Greetings angelic viewers,
and welcome to
A Journey through
Aesthetic Realms
on Supreme Master
Television.
In today’s show, we’ll
take an inspiring voyage
to the realm of light
with the first
of our two-part series on
contemporary Canadian
artist François Lortie,
better known as Niska.
Called
“the Painter of the Soul,”
Niska has devoted
over 50 years of his life
to the ardent quest for God
with his paintbrush.
At the age of six,
Niska was struck
by a city bus
when he found himself
out of his body and
surrounded by bright light.
The life-changing moment
was followed by
18 months of confinement
in a hospital bed.
Assigned to
the rehabilitation center
along with war amputees,
he created his first painting
under the loving
encouragement
of his caretakers.
It was here that he made
his lifetime commitment
to spreading
the message of light.
I was already painting
those lights and
my first exhibition [was]
when I sent the paintings
in Ottawa for the
National Gallery in 1954.
By this year, I remember,
I was like 14 years old,
those energies
that I felt in my guts, I
wanted to help the world.
I wanted to help humanity,
to change the world,
So I associated
to my spiritual energy,
wanted so much to give,
so that’s the strength
of power.
And of course the light
that I associate to
[is] the Light of God.
So what would you say
will be your life mission?
How would you
sum it all up?
My life mission was to
uplift the people to realize
that we are not really
human beings.
We are divine beings
that chose to be on Earth.
I think
the human experience
and this human experience
is fun.
What is the most
important thing in life?
It’s your life,
live the life, enjoy,
you are here to rejoice.
So you have to
learn meditating on light
and finding that you’re
a being of light, that you
can raise that dimmer.
Some people need little
lights to start growing
until you realize
you are the light.
With illuminating colors
and smooth flowing strokes,
Niska’s paintings glow
with happiness, purity,
and truth.
The indescribable harmony
of a soulful experience is
brought before the viewer,
like a poem, a symphony,
a ballet, or an epic,
so real that you can
almost touch it.
It’s important
to start thinking
about light and love.
On your dead bed,
you don’t ask
where is my money,
you ask where is the light.
The basic
of many of the paintings
is you see there are
some kind of a circle here.
Can you perceive that
there is a circle there?
You see there?
(Right, yes.) Okay.
When I was a young boy,
I had this bus accident,
declared dead,
and I was entering
that tunnel of light.
And now I know that
depending on your religion,
at that time I didn't know,
I was six years old.
I was Christian,
so [I’d] meet Jesus.
Elona, my wife, is Jewish
so she might meet Moses.
Others meet Buddha,
Ramtha, Krishna.
And that became
my passion, to paint
those circles of life.
I've painted them now
for 60 some years.
I've learned a lot about them.
If I walk into that light
right there, I’m going to
be passing onto
the other side of the light.
So what is here on
the other side of the light?
With all my heart, it’s God.
You’ll see God
when you get over
this channel of light there.
So for most people
who think they are dust,
they will turn to dust,
they’re worth nothing,
no, no, no, no.
You are the light
that will return to light.
You are God
that will return to God.
Through the profound
experience of light and God,
Niska arrives
at his insightful view
of the nature
of this worldly existence.
Art evolved over the years.
You see in many,
many of my paintings.
You see that straight line
here, you see?
And in 1990,
I stopped putting dates
on the paintings.
That was through
my spiritual growth
and consciousness, that
we’re not really immortal;
we’re more eternal.
I’m not the expert
in language
but I mean we were
not really ever born
nor will we really ever die.
We borrow the body
for a period of time,
so that’s a life span,
this is your life,
from there to there.
So what’s a 50, 75, 100
years, or billions
and billions of years?
By meaning we are
immortal, eternal,
meaning that we’ve
always been linked to God
and we’ll always be,
but we might not
have our actual vehicle –
I call sometimes “a car”
that we borrow to visit Her.
We will be back with
more on Niska’s paintings
and the artist’s insights
about his direct experience
with God.
Please stay tuned
to Supreme Master
Television.
God.
I am just fascinated
with God.
I realize that
we are able to find God
and connect [with] Him.
We only find God through
our own experience.
Did you know that?
Nobody can teach;
nobody has God.
We can inspire you
to start on the path
and make your path,
but you will find it
by yourself.
They cannot prove God
to you, nobody,
and nobody will ever.
You can prove only God
to yourself.
Welcome back to
A Journey through
Aesthetic Realms
on Supreme Master
Television.
In today’s show,
we are featuring
Canadian spiritual artist
Niska, who is known as
“the Painter of the Soul.”
To cultivate
his connection with God,
Niska starts his days with
prayer and meditation.
Then with fresh inspiration,
he delves right into art.
