Call and Response with Krishna Das

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Call and Response Special Edition Conversations With KD August 15 2020 Apr 05, 2022

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Taking time to look back and move forward. Conversations With KD episodes are derived from the recordings of KD’s online events from his home during the 2020/ 2021 days of social distancing and quarantine from the onset of COVID and beyond. Call and Response Special Edition Conversations With KD August 15 2020 “Maharajji said, “Repeat the name, whether you feel good, bad, whether you have devotion or not, whether you’re tired, whether you’re angry, keep repeating the name.” The Name will save you. It’s not your feelings that will save you. It’s the Name that will save you. There’s a big difference, and we don’t even know what that difference is because we are what we are, but Maharajji, when he was leaving the temple for the last time, he said, “I only know two things, ‘Ra’ and ‘Ma.’” Those two syllables can wipe the destiny from your forehead. This is what we’re talking about. You’re talking about becoming liberated from suffering, free of our ideas about who we think we are, finding out who and what we really are…” – Krishna Das Q: Hi. Hi. I have a question. The question is, I have heard Ram Dass a lot of times, and you spoke about karma, you know, most of your calls, and last time when I had a conversation with you, you said, “You have some karma with your sister and your mother,” and we spoke about your picture, with your mother’s picture on the past Chai and Chat. My sister and I had karma with my mother. That’s what I said. Yeah. So, I want to ask you, you said you want to clear this from your heart and everything, so how do we, is it like any family we are born in, we have karma with them? And if it is so, how do we clear this family karma from our heart? Everything that’s in this moment as a result of our karmas. Everything. This moment through the computer, that’s also a result of our karmas. It’s an effect of the causes that created this moment. So, parents are a very big thing. They imprint us with their stuff, which is also their karma stuff, and they provide us with a form, a physical form, an emotional form also, with which we go through our lives. Most people just accept that and don’t even think about it and then they just live their life the way they live their life, but if we’re on the spiritual path, it becomes obvious that our programming, so to speak, needs some tuning up, that there some fault in the code, in the programming code. We need to clean it up somehow, and that means we need to learn to accept it and love it. That’s the only way karma is released: when we no longer react negatively, so to speak, when we break, when our attachment, our identification with ourselves as a person or as a, as an ego that was programmed this way by that person. So, you know, it’s not as if our parents do anything to us, necessarily. They’re just being themselves, and we take everything personally and we develop a personality around that. Even if our parents have left the body, we’re still here, and we’re actually made up of their bodies and we’re still carrying their programming with us. So, if we want to be able to love everyone, that includes our parents and it includes ourself. So, but because our parents are so basic to the way we feel about ourselves, and our parents and our upbringing and all the things that happen to us, we need to forgive and release the negative responses and negative reactions that we have in our own heart about it all, and that takes a conscious effort. But like Maharajji said, through the repetition of the name, everything is achieved. Through the repetition of the name, you will have a deeper awareness of yourself. You won’t be so attached to your reactions. You won’t be so attached to your stories that you tell yourself about yourself, that you don’t like, or the stories you tell about yourself about other people, also. So, the whole answer to everything is to do as much practice as you can, without pushing it, without getting tense, and to recognize that practice is what enables us to find happiness, to touch the place within us that is already just fine the way it is, but that’s covered up by our emotionality and our programming. So, it’s through the practice, spiritual practice, that we move more deeply into our self, and that allows us to release the energy that’s tied up with those negative emotions. So, whatever practice you do, you don’t try to manipulate your feelings. You do the practice. “I have to forgive my mother. I have to do 10 million mantras.” It’s not going to work like that. You do your practice and you allow the practice to dissolve the inner turmoils and the inner attachments, and that, the practice gives us the strength to face things into different way and to move through our day in a different way, just by itself. We don’t have to help it. We are the problem. So, the practice dissolves the so-called “ego,” and reveals the beauty and the love that’s within us, but you don’t have to hold on to that because that’s who you are. So, it includes everything in your life and things that were there and that aren’t there now, like your parents may be gone or not, but it includes them too, because they’re inside of you. So, as you soften your heart and release the powerful attachments that we have, we become more loving, naturally, because that’s who we are, naturally. Sometimes, you have to work on it a little bit with a little direction, like, you know, you can bring your parents to your mind, and you can be in love with them, allow them into your heart. It might be hard for some people because they had very angry parents, damaged parents, hostile parents, violent parents, all kinds of things. So, it’s maybe difficult. So that’s why you don’t have to try too hard, but you have to manifest that love yourself and then include other people in it as best you can. And when you can’t, it’s not their problem. It’s your problem. It’s your issues, not their issues. They’ve done their work already, whatever it was good, bad or indifferent. Now it’s up to us to see them as souls, like Ram Dass used to say, rather than “roles.” And that’s our work. When we see ourself as a soul, we’ll see everybody as soul. So, it’s all, it all works together. The work you do inside changes the way the outside appears to you. And that goes for anything, any part of life. It’s all the same. Last time, when I asked you a question about my sister you said, “You know, it’s your heart. Don’t try to rush towards her. Just love the part of you which is not able to connect to her and it will be fine.” And I have spoken to you twice before this call, and on both the calls, you said, “Okay, go check this book.” What book was that? The first book you said, about Ramana Maharashi, and the second book, you said about Shirdi Sai Baba and Naneshwar. So, I got those books and I want to thank you again because my sister, she’s a doctor. She was struggling to have, she wanted to have her own clinic for 13 years. Just me getting these books and reading a few pages of it she said, “Just come over at my place.” And I went there. I don’t know how it worked out now. She got her own place she’s owning, and she’s having her own clinic. It never happened in 13 years. It happened for the first time. Thank you so much for it, and is there any book you would suggest me to read to soften my heart more? I do Hanuman Chalisa and Stavan every morning and every night. I sing along with you. Good. Good. Read the book of your own heart. Okay? Okay. Thank you. Ram Ram. Ram Ram. Q: Hi. I’m from Mumbai. I also had a question about my parents. I read a lot of Meher Baba, and I have been following him for awile, but my parents don’t understand anything about this and they oppose it a lot. I have a few friends. When I’m with them, everything is very smooth because they are at the same conscious level and they understand what I’m doing and what they are trying to do, it goes like a hundred times faster when I’m with then. But at home, when I’m around my parents, it’s even a hundred times more difficult to keep my sanity around them. I don’t know. I just wanted to know if there is something that I can do. There’s no shortcuts. There’s no way to speed anything up or slow anything down. You have to work on your own reactions by trying to calm your mind and calm your heart. It takes time and regular practice over time to become comfortable in yourself, regardless of what’s going on outside of you. It just takes time. This is not a game. This is real life. So, there’s no quick button to push to make it all okay. You have to commit yourself to wanting to grow and wanting to not be judgmental about other people and not be judgmental about yourself, but that’s not easy to do. So, one must start with calming the mind down. One should do some, could do some japa, some quiet breath meditation every day, just to get into the habit of letting go of everything and relaxing. That’s the main thing one can do. Yeah, I am. It’s ok. I don’t mind that they don’t understand it. But it’s just like, when I want to do something, even if I want to read his books or something, they don’t accept this and they start reacting in some ways, and start doing things… Don’t you know how to hide things from your parents? You have to be sneaky. They don’t have to know everything. And if they’re going to, you know, you can always have a discussion with them. “So why don’t you want me to do this? What’s the problem?” Ask them what they think. Include them in the process and then explain to them why it’s important to you. It’s called “communication.” I know it’s a very radical idea, talking to your parents. So, it may be hard. I know it’s sometimes very very difficult, but it’s good work because it also, you have to become sincere and you have to become confident in yourself and you can’t be defensive and judgmental and angry and all the things we are most of the time. So, it’s very useful to try to talk to them. Ultimately, you’re going to make your own mind up anyway. There’s really nothing they can do except yell and scream. So, if that’s what they want to do, fine. You let them do it. What can you do? They probably won’t stop feeding you and they probably won’t kick you out of the house, but you never know. But you have to express yourself and communicate, and don’t just hide, but you also don’t have to push anything on them. But if they bring it up and they say, “Why are you reading this stuff?” You say, “Because it brings me peace. It helps me be better in the world. It helps me feel better as a person. Why don’t you like it?” Not angry, like, “Why don’t you like it?!” But, “I don’t understand why you don’t like this.” So, but you know, Indian families. Oh my God. So that’s all, you know, but don’t push anything. If they’re just going to be reactive, then just try to be quiet about it and simple about it, and you know, they don’t have to know everything about what’s inside of you. But you can love them. They only love you. They’re only trying in their way to protect you and do the right thing for you. Their motivation is not to hurt you but to help you, but you may have your own ideas. You’re allowed to do that, although in Indian families it is very difficult. But you do the best you can. That’s all you can do. Okay? All right. Good luck. Q: Namaste. Namaste. I started chanting some 10 years ago and my first draw was, I heard Hare Krishna on a Pandora station I had made, and I just kind of allowed myself to really listen to it and I discovered that it made me feel happy. I didn’t know why, but it’s just, “I like this. This is nice.” And soon after that I found you and I started chanting with you and I had a couple of heart opening experiences. Just, you know, suddenly I find myself crying and just for no real reason whatsoever, but I felt that was my kind of opening to Maharajji, so I appreciate that. My question is, to go back to feelings, especially during chanting, now I’ve heard you say quite often, and you said it again today, that no matter how you feel, whether you feel tired, whether you feel upset, whether you feel good, that you should continue your practice and chant every day, and I understand that and I appreciate that. But one thing is, for me, the feeling of, and I believe this is correct with what I’ve learned, is bhav, this feeling of devotion or a feeling of warmth in the heart. And I kind of connect with that. I’m not sure if this is what it is, but I connect to it, beause sometimes when I’m chanting and my mind takes me away somewhere and I come back to the chant and give myself to it, it feels kind of like the sun has come out from behind a cloud and it’s a kind of a warm feeling. It’s a centering feeling, and I tend to cultivate that or I kind of look for that feeling. I don’t push it and I don’t feel bad if it doesn’t happen, but that’s a feeling that I like to cultivate when I’m chanting, and sometimes when I’m out and about and I see other people, that same kind of feeling comes and then I can be more light and open and loving towards other people. So, my question is basically, what do you have to say about that? That kind of cultivation of bhav? It’s all good, but you don’t want to be holding onto it because it is not ultimate reality. It’s a nice feeling. It’s a good, positive feeling. It can come from lots of things, a release of tension, maybe, you know, it even makes you feel good. Letting go of some fear or something makes you feel good. When I talk about things that arise in chanting, and I say, I don’t mean to push them away and reject them, but not to be attached to them. If they’re there, they’re there. If they’re not there, they’re not there. That’s why Maharajji just said to keep chanting. It’s not important, what you feel, necessarily. It’s not unimportant, but it’s not the thing. Yes. It’s great to feel that loving, wonderful feeling. But what if you don’t feel that? Should you go kill yourself or just go back and go, “Okay. Maybe I’ll try tomorrow. I’ll go watch tv.” No, you’re trying to cultivate a deeper awareness. You’re trying to move more deeply into your being where feelings will come and go. All feelings. If you hang on to a pleasant feeling, that means you try to push away an unpleasant feeling. It’s the same mechanism. You like one thing. You don’t like another thing. Okay. You can enjoy that. And it’s a great thing. It’s so nice. You feel, “Ah, I’ve got it now. I’m in the right place.” What do you do when you don’t feel that? You can still repeat the name. That’s the point. Whether you feel it or you don’t feel it or you feel this or you don’t feel that, you keep repeating the name. Because if you can let go of something, not push away… This is a really big point and maybe it’s misunderstood. There’s no reason to push any feeling away, ultimately. It just means letting go of it and coming back to the name. And even when you come back to the name, the feeling might still be there but you’re not feeling it the same way. You’re not holding onto it. You’re not identified with it, which is essentially the direction that we need to be going. You like this because it makes you feel good. Who are you? You don’t know. So, through the repetition of the name, you will know, and it won’t have anything to do with what you think, the person you think you are who’s feeling that when it happens. So, it’s an evolutionary technique. You just keep chanting and you might go through like, a desert feeling for a long time. You might have no positive feelings or pleasant feeling. So, you’ll try to manipulate your emotions and look at the right pictures and put the right incense and the right candles and the right music on, and even if you succeed in getting a little hit, it won’t last, but that’s okay. It’s not supposed to last. You’re not supposed to be able to get water from a stone. Water is water. Stones are stones. When you let a stone be a stone and water be water, you don’t get broken hands trying to squee…

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Ep. 63 | Hanuman, How Chanting Heals Mar 29, 2022

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Call and Response Ep. 63 Hanuman, How Chanting Heals

Q: Can you tell us a story about Hanuman? Any story.

