Nic Askew uses his camera to capture bare human presence, taking his film subjects beyond the mind – into their inner, wiser, more intuitive and intelligent world. Through a nearly two-decade journey in explorative film, he has discovered a profoundly simple way to be together with someone and capture them – which is not an interview, but an Inner View. “People hide behind words,” Nic says. So Nic just waits and listens, “because those [initial words] aren’t the words. Those are the things that need to come out, almost like the words need to finish before that which is meant to come out would be said.” Nic’s Inner View Method has given rise to his acclaimed Soul Biographies Film Series, an experience of human presence viewed by millions. His subjects as well as viewers describe the Soul Biographies as an experience into full-spectrum awareness – a meditation of sorts.

What follows is the transcript of the Awakin Call with Nic Askew, moderated by Preeta Bansal ,and hosted by Steve Elkins. 

Steve Elkins: Our moderator today is Preeta. Preeta Bansal has had a lifelong passion for service which, for much of her life, took the form of public service. A constitutional lawyer by background, Preeta has served in some of the most senior posts in the governmental and corporate sectors, from the White House to U.S. diplomatic and human rights work, to the top echelons of state government and global corporations and law firms. Her passion for service is now finding expression in ServiceSpace, and she is the anchor for these Awakin Calls along with many other national, global, and local modes of service and leadership.

She will now introduce our guest, Nic Askew, and get the ball rolling on this conversation. Preeta over to you.

Preeta Bansal:  Thank you so much. Thanks, Steve. First of all, I just want to express gratitude for you and for co-hosting this call with you.  For those of you who don't know, Steve is also a past Awakin guest.  He's a tremendous filmmaker who, perhaps in some ways like Nic, has sought to capture people, uncovering their deepest inner reaches.

Steve has a tremendous film called Echoes of the Invisible that's been called as much meditation and prayer as it is a film. It records the quests of people connected by a tireless search to touch the deep silence of the human heart in the world of noise and division. So I'm really excited to be sharing this with you, Steve.

I also want to welcome Nic.  Nic, we're so excited to have you here today. Given our theme of agenda-lessness, I was thinking rather than me trying to introduce you, maybe we can improvise a bit with a bit of a looser format. So I thought what I would do is begin with sharing a clip of one of your pieces where you sort of describe a bit of what you are doing and how you're going about it. So let me see if I can share that. 

It's a short clip called "On Belonging without Condition."

Nic (video):  I think people just want to feel like they're home like there's no one they have to be and there's nowhere else they have to be.  Here we are.  It's enough.  You belong.  There was never any condition to that, ever.  You distance yourself and you say, "Well, they're wrong over there. They should believe what I believe." When all along, you could wrap your arms around them, everyone, no matter what. And it's so much easier if you recognize what you are and what you're part of.  Not the ideology you're a part of but what you actually are, and to do that is so very simple.  One has to be still enough for a moment just to catch a glimpse of what you are. There's nothing to do. It's not a thing that you do. It's a thing that you are. It's just a recognition. And then you can put your arms around everything.

If you know what you are, you can't fight. You can't fight yourself. You can't fight your neighbor. You can't fight. You can't fight. It's almost the very definition of peace -- is to love yourself and realize that you're inextricably linked to everything and to know it.  It doesn't take anything. It's just a recognition. It takes no time.  It never did.  He never didn't belong, despite what it may seem.  And without the need to belong, everything falls away. Your need to carve out your place in the world and take from another, or argue with another, or be right.  Your need to be right falls away, and then you can love.  You always had the capacity to wrap your arms around everything you could see, knowing that it was the same and the experience of it is so very close.  In fact, you're standing in it. That's the reality of it. I've filmed so many times, and I've seen it just instantaneously fall away. And there someone is. There was nothing they ever had to do. I know that.  It just doesn't make sense because we think that we have to be somewhere, we have to be someone in order to belong. It was just never true. You belonged. There was never any condition to that. Ever.

Preeta:  Welcome, Nic. That was beautiful. I wonder if you can start by just reflecting a little bit about that piece and what led to it.

Nic.  Yeah, it was a dare. So I was traveling around the U.S. and I was looking to capture the soul of the U.S. -- and, by the way, there is one. It's everywhere. It's in everyone. We were down in Dallas, and a friend who had hosted one of the big filming sessions there on this monumental property -- there were a whole bunch of people there -- said, "Have you ever been in front of the camera?"  Probably expecting the answer, "No. I kind of sit behind the camera." And I went, "Yeah, all the time. I don't mind. It's either way. I don't mind which side of the camera I'm on." So I went in front of the camera and I suppose that came out. That was part of something unplanned.

All of this is unplanned, the way that a film is unplanned.  Because as soon as you start to ask specific questions, you go down specific, trodden, previously-trodden tracks. That's what I found. In fact, at the heart of it, I've noticed that the words that we generally say only come from one of two places -- the usual place, which is "I'm going to speak to the world.  I'm going to speak to you, or at you actually," is usually the case; and, "I'm going to hope that my words have some kind of value, some kind of effect on the world, they're going to move the world in the favor of one or the other, myself, possibly." And that's most of what you see of someone.

But then I noticed, largely through the process of making film, making these human portraits, that also that can all fall away, and then words are pretty much just spoken and it's almost like a stream of consciousness. No one has ever said those words before. They don't know where the sentence is going to end, certainly where it's going to go on the far side of the full stop or the period. I think when you get words spoken from that place, that unchecked, undefended place, you get to experience, you become aware of something very, very different.  And so that's what I essentially make my films from. So there's a -- it's really the experience of surrender.

So that particular piece there probably -- I can't remember exactly if there were any questions asked -- but I was just sitting on a Sunday afternoon, a whole bunch of people, watching this kind of dare:  "Well, will you get in front of the camera?" And I suppose that probably came out because it's what I've noticed to be true. You belong. There is no condition. You, plural, Us. We belong. There's no condition. It's almost -- that statement and that observation kind of questions almost the way we are. I think most human behavior or a lot of human behavior is driven by this sense that we feel like we're not quite enough, like we don't belong. There's something we've got to do. And so there's this continual journey of becoming something.

