Multidimensional artist, podcaster, and comedian Ramin Nazer joins Raghu to discuss his high-podcast diet, talk Frank Zappa’s idea of expanding through contrasting material, and dive into the topics of art, eternity, practice, creativity, & death.
Ramin Nazer is a multitalented artist, podcaster, comedian, game-creator and musician based out of LA. He is best known for his consistent stream of unique, psychedelic-spiritual, bite-sized art for the social media age, as well as his eclectic podcast, The Rainbow Brainskull Hour, where he chats with guests about subjects like creativity, spirituality, psychedelics, music, meditation, and death. You can tap into Ramin’s steady flow of art on his Instagram, and peer into his myriad offerings at RaminNazer.com
Modern Renaissance Man: A Path of Iridescence
With such a luminously unique art style steeped in a swirling conglomeration of various creative and spiritual interests–from podcasting, to comedy, to music, to game-creating–Ramin Nazer is the definition of a 21st-century renaissance man. Interested in the collected basin where all of these streams sprang forth, Raghu invites Ramin to share what sparked his interest into merging spiritual inquiry and consciousness with creative expression.
“I don’t think there ever was a huge leap. I think it all came in little increments. I would say psychedelics did help, but much like Terence McKenna, I was a psychedelic thinker before psychedelics. I feel like I was always drawn to things with a certain iridescence.” – Ramin Nazer
Join Ramin’s fellow comedian and podcast wizard, Duncan Trussell, as he discusses success and contentment, on Ep. 8 of Creativity, Spirituality & Making a Buck
Frank Zappa & Expanding Through Contrasting Material (18:14)
Bringing up Ramin’s myriad interests and high-podcast diet, Raghu asks him to share about his open-curiosity for so many different teachings, spiritual lineages, styles of media, and creative hobbies. Explaining that he can’t just listen to one school of thought and be happy with it, Ramin reconciles his kaleidoscopic tastes with the Frank Zappa inquiry, “How do I come about an education by virtue of contrasting material?” Through this lens, expansion comes through gaining awareness of the whole picture.
“I have to tune into people even if they politically or ideologically have nothing to do with what I like to believe. I have to hear what they’re saying so I can build the whole picture, and even though I can’t conclude what that whole picture is yet, I have to always have that feeling of expanding.” – Ramin Nazer
For the Maui retreat talk around mindfulness and awakening that Raghu mentions, involving Joseph, Sharon and Jack, tune into Ep. 287 of Mindrolling
Creativity & Death (34:15)
Introducing a piece of Ramin’s artwork showcasing a cloaked grim reaper peering through an orbing rainbow backdrop stating, “Death is just one character I play. My real name is change,” Raghu invites Ramin to illuminate the connection between creativity and death. Touching on empty space, infinity, and reincarnation, Ramin looks to the always-changing impermanence of the stars in the sky to help exemplify the illusory nature of death, and the eternal nature of creativity.
“You imagine death to be just darkness and lack of activity, but it might be the same as with space. John Wheeler said that empty space is not empty. It’s actually the most violent physics there is. Empty space is where all the action is. It’s infinite amount of energy in the void. So, when you think of death being void, it’s not actually nothingness, it’s everything-ness.” – Ramin Nazer
Rewrite death as a creative act of expression, rather than one of fear and destruction, as Ram Dass discusses ‘dying into what is,’ on Ep. 156 of Here & Now