“There are certain things that we need that, that Being that is Hanuman allows us to realize in our lives to get what we want. Why shouldn’t we have what we want? God is not your mother telling you, “You can’t have that.” That’s a program. We have desires based on our karmas and many of those desires are good for us to fulfill. Some of them are not. Hanuman boosts up the ones that are positive and removes the ones that are negative.” – Krishna Das

Q: Can you tell us a story about Hanuman? Any story.

KD: What’s that?

Q: Tell us a story about Hanuman. Any story.

KD: Well, stories you can read in books. For us, when we got to India, we noticed that Maharajji’s devotees considered to be Hanuman in the body. Considered Him to be a manifestation of Hanuman. When we talk about these things, it’s very difficult to talk about these things correctly. And even Maharajji used to say, “They say Hanuman’s a monkey.” Hanuman is the flow of grace in the universe. It’s the flow of connection between the individual soul and the supreme soul. The nature of those two supposed things is not different. The Atma is not different than the Paramatma in its quality, except that it’s limited to an individual reflection. For instance, the moon is reflected in many different lakes and pools. It’s exactly the same moon. It’s exactly the same reflection. But it’s limited in some way. That’s the soul. The personal individual soul. And a lake is like a mirror. It reflects the light of the moon, which itself is a mirror reflecting the light of the sun. So, if that lake is covered with leaves and stuff, you can’t see any moon in the lake. Hanuman is what removes those leaves. That dirt on the mirror of the heart. It’s the flow of love, the flow of grace. Hanuman is considered to be the remover of obstacles, the destroyer of problems and suffering. And also, the bestower of the very things we need to get on with our lives. There’s a sloka in Sanskrit which I don’t remember, but it said, “Not only does Hanuman bestow liberation by uniting the Atma with the Paramatma or removing… and he does that by removing the dust on the mirror, not only does He do that, but He also makes it possible for us to satisfy the desires that we have that need to be satisfied.” We’re hungry people. We’re hungry beings. We need to eat. We need to sleep. We need to do a bunch of things. Which I won’t talk about here. And if we don’t do those things, we’re frustrated, and we don’t, our energy doesn’t flow. So, there are certain things that we need that, that Being that is Hanuman allows us to realize in our lives to get what we want. Why shouldn’t we have what we want? God is not your mother telling you, “You can’t have that.” That’s a program. We have desires based on our karmas and many of those desires are good for us to fulfill. Some of them are not. Hanuman boosts up the ones that are positive and removes the ones that are negative. That’s what they say.

Here’s a story you won’t like.

It’s from the Valmiki Ramayana. There’s many different versions of the story of Ram, which is called the Ramayana. So, in the Valmiki, which is the original, Seetha, Rama’s wife, was stolen by the demon Ravana. Seetha is the individual soul. Ram is the Supreme soul. Ravana is the ego. So, He steals the shakti. But He can’t mate with it, because He’s cursed. That if He tries to mate with a woman who doesn’t want Him, His heads will explode. He had ten heads. Every one of them will explode. So, He has to kind of seduce the soul into falling in love with Him, which is impossible. So, anyway, at some point in the story, Hanuman goes, all the monkeys go out to try to find Seetha and Hanuman jumps over the ocean and He gets to Ravana’s kingdom and He’s cruising around looking for Seetha. And one of the places He winds up looking is in Ravana, the Demon’s harem. He had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of women there. So, Hanuman has to go look. So, He’s going, looking around, and He’s seeing all these women asleep at night, you know, naked and drunk and everything and Ravana’s lying there and He’s looking around and all of a sudden, He flips out and He says, “Oh, my God. This is sin. I’ve sinned. I’ve been looking at these women like this. How could I do that? This is terrible. What am I going to do?” And He really starts to completely flip out. And then, He says, “Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. I’m not doing this out of any kind of lust or anything. I’m trying to serve Ram by finding Seetha. So, there’s no way there’s any bad karma for this.” And He chills Himself out. He had to talk Himself down. Just like us. You know, like, you get stuck in something and you think, oh, this is terrible. You have to talk yourself down sometimes. You have to say, “Ok, would you chill out please. Hello. Are you in there? Listen to me. It’s ok.” So, That was interesting, the first time I read that. Because I, in different versions of the Ramayana, that doubt that Hanuman had temporarily would never be written about. So, it was very cool.

I’ll think of something else. Hold on.

After finding Seetha, Hanuman comes back and all the monkeys go to see Ram and tell Him the good news. And the king of monkeys tells Rama, “Oh Lord, it was Hanuman who jumped over the ocean and found Seetha and now has come back to tell us.” So, Ram reaches down and He embraces Hanuman. He tries to lift Him up, but Hanuman was so absorbed in love that wouldn’t, couldn’t rise. And Ram says, “The debt I owe to you, I can never repay.” And Hanuman says, “Just let me remain ever your servant and ever to serve the love that You are.” There’s a beautiful, beautiful song that, in Hindi they’re called bhajans, and the line that’s repeated over and over, and it tells the story of when the war’s over and the demons are killed and Seetha’s freed and everybody comes back to the kingdom, Ayodhya and Bharat, who is Ram’s brother, who has been taking care of the kingdom while Ram has been away, He comes out to meet Him and He sees this monkey and He says, “Oh, Lord, what’s this monkey doing here?” And then Ram says, “Oh, Brother Bharat, we can never repay the debt we owe to this monkey.” And each verse describes one of the things that Hanuman did, and again, it ends with the phrase, “Oh, Brother Bharat, we can never repay the debt owe owe to this monkey.” “He jumped across the ocean. He killed the demons. He found Seetha. And not once, not for one second, did pride arise in His mind. Not for one second did He think, ‘I am doing this.’” He was living in the Reality that God is the doer. We live in the Reality that we are the doers. Good luck. Hanuman was not fooled by the ego. He had transcended all of that. And so, He never thought, “I’m doing this. Look what I’ve done.” He jumped over the ocean. He did all these things and not for one second did He ever think that He was the doer. He saw Reality, which is that everything is done within that universal Presence which is God. And one of the last lines of the song, which was written by Tulsidas, He says, Tulsidas says, “I’m telling you this story in the very words that came from the Lord’s mouth. In the very words that Ram spoke. This is what I’m telling you.” It’s just a beautiful bhajan. When I first read the Tulsidas Ramayana, which is the devotional telling of the story, it completely rewired my brain. We are wired for romantic love, for physical love, for love between two people. But when you read these books, you enter into a different field of Being. You enter into a different type of love, a love that is not personal. It’s universal. It’s everywhere all the time. It’s not self-centered. It’s not about “me.” And it’s not about, it transcends that “me-ness.” It blows it out of the fucking sky. It just destroys that separateness. It’s a different kind of love. Maybe it’s the same love but not limited just like the reflection of the moon is limited by a lake or a pool. It’s the whole thing and we come into contact with that through these stories and when I read Tulsidas Ramayana, which is called the Ramacharitamanasa, the Lake of the Stories of Ram, and every chapter is a descent deeper into that lake. It rewired me. I had no idea that this existed like this. And it was mind-blowing. And then I went to India where everybody I met lived in that world, or so many of the people I met. It was amazing. That lives within us once again as what’s really in there already. And when we look for love in our daily lives, we’re really looking for that. But it’s the looking that counts. It’s the seeking that counts. So, somebody was asking about something. One of the things that Siddhi Ma said to me, I said to Her, “Ma, is it all grace? Or is it personal effort?” This is a big thing. They write millions of books about this. I was saying, you know, “If it’s already done, then what do I have to do? I just have to be here, right? I don’t have to do anything. Or, do I have to really make it happen?” She said, “It’s all grace. But you have to act like it isn’t.”

That’s so great.

It is a done deal. We are in time. So, there’s now, then there’s later, then there’s later. We’re into this, we’re into that. If time, if we were now living in the now, which, it’s always “now” if you think about it. When is it now? It’s now. Tomorrow, if you ask the same question, it’s now. It’s always now. But we live in a different level where time passes. On that level, we have to do practice. On the other level, nothing to do, you know, where’d it go. But we’re not living on that level. We’re living within that level, but we don’t experience that. We still suffer. We still don’t have what we want. So, that’s why we have to do some practice. It’s all grace. It’s raining everywhere. Suzuki Roshi said, “Come walk with me in the rain, but don’t rush. Don’t hurry. It’s raining everywhere.” And if we want to catch some of those raindrops, we have to cup our hands. That’s practice. You don’t cup, you don’t get anything to drink.

The changes happen off the radar. We don’t notice. Just naturally you’re drawn to different things and you’re not drawn to other things. Places you used to go, things you used to do… the interest drops. You don’t notice that. But little by little, you wind up living in negativity less of the time. You spend less and less time in negative states of mind. But how could you notice that? Because it’s not like… it’s the “you”, the part of you that’s negative that’s not there, you don’t notice that, but as time goes on, you can look back and you can see a little bit, “Well, you know, my life isn’t as tortured as it was. I don’t spend so much time moping around.” It’s a really big thing.

Q: Hi

KD: Hi

Q: How does chanting heal like, the deep trauma, PTSD, stuff, like generational, all that, that you were talking about?