He once said in an interview,
“It's my life, I meditate
and paint, eat and sleep.”
All my life,
the purpose of meditation
is to contact God.
Your inner God, contact
this infinite nothingness.
You know we think
that God is everything
but just it’s partial,
God is everywhere.
But as I painted,
I do not realize
I was actually meditating;
so as I did it full time,
I was not, thank God,
a school teacher
or things like that,
to teach art.
I love our teachers and
to think I was blessed,
to be able to paint
and paint.
So suddenly I started
seeing those lights
coming up in my life,
like the monks in Tibet
or some other places
that meditate
4 to 8 hours every day.
After a few years they
start seeing those lights,
they actually see them.
So me as I paint them
and because
if I didn’t see them,
I couldn’t paint them,
but they took me many,
many years to see them.
But then also that’s
the purpose of meditation,
contacting with God
and then you grow.
I found out
that God is very polite.
He’s a good friend,
but He’s very polite.
And I think some experts
could confirm to you
that the average brain
functioning between 2 to
5 hundred words a minute;
if your emotions are there,
it goes fast fast fast.
So God is quite polite.
So what you want to do
with meditation
is to lower
this scrambling of thoughts
fighting all over,
and when you get to
about 100 words a minute,
great, He tries to squeeze
a word in, you know?
So, He’s so polite that
He will not interrupt you.
So if you don’t shut up,
you’ll never
hear about Him.
The paintings of light
created after meditation
bear the power
of inner God connection,
touch people’s souls,
and benefit
even their physical lives.
Niska’s wife Elona
shares with us
her own experience.
Yes, when I was doing
my master thesis and
I had one of his paintings
above my computer.
And he said to me,
“Why don’t you let yourself
go into the light?”
He said, “So then
you could be inspired
and write it faster and
it’ll go easier for you.”
And I said,
“Listen... it’s for McGill,
and I need to do
an analysis, political and
economical and historical.
How was the light
going to help me?”
Because I was just starting
my spiritual growth.
I had ideas about it
as a kid, but we never
learned about it in school.
It’s 3 in the morning,
and there I was
with that painting and
I suddenly found myself
having this inner dialogue
with his painting,
and it was helping me
connect with my inner light
and my inner guide,
which I slowly discovered
more and more over time.
And what happened
in the end
was what normally
would have taken me
probably a year –
I was working at the time,
full time –
I did it in three months,
weekends and evenings.
I was so inspired
by the painting,
the words just typed
out of my fingers
and I started to discover
the power of the light.
If I hadn’t lived it I would
have never known it,
and after that
when I handed it in,
I wrote a lot of things
in that thesis that I might
normally not have written.
And I said,
“Oh, I don’t know
if they are going like it.”
They may fail me because
I was quite audacious
in what I had to say.
It was quite forthright.
I tried to say it
diplomatically, but
I still said certain things
that the paintings
encouraged me.
They said,
“Go for it, go for it.”
The light in the paintings
said, “Go for it.”
But after that
when I got back my results
in the mail, I opened it up
and they wrote that,
“The joy of a teacher
is when the child
surpasses the master,”
and I started to cry,
you know.
And I realized,
I didn’t say I am so bright,
but I said the light
when you connect
with your inner voice
and you allow yourself
to be inspired,
you can reach heights and
a sense of boundlessness
that you don’t know
really exist before.
So, that was
a life-changing moment
for me when I realized
I want to spend more time
understanding
what that was all about,
and the power of that,
that really
transforms your life
and brings you to places
where you don’t think
ever existed.
The life-changing
experience of Elona
is not an isolated incident.
Through contemplating
on God’s light, many people
have found the source
of lasting happiness.
In Niska’s words,
“With God,
you are never alone.”
One of our big, big
suffering in humanity
presently is loneliness.
People live in huge towers
and couples can’t
keep their parents home,
so the little ones
are often alone,
and the older ones
are very alone.
We feel alone because
we have the illusion,
I think, of being
disconnected from God.
If we knew
we are connected to God,
how could you feel alone?
I know He’s there,
He’s helping me all the time.
So that’s why I made
this beautiful painting
“With God,
We Are Never Alone.”
We sincerely thank
Niska and Elona
for sharing with us
the essential message
of light and God.
We will continue
with part 2 next week,
here on
Supreme Master Television.
For more about
Niska’s paintings,
please visit
Radiant viewers, thank you
for your presence
on today’s episode
of A Journey through
Aesthetic Realms.
Up next
on Supreme Master
Television
is Vegetarianism:
The Noble Way of Living,
after Noteworthy News.
May Divine light
guide us all
toward a virtuous, loving,
and happy path in life.
