interview

WIE: While in your books and talks you don't necessarily use the term "self-mastery", I think it would be fair to say that self-mastery is one way to describe an important dimension of your work. I'd like to start by asking you how you'd define "self-mastery".

Susan Powter: I would never use the word "mastery." I have no respect for that term. I think it is very male and very arrogant. I don't think that there is any such thing as a master. I mean, "master" suggests that there is something under you—usually a slave. It's the mastery of the world that has gotten us into the mess we're in!

So, no, I would say "igniting." I would say "getting awake." Going from sound asleep to wide awake. Going from unconscious to conscious. I see an opening, literally, of eyes and heart and mind and body and all of it. That is very loving, and a very different approach than the "mastery" of anything.

What I do know is that there may be a master-ing of some art, like a discipline. And master-ing always suggests that it's only momentary because as soon as you get to one level, hopefully you'll want to go immediately to the next—which means you haven't mastered that next level. So "mastery" is really a joke. This needs to be said because it's a different perspective; it's a female perspective.

I see it as birthing. I have three children, two I've birthed and one I've adopted. The only mastery at that moment when a ten-pound human being is coming through your vagina is surrendering to nature and to what is normal and right. There is no mastery in that. There is just a letting go. So "allow" is a very different word than "master." "Open" is a very different word than "control." And these are words that I live. I don't just use them in books.

But whether you want to be a Zen master or a master of anything—I don't really care what it is—it's all in the practice. It's in the discipline of doing something over and over, in repetition. It doesn't matter what practice—whether you're talking about exercise or about being a Zen priest. It's in the practice that you get there, that you get all the rewards. And so, repetition is a good word—a real bottom-line word. That means more to me than mastery.

WIE: Yet it is precisely these qualities of discipline, practice and repetition that are traditionally seen as central to mastery or excellence.

SP: Well, there are two things that I do that most people don't know about—I do photography and I knit, and recently I spoke with a brilliant photographer and I asked him, "How do you get great at this? I mean, I don't just want to be really good, I want to be exceptional." He looked at me and said, "Take pictures. If you want to be a great photographer, photograph." If you want to be a great knitter, knit. If you want to be a great writer—didn't Virginia Woolf say it?—"write."

And if you want to be fit, there's no magic. There's no mystery. You have to get up and work your ass off—literally. If your butt is eight feet wide, you've got to work it off. And you're not going to feel like doing it. I speak about this all the time. There is no moment of magical motivation. There is no fairy godmother who comes down and taps you on the head and says, "This time it's going to work. You will lose a hundred pounds." You just every day get up and work the practice of being a fit human being. Everybody is looking for some magic pill, some magic formula. Hardly anybody in my field gets up and says that there is nothing that's going to do it for you. There are people like Michael Jordan. There are people like Cindy Crawford. There are people who are born with skill and beauty and just exceptional gifts. Fine—but most of us aren't like that. Most of us have to work our butts off to get good at things. Hard work—I mean, does anybody use that term anymore? Laziness doesn't fly. It's all in the practice. It does take work and it ain't easy—but man, the rewards!

WIE: Based on your own understanding, what is enlightenment?

SP: Enlightenment, to me, is when the weight comes off your damn shoulders and the cloud lifts. The word for enlightenment is "ahhh"—not "Om"—"ahhh." It's lifting up and out into something else. It's in the word "light." It's to go from heavy to light and I don't mean that physiologically. It's to go from saddened to floating. It's relief. And enlightenment is simply when the light goes on—and that happens in so many different ways and for so many different reasons.

But I will tell you that enlightenment is not a religious thing. It's not a spiritual thing. It's not magic. I have to put this on the record. There isn't a religion on earth that isn't damaging to the human race because every one of them is patriarchal and every one eliminates more than half of the human race—women. They are all oppressors of women—and that goes for Buddhism, Hinduism, all of them. If anybody knows anything about the destruction of matriarchal society and the enslavement of women, they know that it began with patriarchal religion. So I have no respect for any of them.

Enlightenment is not what's going on in this country right now, I can tell you that. I just got back from Los Angeles and the hippest thing going is these damn Buddhist beads that everybody's wearing around their wrist. Everybody! It's like it's become a fashion. It's scary. Everybody's got wooden beads with red tags on them. You can buy them at Barney's for $1,500.

WIE: What do you think are the similarities and differences between self-mastery and enlightenment?

SP: Similarities? There's no similarity between mastery and enlightenment because enlightenment isn't about hanging on. It's about letting go. So "self-mastery" and "enlightenment" are contradictory terms.