KD: All that stuff, you could say is dust on the mirror of the heart. When you look and when you look out at the world, what you see is your version of that world. Certain things are scary. Certain things aren’t. Certain things are attractive. Certain things aren’t. Etcetera. You’re like, “This is good. This is bad. This is tasty. This is not. This is ugly. This is beautiful.” We’re seeing our version of everything. As we practice, as we do, as we chant, for instance, the knee-jerk reaction that glues us to our feelings and thoughts has loosened up, little by little. And I say, “knee-jerk,” because you don’t get a vote. You just, we see it the way we see it. And that’s it. We’re in it. So, as time goes on… for instance, it’s as if you were born with… let’s say you’re born at night, ok? And it’s like, a night that lasts for 30 years. So, you’re born and you grow up in the dark, and everything is kind of murky and not distinct and you see things and you just assume that’s the way it is, right? Why wouldn’t you? Right? That’s the way you were born. That’s the way things are. But then, all of a sudden, the sun starts to rise. And just a little light comes into the sky and things look different. And the sun keeps rising and things look different. Trees that looked like scary demons just look like trees. Things change. That’s how practice changes things from the inside out. What we actually see, think and feel starts to change. Our subjective version is thinned out little by little. Of course, we come up sometimes against some big boulders of stuff and that may take more techniques to lighten them up, to loosen that glue up. So, anything we do in therapy, counts, like practice, anything that we do that loosens up the tightness of the way we see everything and believe everything we see. You have no doubt. I have no doubt that when I look around, this is the world. This is my world. Right? I look at you and I see your hair. I see the way you hold your head. I see the tenor of your voice. I get a lot of information from that, but I interpret that information. That’s who she is. She’s a person that… blah blah blah. I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you think. But I’m stupid enough to think that I know who you are. Just because I see you a particular way. And we all do that. It’s not stupid. It’s just the way we are. So, through practice, we become more receptive to information in a way and not so evaluative about everything, immediately. And so, and I’m talking about, so-called internal emotions, too. Like trauma and things like that. Damage. Same. Because that’s not, that’s also outside of our true nature, so to speak. It’s within our true nature, but it’s, it’s a thing, it’s a program. So, everything you do, every time you plant a seed of letting go or of coming back, that strengthens your inner heart and it loosens up the hold that those programs have over us. How’s that?

Q: Thank you.

KD: Ok. And it may be that as you develop, as you mature, as you ripen, you’re able to deal with that trauma differently. It’s not like it’ll just go away, you know? But all of a sudden, not all of a sudden, but little by little, you’re able to work with it in a different way. You’re not so threatened by it. You’re not so hurt by it immediately. So, you have a little more space in there where you can allow that to kind of rise up and then hopefully just vaporize as time goes on. But we need all the help we can get. That much is for sure.

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Call and Response Special Edition Conversations With KD August 1 2020 Mar 22, 2022

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Taking time to look back and move forward. Conversations With KD episodes are derived from the recordings of KD’s online events from his home during the 2020/ 2021 days of social distancing and quarantine from the onset of COVID and beyond. Call and Response Special Edition Conversations With KD August 1 2020 “One must try to get what one needs in life. One can not refuse to enter the fight because by doing that, you’ve given up. And if you think you can find God or find real love or be liberated without going through the battle, you’re dreaming. It’s only through getting into the fight, getting into the battle, the battle to be real and be present regardless of what’s going on in the emotional or outside world. That’s the battle, and if we don’t get involved in the battle, we will not be able to ever find any peace of mind or find any real love. We have to get in there and fight so we can see what our issues are.” – Krishna Das Q: My question is, I was doing one of your courses from your website, and I saw a story where Maharajji asked you to perform puja of your mother when she was at the airport going back home. Yeah. I have a mother and an elder sister. I have a hard time connecting to them. Whatever you did, whatever Maharajji asked you to do with your mom at the airport, how did at affect your relationship with your mother? Whatever it was, it wasn’t instant, really. My mother and I had a, we had a difficult relationship, mostly, until towards the end of her life. Then we got much closer. He brought her to India in order to purify the karmas between us and to help her, of course, but to also help me. And the puja in the airport was interesting, because many years later there, it was in the middle of the airport… in those days, It was just like an airport hangar in Delhi. At the airport in Delhi in ‘72 was like a cow shed. There’s nothing wrong with that. Sometimes there are flying cows also. So, there I was. She gave the camera, her camera to somebody and I, he told me I had to get down on my knees. He told me I had to get down on my knees. So, I did the arati with the lamp and I said a couple of mantras, and when I look at the picture that was taken at that moment, the look on her face was so extraordinary. I tell you, she looked like the goddess Durga. The love that was coming from her at that moment, when she was looking at me there, she never looked like that. That was the only moment in her life that she looked like that. It was amazing. He had really done a lot for her, really helped her a lot. Although, she had been, she was an alcoholic and she had, at that particular time I don’t think, yeah, she had been through a round or two already of rehab at that point. And then even after she went back, once again, she still had a hard time, went through another rehab, and then finally the last 20 years of her life or more, she was not drinking. So, he really, I believe that was by his grace because there was some kind of karmic black hole in her soul, which I have had, the same thing, have the same thing. And he saved her and then he saved me also from addiction. But as far as my relationship, it was very difficult. So, what can you do? You don’t have to sit down in front of your mother, kneel down and do puja, but you do have to look inside of yourself and start to release all the negativity around your relationship with her. You know, in Buddhism, they make a really big point of recognizing that your mother is the most important being in your life, because our mothers carried us for nine months in their own bodies. We’re made up mostly of her body and a little bit of our father’s one night stand or whatever, but the father has very little role after just at that first moment. The mother supports us. We live off of her. She feeds us inside of herself, and if we’re here today, if we’re still alive at this moment, it’s only because our mother made that possible. No matter what else she did to us; crushed us emotionally, manipulated us, screwed us up, made relationships impossible, or difficult, whatever else our relationship with our parents has done to us, we are only in a human body because of them. And we don’t even think about that. You know why? Because we don’t even treasure the human body. We think, “Ah, who gives a shit. Okay. I’ll be dead in a few years. It makes no fucking difference.” That is not the case. It is said that the human body is so hard to come by. You know what they say? They say, “Imagine the huge ocean.” Okay? “And imagine at the bottom of this ocean, there’s a turtle that comes up to the top once every million years.” Okay? “At some point in the ocean, somewhere in the ocean, and then imagine there’s a bird flying across the ocean, anywhere in the ocean and it’s holding a handkerchief or a piece of clock in its beak that’s just hanging down,” Right? “Now, how often do you think that cloth will touch the shell of the turtle when it comes up for a minute or a second every million years?” That’s how hard it is to get a human body. That’s what they say, the people who know, and Shankaracharya, who was the nondual advaita guru was also an incredible devotee and an incredible bhakta, and he wrote incredible devotional songs, and one of his hymns is called the “Devya Aparadha Kshamapana Stotram,” begging the goddess for forgiveness, and in it, he keeps saying, “O Mother,In this world, a bad child may be born, but there can’t be a bad mother… but never a bad mother.” Just the fact that we got a body, that we’re alive and we were taken care enough to still be alive, no matter how fucked up we are, that’s an amazing thing. So, once we get through those dark clouds of emotional stuff that we have, the reality is this, what I’m saying. It’s very hard. It’s very hard. And the other thing that they say is that we’ve all been everything to each other. We’ve been mother, brother, sister, enemy, friend, lover, king, servant. All of us, everybody on the planet, everybody in the universe has been in every different relationship to everybody else over the millions of lifetimes that we’ve had. So, the mother relationship is really a big one. So, you don’t have to be in front of your mother, because fortunately or unfortunately, we carry that within us. And so, we can try to release that negativity and try to give some gratitude and thankfulness just for the fact that we have a body in the first place. The problem is, that these days, very few of us really understand or experience deeply what this body is, can do, what we can do in this body, so to speak. The body’s just a piece of meat, but our soul is sitting in it, and through this body and with the help of this body and this situation, we can actually liberate ourselves from suffering and actually help other people liberate themselves. But we have to deal with our shit. If you don’t deal with your shit, your shit deals with you. So, when you were speaking, I don’t know, I was fine. Today’s day was a nice day. As you said all these things, I am feeling very much a void in my heart. And the reason I asked you this question in first place was this, my sister right now, she’s struggling with her career. My mother she’s struggling with her mental and physical sickness. I don’t, I’m not capable enough to help them. Why not? You can’t wash the floor? You can’t make chai? If you can’t make chai, you’re not Indian, don’t lie to me. I can make. I just had one. I have Maharajji’s cup. You can help. It’s just hard because you don’t feel loved or accepted by them and it’s painful for you. So, all I’m saying is, you should sit with this whole situation. Don’t try to do anything right away. Just try to see the whole situation and see your feelings, relive the histories that, everything that happened. See, you have to see yourself. See what’s going on inside of you, and then when you feel this negative feeling or this hard place inside, just slowly let it soften. That’s all. You have to do this yourself. Nobody can do it for you. So, if you don’t do it, it doesn’t happen. That’s your choice. Can I try that prayer that you said? Of Adi Shankaracharya? You can, but you know, that’s just more bullshit right now. The prayer ain’t going to help you right now. Yes. You can certainly try. Look it up and you can read it and try to understand what he’s saying, though. Don’t just… don’t repeat the mantra mechanically. That’s not going to help you, but yes, definitely, look into that prayer. Keep reading it, understanding what it’s saying. Read it again and again and again and try to soften your heart. No technique is going to guarantee that you soften your heart. You have to want to, and that’s hard, because there’s probably anger, there is probably sadness, all these emotions. When we’re hurt, underneath the hurt is anger. If we’re hurt and sad, many times underneath that, there’s a lot of anger, unprocessed emotions, you know? So, you have to let them go. Just breathe quietly, slowly, gently, and just let yourself feel the whole atmosphere inside of you, and just let it release little by little, and then you’ll go, “Okay. Let’s do it again.” That’s practice. That’s what practice is. Letting go. So, there’s no inside or outside either. Your mother is not outside of you. She’s inside of you, also. God is not outside of you, inside of you also. So, if you can’t release this stuff, how will you find real happiness, which is what God is? Real love, right? So, it’s all good. The fact that you’re asking and involved is a great thing. You don’t realize, look around you. How many people give a shit about this? Most people just go on, they spend their whole lives in reaction mode and creating more bullshit and creating more negativity in their lives. You’re looking to find a way to be free. That’s fantastic. Give yourself some credit for that. That’s a really big thing. You don’t understand what a big thing that is. Most people pay no attention to this stuff. 99.9% of people on the planet, and many of them can’t. Even if they want to, they can’t. Because they’re homeless, they’re running from one government, kicking them out, they’re doing this, they’re running from bombs, they’re starving to death. Your karma has you in a fairly good place where you can at least look at the stuff inside of you and do some practice to get to know the Dharma. And that’s a great thing. That’s a result of your own work on yourself in the past. You want to be free because you know what freedom is already. So, now you just have to get with the program. Q: From my childhood, I was practicing a lot of yoga, basically different courses, anything. Whatever, I was just, over two years, I was just reading and practicing. You know, I was a book yogi. But the last two or three years, then I realized something is not working. So, after, maybe after this lockdown had started, I started listening to you more. But I think, one and a half months back, something happened and one day just, I was listening to your chants, I just burst into tears. Something happened that was missing. Now, my question is, should I continue doing my other yoga practices or do chanting? Also with devotion, I’m not sure, because sometimes I feel, I just realized this, when Krishna says, “Just leave everything, come to me,” that is, I think, devotion. Yeah. Sri Krishna says that at the end of the Bhagavad Gita. You have to go through the first 18 chapters to get to that, which means you have to live your whole life, a million lifetimes, to get to the place where you can actually surrender, or rather with surrender actually happens. We don’t surrender. The ego just will never give up, but by grace eventually it’s released. We have such vasanas in our mind, such tendencies. It is very hard to overcome those tendencies, and you have, we all have our own version of that stuff. It doesn’t matter what practice you do. It will become mechanical sooner or later, because that’s what you do to it. So, whatever practice you do, you’re supposed to let go and come back to the practice. Whether you’re doing kriya, asana, pranayama, japa, kirtan, your only job is to let go of whatever feeling you have, whatever thoughts you have, whatever imagining you have, whatever memories, whatever fantasies, and come back to the practice. Bring yourself back again and again. That’s the only thing that will gradually release you, release us from the tendencies, the vasanas in our mind. So, you’re not doing anything wrong, but you’re just, the vasanas are still keeping you pointed towards them, in a sense. And you say, “Well, I’m greedy. Maybe this is…” This is all nonsensical stuff that we keep ourselves busy with all the time. So, when you see it, all you have to do is let go. You don’t have to understand. There’s nothing to understand. The illusion is that, “I have to understand this. What is this?” No, all you have to do is let it go. And that’s not so easy, which is why we do a practice. Then we have something to come back to when we let go. If we don’t have anything to come back to, how do we let go? Right? So, everything’s working fine. You have this, you’re in a hurry. That’s your vasanas of your mind. That’s your, the way you think about your things and yourself. That will change over time through practice. But one must do practice regularly, whatever practice it is, and one should try to do it wholeheartedly. But even that is difficult because of the way you think and the way you feel. You can’t do it wholeheartedly. So, what do you do? You notice that, then you beat yourself up, then you notice that, then you come back. Don’t forget to beat yourself up a little bit. I want you to be comfortable. So, it’s all okay. You just keep going. That’s all. Maharajji used to say, “Go on repeating the name, whether you’re having any kind of devotional feelings, whether you’re tired with your angry, it doesn’t matter. Just keep repeating the name and sooner or later, the real Ram will come.” So, this is a very deep philosophical statement that only Maharajji could say like that, like a simple little thing. It’s the whole path right there. It doesn’t matter what you think. It doesn’t matter what you feel. Who gives a shit? Nobody except you. And if you didn’t give a shit, where would you find anybody in the world to care what you’re thinking about? Right? That’s how flimsy it is. So, just keep coming back, keep letting, go. Keep coming back, keep letting go. That’s all. Don’t take yourself so goddamn seriously. But you can’t help it. We can’t help it because we’ve been brought up that way. Everybody we meet does it. It seems reasonable. I have to think about myself, don’t I? I don’t know. Maybe? So, don’t worry. You’ll be able to walk on the right side of the street eventually and wear a mask and do the right things. But while you’re doing your practice, your only job is to let go. See what’s there. Maybe it’s a blissful feeling. Very nice. Be with it. Don’t get trapped in it. Just be with it. And then when it disappears, which it will, don’t feel bad. That’s another feeling. And then it comes back. Then you feel good, then it goes away, you feel bad, then it comes back. Keep letting go. That trains the mind to just release more quickly and more gracefully. Then everything you do is planting seeds. Every breath, every thought every action is a karma that gets created by us. So, what do we want to create? More stuff or the letting go of stuff and coming back to our true self? So, when we do practice, we’re planting those kinds of seeds and one should try to do some regular practice. Even if it’s two minutes. Some people say, “I have no time. I can’t do it.” And they actually believe that, when really, they’ve wasted 23 hours of the day. Anyhow, they can always do a little practice, but it’s our expectations that torture us. So, let go. You don’t know what’s going to happen in the next instant, the next second. Nobody does. So, let’s be here now, again an…