If I'm being honest, I didn't really mean to be a filmmaker. I never, still, hadn't had a lesson. It just found me. And then I thought I was a filmmaker. And then I realized it wasn't really about film at all.  And there were two -- I suppose it's not too big a statement to say there were two revelations that I noticed that kind of appeared, came to me, and that's the M.O. of all of this. It suddenly occurs. Someone didn't tell you. It suddenly occurs. And the two revelations were:  There's this extraordinary way to be with someone, in which almost time and space between you collapses, and you realize that you were connected all the time. That was one, and that's largely where I suppose I'm focused in showing you what I see of people.

The other bit was probably more extraordinary, to me anyway, and that was -- there is a very simple experience of liberation when you realize that there was nothing you needed to become. It's almost like it's deep down in this kind of journey of becoming, in this journey of awareness, and you suddenly realize, "Well, as I am. Here, we are. This would seem to be enough. There is nothing at this moment we need to become. We don't need to become." It is ineffable and I can't explain it. But there is this experience and I started to notice this experience with people in front of the camera.  And I think that's probably what happened that Sunday afternoon in Dallas.  There's a lot -- I think that comes from...well, no, I don't think, I know. I don't know why "I think."

I know that comes from a longer passage.  It was probably an hour or an hour and a half or something like that of just speaking about stuff.  I think I set it to maybe seven or eight guitar tracks, in the end, I had recorded. But that Sunday afternoon in Dallas, there was a collapse of time and space and we all felt like we belonged to each other. I would imagine that that's a useful condition. That's a useful thing to notice. That's a useful weight to take off one's shoulders, to realize there was nothing to do. You didn't need to be better at this or better at that, or over there or over here. You didn't need to become anything and you belonged anyway, no condition. So that's where it came from, some Sunday afternoon in Dallas a few years ago.

Preeta.  I'm struck when you say there's no one we need to become. There's nothing we need to become. And yet we are becoming all the time. How do you think about that? How do you think about -- I think of the role of learning, self-improvement, all the things that we're taught, transformation, inner change, outer change.

Nic:  Yeah. I could probably make myself very unpopular here, maybe, or just a relief. So I know that. There is a becoming, of course. Things change -- the experience of things change.  Well, I can't speak for everyone, but I can speak observationally and of my own experience.  I believe that we have this notion that in this journey, in this becoming thing, we're firmly in the center and we're doing something to become, and that's where you're always working. It's never enough. You're always working towards something. It just doesn't seem, from where I'm sitting, it doesn't seem necessary from how I see people. 

There was a guy called Ramana Maharshi, and he was once asked this question. And the question was something along the lines of, "How do we treat others?" I suppose the person who asked it probably wanted a checklist of things, "Be kind," etc. And the rather mysterious answer that came back was very simple.  He said, "There are no others." When I heard that line -- and I don't know who he is by the way. I know he's not living anymore supposedly -- but when I heard that, I realized what it is. It's like, "Oh yeah, that's my experience of people."

I don't know why, but there are no others in one very important respect, in one very important respect that we haven't yet noticed, or we have noticed, but have discounted it and didn't realize it was important.  If we are all part of this one thing, which it seems to me like we just are, there was no condition, like human connectedness just existed. It didn't need to be conjured up by good acts. And I know this to be true. I know it because I filmed all sorts of people and I've seen that same look in the eye of someone who's executed 14 people and was in a high-security wing of a Guatemalan jail. That was on a Sunday afternoon as well. But I've seen the same look in his eyes as I've seen in the modern-day saints. It just exists. The connectedness exists. It doesn't need to be worked towards.

So we're busy acting to get to somewhere that we already are. Now that as an idea stinks. But as an experience, it doesn't. And it's there to be experienced. And what I've noticed with the camera, it does catch an aspect of that. If you were to pay attention to someone. If you were to sit and realize that you belong to each other anyway, that it's okay despite what you may think. And there are all these things in the way, of course -- my opinion of you, your opinion of me, my need to do a good job here. For example, convince you guys that I'm worthy of being here, good enough in the world, doing a good thing, becoming a good thing, your need to be a good interviewer, all that. But if you were to drop that, you might have a very different sense of someone and the fact that you belonged, no condition.

You belong to each other. We all do. And that is a really contrarian idea. Like, "What if that were true? What if you didn't have to seek as you'd normally seek?" You know, "I'm always looking, I always have my eyes cast outwards. It's kind of painful and there's a weight on my shoulders and I'm always looking to become." What you didn't? What if you could catch a glance of the fact that you were already.  

I wrote a piece called "An End to Seeking" which I thought might be terribly unpopular, but it seems to be okay, and it was about that.  Maybe I should read it out.  I can't remember it. I'd have to look it up.  

So this rather strange notion of setting out to catch the soul of the human race, which I suppose that's what I was kind of looking for — well, just because I didn't really have a reason — led me to realize, "Oh, it's not really making it about film. It's just about this experience that could happen between any two people at any time, actually between a person and the sky at any time, where one becomes aware that you're a part of it. Now when you're a part of it, when you realize that, suddenly your impetus and your ambition that has driven so much of what you've done before almost falls away, which is terrifying for some people, I think. But many people, probably here as well, many people recognize that the ambition and the fighting to get to a place of importance, or success, or the gates of Nirvana, or heaven, or something that I thought was important at one time seemed to have fallen to the side a little bit. People are seeking something else -- this experience of, "Wow, I want to feel alive. I want to feel like I'm part of something. I don't want to always fight towards this."

So it was a very strange thing because I didn't mean to do that. I didn't mean to realize that, but I did realize that I realized it all the time. I always have; I just didn't know what it was because I had no context, because I haven't followed any traditions. I haven't read textbooks on this or being part of anything: religion, spirituality, or anything. I think all of that can be a really useful thing, but it's not necessarily required because it's right in front of you all the time.

Preeta: So if we don't need to do anything and we don't need to become anything, I guess the question arises for me, and I want to bring this to your own experience, "Then what are we to do?" And I want to bring that to your moment of realizing — that moment of clarity that you have talked about, where you just knew what you were meant to do. You wrote about it in a beautiful poem called Tree of Dreams, which, if you're willing to read, if you have it in front of you, I would love to have you read that. But I wonder how we decide what to do? Or how does that fall onto us, what we're meant to do, if we don't have to do anything?

Nic: Yeah. I was at a conference a couple of weeks ago, and there were a lot of people there — a big outdoor arena by the side of the lake, 500 people. I can't remember what I said. I hadn't really prepared for it. So I said the normal old stuff, I guess, about maybe what we've been talking about. But I do remember this: I had the sense of nothing, like starting with nothing. But if I come to this interview, if that's what it is, and I had this real notion of what I was to say, and where I wanted to take an audience, that would be one thing, that would be a very usual thing. But I don't. I don't know. It's like, "How would I know where we need to go? I don't know."

