Super Soul Summer: Rainn Wilson Why Are We Here?

0:00I'm Oprah Winfrey. Welcome to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast. I believe that one of the most valuable gifts you can give yourself is time. Taking time to be more fully present. Your journey to become more inspired and connected to the deeper world around us starts right now. I'm delighted to have as my guest today the funny man and the satirical man that we all love to hate. The character Dwight Schrute from the hit series The Office, brought to us so artfully and thoughtfully by Rainn Wilson. Oh, you're too kind. No, I'm not too kind. It's true. So why a funny man Rainn Wilson on our Soul series?

0:44I'll tell you why. Two words. Soul pancake. Soul pancake. Rainn Wilson, what is soul pancake? That is an excellent question, Oprah. I love that I just said that. I said, that's an excellent question, Oprah. What a delight to meet you. Thanks for having me here. I went to high school here in Chicago. I love this great city. I'm not just saying that for the Chicago office fans. I do. I really love the city. And where did you go to high school? Nutrier High School. Oh, Nutrier. Wow. And did you have any idea then that this is where you would be? You know what? I had, well, we'll get back to Soul Pancake in a minute.

1:20Hold that thought. You know, it's interesting that here I am talking to you at that point because I definitely knew I wanted to be an actor. I had that dream. I had that longing to be an artist. Yes. And that was my deepest drive. My family. Because that is the heart of our soul's calling is that longing thing that you're talking about. Yes. Yes. Yes. And I knew that I basically had to be an actor or I would die. I had such a deep drive to become an actor. And at the same time, you know, I grew up as a member of the Baha 'i faith. And my parents are Baha 'is. And we lived over by the Baha 'i house of worship there in Wilmette, that beautiful temple on Lake Michigan.

1:59Yes, the Baha 'i temple, yes. I've passed that temple and I wondered what, because it's so beautiful. And there is this sort of mystery surrounding it. If you have never been in and don't know anything about the Baha 'i faith, what is that, the Baha 'i faith? Well, another excellent question. First of all, I want to say that had you come in the summer of 1984 to the Baha 'i House of Worship in Wilmet, Illinois, you would have seen young Rainn Wilson in a security guard uniform patrolling the grounds. That's what you were doing? And I was really intimidating because I was probably about 154 pounds at the time and 6 '2", gawky, acne-bespeckled.

2:37But I was fierce. I was a fierce defender. Fierce security guard, yeah. No, the Baha 'i faith is, and it's always difficult to sum up a kind of a world religion in a nutshell, but essentially the Baha 'i faith is a religion of unity. The founder of the Baha 'i faith, Baha 'u'llah, brought the message for this day and age that there is only one religion, that all of the religions of the past are one changeless faith of God, that when you go way back in the annals of human history to Zoroaster, Abraham, to Buddha, and then going forward to Jesus and Muhammad, that all of these people are divine messengers from God that are bringing God's message to that people at that particular date and time and geography.

3:29And there are many manifestations of God or prophets of God or messengers of God, whatever you want to call them, that have come and gone that we don't know about, and there will be ones on into the future. So you grew up with this sense of openness toward all religions and a belief that we're all the same, we're all connected. What a miracle it was to grow up that way. One of the fundamental tenets of the Baha 'i faith is the elimination of racial prejudice. Wow. So to grow up feeling that we're all one human family, Just to know that from age four, as soon as you could think or walk or talk, was a gift.

4:07So were there people of other colors, races in your church? All the Baha 'is, every race, age, creed, background that you can possibly imagine. And so I'm sure that infuses not only certainly your personality, but also distinctly infuses your art. Yeah, that's an interesting question. how does it how does it affect my art yes I hear I play this weird annoying eccentric on a TV show it's not like I'm not on like touched by an angel or something like that you know what I mean I play a lot of different weirdos but you know here's an interesting thing about the Baha 'i faith and this will get us to soul pancake is one of the one of the teachings of the Baha 'i faith is that in this day and age Baha 'u'llah tells us that the making of art is no different than prayer there's not any difference between lifting up a paintbrush and touching it to a canvas and bowing your head in a church you know i just got a little yeah yeah the hairs on my head rose a little bit when you said that get a little tingle i got a little tingle from that rain there's and um and there you know the you know there's there are many other teaching teachings um and But you know the art is prayer creativity is an expression of prayer It is prayer you know to go to get a little mystical on your ass.