Full show notes at the publisher

Ep. 62 | The Spiritual Heart, Addiction, Longing Mar 15, 2022

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Call and Response Ep. 62 The Spiritual Heart, Addiction, Longing

Q: I was curious to hear about your experience with your sobriety…

“If I had to fight with my desire for drugs, I would have lost. That’s the deal. That’s the way I was made. If it had been up to me, every day to fight that desire, I couldn’t have done it. I just, you know, I’m being honest with you. So, I have such respect and honor so much the people who really do have to work with that every day and do work with it. Whether they’re successful every day or not. It’s a fierce battle for survival. And it’s very difficult. And truly, I don’t think anybody can do it on their own. I think if a person is doing it, it’s coming out of some kind of spiritual strength, inner strength which is not ego-based. Which is not based in the separate self, it’s based in the real self and that real self, your own self, your own true nature, is strengthening you to fight that battle.” – Krishna Das

KD: Anybody?

Q: Over here.

KD: Hi.

Q: Hi. There’s some talk in quantum physics community or whatever, for really some years now, maybe 10, 15, 20 years that consciousness is non-local and we are more like satellite dishes and it’s about, you know, your thoughts or absence thereof would be more about tuning into different channels, so to speak, almost like the radio. Like you get tuned to the channel of love or you know, or you could get caught in some just train of thought that is just in the vicinity or just happens to, you know, tune or something and then you could choose to maybe change it if you’re able. I don’t know. Have you heard anything about that? I was just curious if that resonates or anything like that.

KD: Well, Ramana Maharshi who was one of the greatest saints that ever lived, said that, like you say, “Consciousness is everywhere all the time,” but there’s one spot in the body where we connect to it. It’s called the hridayam or the spiritual heart. But it’s not the heart chakra, He says. It’s on the other side, He says. I don’t say because I don’t know. So, that’s what He said. And there’s like a little kind of thing that connects us to the universal consciousness and that, the seed of that consciousness is here and when the body dies then that connection, obviously, dies with it. The body is no longer connected to consciousness. It’s just what it usually is, as in, inert. The light goes off. The light was not in there. It wasn’t coming from the body. It was coming from the connection to the light, so to speak. That’s what He says.

Q: That’s beautiful.

KD: And He says, “That’s the seat of the Self.” That’s where the Atma, the connection to the Paramatma, the Supreme Being, the individual connection is there through that spot.

Q: Beautiful. Thank you.

KD: Yeah.

There’s one over here.

Why are you sitting out there?

Q: Hi. I asked you a couple questions yesterday.

KD: Good because I don’t remember.

Q: It’s ok. I gave you a high five on the beach… and I, instead of asking you about that, I asked you other questions and it was just kind of, I was curious to hear about your experience with your sobriety and like, the longevity you have there, like that, and your relationship to…

KD: I don’t think of myself as sober.

Q: Ok. Yeah, I just want to hear it because I’m going to be coming up on 12 years.

KD: Yeah. Good.

Q: And I don’t really… my relationship with it has changed over the years. In the beginning I was like, proud of it, and now it’s just become part of my lifestyle and I just thought I’d ask you

KD: Sure. When I say, “I don’t think of myself as sober,” it’s not, in other words, it’s not a way I identify myself, in that way. But, in fact, I am sober. Very sober. Sober and boring. For many years. And sometime in the 80’s I was strung out on freebase cocaine for about a year and a half and I was going down. There was no possibility I was going to make it. And my Indian father, Mr. Tiwari, he came to America to visit Maharajji’s devotees here and he first came to Canada and I flew to New York from California where I was living and I stayed up all night smoking freebase and in the morning I got on a plane to go and see him up in Canada. And when I walked into the room, he was sitting on the other side of the room with his back towards the door, ok? So, I walked into the room and I kind of went… and I really, I was starting to back out of the room. I don’t know why. But I just felt this like, and I just started to back out of the room. And he turned and he said, “You. Promise me now you will give up cocaine. Promise me now!” Like that. Now, I loved this guy more than anything. He’d been my best friend, my teacher. He kept me alive after Maharajji left the body, he and his family. And there was no way I was not going to do what he asked me to do. So, I didn’t really have a choice. I just said, “Ok.” And that was it. From that moment to this moment, nothing. It was grace. It was grace and it was his love for me and his spiritual power, because he was a great yogi. So, it was his blessing to me. From that moment, a pile of shit and a pile of cocaine… I really couldn’t tell which one was better. So, if, completely honestly… if I had to fight with my desire for drugs, I would have lost. That’s the deal. That’s the way I was made. If it had been up to me, every day to fight that desire, I couldn’t have done it. I just, you know, I’m being honest with you. So, I have such respect and honor so much the people who really do have to work with that every day and do work with it. Whether they’re successful every day or not. It’s a fierce battle for survival. And it’s very difficult. And truly, I don’t think anybody can do it on their own. I think if a person is doing it, it’s coming out of some kind of spiritual strength, inner strength which is not ego-based. Which is not based in the separate self, it’s based in the real self and that real self, your own self, your own true nature, is strengthening you to fight that battle. Ok?

Yeah. But what was taken from me at that moment until this moment, was the desire for cocaine. It was gone. Don’t. I can’t say “I let go of it.” I didn’t let go of it. It was taken from me. And so, we’re here today. Otherwise, it wasn’t going to be long before I killed myself.

_______________

Q: So, I have seen you together with Sharon Salzberg who I absolutely love…

KD: Keep the mic by your mouth, please.

Q: I have seen you with Sharon Salzberg who I absolutely love and I listen to a lot of Ram Das’s programs and his podcasts and stuff. But you all studied under the same Guru.

KD: Not true.

Q: No?

KD: No, Sharon never met Maharajji.

Q: But Sharon, she meditates all the time and I love her meditations. Do you meditate or do you chant as a way of meditating? Is that your meditation? I’ve never heard you talk about actually sitting quietly.

KD: I’ve done a lot of practices over the years. A lot of practices. I’ve meditated with Tibetan Rinpoches. I’ve meditated with Theravada Buddhist Teachers. I’ve done Sufi dancing. I’ve sung Christian chants. But what I do mostly is the repetition of the Name.

Q: So that’s what you use for your form of practice or meditation. That’s how you connect. So Sharon does Metta…

KD: Sharon does a lot of things, too.

Q: Yeah, right. So, but I know that when she…

KD: Yeah, chanting is meditation. What else would it be? There’s tv and there’s chanting. They’re not the same. Probably. Unless you’re watching chanting on the tv, then that’s meditation. Hearing the Name is meditation. Chanting the Name is meditation. Thinking about the Name is meditation. Anything that has the Name in it is the Name remembering you in the first place. So, it is meditation. There are Many different types of meditation. Many different types. Because there are many different kinds of people. Sometimes you feel like a nut. Sometimes you don’t. And when you don’t, you can’t be a nut. So, you have to do something else. So, that’s the deal. It is meditation. It’s most definitely meditation. But there are many different ways to meditate. Just like there are different people, different kinds of people.

Q: So the 20 minutes or 30 minutes meditation that some people sit on the mat and do silently or guided or however that is, is it something you would do, like 20 minutes or 40 minutes a day?

KD: How about just a really good five minutes? You know? Anything more than that gets scary. Then you start to think, “Ok, I’ve got to sit here.” Then you’re not paying attention. Give it a good three minutes. Don’t worry about what I do. But you, give it a good one minute and then go have a cup of coffee and come back and do another good minute. One good minute is worth like 500 hours of nonsense.

Q: Is that true? You know I always thought it was about discipline of actually just sitting there and ignoring the fact that you’re saying, “Get up.” You don’t really want to do that.

KD: That’s just a thought, isn’t it?

Q: Yeah, so I thought, yeah.

KD: Unless the house is burning, sit your ass down and don’t get it up.

Q: Right.