But if we take away the word "self-mastery" and say "practice" instead—it's probably the tool that you need to get there. What I mean is that there are things that we can do on a very physical plane to ignite—such as be healthy, be open, be loving. Love is a verb, it's an action. So if you act lovingly, you're going to have love around. People don't get that you have to actually do something to get it. So I think those are probably the tools to get there. To be alive, to be awake, to be open, to surrender—these are all things that you can do to help turn the light on. I see them as screwing in the bulb, you know what I'm saying? There are things you need to do to actually get the electricity hooked up to the damn light.

And the differences? If you take "mastery" out, the differences are none. They are interwoven. They are interdependent. They are interconnected.

What I do daily I really work hard at doing. It ain't easy when you're a single mother, by choice, of three children and you run a very large company. What I do daily, my mandatory practice—what no business meeting, no deadline, nothing can take the place of—are the things that I need to do to keep that electricity running to the light. Because otherwise, it shuts down, it gets dull, and when that gets dull, I'm gone.

WIE: What is that for you?

SP: It is the practice of being physically well. And there's no question about it for me because I've been unwell. I don't exercise any more so that my thighs look great, because they do, and anyway I don't care; I'm forty-one years old and it's not about being in a bikini anymore. The reason I exercise is so that my brain gets oxygen every day. Your heart is a pump. It pumps blood—that's it. It's very important. But all inspiration, all feeling, all thought, all motivation, everything, comes from the brain, and we have to keep this muscle alive and active, just like you keep a bicep muscle active. So the way I stay plugged in is by making sure I get oxygen to my brain on a daily basis. And there's only one way to get oxygen to your brain: It's to move.

I know the guru route, I know you go sit on a mountain. But screw India. I ain't going there. It's a filthy damn place. There's tons of poverty. It has a corrupt government, and I'm not going to do the Hindu wife thing and jump on the funeral pyre of my burning husband and burn with him. I don't like the joint. So I'm not going to go there and sit on a mountain, you know what I'm saying? I don't need to do that. I just need to keep oxygen getting to my brain. So that's the physiological practice. The rest of the practice is that I feed this muscle. I read. Literature. Music is mandatory in my day. And I don't do the things that destroy. I don't watch television. I do the things that are life-enhancing.

WIE: One of the things that I appreciate about your work is your "can-do" attitude. You transmit a powerful spirit of positivity that is very infectious, compelling and inspiring. What you communicate in so many ways is: "I did it, and you can too!" What would you say is the source of your passion, positivity and enthusiasm?

SP: Actually I have never said, "I did it, and you can too." Where I'm coming from is a much more volcanic place. It truly comes from the fact that there is no choice anymore. I am an upper-middle-class white woman, and I found myself with two children, unable to pay my bills and groveling for an alimony check. Now I make that racial and gender distinction quite deliberately. I literally could not afford to pay a bill. I was living below the poverty level. Now what the hell is that all about? Because what people don't understand is that if he chooses to walk away, you're f—ed. I put my kids in day care to try to get a job. I was making $350 a week as a secretary—which is good money, by the way, in Garland, Texas—and I was paying $210 a week in child care. Do the math. You can't live. My only motivation was complete and absolute desperation. You could call it "gutteral"—you hit the wall. You want enlightenment? It doesn't always happen on a mountain. I mean, when you look up and go, "Shit, man, I've got no way out"—that is enlightening. A light bulb goes off and you say, "I have to do something, anything." I mean, I had to dance topless for two years to make cash to pay my bills and save some money. But it was very enlightening, by the way. I'm talking about light from the gutter.

My message is very loving, very positive. There's no question about that. But my message is about a revolution. I don't say, "I did it, so can you." Because that's not true. My circumstances led to the changes that I had to make. Let's say this: If you make choices, if you practice the art of wanting more, opening up, being willing to do the work—anybody who takes the same steps that I took or anybody has to take—then there will be rewards. It's formula. You get up every day and you say, literally, "Okay, what else? Come on, what else? I'm there! I'm ready to do it." And then you've just got to trudge through it. Because it's just what you have to do.

The positivity is in one thing and one thing only: the truth. But most people don't have the chutzpah to tell the truth. I've got nothing to lose. I've got nothing to lose because I don't value a lot of the same things. I don't value authority. I don't value the systems. I don't value patriarchal religion. I don't value the things that diminish you when you do tell the truth. So I'm not scared of the end result, and that is the biggest asset I have. Honesty—that's where the positivity comes from—and I don't mean honesty in any trite kind of way. It's much bigger than that. It is really saying, "Shit, man, I blew it! God, I was such an idiot!" And then you hear somebody laugh and you look in their eyes and see they're crying at the same time. So, yeah, it's positive—but it isn't that "I did it, and you can too" bullshit. I hope you don't have to walk through what I had to walk through to do it.