And so what I do know is that starting with "no thing" is the most extraordinary thing, because if you're forever seeking to have an effect on the world, or to change the world, or to move someone's opinion, move your own opinion, you kind of had this notion almost deep in the heart of seeking is you already have this notion of where you're going, you have a sense of it. In my experience that shuts down what life could be. So this poem you're talking about, I wrote, and I didn't know what I'd written about or why I'd written it. But in retrospect, maybe a decade later, I realized, "Oh, that was a moment. But it's all sorts of moments. It's a moment where there was nothing."

So I was sitting in a hotel, and I've told this one lots of times, I don't know how to get around that. Cause it was a point, there was no point of ... I love the idea of people who ... oh, it's called Awakin here, isn't it? So there's this notion of awakening: and there's usually this big bang [banging sound], and something happens, and everything is different. But it doesn't need to happen like that because what you're awakening to was always there. Like I've got this experience with the camera — with film, and someone's sitting in front of it, and then that image projected to the rest of whoever's in the room. So if it's 10 people in a room or it's 500 people in an auditorium. Sometimes that's been described as like taking iowaska or something like that, but it's not really that special or dramatic because what's happening is you're seeing what's already there. You're not conjuring up something new. It's just there.

I really believe that we belong to this thing -- it's there; it doesn't need to be conjured up; it needs to be noticed. And why aren't we noticing it? Just stuff is in the way. So start with nothing and then be found. So what you're seeking is seeking you. But you don't notice it because there's action. There is this assumption that you've got to move over there. You've got to do this. You've got to do that. So I could read it. I really ought to be able to remember this, but I do have it somewhere. It's not very long. Here goes, I'll read it. It's called The Tree of Dreams. I might read it twice.

The Tree of Dreams

Many had gathered

under the

tree of dreams.

All but one stood

shaking its branches

for dreams to fall.

Dreams that had been

whispered to them

by the voices of others.

Dreams that would

fade with time.

But one sat quietly

waiting for a dream

to recognize her soul.

And to consume her

with no doubt.

I'll read that again just because I always write a "him" or a "her" because that seems to, linguistically, tend to have to do that. But everything's interchangeable. So, a “him” is a “her” and is a “they” and is just “us.” And I couldn't seem to fit "us" in it.

The Tree of Dreams

Many had gathered

under the
tree of dreams.

All but one stood

shaking its branches

for dreams to fall.

Dreams that had been

whispered to them

by the voices of others.

Dreams that would

fade with time.

But one sat quietly

waiting for a dream

to recognize his soul.

And to consume him

with no doubt.

Now, when I wrote it, I remember exactly where I was. I was in Minneapolis, in a car, on the way back from somewhere. I was pulled over and wrote that. And I liked it, you know, so I put it out. I have this kind of a list, I put out a film and some words every Monday — well, actually it's not every Monday. I wanted it to be every Monday, since about 2005, but I often miss one or two.  So retrospectively when people used to say, "What do you do when you're filming? Why do I feel so close to this film subject that I've just witnessed on screen?" And I was trying to explain it, I realized: "That's it. That those words are it."

So, mostly in the world, we're trying to work something else: we're shaking the tree of dreams, which is the metaphor. We're shaking, we're doing life, we're living life. We're living life as best we can. We're living our best life, even. And we're moving towards there. So the information has come — the impulse almost — or the information for the footsteps you take, and the breaths you take, and the things that you do in life, have come from somewhere outside. You've seen it. You've gone, "Oh, I've seen that. I'd like a bit of what John over there or Jane over there has conjured up in their life. I like that." So you're making this dream for yourself because you've admired what you've seen.

But you're kind of reacting to the world and you're thinking about this stuff. But those dreams generally fade with time. But what you seek is seeking you. Absolutely it is. If you were to sit still, you could be consumed with no doubt and you wouldn't know where it had come from. It wouldn't make any sense necessarily, yet you couldn't unsee it. And that's what happened to me with film. I was just sitting in a place and there was no physical stimulus whatsoever. Nothing. Of course I remember

exactly where it was in London and I wasn't talking to a filmmaker. I wasn't watching a film. I wasn't thinking about what I should be doing. There was nothing. It was just nothing. And in the space that nothing is, comes something. So it's not that you need to do nothing forever. Of course not. We've got life. Yeah, this is fun. Well, fun and frustrating. It's everything actually. But now your impulse has come from somewhere different. Much like when I described noticing that words come from one of two places. They come from this bloke called Nic, who's chatting away and hoping to convince you of this idea or something. Or they just come.

I think that's pretty much like life. We have this capacity to live a life and that's most of what we do. Or we have this capacity to almost allow life to live itself through us. That's a very different experience. Yeah, I didn't really think about that until recently. It's bigger than just words. It's almost like a life. So you can make it up as you go along.

Preeta:  Well, you talked about things that are in the way, like when we see people or things, there's often our own preconceptions, our own judgements, our own stuff that's in the way of truly seeing. It takes a lot to drop some of those things that are in the way. And I wonder -- you say we belong without having to do anything -- and I wonder how you got to that point, that you felt like you belonged in that way. Have you ever felt like you didn't belong? And I asked that because I know you're a Brit living in Minnesota. [Laughs] I wonder, how does that feel? And how do you get to that point where you have nothing to do to belong?

Nic:  Yeah. There's kind of a few questions in there and it's kind of -- now I might not be making any sense which I think is probably a good thing.

Preeta:  I just want to say this, I want to preface this. It's hard to know, and I'm just, as I'm experiencing this conversation and you, I really hesitate to jump in because I sense that this will just go in a beautiful direction without my involvement. And so, I apologize if I'm jumping in and just steering things.

Nic:  No, it was really interesting. You sent me an email before, just saying, "Look, I'm having a problem defining a route through this." And it's like, that's always... If I'd ever step on a stage, if I'd ever tried to write down the flow of this, it just would not work. This is not how it is. I mean, you can do that. It's just another thing. So you asked a few questions. There's so much in the way. And how, what do you do to get to this? Nothing. Nothing is a challenging word because you think there's nothing ever happening and nothing is in experience. It's not that. It's your action which I'm pointing to. So what do you do to get the stuff out of the way? "It must be difficult," I think you said, or something to those words. I mean, I believe the answer is, "No, it's not. It takes nothing." And I don't know, this doesn't really live well as an idea, by the way.