KD: And then just, just doing that is so ridiculous. How many people do that? Nobody. Because the minute you sit down, you’re facing everything. That’s when you… so, just to sit there and just remember to just like, “Ok,” just watch your breath. You don’t have to try anything too hard. Don’t try to make anything happen. It already happened. They called it, “The Big Bang.” We’re here. How amazing is that. Let’s just be here. But we can’t. So, we do some practice. But don’t try too hard. Just keep letting go. How can you let go if you’re trying too hard. “Ok, I’ve gotta let go now! Aargh! Oh, no. Ok!” It doesn’t work that way. You let go. You relax.

Q: If I had met you 25 years ago, my mornings would be a lot easier. Because I really prefer chanting over sitting on the mat for the half hour.

KD: No time is wasted. No time is wasted. Start now. You’re not starting but you’re learning. You, yourself are asking the questions so you’re ready to, you’re feeling the need for something deeper. So, it’ll come. It’s already come and you’re feeling it. So, now follow that feeling.

Q: Thank you.

KD: You’re welcome. 25 years ago you weren’t asking these questions. You weren’t, you weren’t in touch with the longing to be here.

Q: Your story that you share is filled with moments of such grace and receiving.

KD: Yeah.

Q: And the devotion that I think hear, it has allowed you to develop, has been supported in satsang, in many different ways, Mr. Tiwari showing up at the right time and so on. My question has to do with how to keep the faith, how to keep the devotional aspect to the practice and to, you know, for lack of a better a word, keeping your eye on the prize in terms of focus. When the messengers might not be as absolutely astounding as maybe some of yours may have been, given that a message could come anywhere anytime from anyone or thing…

KD: Yeah.

Q: My question is, can you share with us how to keep that connection? How to keep that devotional aspect in an everyday world without, you know, yeah… that’s my question.

KD: Well, first of all, cherish it and recognize it and appreciate it, what you do feel in this kind of a world, in this kind of situation. The fact that you’re here, the fact that you asked that question and that’s something to cherish inside yourself, in yourself, that you want that. That the longing for that means that its already, you’re being pulled towards it already. So, it’s up to you to find what helps you live more of that kind of life. You don’t need someone to show up and bang you on the head with something. We do enough banging ourselves. Everybody has their own storyline. People say, “Oh, you’re so lucky to be with Maharajji.” I say, “Well, we were the people who weren’t going to make it.” You know? Maybe the darkness isn’t so intense for you. You don’t need that right now. So, if you don’t need it, you won’t get it. We only get what we need because the underlying logic or agenda of the universe is compassion. And so everything in our lives is there because it’s supposed to be there and whatever messages our life has for us, is what we need to work with. So, don’t be looking for something to come from the outside. See what you have now and nurture it, cherish it. It’s a little plant. Water it. Feed it. Fertilize it. Don’t let the dog piss on it. You know, take care of yourself.

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Call and Response Special Edition Conversations With KD July 25 2020 Mar 08, 2022

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Taking time to look back and move forward. Conversations With KD episodes are derived from the recordings of KD’s online events from his home during the 2020/ 2021 days of social distancing and quarantine from the onset of COVID and beyond. Call and Response Special Edition Conversations With KD July 25 2020 “Hanuman is a being that not only liberates us, gives us freedom, but he allows us to satisfy the desires that we have that will be useful to us in progressing in life. It is not a renunciant sannysasi path. This is a path very much in the world, seeing God everywhere in everyone, not just in one little place, but seeing, being in the world and yet not of the world. So, as you do these practices and as you grow, a lot of things will happen, and the main thing is really just to have some humility about the practice itself, you know, to understand that it’s a spiritual practice, regardless of what comes to you in your life.” – Krishna Das That invocation to Hanuman has a secret in it. Those last two verses have this secret. Aanjaneya mati paatalaananamKaanchanaadri kamaneeya vigraham Then it goes: Paarijaata taru moola vaasinamBhaavayaami pavamaana nandanam So Hanuman is always sitting at the foot of this tree, lost in love, lost in Ram. Paarijaata taru moola vaasinamBhaavayaami pavamaana nandanam He’s lost in devotion for Ram. Yatra yatra Raghunaatha keertanamTatra tatra krita masta kaanjalim Wherever and whenever Ram’s name is sung or spoken, Hanumanji comes there. Whenever and wherever. So one time, Maharajji went up to the, he was in Chitrakoot with some devotees and they went up to the top of this mountain called Hanuman Dhara, and the story is that, after burning Lanka, Hanuman flew to the top of this mountain and hit the ground and a stream of water came out, and in that water, he cooled his body down because he’d become very fierce, and he’d just burnt Lanka. His whole body was, his tail was on fire as he flew around Lanka. He didn’t feel any pain, but he was cranked up. And so, he then flew to this mountain and cooled himself. So Maharajji was sitting there at the spot and he said to Dada, “Dada, this is where Hanumanji came to cool off to calm himself after burning Lanka,” and then kind of under his breath, he just said, “But Hanumanji was always at peace.” So, no matter what he was doing in the outside world, no matter where he was going, what he was doing, he was always at peace. He was always completely in Ram. So this gives us a sense of direction, because no matter what we experience in our daily lives,, it is possible to always be at peace, to always be existing in our natural state, which is peace, which is love. So, every issue that we have dissolves into that peace, into that Ram, into that love, into that space. It’s vast space, huge, vast presence in which everything is held. This is Maharajji’s big form. This is Ram. This is Hanuman at one with Ram. So, this is why we repeat the name. This is why we do practice, so that we can release the stuff that catches us all life long, and trying to find some reality within ourselves, something deeper than our normal everyday experience. Which is why Maharajji said, “Go on repeating the name. Go on repeating the name, even without any feelings of devotion or love, even when you’re tired, even when you’re angry, just go on repeating the name and sooner or later, the grace will manifest. The real Ram will show up.” So, no matter what else is going on in our lives, we really need to be doing some turning within, or we’ll never be able to let go of our stuff. You just can’t. It’s like trying to pick yourself up like this. It can’t be done. You need some leverage to get up. You can’t pick yourself up just with your own strength, with your hands. You need some leverage. We need some leverage and we get that from training ourselves to keep releasing our knee jerk reactions, our negative thinking, the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. So, lecture over. Some questions, anybody? Q: I met you once on my birthday was Valentine’s day in 2009 with your guru brother, Rama Giri, who became a wonderful teacher to me. I’m sorry. I’m very emotional. And he left his body and I wasn’t able to be there and that’s been very hard for me, and but you began to do these amazing satsangs on Thursday, which I follow, and it has kind of reactivated me and connected me again, to Maharajji who, when I connected to Maharajji so much happened in my life. I got to go to India. I got to do so many amazing things, but one thing I didn’t get to do, and this is my question, It’s you know, life happened. I was volunteering. I did things. And Rama Giri had said to me, “You need to go meet Siddhi Ma.” And I didn’t get to meet her. And she also left her body, and I have this, I know that no matter what, Maharajji’s with me and wherever I go, I don’t need to go to India to find him. He’s with me. But if I get to go, when I get to go now that Siddhi Ma is no longer there, who is the next in charge? What has happened? How does it work? Can you just show up? You know? It doesn’t work like that at all. You have to stop thinking about it. That is the only thing that would make it work. There’s nobody to see. There’s nowhere to go. You don’t get it from somebody. You already have it. You just have to stop destroying yourself with your mind. And you do that. If you’re even thinking about that, you’re already receiving the grace from those beings. Those beings are not identified with their bodies. They were never identified with their bodies. They were never somewhere else. They were always with us and are always with us. So, you could start being here a little bit more, which is where you are. You’re not somewhere else and you’re not going to be somewhere else ever. You might as well be wherever you are. Because that’s where you are. And if you do wind up in India, don’t drink the water. I know that. Yeah. You know, because we’re identified with our bodies, we keep with keep thinking that these great beings are outside of us, because if we’re in a body, then everything is over there, outside, but they’re not in their bodies. Even if they were physically present, they’re not identified with that at all. So, and like Maharajji said, “When you think of me, I’m there.” So if you think of him or Ma, they are right with you. We just go, “Oh yeah, right. Yeah. Okay. Let me watch some TV.” So yeah, this is, your work is to be where you are and not to be thinking about going anywhere except finding who you are. You know, being born in the West, we grew up with Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, and it’s a long way from Mickey Mouse to Ram. Because we were born without, in a completely materialistic culture. Physical reality is the only reality. And who did we know growing up that had any clue about anything in the first place? Basically, nobody, in some ways. So, it’s up to us to, to get our own shit together, you know. The whole program that you have, that we all have, about going somewhere to get something from somebody, it’s just another way, another thing we do to hurt ourselves and to deny our own light and our own love. And I know because I ran around the world running after these beings for, you know, 40 years. So, I know, and they would just look at me like, “What are you doing? Go away.” Right. There’s nothing that anybody can do for you that they can’t do, whether you know it or not, or whether they’re in a body or not. That’s not a problem. That’s not an issue for them. And in fact, it’s always said that when a real Saint leaves his body or her body, they become much more available to us because they no longer have any connection to being in one place at a time. They become much more universally available, but our emotions don’t let us feel that. So, we have to release those emotions. Otherwise, we’ll keep recreating the same drama with this one or that one or this one or that one. So, and only you can do it. Nobody else. So, yeah, Rama Giri was a great guy. He was. I didn’t meet him in India. He and the other two Germans came right after I left. They were there that last summer with Maharajji. Thank you. And come to Sardinia. Q: Hi. I’m so excited, I get to ask my question. That doesn’t mean you’ll get an answer. So, last time during Hanging in the Heartspace, someone had asked a question about self-inquiry and you said dhyana yoga and bhakti yoga both have, it’s just two parts of the same mountain top. The dhyana yogi gets to feel all that after he’s reached there, and the bhakti yogi feels that thing while he’s on he’s on his way. So, my question is… I didn’t say that. Ramana Maharshi said that. Yeah. So I started reading the book, “Who am I?” Then I also read Nisargadatta Maharaj, “I Am That.” Another problem is, I am not able to put it in my life. I mean, what to do? ou do every time? There is a problem. How do I ask, “What is this?” Or how do I self-inquire? It’s very difficult. Yeah, you’re right. It’s very difficult. It’s not for everybody. Ram Ram. “Ram naam karne se sab pura hojata hai,” is what Maharaji said over and over again. Don’t think about it. Don’t worry about it. It all leads to the same place. Just take the name of Ram, of God, and enjoy your life. Take it easy. Don’t give yourself a hard time. If you don’t understand something, no problem. We’re not meant to understand everything, and you don’t understand God either. God is not understandable. So, just relax, take it easy. You know, why are you giving yourself a hard time? You don’t have anything else to do? If you have nothing else to do, then just do Ram Naam 24 hours a day, and then see how you feel about self-inquiry. Don’t spend time thinking about shit. It’s no use. Thoughts will never help you. Okay? Only what comes from within, from your heart, is what’s useful and good for you. So, try to touch that place inside of yourself. And those beings, they taught for the people that came to them, essentially, and anyone who’s drawn to it, of course, but that doesn’t mean that everybody is, that it’s in everybody’s karma to be doing those practices, necessarily. And yes, there are different paths, there are different methods. So, it’s better to, I would suggest you stick with one that you can do, which it’s not too hard to repeat the name of Ram, which is why we’re qualified for that. Maharajji used to say that, you know, that there’s Ashtanga yoga, but he used to say that we Westerners were qualified for the Panchtanga yoga, the five-limbed yoga. Gossiping, wandering around, eating, drinking, and sleeping. This is what we were qualified for. Maharajji loved that. So, Ram Naam is easy to do, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not profound. Ok? It’s just as profound as any other practice, if not more. So, don’t think you, you know, it’s just a piece of cake. It’s not very, it’s not the real practice, you know, “I’m going to do the real practice. Self-inquiry,” well, “What is that? I don’t know.” Let me do Ram Ram. Q: So, okay. So, I stumbled upon kirtan in 2009 at the spring Omega chant, and it has become the first spiritual practice in my whole life to take hold, and I think that’s because it’s fun to sing, and for me to feel like I want to do something, it has to be fun. So… and it grows stronger. It’s not just fun, but that’s one of the things that I think, that’s the thing that keeps it propelled for me. So, my question is, it’s only in the last few months, through listening to Ram Dass talks that I’ve heard the repeated emphasis on letting go of the ego, that somehow that message never got through to me before in all the time. The ego didn’t let it. Yeah, I think you’re right. I think you’re right. So now it’s letting it in. And, but lately, since I’ve been aware of this idea, my ego is grabbing me pretty strongly and it’s hard to let go. And so, I’m just wondering like, the fear is if I let go of my ego that I’m not going to be propelled to do like, social activism or whatever my way of contributing to the world is. Like, I feel like that’s through the ego somehow, so I don’t know how to let go of ego. Well, I just don’t how to feel like that’s the right thing to do. Well, tell me what you, you think ego is. The thing like, sort of, I guess it’s the attachments to things that feel good, kind of like, you know, yeah. But some people are attached to things that feel bad. Right. Yeah, I attach to things that feel good, but it seems like that’s attachment that I’m not, I’m being encouraged not to do. But yeah. What is ego, though? You’re talking about letting go of it and getting past it and forgetting it and you’re afraid of leaving it, but what is it? Thoughts and feelings and experience with the individual self? Maybe. What else? Separation from others. Yeah. It’s all those things. Essentially, it’s better not to think about it because it doesn’t serve any purpose. Ramana Maharshi also said this. He said, “When you ask the mind or the ego to kill the ego, it’s like asking the thief to be the policeman. There’ll be a lot of investigation, but no arrest will ever be made.” So, forget about it. Everything is ego, Getting up in the morning, brushing your teeth, eating, drinking, going here and there, we all do it with a sense of “me.” “I’m doing this.” That’s essentially what the ego is. It’s this illusion that we are this separate feeling of “me.” When you become, when you recognize “I,” the true self, you see it everywhere. You see that you can see individual people, but you can see reality or the true self within everybody because you see it. You’re experiencing it yourself. So, I would just keep singing and don’t be thinking about all that shit. You know, thinking about it… You can’t think yourself out of a prison made of thought. Can you? Every thought is the prison. You’re sitting there thinking, “Oh my ego this and my ego that.” That’s your ego. What’s the sense? Right? Do some practice. That’s all. Keep singing. Do what you do. When you do what you do, give yourself fully to it though, as fully as you can, and then you start to notice that you can’t. So, then you work on that; really, really being where you are, really doing what you’re doing, really being with the name as you’re chanting or singing, really doing your social action, really doing what you’re doing a hundred percent and then in 20 or 30 years, we’ll talk about ego again. Don’t worry about it. You know, Ram Dass gave lectures at that point in his life. When you give lectures, you have to use a lot of thoughts. For some people, that was useful. For some people, it’s not so useful. For some people, it brought some insight, but that doesn’t mean this one button to push that you’re going to make the ego go away, because there really is no ego. That’s what is said. Ego, what we call ego is the thoughts that we become identified with, the input, the sensory impulse inputs that we become identified with. This is… “I hurt.” “I feel pleasure.” “I’m angry.” “I’m this.” We’re identifying with those objects, because they’re all, they’re not ”me.” They’re objects. They’re not self. They’re out there. They’re an object of awareness. You feel pain, you feel pleasure. You experience anger, grief, shame, all those things that we get glued to. So, there are many methods involved that are, that we could use to get unglued from those things. Chanting is one of those methods. And when you’re chanting, your only job is to chant, and when you notice that you’re remembering something, you simply let go and come back to the sound of the name, of the chanting, what you’re chanting. A millisecond later, you’ll notice you’re still gone. So, you come back again and again, and again. Every time you come back, you loosen up that glue that is keeping us stuck to our stuff. So, the so-called ego, the feeling of “me” gets thinned out over time, slowly dissolved, because you stopped believing it. Well, see, words are so difficult. I said you stopped believing it, but…

