1945 - 1963

1963 - 1974
Having completed his secondary education he felt everything urging him to "plunge in the deep end".  In Athens he studies directing and cinema, writes poetry nad screenplays, sings in an amateur capacity in the music clubs of Plaka, works at the leftist-oriented newspaper Democratic Change, participates in the struggles of 114 (a student movement which took its name from the number designating a law on education), marches in every peace demonstration, becomes acquainted with the cultural avant-garde of the time and never abandons his dream of making a film of a book by Nikos Kazantzakis with music by Mikis Theodorakis combining within himself these two great creators.  Somebody else finally made the film.  It was left for him to unite these two beloved artists of Cretan origin in his books, songs and ideas.  On April 21 1967 he is arrested by the Junta and is held for hours by the security forces at their facility on Bouboulinas Street (now the site of the Ministry of Culture).  He leaves for London where he will remain six years.  There he is molded ideologically while participating in the struggle against the Junta but also in the Trotskyite movement.  He collaborated with Vanessa Redgrave, who was also active in the movement, twice in performances to support political causes.  In London he writes his first books and becomes co-editor of the newspaper Socialist Change to which he contributes articles and editorials.  For six years he sold this newspaper on street corners.

He took courses in political economy and philosophy.  He participated untiringly in the struggles of the labour unions.  In May of 1968 he takes part in the great student uprisings in Paris and is seriously wounded by the SRS.  At the same time he was active at the barricades on behalf of Marx and Engels, he was employed at the Mark's and Spencer's chocolate factory.  London remolds him unevenly yet creatively.  In 1974, shortly after the events at the Polytechnic University of Athens, following orders from the movement, he returns to Athens where, fearing arrest by the secret police, he goes into hiding.  After the events in Cyprus in the summer of 1974 and the fall of the Junta, he continues his political activity.  He is employed at the Andreadis Shipyards in Perama where, running the daily risk of being killed (fatalities were not an uncommon occurrence), he becomes a member of the strike committee and plays a leading role in the labour movement that overthrows the prevailing regime at the shipyards of Eleusis.  According to the will of the dialectics of nature, June 1973 witnesses the birth in London of a baby girl, his daughter, to whom he gives the name "Natalie", in honour of Trotsky's wife.

1974 - 1978
After an invitation by his friend, Manos Loizos, he sings on the album Ta Negrika along with Maria Faradouri.  The same composer insists on also having him sing in the commercials of a television series which becomes a hit creating the following paradoxical situation: the song sung by all the workers at the shipyard was made famous on television by the poor bastard working below them emptying the bilges with a mere bucket.  Soon after that, the composer Nikos Mamagakis asks him to sing on an album featuring poems from O Neos Erotokritos by Pantelis Prevelakis (once again, both composer and poet are of Cretan origin).  He has his first three books published.  First comes The Ballad of Isaac, a complex poem influenced by the youth movement.  The book reverses the story of the sacrifice of Abraham by having Isaac escape to the mountains with some slaves the day before the sacrifice and starting a war against Abraham whom he kills.  Next come Large Hero in a Small Paper Bag and a collection of short stories and poems: Quo vadis, status quo?.

1978 - 2002
He begins to adjust to Greek reality and to immerse himself in its quintessence.  Instinct and fate lead him to the nucleus of Greek song.  He resigns from the party one day when the comrades are in favour of "red" nuclear bombs to counter those of the enemy.  Observing a certain irrationalism he focuses his energies on the study of eastern philosophies.  He discovers, or has revealed to him by an acquaintance, Osho.  He experiences a turmoil of a positive character, reads Osho's books, is fascinated, probes, goes to India and meets him.

Continuing his artistic activities, he infuses them with his new experience.  He acquaints the Greeks with Osho by publishing his book: "Hidden Harmony - Discourses on the Sayings of Heraclitus".

There is tangible response to Rassouli's suggestions on the part of very many people given that the background created by the sociopolitical change has resulted in a fresh and positive energy in the atmosphere.