As a leader in
technological innovations,
Japan is on the forefront
of showcasing their latest
green achievements.
Explore with us
the most successful
11th annual Eco-Products
Exhibition, held in Tokyo
in December 2009.
We at Sony are currently
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This bio-battery uses
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Join us on Friday, April 9,
here on
Supreme Master Television.
Noble viewers, welcome
to A Journey through
Aesthetic Realms
on Supreme Master
Television.
In last week’s show,
we introduced
Canadian artist Niska
and his paintings of light.
It all began at
the tender age of six, when
an automobile accident
prompted his
sudden experience of
the spiritual realm of light.
This was just
the beginning of
Niska’s lifelong journey
as an artist with a mission
to share the same splendor
of light with others.
Today, we will complete
our two-part interview
by seeing how Niska
brings the Divine revelation
to physical life while
spreading the message
of love, positivity,
and happiness.
If we can step
out of the message that
we are beings of light,
wonderful beings,
we just need to
turn the “dimmer” up.
Stop being two watts,
we can be 1,000 watts.
Live and be happy.
The first thing in life
is to be happy.
We are beings of light.
We are not dust
that will return into dust.
We are light, and
must return to the light.
Niska lives with his wife
Elona in a simple house,
which also serves
as his workshop.
They have used the income
earned from selling
the original artworks
to make duplicates
of the paintings to
share with more people
at no cost so that they too
can have the opportunity
to see them and be inspired.
We do distribute freely
for many years.
I think last year
we almost have given away
some 100,000
free reproductions.
They were given
to all kinds of people
that could need them,
love them or made
fundraiser with them.
We [are] willing to
give them the reproduction,
for charity that
we accept and recognize
and like what we do.
That’s my dream.
I hope to give at least
one million away. (Wow.)
So it’s a goal, I work on it.
Our only biggest challenge
is that we work so much
with creating
all kinds of things
that we don’t sleep.
We have so much pleasure
sharing the message
of the paintings
with everybody.
So we’re like kids.
Yes, so I’m very touched
all the time.
Also some people,
teaching in school,
they use the DVDs,
the colors, the pictures
we give them free.
They have access to
and they can download
almost everything they want
from our site,
free of charge.
So that’s very pleasurable.
Where I live in
the borough of Lachine,
the mayor has one
in his office,
the city counselors,
the business people,
the school teachers.
My posters are everywhere.
It’s like they adopted me
like their child.
I’m very proud to be there.
People from all walks
of life find themselves
drawn to Niska’s artwork
and resonate with
spontaneous enthusiasm.
It is as though
what they find
in the light-filled
is a mirror of themselves.
What they experience
beyond the canvas
is often deeper
than words can describe.
He has really, really given
a lot, a lot of his love
through his paintings.
Lots and lots of energy.
It gives me a deep calm,
it gives me the desire
to see who I am
and it gives me a very,
very great inner peace.
Whenever I look
at his paintings,
I have the feeling that I
recognize the Divine in me,
see myself beautiful,
see myself great,
and that I see
that there is nothing
that prevents me to
obtain the same richness
as his paintings.
The overwhelming
responses have grown
beyond the borders
of Niska’s homeland
and are coming
from all over the world.
I just thank God
to let me see, before I die,
the pleasure of where the
paintings are really going.
I have many, many shows,
like 300 shows,
in so many places in Europe.
And now for the last
three, four years,
every day we receive mail,
e-mail, phones.
We have a folder
that grows beautifully.
It’s called
the Folder of Gratitude,
where I get these emails
almost every day from
people who own his work,
and talk about
what that light
has brought into their life.
It’s very touching
and meaningful to us.
We will be back
with more on Canadian
spiritual artist Niska
after these messages.
Please stay tuned
to Supreme Master
Television.
There are no roads
to happiness.
Happiness is the road.
Welcome back to
A Journey through
Aesthetic Realms
on Supreme Master
Television
as we continue our feature
on Canadian artist Niska
whose paintings of light
have inspired many
to have a loving and
brighter outlook on life.
Light and love emanate
not only from
Niska’s paintings, but also
from the artist himself.
His unconditional
and tender ways
have touched the hearts
of people around him
in everyday life.
Niska recounts
a heart-warming story
about Elona’s daughter,
Yaël, with whom
he had lived
in the same house
for 12 years.
When she was young,
twelve or thirteen years old,
a full teenager,
and she selected
a little pink painting
for her bedroom.
I had given her
a beautiful mirror,
you know, for a young girl
for her bedroom,
an antique, and then
when she was mad she
will take out the painting
and hide it
behind that mirror.
So I come in and I see that.
Not a word.