5:33Yes. Go ahead get a little mystical on my ass Here we go check this out what the At the end of the Baha 'i prayers we you you say the name of God like they're there are prayers for everyone They're not just for Baha 'is, but at the end you're like, you know thou art the powerful the mighty the all-seeing all-hearing God You know, there's a lot of different faith traditions, but one of the names of God that has been revealed by Baha 'u'llah is the fashioner. And there's a beautiful quote in the Baha 'i faith is that because this word fashioner was revealed as God is the fashioner, that this relates to the arts because when you're an artist, you're a fashioner, whether you're making a sculpture or a painting or a piece of music.

6:15So you're emulating God. as a fashioner as in creator God is the creator you know it's just a different word for creator that's all so being creative and being a creator is the ultimate testament to the great creator God so you're just as God is kind and merciful and just and patient and all loving and all compassionate and those are the qualities of God that we seek to emulate as human beings right it Hopefully, you know, we try our best. You know, one of those is also to be fashioners. To be fashioners. And I happen to be a fashioner of weird, eccentric, freaky geeks. Characters. Characters.

6:55So this is Rainn Wilson talking, y 'all, from the office, who is really talking about God in such a cool, not airy-fairy way. Thank you. And that was your fashioned intention for Soul Pancake. Yes. soul pancake as I became a celebrity and I have my spiritual belief and I seek as a Baha 'i and I believe that our highest calling as human beings is to be of service yes isn't that the truth that's what I deeply believe I do too so I was thinking about how can I be of service what can I best offer the world I mean obviously you know I do some work with charities and stuff like that and you know try and be a good father and a good husband and, you know, struggle with these things.

7:45And, but the, but this is, you know, when I speak to young people about God or about religion or about faith, I kept coming up on the same answer. Yeah. Which is young people, you'd say to someone, you know, kind of the generations younger than me in 20s or 30s, say, do you believe in God? And they would say, yeah, kind of. there's a kind of belief in God but I don't believe in an old man on a beard who's judgmental I believe in some force in the universe that is you know that is creative and loving I'm not quite sure what that is the universality of God but I love that you say that because I've heard people say that do you believe in God kind of and I have a word is that like kind of being pregnant exactly that's what I always say but anyway so they don't young people think that they kind of believe in God They know they can't be a part of an organized religion and they have a great distaste for anything that feels kind of hippy-dippy or airy-fairy Yes religion.

8:45Yes anything that's kind of like, you know, let's hold our crystals our breath together And I'm getting a sense of your aura and that kind of stuff that For young people they hate that and they cringe at that They'd want to go turn on Nirvana and crank the volume whenever they hear something like that. Okay, so I just like how can I how can I inspire young people to take a spiritual journey in their lives that doesn't have to do with organized religion, that does, that questions this idea of who God is and is there a God and isn't hippy-dippy or airy-fairy in any way. And that's kind of how Soul Pancake was born.

9:25I also feel like the way that young people can best experience some kind of religious feeling is through art because art turns people on religion turns people off creativity is turning people on and so i wanted is a prayer and art is a prayer i believe the two are the same thing so there's not any difference between being creative and being spiritual and so i want to investigate that in our website and you created it for all the reasons that we've been talking about Yes. Really, to bring spirituality, creativity to a level that young people would be receptive. Yes. To the greater voices. I love it.

10:06To the greater voices. I'm going to use that. Okay, to the greater voices. Yes. Okay, and so how did you come up with that idea?

10:14Boy, I had a couple of friends, Devin Gundry and Joshua Homnick, a couple of buddies of mine, And we spent a lot of hours consulting. We spent a lot of hours talking about, do we do this? Do we do that? How do we do this? And you guys were actually sitting down saying, how do we get young people connected to the greater there is? Yeah. How do I, Rainn Wilson, who is now kind of somewhat of a recognizable celebrity, albeit for playing a weirdo. Yeah. But isn't playing weird fun? Don't you love that guy? It's so much fun. Yeah. Yeah. But you really like Dwight, don't you? I do. I love him. Okay.