So there is this assumption that, well, there is this state that I've heard of -- you know, people hear of people who get to this state -- let's call it "present." And the assumption is they must have done something and maybe they did do something, but you assign that something to the reason that there is this state of something that they have. And so you assign a reason of, well, there was this grand event, this tragic life, this lot of pain, and suddenly someone got to this state of presence. So you assume, well, maybe I need that as well. Or you go, well, they had been meditating for 30 years. So actually it must be in the form of the meditation that they did. You assign that to it. Or they did this, or they did that. So you would just think, assuming something that you haven't questioned. But what if it wasn't true. Whatever it took -- nothing. What I mean by nothing is nothing, no act. So, for example, when I'm experimenting in how to even use words where words shouldn't really be used.

But if you and I were to sit here now, say, we were here pretending we're in a room together.  You would ask that very same question where there is lots of stuff in the way and how would I feel present. It gets kind of mysterious because what I would say to you is -- well, why don't we sit here, and I'll tell you a few things that I think might be I've observed in myself and in people, and just thinking of that for a minute.

You want me to sit here and realize that there's nothing we have to do for this minute? Nothing. We don't need to contribute to a bunch of people looking in on an interview.  Hopefully, they're not here to say, maybe they got notebooks out and they're looking for an answer to something. But for this minute, let's not worry about that. There's nothing to fix. There's nothing to achieve. There's nothing to get to just for this minute.

I would probably say, if we were sitting here and we were in front of you or in front of the camera, which I guess in some respect you are, you belong. There was no condition to that. Therefore I've required nothing from you. I actually required nothing from you.

If you weren't even to speak for this next short period of time, or till the end of time, to the end of this call -- if you didn't have to say a word, and if I didn't have to say a word, maybe that would be enough.

Preeta: So let me go back to your experience of how you got here to this state. You know, I'm thinking, yeah I totally get it. I agree with everything you're saying. I sense it. I feel it deep within me and I have stuff that's in the way. I'm sure as we all do, I think we're not born into this.

We have divinity within us and we have conditioning that gets in the way. I think of being a brown person growing up in the middle of the country, where I felt in the sixties and seventies, where I felt totally like I didn't belong and all of the actions that came from that. And, now the actions that I'm taking or the practices, whether they be meditative or whatever to decondition in those ways.

So for a lot of people, I think, yes, what you're speaking of is what Ramana Maharishi speaks of. I believe that in my own beliefs, I believe that to be true, and I believe them as a bit aspirational. So I guess it's going back to your experience. I'm curious, have you ever felt that you didn't belong?

Nic: No.

Preeta: What allowed you to feel that way, do you think? Well, I can hear I'm asking, what in your childhood, what in your early experiences might have allowed you to be in that state of full presence and full unconditional love?

Nic: Well, I'm not sure I was totally in that state. I think if I look at my childhood and even my life, it's not a case of I'm always in this state. But I recognized it, so I never felt separate. I don't know why and I didn't even know it was that. I never had a conversation about anything like that until maybe I was 30, probably.Yet I did have a sense of there is no separateness here. I just know what it was.

I remember walking down a street in Brooklyn, in New York, and looking across the road and seeing why people hurt. I remember physically seeing people and thought they were separate. And then the penny dropped just like, “Oh, I see, I get it.” But I haven't had that experience. It doesn't mean that I didn't feel kind of excluded in physical situations and stuff. I mean, the undercurrent of all this. So, why, I have no idea and do I need to know, not really because if I understand it or I don't, it's not going to work any differently. But I understand why you are asking the question because it seems like there's stuff in the way.

So there's something which doesn't live well as an idea, which is, we are okay. We are part of this altogether. That's terrible. That's frustrating as a notion, as an idea, even as a belief, it's frustrating because if it's not the experience, then...

Preeta: Yeah, I guess I would say it's not the idea that's frustrating. The ideas totally resonate. It's the reality, I think, for so many people.

Nic: So the absence of the experience is frustrating or can be frustrating, I guess. I know this exists. I know that I should feel this way, but it's not how I feel. My only contribution to that is probably just to say, well, let's do nothing.

Preeta: Hmm

Nic: Because the more we talk about it, the deeper the hole we are digging. This intellectual hole of trying to understand it, it's something that can't be understood, trying to talk about something that can't really be talked about. There's a wonderful possibility in just the two of us sitting here, and then it's felt, and I know that each person probably just gets what this is. That's kind of silly. I want to understand it, but why do you need to understand it? Because you want to control it? What if we didn't have the control of it just for a minute, anyway?

Preeta: That's beautiful. I am laughing because in my own life I came about a week ago, I said to myself, I just need to do nothing, nothing. So when you said the answer is just do nothing I was like, yeah.

Nic: I know, I think people probably make a lot of jokes about this because when I talk, I talk about this thing called nothing, but I just noticed it's really quite terrible, very important if I can use all those words in a row because it just is. It's like starting with it anyway, start with nothing. From there, as per the Tree of Dreams, you are consumed with no doubt. You are consumed with no doubt about, I won't even say why you are put on earth. I mean, I don't know why I have been put on earth or if I have been put on earth or whether I have a purpose, it seems a bit grandiose to have a purpose, to be honest.

I am not really thinking about that when I am doing anything. No, that is a ridiculous thing to think. But I would be terribly important so maybe I should. But it's also the same for, well, should I have a cup of tea or a cup of coffee or absolutely nothing. It's the same thing really. He started to think about it and try to work it out. You are trying to exert control over everything, but if you don't, you just know, it is no. Or the decision is made almost on your behalf. You just, “Oh, that!”

So when you are with someone and I suppose I generally work in the realm of between people. I don't know why. I just love that piece. I have taken all these photographs of people who have been in front of the camera and the video camera. And I just love doing that. I don't know why I love doing it. I seldom photograph anything below people's shoulders. I don't know why I have nothing against what's below the shoulders, but I am just drawn to this, the bit above the shoulders. I don't know why, but I just like it. So I do it and it draws my full attention.