Full show notes at the publisher

Ep. 61 | Do What You Like, Taking It Personally, As Time Goes By Mar 01, 2022

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Call and Response Ep. 61 Do What You Like, Taking It Personally, As Time Goes By

Q: I go to kirtans. I put in music in my car and I chant and I’ve developed a little bit of a practice. I have a daily sadhana, ultimately because of you… But I’m wondering what it looks like… besides going to kirtan or in my car, (what) do you recommend as part of… a daily sadhana of sitting, like in a meditation pose, and chanting and with music on in the background, that I’m chanting to? Or memorizing various… lines? I’ve memorized a few.

“Do what you like. Find out what it is that you like. You’re the only one who knows. Somebody can give you suggestions. Somebody can order you to do things. Somebody can tell you to do things. Somebody can say, “Don’t do this, don’t do that.” Fine. If that feels right to you. See, that’s what’s happening anyway. Even if somebody tells you something, you’re agreeing to either do it or not do it, for whatever reason. It might be you like to be punished, so you can do what you don’t like. I tried that for about 50 years. So, really, in all seriousness, the whole thing is to trust yourself.” – Krishna Das

Q: First, thank you for your music and being you and I’ve told you before, but I guess your music and you really changed my life, ultimately.

KD: Mine, too.

Q: And so, I do have a question. The practicality that, the actual on-the-ground practicality of chanting, I hear from others, just chant, chant the names. Well, I go to kirtans. I put in music in my car and I chant and I’ve developed a little bit of a practice. I have a daily sadhana ultimately because of you and my yoga. But I’m wondering what it looks like besides going to kirtan or in my car. And I chant and I’ve developed a little bit of a practice. But I’m wondering what it looks like, besides going to kirtan or in my car, do you recommend as part of like, a daily sadhana of sitting, like in a meditation pose, and chanting and with music on in the background, that I’m chanting to? Or memorizing various, you know, lines? I’ve memorized a few.

KD: I’m going to give you the secret teaching here. You ready? Do what you like. You have to find out what you like, what works for you, what you want to do, and do it. Don’t do what you don’t like. See how that feels. You might not do what you don’t like and feel bad. So, then you’d better do something. It’s up to you. What does it matter what I say? If I say something, then you’ll do it, maybe, and say “Ah, he’s full of shit, it didn’t work. I’m not going to do that. Good. Do what you like. Find out what it is that you like. You’re the only one who knows. Somebody can give you suggestions. Somebody can order you to do things. Somebody can tell you to do things. Somebody can say, “Don’t do this, don’t do that.” Fine. If that feels right to you. See, that’s what’s happening anyway. Even if somebody tells you something, you’re agreeing to either do it or not do it, for whatever reason. It might be you like to be punished, so you can do what you don’t like. I tried that for about 50 years. So, really, in all seriousness, the whole thing is to trust yourself. Learn how to find what works for you. Now, of course, there are many traditional, many lineages and many teachings already available that have worked for somebody, maybe many “somebody’s”, that doesn’t mean it’s going to work for you right now. It doesn’t mean it’s right for you right now. Only you know. Who else would know?

Q: Thank you.

_____________

Q: Hello, Krishna Das.

KD: Where are you? Hi.

Q: I met you before Jivamukti out in the desert out in California and I’d seen you moping. I saw you. I get it.

KD: Sometimes I mope just to make people look at me. They feel sorry for me, you know, and then they give me stuff and they’re nice to me.

Q: It was all you. It was real and I get it. And we’re both from Long Island and we’ve got the same schtick.

KD: Well, that explains it.

Q: You know, I, you inspire me. I want to thank you.

KD: To mope?

Q: No, no, no, no. I’ve got something to share.

KD: Ok.

Q: The moping is actually the essence of my question or my thought is that we are love. I get it. The practice is…

KD: Do you really?

Q: Yeah, I do.

KD: Do you really?

Q: I really do.

KD: When you really get it, you are it. There’s nobody to talk about out it.

Q: No, I get it.

KD: You understand it might be true.

Q: I believe it. You know, it’s in my cells. I know it.

KD: Good.

Q: But I also know that most of us come into this room programmed through our conditioning, through our genetic makeup, whatever it is, with this intense negativity and my wonder is, the amazement that I have is that we don’t all come in here just chanting the Name of God with happiness, without anything else, just naturally. Rather than having to find it because we’re under a rock. Which you did. I did. We did. All of us. Most of us come that way. What’s that all about? Why is it that we don’t wake up and come into this room Pure Love rather than the dark side? That’s my question.

KD: You know, one time I was in the temple and I was sitting with Siddhi Ma, Maharajji’s great devotee and one of, the oldest grandchild of my Indian parents, the Tiwari’s, was getting married and he and the other cousins, they all came to the temple for blessings. And so we were all sitting in the back there and I was watching these kids, right? They’re one family. And there was so much love and so much happiness among these cousins, this, and I was just sitting there and I couldn’t believe how sweet they were, you know? And then, Siddhi Ma looked at me and She said, “You see, Krishna Das? You see? This is what you missed by being born in America.” And I went, “Right.” So, I said, “Ma, what is it with us? With Westerners? Why can’t we love? Why can’t we let ourselves be loved?” She said a few things, but the main thing she said was that affection was used to control you as a child and so, right then, love went out the window because we learned that if we wanted to get what we needed, which was everything, from our parents who are our whole universe when you’re a baby, we had to show them some affection. We couldn’t by crying and nasty all the time because we wouldn’t, they would get angry at us and upset. That’s simplifying it. But essentially, it’s that we sensed that when we were, when the affection shined on us and when it didn’t, and that was used to control us from all the way through and so immediately we learned we have to do business in order to get what we want and that program is still running at 150,000 miles an hour. And also, that’s the way this world is. You know, we have our individual experience, but it’s not completely, it’s not an isolated experience. We’re, there’s a group experience of being on the Earth at this time. Of being here at this time or being, who’s in your life, how you grew up, what kind of, what you were taught, what you absorbed, what the people around you believed. And on one hand, you know, I feel that, we learn to feel about ourselves the way our parents felt about themselves. Not necessarily how they felt about us, but how they saw themselves, we absorb that way of seeing our self. And hey, I know my parents. I’m surprised I can even sit up straight. Not that they meant to do any harm. They were also programmed by their parents who were programmed by their parents and their culture. And then there’s more. You know? I mean, scientifically, they’ve now proven that trauma is passed on in the, around the DNA there’s like a sheath and they’ve proven that trauma is passed on through the generations through that covering of the DNA. So, while we may have trauma that’s caused specifically in this life, we’re also carrying this shadow of it from our parents and the trauma they experience. World Wars. A-bombs. You know, a lot of stuff happened to people. And we’re sharing that trauma as well.