10:50I love him. Dwight's been very good to you sweet love to him no that's terrible why would I say that I'm so serious I hope you edit that out no yeah and we just we consulted about it and this is kind of what we came up with I can't even remember like this we had all kinds of different ideas what it gradually came to is like social networking let's try and create a community of people that are sharing work together that are talking about life's big questions that's what I felt was missing. Life's big questions. Young people today aren't talking about it. Not even young people. People in our culture.

11:30If you go up to someone and you're not on the street but if you're in the conversation and you say to them, what do you think happens when you die? What do you think happens after you die? People get freaked out. You know what? It's coming. It's coming and not so long for some of us. And I think it's probably the most important question that we can ever ask ourselves. I have a list of life's big questions. Can I hit you with some? Yeah, yeah, yeah, go ahead. I'd like to hear what yours are. All right, Oprah. For my next dinner party. Fasten your seatbelt. It's go mystical on my ass, as you say.

12:06What does your soul look like? What does your soul look like? Ooh, that's good. What do you miss most about being five years old? Oh, my God, that's really good. If you could ask God one question, what would it be? that's a good one what would you ask God I would just ask God why excellent question why which brings us to the biggest question of all why are we here what is the purpose yes that would be it why why and why and why and why and why humans why and why and why but when you sat down with these questions though and I'm still on that question of you know what do you miss most about being five years old your answer what do I miss most about being five years old mm-hmm I guess I the thing that I hate the most as I grow older is my constant battle against being jaded hmm you know my first reaction so many times I get a piece of news or someone says something or even something inspiring about the world like oh yeah you know that whole kind of jaded thing cynical thing Cynical thing.

13:14It's so easy to become cynical. And it's a first defense. It's an easy way to go. It's the easiest thing to do is to be sarcastic. And five years old, you don't know. You don't know that. You're just so open. You're open to receive. Open to possibility. Yeah. So SoulPancake is about creating this mixture of everybody else's ideas and thoughts. It creates an online community of people who are interested in digging into life's big questions and interested in the arts. We want to create a world community where you can see, like, you might have, you might do a contest where you talk about what your soul looks like.

13:56And then someone in Nepal might be doing that and someone in South Africa might be doing that. And you get to talk to people all over the world about life's big questions and get a world perspective as well. you know what I think this is my soul looks I think it looks like everybody I see I think it looks like everybody and everything that I see that's awesome yeah mine looks like Steve Carell Harry no I'm just I'm not gonna go there you're not gonna go there do you so I know you guys came up with these questions do you think about life's big questions for yourself I do I do all the time I I in my own life, you know, I felt myself go on a spiritual journey that I'm still on.

14:44Because you never really leave it until you take your last breath. Thank you. Hallelujah. Unless you're shut down. Well, a lot of people are on the journey and don't know they're on it because they're just so shut down. They're just walking blindly through it. Absolutely. So it was about taking other young people on a spiritual journey. Maybe there's some kid who watches The Office in Omaha, Nebraska, and he's feeling a little bit lost and has an aching or a longing for God in some way in his life, or not even God, but just purpose or something more. There's got to be something more than this material world.

15:16I want to ask life's big questions, but if I do it at school, like people throw me into soda machines. They think I'm a geek. Yeah, so maybe this can be of service to someone like that. Yeah. What do you do for your son, Walter? How do you speak of spiritual? excellent question yes well we teach Walter about God we pray every night and we talk about you know what we believe about God and it was very cute Walter went into preschool he goes to the preschool teacher who's like Miss Pat did you know that God is everywhere and he's in your heart and he's in our heart and he loves everyone? He's like, right on.

16:01That's my boy. There you go. You go, Walter. For me, it's all about this. It's about this spiritual journey. You know, I talked about when I was, after I was an actor and I started investigating whether, in fact, there was a God, I came to believe that I couldn't... What made you conclude that there was? Well, I read all of the holy books in the world. Well, not all of them. But I read the central books of the main religions. You did? Yeah, I read the Bhagavad Gita, and I read the Dhammapadas, and I read the Koran and the Bible. You read them? Yeah, yeah, I did. Oh, you are a scholar. I was a freak, yeah.