In fact, I once went to a conference and it was about presence, apparently. That was the central focus and I was introduced as someone who would help us to be more present. And I had to say straight away to say, oh no, that's not the nature of it. That's not how I think presence works. Presence isn't something that you do. It just is there. It doesn't need anything. I can show you that. It doesn't need anything. Not only is it just there, but you are part of it as well.

So I see another way to describe it as someone once when trying to learn this like I used to, while I still do I suppose, I pretend to teach this in a thing and I call it interview. And I am not really teaching, I am just pointing to what can be noticed. So this is nothing to learn because it's just innate because you are part of it anyway.

And someone sits in front of the camera and rather amusingly, she didn't think it was amusing by the way. I did. She said, “Oh, I got it. You just got to be.” No, no, no, you don't just got to be, that's just something else to do. Just another verb, it seems gentler and perhaps more profound. But you don't even need to be, and there's this kind of this visible and visceral sense of relief. Oh, thank God I don't have to be.

And then she said the immortal word, immortal to me because I keep thinking about them. She said, “Oh, so you are already good at holding space.” No, no, no, you don't need to hold space. I told him you don't need me to hold space. Space doesn't need to be held, not by you and certainly not by me. And it doesn't need to be held because it's just there. That's what presence is. It's just there. It's never not there. It doesn't need something to come through it to magic it up. It's not conditional. It doesn't need -- well, okay when you were a good girl or a good boy and you have done these things, and then presence can be felt. It's not that, that's not its nature. It's just there and it just waits patiently. But it doesn't wait, it doesn't do anything. It's just there. And you are part of it. So there's nothing to do. To experience it, there's nothing to do. It's only the opposite of that, something that seems to get in the way. So stop it. It is a fairly good bit of a face. What it does state for a moment is that we could just sit. It's really simple. It's really silly. But I know because I experienced it all the time. However absurd and illogical and silly it seems, it's extraordinary.

Preeta: Tell me a little bit about these soul biographies you do. I guess here are a couple of questions and you can answer whatever feels alive for you. I am curious what the role of the camera is in your not holding, holding space in presence. How does that affect it? I am curious, black and white. You are showing up here for me in black and white. Love to hear about that. And then another just related question, and like I just said, whatever you feel like answering. When you sit with a subject, well, where did the subjects come from? Do they find you, do you find them? And then when you are sitting with the subject, what do you do? Do you just let them speak? Do you ask a question, how does it start?

Nic: I am trying to hold these questions. Okay, right. I will rattle them off. They are good questions. I love them, thank you.

Where do you find these people? That was the most comical question for me that I got asked, right from the get-go. This was probably 16-17 years ago, maybe more. I was putting these films out and understand that I don't know why I picked the camera up. It just found me consuming with no doubt, just like the tree dreams. And so I walked around someone's house and I borrowed their video camera and I stuck it in someone's face and it didn't have a manual. So I pressed a red button on the back and it recorded, Hey Presto, now I have to work out what to do with it. So I made these films, but pretty similar to exactly what I am doing now.

And then people would say often, probably for a decade, it started to wear off after about a decade, where do you find these people? So I could get the funny response, which is, “Hey, I just got lucky and I lived in the postcode now I am in America. The zip code where all the really open people, 55419.”

That's not true. But what I realized people were actually saying or meant to say, or perhaps meant to say, was that's not my experience of people. What I know to be true is that it's my experience of people -- not all the time. Certainly when I choose to though, all people. There is no one I haven't seen what I'm talking about in, no one. I can see it from afar. It's just there. There's no condition to it. So then I realized, "Oh, so I'm not really making films, am I? What I'm really doing is pointing to the fact that we belong to each other and there's no condition."

So then to another question, which was: “Why Soul Biographies? Why black and white?” I didn't know what I was doing. But when you're following this way of life taking hold of you and living itself through you, it's a pain in the backside, to be honest, sometimes, physically, because you're not in control. You're just not in control. You can't stick a business model on it as such. You can't do any of that. I don't think you can. I've tried many times. I've tried. It has a life of its own because it's life living itself through you. That's the trouble in one way, but it's really quite wonderful in another way. I'm not in control of this. So it started out. I used to call it something else actually, and then switch it to calling it Soul Biographies. I can't remember more on why actually, but it seemed a relevant title. And the way of it, the way that I would sit with someone is how I've described. So seldom, especially now, I don't have anything to ask someone because I'm not looking for an answer to something, unless we have a context for a film. Sometimes I've made films on the re-imagining of education or the conflict, or something like that, schizophrenia, things like that. There's a context, so sometimes I have to ask a few things. But generally, if I was making a free form soul biography, there would be nothing.

In fact, I've written a little piece that is somewhere on the site. It was after someone stepped up in front of the camera. I was at this place and someone said, "Would you bring your cameras out?" They didn't know I was a filmmaker. I put the cameras up and the image was on a big screen, so everyone could see. And someone steps up, the first person steps up, bounds up the chair, comes to sit down and has obviously come with something to say. There's experience and it's valuable for the world, perhaps, so I'm going to say it. I hope I'm helping the world. And I recognized that, and I remembered saying, "No, let's start. Let's just be still. That's the start, because I've just noticed that you've come with words to speak to the world, all for lovely reasons, but let's see what finds you.”

Just based on my observation that what you seek is seeking you also. So there's the total diffusing of the situation. It turns out the guy was a U.S. Congressman and had led this wonderful life of service. But when we started with nothing, from there something came, and it was original, the words were extraordinary. There wasn't a dry eye in a very big room because everyone knew where it had come from.

That's the capacity we have with everyone all the time. If you are interviewing someone, there's a place for it, of course there is. But there's also a place for nothing, for just clear space that you don't have to hold, or you don't have to fix anyone. And someone then gets their own original journey almost. And they realize that they have this extraordinary capacity themselves, without the help of anything or anyone. They have that because they're part of everything. It's only this absence of interference. Almost interference often with good aims, like "Oh, wouldn't it be good if I gave you empathy?"  No, empathy would rob you of something.

I've sat with people who were totally desolate because their child has been murdered -- a number of times actually, murdered or killed or died in an accident or something like that. Now, if I start to react in that situation, to try and alleviate the suffering, I have then robbed that person of the most extraordinary experience, I think, of coming to this conclusion of surrender to the situation, which I believe is almost a resolution to it, where you can find peace in the middle of terrible things.