So, it’s a lot of stuff to process and let go of as we try to enter that inner love that lives within us. And it’s not all our fault. It’s nobody’s fault. It’s the way the world is now. It’s the way that people are programmed in this, on this earth at this time for the most part. That’s why they say it’s a great blessing to be born into a family of yogis because you don’t, you don’t get programmed the same way. So, it’s not… we take it all so personally, “This is my pain. This is my unhappiness. This is my bullshit. This is that. This is that.” But it’s not only “mine.” We’re sharing a huge ocean of suffering. Some of us have our toes in it. Some of us are up to here. Some of us are up to here. So, that’s all programmed by karma. How much? And what we have to do? The idea, though, that anything can be dealt with is humongous. We don’t give ourselves credit for that. We don’t give our self credit for coming to a place like this to do some practice, to learn some stuff. And we don’t realize what a big thing that is. Like I said yesterday, “People get born, they graduate High School, they drink some beer and they watch tv and then they die. And they’re never here for a moment.” At least, because of grace and our good karmas, at least we’re trying to get a vote. We’re trying to get here. At least we understand that it might be possible. That’s a huge thing. Now, let’s move on from this place and do the best we can. All you can do is the best you can. You can’t do better than the best you can. And no matter how bad you think you’re doing, you’re doing the best you can. So, keep doing it.

I talk much better with coffee.

Sai Baba taught me how to do that.

____________

KD: hi.

Q: Hi. So, every about 3 of 4 years or so, I have the great blessing to be sitting here before you, with you doing your stuff, sharing with you in your stuff and it’s one of the great benchmarks that I’ve come to have in terms of reflecting what’s going on in my life, where I am now as to where I was then and it’s kind of cool to look at that and about 10 years ago, you were kind enough to pose in a photo with me. This was before Apples and selfies and all of that, and I have to say, you and I, we looked really different in that photo 10 years ago.

KD: I was three feet tall?

Q: So, for me, you know, coming, I’ve been thinking a lot because I, you know, physically, in body, in maturation, in a very different place, a very marked place in my life right now, and I wanted to ask you, you know, how do you feel as you return to certain places, to be with us and how things, whether you, or the venue where you’re sharing space, you know, how you mark those changes and sort of rectify who you are now versus at another place and time in your life?

KD: Could you simplify that a little bit?

Q: Ok, sure. So, so things that you use to mark the time, what is it like for you, say, you know, to come back here now as opposed to five or ten years ago and how do you rectify change in transition? That make sense?

KD: Maybe.

Q: Ok.

KD: The implication is that I might know the answer to that question. I really don’t, one of the nice things about getting old is that you don’t think as much about yourself. I don’t really spend a lot of time trying to analyze where I’m at. And as a result, I feel a lot better. So, maybe, because when we tend to evaluate ourselves, we always kind of lean towards the negative side. “What am I doing wrong?” Or, “I’m still stuck in this. I can’t let go of that. Blah blah blah.” All that stuff. So, little by little, one’s state, one’s own state of mind becomes less important. It becomes, you know, basically, for most of us, we go through our day as if we are the number one most important thing in the universe. Everything revolves around our sense of self or happiness. “Are we feeling ok now? Are we feeling ok now? No. We’ve got to do this. We’ve got to do that. That person looks like they’re feeling better than I’m feeling. That’s not good. I should feel better. This is not good.” You know? This kind of stuff. I don’t really.. I think I have a little less of that going on, maybe. Is that ok?

Q: Well, yeah. Thank you.

KD: You’re welcome. Very welcome. But maybe I don’t. Maybe I just don’t care. But, and that’s the same thing, too. You don’t necessarily care about how you’re feeling all the time. It’s, it becomes more irrelevant. You know, you don’t, from here, after this is over, I’ll walk back to my cabin, my place. Am I going to be thinking, “Wow, I don’t know. Did I answer the questions ok? Maybe I did? Maybe I didn’t? Maybe I should have said this? Maybe I should have said that?” That doesn’t happen so much. But for most of us, and for me it happens a lot, but I think it’s happening a little less, if I had to think about it. Which you’re asking me to do.

Thank you.

All right.

As you do these practices, especially with the repetition of the Name, not especially, but that’s mostly what I do, you find that the Name comes back to you by itself during the day. While you’re walking around, while you’re doing stuff, you’ll notice, “Oh, there it is.” So, stay with it for a minute until you forget and that will happen more often. You’ll be pulled back into yourself more often as the day goes on. Even without a conscious effort at that moment to so-called, remember. It’ll happen because you’re training, you’re familiarizing yourself with the feeling of being freer some of the time. More of the time. So, that feeling, because it’s naturally, you understand? That feeling is natural. That’s what’s in there. When we know ourselves, we are free. We are not bound by our thoughts, our emotions, by time and space. We are love. Endless eternal love. That’s who we are. So, that love is pulling us all the time to come back home. And that’s what happens during the day as you go through your day, especially if you’re training yourself to turn towards that place in moments of practice. In other moments, too. Practice doesn’t mean this. It can me, you know, you’re walking around, all of a sudden you come back from dreamland and you’re here for a second and then you’re gone again. That’s a practice. That planted a seed of coming back right there, right then.

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Call and Response Special Edition Conversations With KD July 18 2020 Feb 22, 2022