16:44No, I'm not a scholar, just a weird dude. but um and what i i read some this book it's amazing book i think it's called gospel of the red man was one and i read this other thing about native american spirituality and i was like you know what i can't believe in god but you know what i can believe in one cantonka the great spirit of the lakota i think was the name of it and i was like i can believe in an all-loving force that runs through nature and that's that's a starting place that's where i can believe that's how i have My belief in God kind of came back to that. And, you know, long story short, I came back to the faith that I grew up in because to me it just made the most sense for other people.

17:23It may not. But the most important thing is that in a very materialistic age, Oprah, we live in a very superficial time. And although there is a change coming, I just want people to go on their own spiritual journeys, whatever that takes. Have you been discouraged by, you know, interestingly enough, both of us are known people in the world. And so it always sounds sometimes disingenuous when known people, celebrities, talk about how crazy it's gotten with celebritum. I mean, this whole worshiping of people for the worshiping, idolizing, putting on magazine covers, walking on the red carpets, picture, picture, picture for people for for what?

18:14Yeah, I think that if you take the temperature of your average young person, you know what they want more than anything else. I read this in a study was not not fortune, but fame. Fame is the number one thing that people want. And you talk to young people like, I know I'm going to be famous. And you can. You can be on a reality show and be famous. I know. You can be famous for doing absolutely nothing. You can be an heiress and be famous. That's right. You can be, you know. You can have blogs and now be famous. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And what if we could supplant the idea of fame with service? We have a potential in this nation to not be the nation of people trying to acquire stuff and trying to acquire fame.

18:58but we could be a nation of service to the world. Yeah, and I actually think that that's what this meltdown in the economy is here to teach us if we will awaken and see it. What's your take on that? You know, there are great forces of progress in the world where I believe that we see God's plan for humankind unfolding. We see unity being created. And then there are really terrible forces at work in the world at the same time and mankind humankind has has enormous challenges facing it. And both of those things are happening at the exact same time. I believe that what you address on this show is so beautiful because I believe that the problem with the world is spiritual problems.

19:43And if you look at economics... And it's all spiritual. It's all spiritual. It's all spiritual. Come on. Come on. What the subject is. There we go. It's all spiritual. It is. All spiritual all the time. It's the environment. Yep. Politics. Finances. Finances. All spiritual. You name any of the issues in the world. There's education. There's just a list goes on and on with all of the different. You read to open the paper and like, oh, that's broken. Oh, Social Security is broken. What are we going to do with the old people? Oh, this disease is happening. Oh, my God. What are we? You know, all of these things.

20:11If it comes back to basic human compassion, if everyone in the world are our brothers and sisters, if we're all one human family and our hearts are in the right place, we can solve all of these problems. But we have to it's not just about a an environmental group or a political activist group. All of that stuff is important, but they're just tiny pieces in the puzzle. And the center of that puzzle is that spiritual is that spiritual journey. And what is required, I believe, Rainn, I'm talking to Rainn Wilson, y 'all from the office. What is required is a sense of awakening on the part of all of us, the people, so that, right, you don't need an environmental group or you don't need groups or organizations, but people recognize that for themselves.

20:58There's really, we need to become awake. We do. That's a perfect way to put it. And I think the arts can help awaken young people. I know it did for me. brought me a sense of purpose and passion in my life. But what a beautiful concept that your art, your creativity, is really your spirituality, your prayer, speaking to the world. What a beautiful thing. And I show up to work, and I wear my ugly mustard-colored shirts, and I put my glasses and my weird haircut on, and I think, why am I here again? I'm like, oh, you know what? I get to make people laugh. God gave me this gift of playing weird characters and I get to create a memorable character and be a part of a really what I think is a great show.

21:49Yeah, it's a great show. And entertain people and make them laugh and what a great service. We need laughter. But this is so interesting, what you said earlier, too. You're on a great show, a hit show, Emmy Award winning show. And yet you said you knew years ago that if you didn't do if you didn't act, that you would be dead. Yeah. And so the fact that it is a hit show, I think, is fantastic. Yeah. But you would be doing it even if it wasn't. Oh, absolutely. And I, you know, I was did theater in New York for nine or 10 years before I did any TV or film. And basically, you know, I drove a moving van and I was in starvation wages and eating day-old bagels.