He studies, writes, falls in love, falls out of love, meditates, observes himself, regresses, dashes, matures, exposes himself, pays the price.  The confrontation with establishments of all sorts, who see in his person a danger to their posturing and inadequacy, is inevitable.

Osho goes to Oregon.  All sorts of things happen.  A desert is transformed into a city of 30,000 people.  The American government turns into the proverbial bull in a china shop.  It pursues him, arrests him, jails him, poisons him and has him deported.  Rassoulis, committed to what he considers necessary, confronts and is gradually isolated as political parties, the church, private circles identify his proposals with danger.  He even became estranged with the Osho centre of Oregon.  Full of anguish and passion to see beyond the horizon, he pays a visit to New York.  Three and a half months of novel and unforgettable experiences, compel him to add and subtract variables in order to arrive at the Sacred Formula X, the golden mean of the world, the font of Siloam.  He is discouraged, often despairs but abides in the arena employing the tactics of Robin Hood, Bruce Lee and Christ.

He is accused of being the mastermind behind the 17th of November terrorist organization.  He declares for the umpteenth time that both by nature and by conviction he is against violence, especially individual terrorism.  Nevertheless, with his statements he terrorizes certain circles, which in turn point the finger at him as an ideological terrorist.

He continues to produce because he so desires and because he is a standard of comparison for constancy of ideological and moral convictions.  He declares, however, that his entity is of more interest than his work, his products.

His daughter, Natalie, studies music and is revealed as an extreme phenomenon as a singer of popular songs, heavy metal and arias of classical composers.  She becomes known abroad with the group Septic Flesh, but within Greece shares the intentional isolation of her father, Manolis Rassoulis.

With a new planetary consciousness and a new approach to the triptych: "ζειν, ευζειν, γνωθι σεαυτον" (life, the good life, know thyself) as his primary goals, he interposes his presence in local as well as international events.

In the course of his odyssey Osho washes up on the shores of Crete.  There he finds Rassoulis living, by coincidence, in the same area.  It was like a message from existence.  Rassoulis, as a Cretan, does everything in his power to shield his teacher from the impending assaults.  He is hurt when he does not succeed and the teacher is arrested and deported.

This event leads him to redouble his vigilance, his sense of responsibility, his investigation and his self-observation.  At the same time the efforts of the state as well as extra-governmental apparatus to disarm and silence him with direct or indirect maneuvres, with classic or novel tricks are redoubled.

He continues to produce: songs, books, radio programmes and articles in newspapers of both the capital and the provinces.

Melina Merkouri invites him to participate in the events celebrating the selection of Athens as the cultural capital of Europe and to give her ideas.  However, he refuses because he does not consider Athens worthy of the particular honour.  After that he is blacklisted by the Ministry of Culture.  An effort is made through judicial convictions to intimidate him and remove him from the scene.  Rassoulis gives concerts in Berlin and Constantinople.  He speaks at the Cultural Centre of the City of Barcelona as the guest of the city during a festival of Mediterranean poetry as well as in Majorca.

His songs are known and appreciated in Israel, Serbia, in countries where there are Greeks and, for some mysterious reason, even in Japan.

In recent years, at the apogee of his efforts, and since the establishment has plunged Greece into unmitigated amoralism, he is focusing on decisively entering the international arena, having been tempered by the local status of Greece which emits the most pseudo-glamourous decadence in the entire global village.  Alongside of this, his goal is to express the deeper soul of Greece with the universal soul and the global potential in the discovery of an antidote and the production of a new ideology, a new code of values, something which at this very moment is the grail of every intelligent, sensitive and honest citizen of every country, every race, every social class and both genders.

Three years ago, he became the godfather and guardian of a little name Paschalis, whom he loves dearly and who lights the horizon of his realization of the meaning of the world.

His most recent significant experience was his visit to the Great Pyramid of Giza on September 22 2001, a visit which significantly strengthened his courage to persevere in his investigation and work.