But if we're always trying to interfere and help the world, I think there's a place for not doing that. So Soul Biographies became that. Black and white because I like it. Black and white, because it seems to soother. It is the camera important? Well, naturally the camera's important if you're making films because you’ve got record it on something. So that allows me to share the experience of what I've seen of someone. Even for me to work out what I've seen of someone.

If I were to sit with you and we were to film, I don't know what it would be about. Hey, you've had a colorful history in the things that you've done. It would naturally, or normally, it would be a case of well, I'll swat up on what you've done. There's some really interesting things in there, quite dramatic. "Working in the white house, what a wonderful thing! What was it like?" There's these things we could go down or we could not. If my job was to see you, I think that would be a red herring to go there. If my job was not to be a storyteller, which isn't by the way, because I don't mind if you were to sit there and if you didn't say a single word. I would have a really extraordinary experience of you. Maybe even without a single word, I would know you. That's a possibility, in fact, that's a probability. I've noticed that, a lot.

So when people come to do this strange filming thing and they come for lots of days, that's often the thing, there were long tracks of silence, where seemingly nothing's happening, but actually everything's happening and you notice it. And then you realize the world isn't as it is, as you thought it was. And you aren't what you thought you were. Then it gets mysterious, but amazing. So I think I've answered some of those things.

The effect of film does have its catches. I don't know what the substance is, the substance that runs through the experience of someone. But it does catch it and therefore it's transferable. So you can look at a soul biography, for example, of someone who has surrendered the need for it to be anything. Essentially, words have been spoken almost through them, and they might seem like this person is speaking and telling a story, but they're not really cognizant of what it is that they are doing. That experience is caught in the frames of the film and can be noticed by anyone who cares to pay attention.

What I mean by attention, I suppose, this bit is really important. Actually, I noticed this years and years and years ago that, if I take my films as the metaphor, and really just any human experience is the real thing, there are two ways to pay attention to someone.

You could sit there and do what is normally done, which is you're listening. Maybe you're even actively listening, really intently listening, but you're acting, what you're doing is you're trying to work something out. You have opinions, you might go "I love the way you look. I like your hair." Maybe that's not so relevant with me, but I liked your hair. "I like the way you look" or "I don't like the way you look," or "I know someone who looks like you." You're just being comparative and you are having opinions, you're being comparative. And then you're trying to follow this story or this passage of words that someone's saying, and you're kind of trying to work out. Well, I wonder what's useful in this, I wonder if there's something that I might learn. I'll keep my eyes open for that and my ears open for that because you've had some experience.

I might be able to learn from that. So now I'm really paying attention. And the list goes on. It is exhausting and it essentially makes you blind to someone. Because between the two people, there's something going on that makes you blind. It occludes your capacity to notice the experience of that person and the fact that you belong, you belong to each other, which really, I think if people were held to the flame, is probably the experience that people would want.

To be with anyone, everyone, and realize that you weren't separate, that your futures were entwined, that your actions had effect on everything, that you were aware of what this is. Some people might not. So that's an assumption I probably shouldn't have made. But there is this possibility of that.

Steve: I apologize for cutting in. I just realized we are at the top of the hour and this has been so thought-provoking. I just want to make sure that we allow time for people who are tuning in to ask you some questions in the remaining time that we have.

So for those of you who are listening, you can ask questions either on the live stream webpage or via email. And we're going to switch over to your questions in just a moment. Nic, this has been so thought-provoking and I hope that's not ironic.

Nic: It's highly ironic. Caveat in what you said though, Steve, and that is if people ask questions, there might be this underlying assumption that I might have an answer which is most probably not true. So there's a caveat to that.

Steve: Fair enough. Well, we already have some questions, but while people are starting to fill in more, I just wanted to share something with you briefly. As you were talking, you reminded me of many things, and there are a couple quotes that you reminded me of that I had typed up somewhere and I found them while you were talking. They were written by two very different people: a Polish filmmaker, Krzysztof KieÅ›lowski; and a Russian filmmaker, Andrei Tarkovsky. They speak to things that I think are resonant with your approach to others and with bridging the gap between self and other. And I just want to read them real quick.

I don't really have a question necessarily built into this, but you're welcome to comment on this if it sparks anything you want to share. The first quote from Krzysztof Kieślowski. This is in a random interview I saw him do in Poland in the 80's. He says:

"It's the most significant part of our nature, how we manage to cope with our inner selves. Of course, this is very difficult because people tend to hide it. People are ashamed of being weak. They try to show that they're strong and that's why they feel so lonely because they're left alone with their problems. They're ashamed to share them with anyone. All the films I make are about the need to open up, about the need to communicate on another level, rather than just talking about good wine, car prices, housing costs or the best bank deposits. You have to break through the barrier of shame and the feeling that you mustn't be weak."

And the quote I want to pair that with is, as I mentioned, Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. It's actually a line from his famous film Stalker, which I later found in Lao Tzu. He may have been taking it directly from Lao Tzu actually. But I think it resonates in an interesting way with the last quote. And the quote is this:

"What they call passion actually is not some emotional energy, but just the friction between their souls and the outside world. And most important, let them believe in themselves, let them be helpless like children because weakness is a great thing and strength is nothing. When a man is born, he's weak and flexible. When he dies, he is hard and insensitive. When a tree is growing, it's tender and pliant, but when it's dry and hard, it dies. Hardness and strength are death's companions; pliancy and weakness are expressions of the freshness of being. Because what has hardened will never win."

Nic: Hm. Okay. I'm going to give you a response. I'm just going to look for it.

Steve: And then in just a few minutes, I'll start sharing some audience questions with you as well.

Nic: I wrote a piece not long ago, actually, called The Entrance Hall. It's very short. But I think it has some relevance to it, especially the first thing that you said, [that] underneath it all people want to be seen, recognized, for who they are, but they don't dare. Because the idea is, and the notion most people hold is, well, if I was already seen, what then? What might people really think about what they see? So this was an experience that I had once, and I wrote these words and it was called The Entrance Hall. And it goes like this:

"I'm in an entrance hall and I look towards the furthest door away. I see her, she looks up, and immediately casts her eyes downwards. She assumes that I can see her. I can, but what she believes I can see, she's ashamed of. She doesn't wish for it to be seen by anyone. She spent a lifetime holding up a facade, a cumbrous life forever against the way to gravity. But what I see is not that. And if she could see what I see, I imagine that her life would be so very different. I wished that for her, I wished she'd look up."