22:31And for a long, long, long time, I just needed to act. I didn't, I was hoping to get paid for it. And fortunately, that's happening. But I just wanted to act. And if that meant doing community theater, so be it. I just needed to be an artist. Do you always look for the spiritual, even when you're doing a character? I don't know if Dwight has any. No, certainly Dwight doesn't. No, not by a lot of shot. Dwight is not awakened. No, no, he is the most unawakened. You know, I have done a lot of kind of questionable, morally questionable stuff as, you know, as a Baha 'i and as an actor. But, you know, I also believe in, you know, providing for my family and making a living and this is my craft and stuff like that.

23:19But I have definitely turned down stuff that has been, like, morally reprehensible. Oh, really? Mm-hmm. You have? Yeah, sure. So there's a line you won't cross? There is a line. I don't know what it is because, yeah, there's a line out there somewhere. There's a line out there somewhere. And so when you think about, you know, all of the big questions for yourself, for your family, for your life, what do you want your—you were talking about this a little earlier about your art representing laughter and allowing people to laugh and, you know, give that to people. what do you really though in your day-to-day encounters you because now not all the time are you acting do you want your life to represent like your encounters with everyone what do you want the message of your life to be I I want to have a great time and be living in God's will at the same time oh if I just sum it up like I want to just have a kick-ass time and have a blast and be irreverent and listen to loud rock and roll music and and at the same time be of service to God's will which I believe is being of service to humanity but I want to I want to be able to merge both of those two so do I really no really I really for this year one of my goals is to be in the space to is to be connected and awakened in the space of God and to live in that awareness to be in that space but also be able to have as you say a kick-ass time but to be connected to that space in a way that you're always everything that you do there's a book i read a long time ago by marian williamson and she said she lives in the space she lives in prayer on her knees you know to live in that space where you never leave it which is hard to do don't you think it is um there's a baha 'i phrase uh from Abdul Baha was the son of the founder of the Baha 'i faith and he said strive therefore that your that your actions may be beautiful prayers and I think that's that's what it's really okay so what percentage of the time do you get that right for no seriously um no I believe me I struggle with this I you know I can be impatient and rude and self-centered and you know I have a lot of I have a lot of daily struggles so what percentage twenty three point seven okay how's that that's good and I'm gonna get it up to thirty one point two all right that's your help thank you you know I'll leave here today and I'll be thinking about that five-year-old question because nobody's ever asked me that question hey all right I've never thought of that years ago I was doing interview with gene siskel and at the end of the interview gene siskel said to me what do you know for sure and i couldn't answer the question and i went home and i thought about it and three days later i called him and he goes the show was over three days ago i really don't need the answer now i was going gene i'm still not thinking what was your answer uh i can't remember what my answer was then but I was made made such a profound impact on me what Microsoft but it made such an impression on me that I now in my magazine have my column called what do you know for sure because that question impressed me so I'll be thinking about the five-year-old right for a long time you want to put it in your magazine absolutely I don't I don't mind giving the people the credit all Okay.

27:03I want to know what absolutely delights you. What absolutely delights me? What absolutely delights you? There's so many things. Should I just start going through them? Yeah, just start going through them. My wife and son. Just the way you said that in your eyes made me want to tear up just there. I'm going to cry. I'm going to cry. All you said was my wife and son. Just the way you said it made my eyes water. What else delights me?

27:36Buster Keaton. Kiwi Fruit. Kiwi Fruit. The guitar. The guitar? Uh-huh. The band Radiohead. Okay. I think maybe my most profound spiritual experience, besides visiting the Baha 'i Holy Lands in Israel, was seeing Radiohead in concert. I saw him three times this last summer. Really? So that delights me. Okay. The way I feel about Tina Turner on stage. Oh. 68 in Six Inch Belong. Yeah, how about that? Okay, good. Oh my goodness. Thank you for joining me. It was delightful. Oh, what an honor to be on your show. Delightful. Thank you, Oprah. Thank you. I'm Oprah Winfrey, and you've been listening to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast.

28:24You can follow Super Soul on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. If you haven't yet, go to Apple Podcasts and subscribe, rate, and review this podcast. Join me next week for another Super Soul Conversation. Thank you for listening.