I went down, take my car,
go a few blocks
down the street
to the local flower shop
and I buy her an orchid,
wrapped in
see-through paper
with the little ribbons
and then I bring there,
put it on her bedspread
and walk away, not a word.
And then few hours later
walk back, the painting
is back on the wall and
the flower is in the water.
Today, Yaël has graduated
from Harvard University
and has become
a medical doctor, sharing
her own gift of love to many
in need of comfort.
A few years ago,
Niska was diagnosed
with Parkinson’s disease,
an age-related
neurologic disorder that
impairs motor functions.
This has become
a motivator for him
to work harder as he knows
that time is ever precious.
At the same time,
Niska has embraced
his condition as
part of his life’s purpose,
of his service to the world.
To me, I find that Parkinson
as opening me doors
that will have been
like unexpected.
You see like this World
Parkinson Congress in
Washington and New York
that chose me
for the calendar distributed
all over the world,
I will never have
this responsibility if I
didn’t have the Parkinson.
From a mystical point
of view,
we live in a perfectly
harmonious world,
nothing ever happens
in my life outlook
that I didn’t want,
I didn’t create.
We have the capacity
to create us looking sick
because
everything is an illusion.
I believe children
up to age 14,
they know who they are.
They know they are God.
We know we have
unlimited power.
When I say unlimited,
you don’t have a clue
[about] anything that
happens in the world.
You can do
a million times more.
But because of
our mental perception
we create our limits.
There are no limits.
It has been demonstrated
that to change your idea
on something, you only
need to be repeated
like seven times.
Medical researches
have shown
if six or seven people
this morning
were teamed up together
to tell this person,
“Hey, you look so bad,
you must be sick!”
“No, I’m perfectly right.”
The second one,
the third one,
by the seventh time the
guy calls the ambulance.
The brain ruins
all of your capacities
with the negative.
We are paralyzed with
what people taught us.
Now as an adult,
put them down,
put them down.
Do and do and refine the
Divine being that we are.
As Divine beings,
it is human nature
to seek light in darkness,
and hope in despair.
Niska conveys his thoughts
about how we can all
move from a negative
to a positive place
in our daily lives.
There’s a strategy:
Don’t try to throw
the negative away, never.
You never make an effort
for that.
Let’s suppose
you only have half hour
of pleasure per day.
So try to have 35 minutes,
work up 40 minutes,
work to have an hour,
two hours, three hours, and
you never make an effort
to put the negative away,
but the positive that
you will have slowly
every day in your life.
One day, where is it?
All the negative
would have disappeared
from your life.
You just have the will
of being positive.
Positiveness is emotions
that you’ve developed
from inside, slowly,
and then you become
very, very powerful
because you see the light.
If I only see darkness,
it will be very hard
to be positive.
You can go in the deepest
hole in your life
but if you keep
your high thought
over the universe,
over the sky,
you’re bound one day
to see a star.
So being positive is
more like experiencing.
Being positive
is not just a wish,
it’s an inner emotional
reality of your capacities.
As the discussion
on positive realization
continued, Elona brought up
the subject
of constructive media
and Supreme Master
Television.
Can I say something?
Also, with the news
of the Supreme Master
Television,
if we would have that
on main television,
all that positive news
all the time,
it’s so uplifting.
It makes a whole difference.
We need more programs
like you have,
putting the seeds
of beautiful possibilities.
I’ll show the nurse who
heals the hurt person,
then I will recreate
healing in the world.
So the only way we can
is to go back to love
and compassion,
and talk and think,
meditate and develop
more organizations
like you have.
Everything that
you talk about every day
will amplify.
Through his paintings,
Niska is also amplifying
joy and hope in the world,
one painting at a time.
Through viewing them,
people are rediscovering
their light within,
as the artist eagerly
looks forward to the day
that the whole world
will be illuminated.
I look at this painting,
it will probably be chosen
by a very young person,
like under 10,
if the parents agree.
Or a very old,
75, 80 years older.
Many of the most
spiritual people I know,
they don’t even knew
about it, they just are.
So it will probably
be chosen by somebody
very powerful that
enjoys the light, because
this one is very powerful…
We would like to express
our deep appreciation
to the gifted artist Niska
and his gracious spouse
Elona for generously
sharing the beauty
of human spirituality
through your artworks
as well as your love
and positivity.
May your pure hearts
be blessed just as
your paintings rekindle
the light in others.
For more
about Niska’s paintings,
please visit
Inspiring viewers,
thank you
for being with us today
on A Journey through
Aesthetic Realms
on Supreme Master
Television.
Up next is
Vegetarianism:
The Noble Way of Living,
right after
Noteworthy News.
May your heart be opened
and your noble wishes
fulfilled.