And that's my experience of seeing people walk towards the camera. Often there are these terribly courageous few steps. When you realize that actually, here, for this moment, you might be seen and there might be no condition. So you might be indefensible. And then what? So of course, the idea that you have about yourself, no matter how confident you might seem in the world underneath it, you question it.

So there's this terrifying notion of, wow, well, maybe I'll be found out. But also shortly after that, my experience is, when you are seen, when you let yourself be seen with nothing in the way, no story, no nothing, which is why no words is nothing, it is a really extraordinary thing. It's nothing to put, you know, you can't use words as a defence, then there's this experience that it's okay. There you are. They didn't flinch. They didn't run away. They didn't have an opinion, all those things that I thought - maybe they weren't true. And so you become aware, you start to become aware of yourself and your place in it. And I think that's an extraordinary gift to someone to be able to do that. So nothing really has a place. Like if you were to sit with someone with no condition and not try to fix them, not try to fit anything in the way, not try to hold space for them, not try to just be, not try to "there, there, them” or give them advice or anything. And they were to be indefensible and they were still alive. And you were still there. That might just tell them without telling them that they're the most important thing in your world at that particular point, which could be an amazing thing.

It might lead someone to start to put cracks in that cumbrous lie, almost, in the weight of holding themselves up all the time. And I think we can do that for each other. I've noticed that, yeah, it does take a little bit of courage, but on your behalf, on my behalf, maybe it just takes a little bit of nothing. Anyway, I suppose that's the response.

Steve: Yeah, that's interesting. And our culture, most cultures, do not provide any sort of support or training - not that it necessarily needs training - but this idea that you're talking about, or rather the experience that you're talking about, is not something that we're raised with. It's not normal. We almost have to discover it on our own in our relationships with others. And it actually reminds me of -- this is the last comment I'll make before I switch over to the audience questions -- but it reminds me of a filmmaker in Alaska who I greatly respect named Len Kamerling.

He works with indigenous communities in the Arctic circle. He told me that when he first started visiting some of these communities, the elders of the Yupik peoples he was working with, would come to where he was staying to spend time with him. And he found that when they showed up, they would just sit there, completely silent with him. And coming from New York City, he kept trying to fill the empty space or the silent space with words like a radio announcer was how he described it, trying to fill dead air. And he couldn't stop babbling. It took him a while to realize that when they came to visit him, they were coming there to be present, not necessarily to talk.

That was something that was built into their culture apparently. And, they didn't understand why he needed words to fill the space, but eventually he learned to adapt to that. A lot came out of it which is really fascinating.

Nic: It could be the simplest thing we've missed. It's so utterly simple. It's just nothing, just nothing, for a while.

Like if you were to not do that and not do that nothing thing, what might fill your bones? I imagine that's where vast dreams come from. Does that still space of not trying to work anything out, almost in that liminal space between asleep and awake, which can be your day, by the way. I tend to let my day like that, much of it anyway. Not always.

Steve: I have a question here from Shiva from Leicester, North Carolina, who says, "Has anyone who has sat in front of you and the camera been totally silent? No words, nothing to say. That would be my biggest fear. If it was me just sitting there with you and the camera and no words come. And if that were to happen, how long would we sit there together in silence?"

Nic: Okay. Till the end of the time is the invitation, I don't mind. So here's what happens. And yes, the answer to that is absolutely yes, it happens often. The record is 1 hour 47 minutes with quite a large audience watching the image as it unfolds and someone not saying a single word and me not looking away.

Now I get that at the beginning, when you're so used to putting up defense through words and all sorts of things, it might feel terrifying. But, just on the other side of that, it isn't; and that's the step that most people don't take. Sometimes I just want to -- well, I've got to think of another metaphor -- pull my hair out because I can't do that.

Sometimes I just want to say, "Come on, really? What if I told you I don't need anything from you? I don't need words. I'm very happy to sit here with you. There is nothing that is required here. I'm not going to try to fix you. I'm not listening out for something. You don't have to impress me. I know you belong, and there's no condition. I know it. I don't want it. I don't believe it. I know it. So just for a moment, let's do that."

It happens all the time. Even when we've come together for something very specific, like to make a film with a context. It's like, no, let's just take this time for nothing. You know and sometimes there's five minutes of nothing, which is a lot for people; it's not after a while, it's not, you know. I'm happy sitting with nothing. And by the way, I've never meditated. I'm not sure what it is, but maybe it's this. It's like all of life is a meditation. Any moment in which there is just attention, maybe not even your attention, you're not doing anything.

So maybe meditation is nothing. I also know Preeta asked this question about yes, I know that, but there was stuff in the way. I suppose, the resolution to that, almost the answer to that, is nothing. Well, nothing needs to be done. So, I know if you have a thing called a predicament where there's something in the way, your predisposition and your experience, and what people tell you is you have to do something about it.

So to move that thing in the way, get good at this, get masterful at this. Here's a course, here's five steps to, you know, obliterate the thing in the way, to violently quiet your mind, et cetera. But what if it was the opposite? What if it actually took nothing? Because life itself would work it. I think there's something in that to be experimented with because it's useless, some English bloke telling you that might be so, because it's only relevant if it's your experience.

But, yes, people are terrified. Most people sit in front of the camera no less and say nothing. And you can feel that. I mean, people often say, I've caught the heart rate going like 150 beats a minute in some people, and then it doesn't. And then it's down to 50 beats a minute. Then suddenly someone has realized that everything they were afraid of is now irrelevant. It doesn't take very long because it takes nothing.

Steve: That's fascinating. I also have another question from, I hope I'm pronouncing this person's name correctly. I apologize if I'm not. "Jaspal" from Mumbai who says, "If we were to seek nothing, then how do we motivate ourselves to be able to do anything we need to hold onto something, money, social recognition, or feel good, et cetera. How are we going to see the path?"

Nic: Yeah, that has got a few bits in the question actually. You don't seek nothing. I think a lot of this gets messed up in the semantics of it, the words of it. Because in the end, I don't think words really suit it very well, but the experience actually does.

Seeking is an action. So if you are sitting there and you're just thinking, well, here I am and I ought to be over there. There's a game, there's a game in there. I am going to read this out because I probably should have earlier. I think I'm going to read you now. It might, it might answer that. Maybe this is in part a little bit of an answer to that.

This piece is called An End to Seeking. This is how it goes. It actually came … I wrote it to a guy in India who'd written to me about something, and this was my answer to him. It's called An End to Seeking.