WIE: I'd like to follow up a bit on this question about positivity. The attainment of self-mastery generally includes the winning of an extraordinary confidence, positivity and charisma which comes from having discovered that you can break through limitations and do things that you never before believed you could do. It's a quality of "I Can!" On the other hand, individuals throughout history who were enlightened also seem to have had an unusual confidence, positivity and sense of no limitation, but when they've spoken about where this comes from for them, they've said that it arises from a deep, mysterious and life-changing realization of their essential unity with the very source of all existence.

SP: I think that's a lot of crap. I don't buy that at all.

WIE: Well, that's what I wanted to ask you about. What in your view are the similarities and differences between the discovery of one's personal power on one hand and the realization of a fundamental unity with the source of all being on the other?

SP: Well, you've got to be real careful with that "source of all being" thing. Who are you referring to?

WIE: Well, let's say maybe someone like Jesus, the Buddha, Ramana Maharshi—

SP: Nope. None of them. They're all part of the murder. I don't buy any of it.

And I don't know that these qualities you mentioned are something that you can gain through any kind of self-mastery. I think that's what would probably kill it or choreograph it. There are a lot of people who call themselves leaders. I don't call myself a leader and never would. But the people who call themselves leaders, a lot of them are very choreographed. I know them. I'm in the same field that they are. I've seen a lot of the choreography. I've seen it in television studios when you're waiting to go on and do a segment, in how they are in the green room versus how they are in front of the camera. A lot of it is not genuine.

I just wish you could see these people offstage. I bumped into Deepak Chopra and he was one of the meanest people I've ever seen in a TV studio. He was rude to everybody, just rude. And what I said to him was, "Man, just because you think you're spiritual, you don't have a right to be mean to people. Be a decent human being and if you're privileged enough that people actually listen to what you say, then consider it a gift." Not many people would say that to Deepak but, you know, sorry—he was rude as hell, and there's no reason for that.

On the other hand, the people I've met in my life who have the qualities of charisma, confidence and positivity, and who I admire, are people who are genuinely, on every level, themselves. Genuinely the same off-camera as on, the same in the green room versus onstage, the same when they're with their children as when they are with a group of five thousand. But I've met very few of them.

WIE: Do you think this genuineness and integrity could be seen as a kind of self-mastery?

SP: Not at all. I would call that the guts to be who you are without worrying that it's not enough. Guts. Not mastery. Courage to be. Courage to not choreograph it. Courage to not pretty it up in any way. And if it's good enough, then it will be. And if it's not, then you've got to face the fact that it ain't good enough.

See, I'm not here to audition. I think that confidence, being positive, and the other word that I hate to use, mastery, or charisma or anything, are really about the guts, the courage, to just be. Don't try and make it anything else. And that gets harder and harder as you elevate in business circles, in social circles, because people pull out the big guns, the degrees, the business deals, the number of companies they own, the amount of money they have. Do you have the courage to just stand there?

I was recently invited to a very, very private party—there were only thirty people—to honor [former New Yorker editor] Tina Brown. And I walked into the room and the names that were there were just ridiculous! But it was great. And when I left, the only thing I was proud of was that nothing changed—I mean, nothing. Even though when you get around bigger names, bigger money or bigger whatever, again, the big guns come out. But for me, nothing changed. I was so genuinely proud of that when I drove home to my children. And I was confident in that. I was happy in that. I was gleeful in that. And I was the only one. So it has to do with guts, the courage to just be who you are. A lot of that other stuff is very choreographed. And I have no respect for that.

WIE: This quality of being real, of being genuine—

SP: It's called being original. Very few people are original. There's very little original anything out there. Because to be original means you have to stand alone.

WIE: Do you believe in any sense of God or a higher power or a divinity—by whatever name you choose to give it? And if so, what role, if any, do you believe this higher power has played in both the successes and failures in your life?

SP: I think this must be said, especially in response to this question: The nice, blanket, politically correct way to cover God is to say, "however you choose to describe it." But somebody needs to start talking about the truth, which is the fact that God is inevitably always referred to as "He." Whether you say it or not is not the point; it's in our culture. God does not have a penis. God has no gender, but that "He" is devastating to women. It eliminates the "She" and it makes the father and the son the most powerful. It is devastating to the human race. Patriarchal religion has contributed more to the devastation of the human race and mother earth than almost any other factor. No! It has to be said. The only God that you are really allowed to find is male. You may be a Hindu or a Buddhist—that's very hip these days. It's very chic to be Tibetan, too. It may be the Dalai Lama or Jesus, but it is always male. And that is a lie. There isn't a theologian in the world who can argue with me on this. God has no gender. If that's the case, then everything needs to be rewritten now, right now.