessness to a member: ‘Selflessness is the state you create works in. It is you in flow reentering the stream of life and creating in stillness free from layers of the past restricting your self-expression (art). It is meditating through art. All videos are mere expressions of the same flow of life in different words, all pointing to the same truth/love/God. The state I write in is deep meditation and I hope to relay in direct experience that state of non-duality. If the words pull you and resonate read the books (I was referring to the ‘God And Art’ Book Series) with an open heart and perhaps the experience dawns on you. That is the initiation. A direct experience of the words relayed. Witnessing the thoughts collapse into stillness and sitting in a state of pure being. From that state, you experience non-doing and get lost in your art. You surrender layers of restrictions of authentic self-expression by making art. That is The Road. Have you ever tasted life before? Have you experienced that divine moment when art created itself through your hands?’

 Listen to this week's podcast episode HERE.