“We are a work in progress. The often said words are the allegedly wise repeated without question by those drawn to the enculturated humility of the idea. And so lives the perilous myth on which our human existence appears to have built itself. We are not yet enough. There is someone we must become. This life has conditions, and the world at large echoes the deceit at most every turn, imperceptibly deep within each society's fabric. You must become someone, perpetual betterment towards the gates of Nirvana or heaven or success, or some cultural equivalent, a target to seek, a life to understand, to master, and a reward of self-worth and peace for the successful.

And so continues the relentless and exhausting game of becoming someone, someone of worth, someone who's enough, along with its self-imposed imprisonment with no hope of remission. This is a game that cannot be won, this game of life, we've found ourselves unknowingly complicit in forms the almost perfect riddle. The more earnestly we seek it, the further from an answer we find ourselves. Because the answer lies in surrender, in the letting go of the game, in an end to seeking. We were wrong entirely and painfully wrong. There was no game we had to take part in. There was no one we must become, there was never any condition we'd simply forgotten. We are not a work in progress. You are not a work in progress. Call off the search and experience all there is to experience in these brief and endless moments we call life.”

I think the ‘call off the search’ bit is -- I like that. It's a possibility. Stop it, if you like. And so the seeking bit is, you're trying to hold something up. I know there were a few bits there, social standing and et cetera. But trying to hold that up, it's fatiguing.

I get the thing about money and control and the physical things in life. I don't think this means you need to be sitting cross-legged on top of a mountain listening to vegetarian music, which is a line I once put in a film. It's not that -- I'm not a meditator. I'm not saying I'm good at this. I just noticed the possibility of this other way. This way where, this is enough, I'm enough, you are enough. We belong to each other. We're all fragile.

I wrote a poem once called Fragile, which basically said at the heart of it. Look, I know people are seeking mastery. You look at someone's life and you think it's great, but we're all fragile together here. You know, we can all just fall to bits at any moment, no matter what you've achieved, no matter what you've done. It's all the same. But we do have this capacity to realize that we're not alone in it and that we do belong to each other.

I know most of life seems to be about becoming something in order to feel a certain way. In that there is this exertion of control, this putting of control on the things of life. I think there's another -- maybe it's a bit of both -- but I think there is this capacity we have to let some of that go. Experiment with it anyway. I don't know if that was an answer. Didn't mean to be. Answers are highly overrated because then it's someone telling you who you are and what it is you might do. I'm not sure that's entirely useful though. It's someone saying, well, this is possibly what could happen, now you try it out.

Steven: Now, one last question from someone listening. This is from Momo, who's in the Pacific Northwest on an island in the Salish Sea, who says, “I'd love to wrap my arms around everyone no matter what physically. And for the past years, this pain of having to recon in my body, that in this time/place/situation of pandemic, I can't do that. This seems to disturb the absolute peace and belonging I recognize I am. Any response to this? How has your intimacy of filming and physically encountering others unplanned influenced by this situation?

Nic: Yeah, I get it. It's difficult. I mean, I traveled for the first time the week before last. I got out of my house or out of the studio for the first time in over 18 months. I love being in a room with people. There is this thing called Zoom or Skype or whatever, and I find that actually connection can be felt there. Actually, connection can be felt with nothing -- between someone on another continent because it's just there. I notice human connectedness is just there. Yet also it's a pain not to be able to be in a room with people and out in the world, which I think we're probably naturally predisposed to want to do.

Of course, whenever two people are in a room, there seems to be an issue as well, often because of the way we conduct ourselves. But I’d wish that we could all get back out with nothing in the way. But we put a lot of stuff in the way ourselves, even when we can physically go out. I think people are just like the deepest yearning there is -- is to properly put your arms around everyone, knowing that you belong to each other. Not only is it a lovely idea. But what a relief, if you just could do that, if you realized it were true and you could do that.

I guess maybe the time's coming. I actually filmed in a room with some people. I mean, we were not really close, but I still filmed in a room, and we still had this big screen with this amazing image of people in high contrast black and white, which somehow draws you in. I mean, it might not be with me. But when you see it on a big screen, you're totally struck by it, and suddenly you're just drawn. It's like the time and space between people collapse. And that was wonderful. I hadn't done that for a long time. So I long to be back in the Salish Sea as well. I know a lot of the islands there that I've been out there filming and hanging out.

Steve: And there's one final question for now, which is: how can we, as the larger ServiceSpace community global ecosystem, committed to voluntary service, compassion, and creating changes in the world by changing ourselves, how can we support your vision and your work in the world?

Nic: Oh, I don't know. I mean, at the heart of it, this simplicity of everything that I'm looking at, which I never meant to do, but I just noticed that we belong to each other. And therefore our capacity just to sit almost, Steve, like you described that indigenous community, you just come together and they're just happy to sit with nothing.That's an amazing thing. I'm really keen on that.

And I would just say: “Go, go do it.” You know, although it's a doing of nothing, but to go experiment. What happens if you went out and the next person or the next person after that you were with, you didn't try to do something with them? You know, maybe you just said, “Actually just being here with you is probably enough. Do you mind if we just sit?”

Or, paying full attention without having to do with reacting to the thing that comes back would be an amazing thing to do in the world. I think a world full of people that do that would probably be a different experience of the world. If you wanted to watch what I'm talking about, I have a huge film library: soulbiographies.com. You could just go in there and have a look and see what I'm talking about. There are many people - lots of the films are full of words, especially from the earlier days, but less and less so now. You're very welcome to go have a look there.

Preeta: I just want to express incredible gratitude for both of you, for Nic, you talked about how it's probably the most basic human feeling to want to wrap your arms around everyone and sit. And I feel like that's what you did today.

I feel very deeply seen as I was thinking about one of the original thoughts. One of the questions I was going to ask you, which we didn't get to -- which didn't matter -- was, how would you describe what you do? As I was reflecting on it, as you were talking to Steve, I was thinking what you do is you’re really not only deeply seeing people, but you're hugging people, you're loving people, you're offering people that experience of belonging without condition. So I'm just really grateful for all you're doing, without doing, and may we all get to such a stage. Thank you.

Nic: Thank you. I was just going to say that line or that question, how do we treat others? And the answer, you know, even if it was just a little bit true, there are no others -- not really. Then you would be compelled to act differently towards people. You just would. Steve, you were saying.