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Taking time to look back and move forward. Conversations With KD episodes are derived from the recordings of KD’s online events from his home during the 2020/ 2021 days of social distancing and quarantine from the onset of COVID and beyond. Call and Response Special Edition Conversations With KD July 18 2020 “The only answers that you need have to come from you. There’s no shortcut there. You have to listen to your own heart about what you want to do and what you need to do, and then you have to have the courage to go do it, if that’s what it takes.” – Krishna Das The bottom line is that no matter what the issue is, no matter what the suffering is, the real pain is in the mind, because that’s how we’re reacting to the physical, if there is physical issues, and if it’s mental issues, it’s also the way we react, and the only way to overcome or transcend or thin out or leave behind those reactions is to be able to invoke a deeper place within us, the presence of the love that lives within us, in whatever form opens your heart to that; counseling, therapy, talking; every other kind of assistance one can get. All they do is, they help us to let go. And the greatest help that we can get is to train ourselves, to release the stuff and move more deeply into our own hearts and into our own being. So, Maharajji always said, “Constant repetition of God’s name, even without feelings of devotion, in anger or lethargy, brings out His grace.” And once this is realized, then there’s no misunderstanding about anything anymore. There’s no… True faith and true understanding arises. But to reach that point, now, this is me, to reach that point where we actually have that experience, it takes some work on our path, on our part. We have to align ourselves, first with the real intention to overcome suffering, the intention to understand where it comes from, and the practice to build up the internal muscles to be able to let go. You can’t let go of something unless you have something else to hold on to. So, we hold on to the repetition of the Name and to, eventually the realization that brings to us directly, to us, ourselves, within us. We hold on to that and then it becomes easier to let go of this stuff. So, I guess that’s the deal. See ya. Q: Hi Krishna Das. How are you doingn? Did Maharajji ever speak to unscrupulous teachers and… well, let me… a little background, I received the teachings of yoga for the last three years from someone that I just found out was abusing their power as a teacher among my friends and other, and colleagues and my sangha, and my work now is to separate the teaching from the teacher, I think. That’s what I’m trying to do, and what you just opened with is definitely something I can do. But I don’t, I’ve heard you speak about it before, but I thought it was never gonna happen to me. So, I didn’t really pay attention. So, your yoga teacher has been abusing his or her position as teacher? Well, regardless of what kind of abuse it is, if it’s something that doesn’t feel right to you, yoga teachers are, there’s like 40 yoga studios on every block. Go somewhere else. Like Starbucks. Yeah. Oh yeah. I’m definitely going to myself. It’s no reflection on you that it hurts, that you were part of that group. What do you want to know? You did the right thing. You left. So, you leave those people to do whatever they have to do. Some people find it hard to recognize abuse and some people find abuse everywhere. So, it’s really up to you, what your experience is with the situation, how you feel about it, and whatever karmas this person has created, they’ll be living through that for a long time. So, there’s no reason for us to be angry, because anger just destroys whatever we have to offer and whatever’s in our own hearts. It’s better to develop compassion. Compassion is not making it okay, saying it was okay for that person to do that. It’s recognizing that people who hurt other people are not only hurting other people, but they’re hurting themselves, and they themselves will suffer terribly because everybody has to live through their karmas. There’s no slippage in that system, apparently. So, but when we see how hard it is for us to get through the day without having negative thoughts and angry thoughts and hurtful thoughts about ourselves and other people, we can begin to expand that understanding to see how hard it is for other people to not hurt themselves and other people, and in doing so, creating more suffering for everybody. So then, you know, then your heart starts to soften a little bit and you don’t, you don’t create more karmas from your reactions. Somebody once said to me, the teaching of betrayal is trust. Wow. Really? Yeah. So, let’s think about that. Yeah. What does that mean? The teaching of betrayal is trust. That’s the thing I don’t want to lose. I’m a trusting person and I trusted this person and I don’t want this experience to change my heart for people. Don’t let it. It’s up to you. Right? But it’s work you have to do. You can’t just push it aside and let, “Oh, it’ll calm down. It’ll go away.” No, it’ll stay with you. So, you have to work with that. You have the Metta practice, the Loving Kindness Meditation is great for this, but remember, you offer that to yourself as well. Right? You start with yourself and then you expand it to other people, and when you, when you start to offer it to this person, you’ll notice your heart start to clench. So, stay with it for a little while. Don’t push, then come back to yourself and then you go, you offer it to somebody who has always been on your side, who’s always been there for you, physically or not physically, but somebody who you truly trust completely, and who has always been, and you start to offer that to them, and then your heart starts to get light again. And then you sit with that for a while, you experience that, and you allow that feeling to permeate and recognize it, and then you bring that other person to mind again. And then you’ll watch your heart clench. So, after some time, maybe 20, 30, 40 years, the heart won’t clench, and that means you’ve done it. You’ve overcome. You’ve learned the lesson of betrayal. Because somebody who doesn’t have the issues won’t be hurt by something like that. Like, Maharajji, he used to say, “People come here and try to fool me.” He said, “I go on fooling the whole universe and people come here and think they can fool me.” So, he wasn’t hurt by people’s stupidity and people who manipulate and people’s greed and anger and all that stuff, because he was, he’s beyond that, but we, our job is to get down into the nitty gritty with that stuff, and really clean it out of our hearts, and then we can never be hurt and we can deal with things more efficiently and see things more clearly in the first place. Who knows? If you were in a different state of mind, you might’ve taken one look at this guy and walked the other way in the first place. You know? But you were attracted to something in him or her, some shine, something, and you wanted something from that situation. You wanted to be recognized maybe. You wanted to become a part of something. All of it. So, that’s how we betray ourselves. So, the lesson of that betrayal is trust, is learning to trust one’s self, right? So, you buried the things that you saw and you didn’t want to see those things. You wanted something. So, you overrode your, whatever things you saw that you might not have overridden in a different situation. So, the betrayal is your own betrayal, our own betrayal, and the trust is our own trust. So, eventually you really thank this person for being an asshole, and teaching you how to trust yourself. You’ll see how all the different places in your own life, where that behavior was functioning all the time under the surface and you never noticed it before. You’ll start to notice that, and you’ll get free of that. We’ll all get free of that if we do this work, if we do that, if we do the practices and really have the right intention. So, good. Wow. You clarified so many things for me and two of my favorite words of yours, “gradually” and “inevitably.” So, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Oh, hi, Krishna Das. Do you remember me from like a month ago? My mom had passed away and you were very helpful. From Stony Brook. Remember we talked about Stony Brook? Anyway, I’ve been doing much better. Thank you. And that really helped me when I spoke to you last time. I just wanted to ask you though, sometimes so I have, you know, I tend to, if I have like some different kinds of pain problems and I have pretty much managed, and if I make a mistake and I do something that throws me off and I end up in pain again, because like I take, let’s say like I had to take a painkiller for something the doctor prescribed and it ended up hurting my stomach, I’ll start obsessing that I made a mistake, that I should’ve known better and I’ll sort of, you know, this obsession thing, and I know it makes it worse. Is there anything you can suggest, you know, like, I don’t know. I just, I hate when I start obsessing about it when I make a mistake. I mean, I’m only human and these things happen as part of the human experience, to make a mistake, but I get just so like tortured by the mistake that I make. Usually when it comes to something that causes me physical pain, I’m very sensitive and it’s very easy for me to feel physical pain. You’re also very sensitive to the stories you tell yourself about all that. You mean, stories, If I take the wrong,…? The stories you tell yourself about how you’re just a human being, but underneath that you feel like you’ve failed. So, the story again is “I failed. I failed. I’m no good. I’ll never do this right. This is terrible. I’m a bad person.” It comes from a self-loathing underneath it all. And these are all the stories we believe about ourselves, all the ways we subtly limit ourselves and hurt ourselves. Somebody else might say, “Oh, I screwed my stomach up. Next time I won’t do that.” And that’d be the end of it. But you go on and on about it in your own mind. So, more practice. Sit some more, learn to calm yourself down. Those are the moments when you need to calm down and let the thoughts go. Well, what about like, if I’m still feeling the pain as a result of it? That’s what will make me keep doing it? You know what I mean? Sit down, let go. Pain, there’s many ways to work with pain and I’m not an expert at that, but ultimately, when you’re really strong in meditation, you recognize the object of awareness, which in this case is the pain and you recognize it as not yourself. It’s an object. It’s an object, like something in the room, like your body is an object also. It’s not you, you notice it. So eventually your center of gravity deepens, and when those objects of awareness arise that are unpleasant, they don’t grab us the same way. They don’t hurt the same way. You know, Maharajji and these great beings, they feel all the pain of all the beings in the universe, but because there’s no ego, so to speak, left in those beings, there’s no one experiencing it. It’s a whole different way of experiencing everything. So, you’re still very identified with your thoughts and your emotions and your feelings and the pain, and there’s only one answer for that. It’s to sit more. You mean, meditate? Meditate, repeat the name, do practice regularly, because until you train yourself to let go of whatever arises in your, in your awareness, in your mind, so to speak, you’ll constantly be re-digesting the same stuff over and over. It’s a beautiful situation because it makes it really obvious when you’re lost, when you’re in dreamland, when you’re not present. “Oh, I’m this and that and this and that,” and all this stuff. You can’t think yourself out of a prison that’s made of thought. Every thought is the prison. You have to find out who you are and what you are, and that lies underneath your thoughts, underneath your emotions, and it lies underneath the stories you tell yourself unconsciously about yourself, about who you are, and what’s acceptable, and what’s not, and what’s good and bad and all that stuff. Calm down. When you’re in that, just recognize that’s what’s happening and go, “Wait a minute,” and just breathe. Let it go again and again. I guess it’s, I can apply it also, because if I make other mistakes, I mean, that’s the thing I get worried about now, because the whole thing with the pandemic. “Oh, I can’t make a mistake with my health now.” Because everything counts. Like you can’t make a mistake. So, I’m the worst about that now, but if I make other mistakes, I probably would get like that too. So anytime I started obsessing about, “I made a mistake,” just go into the.. Well, you’ll, as you get quieter, as your thoughts get quieter and you develop a little bit deeper center of gravity, so to speak, you’ll start to see those programs running much more often than you think they’re running. Yeah. And then you get to let go of them, which is good. So, if we don’t see these things, we can’t let go. So, on one hand, even though pain is painful, it’s also a wake-up call for you, because it’s so clear and it grabs you so quickly and starts all that stuff going. Right? So, when you notice yourself going, then just go, “Wait a minute. You know, I don’t have to do that,” and breathe. Just come to your breath. Let your breath relax. Whatever fear it is you have, whether it’s COVID or the atom bomb or Mickey Mouse, just keep letting go. That’s the idea. That’s why the repetition of the name is such a powerful practice, which is why Maharajji, again and again and again, encouraged us to do that. You don’t have to believe it. You don’t have to know what the names mean. You don’t have to feel anything particularly good or bad or anything. Just do it, and do it when these things are happening. When you say the name, is it the same thing as me listening to you chant? Is that the same thing as me saying the name? Or is it equivalent to it? Yes and no. Mostly, yes. Because you’re hearing it, and even if you’re repeating it, where is it really happening? In your mind, right? But you’re using your body, but it’s happening in your mind. So, when you’re listening to it, you’re hearing it inside of you in your mind, which is great. The only thing is you don’t want to, you want to try to keep, you want to really give yourself to the practice. Let’s put it that way. Just rock out, turn the music up and dance. Do whatever you have to do to overcome the going here, the going there, the past, the future, all that stuff. Yes. It’s perfectly fine to do that. And that whole practice will deepen and widen and become much more natural for you as time goes on. Because I don’t know all the names. When you say, “say the names,” I don’t even know what they are. I listen to you all on Thursday nights. Yes. That’s all there. Everything there is “name.” Ram. Krishna. Hari. Shiva. Om Namah Shivaya. Those are all names. Japa of the names of God, so they say. Whether it’s God or the names of your true nature, there’s no difference. So yeah, sure. It’s perfectly fine. Eventually you’ll probably get familiar enough that, you know, some time you’ll be walking from the living room to the kitchen and you’ll hear it in your head and you’ll go, “Where did that come from?” So, when you hear it like that, stay with it for a minute and then it’ll disappear, but it starts coming back, and the practice will pull you gently into yourself as time goes on. So, it’s very good. Thank you. Yeah, sure, take care. Q: Hi, Krishna Das. You can’t see me because my camera’s broken. I’m so sorry. That’s okay. Here’s my question. It kind of piggybacks on what they were saying as well. So, I’m going to try to make a very long story short. A few years ago, I took Kundalini yoga training, as by Yogi Bhajan, and I felt very drawn to do it because I had health issues come u…

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Ep. 60 | Gurus, Programs and Practice Feb 15, 2022

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Call and Response Ep. 60 Gurus, Programs and Practice

“We’re training ourselves to release whatever it is that is pushing us around. It’s not easy to see what it is because we’re being pushed from behind. It’s the shadows in our hearts, the dark corners in our hearts that push us around. So, it’s not easy to see the programs. That’s why, when we sit down to practice, we just keep letting go of anything that pulls us out of that moment of what we’re trying to do, and then come back.” – Krishna Das

So, the poem I was looking for was by Rumi. A Sufi poet. Great poet. One of the Great Beings. It’s called “Love Dogs,” and I’m going to ruin it, but I’ll do the best I can.

So, it starts off, “One night, a man was praying, ‘Allah, Allah’ and his lips grew sweet with the chanting. And then a cynic walked by and said, ‘Why are you calling out? You never get an answer.’ And the man was struck by that and thought, ‘He’s right.’ So, he stopped praying. And that night, he had a dream in which the guide of souls came to him and said, ‘Why did you stop praying?’ ‘Because I never got an answer.’ He said, ‘The calling out is the answer.’ He said, ‘You hear that moan of the dog crying for its Master? That’s the connection.’”

So, the idea is probably that we’re already being called from within to move more deeply into our own true nature, the love that lives within us as who we really are and when we respond, either through a spiritual practice or through caring for others or kindness to others or doing good in the world, we’re actually answering the call of our own hearts. This isn’t something that comes from the outside. We’re not being, there’s no manipulation in love and love is what lives within us so the whole path is to learn to pay attention to our inner hearts and to do that, we have to learn to trust ourselves and listen to ourselves and honor our own truth, our own feelings, whatever they are. You can’t pretend to be who you’re not. It won’t work. So, really, one of the things that spiritual practice does, it gives us the strength to, little by little, overcome the programs that are running within us that tell us we’re not enough, that tell us we’re not worthy of love, that tell us that we can’t love, that things are not all right and will never be all right. And those programs run all the time. So, practice takes some of the energy away from those programs, little by little. If it happens too fast, they put you away. Right? I said, “Right?”

All right, anybody have anything to say? Raise your hand and you’ll be punished.

You’re going to make me talk more?

Yesterday we were talking about Gurus and sometimes I can get a little bit cranky when we talk about Gurus. Because everybody, ok, just a second… everybody thinks I got started already, you can’t stop me. What’s that? Oh, you have it? I ruined it already, thank you.

Q: Hello, Krishna Das

KD: Wait, wait. I’m in the middle of something here. I’m in a program. Don’t kill it. So, yeah, I get cranky about it because I guess I have issues myself with physical Guru and the inner Guru because when I was with Maharajji physically, that was it for me. I didn’t want to be anywhere else, ever. That was home. I got home somehow. I tripped and fell and I was home. But, there was still all this stuff inside of me, uncooked seeds, so to speak. Uncooked desires. Desires that were calling out to be fulfilled and to live through. So, after 2 and a half years in India with Him, and He kept me there. He made it, He actually kept me there. One time, I was at Dada’s house in Allahabad, one of Maharajji’s great old devotees and my Visa, I had a tourist Visa and I had gotten one extension so I had been there about six months and… maybe I got it wrong… but anyway, I had to go and do, get another Visa, extend my Visa so I could stay but I knew that if I went back to this place, they would probably send me back to America. But I had to go. I had no choice. Now, Ram Das and the other Westerners, most of the other Westerners, they had got their first extension in New Delhi so in order to get another extension, they had to go back there and they’d heard that there was this government immigration agent that they could pay, they could bribe to extend their Visas. So, one morning they just all left. They went, they didn’t even say goodbye to Maharajji, they just all left. They figured they’d be back the next day or in a couple of days. So, the day after they left, I came at night with my, all my stuff because I was going to have to go to Bodhgaya, to Gaya, which is where I got my first extension. So, when I saw Dada I said, “You know Dada, I’m leaving on the night train tonight to go to Gaya to get my extension, but I’m not going without darshan, without seeing Maharajji.” He said, “Ok, ok.” So, later on Maharajji calls me in, and He said, “What are you doing?” I said, “I’m going to Gaya to get my extension.” He said, “So, go.” I said, “Well, I’ll go. But they’ll probably send me back to America.” “So, go.” “Ok, I know you’re everywhere.” “Get out of here. Go.”

So, I was on the porch waiting for the right time to leave for the train and Dada comes out and said, “Maharajji’s calling you.” So, I went inside. He told me that the next day, He was going to send me to this other town where His devotee was the Chief of Police and He was going to stamp my passport and give me an extension for a year. So, that’s what happened. Then, all those people who went to Delhi, when they got there, that agent, that guy that immigration agent had gotten busted for taking bribes, so they all got sent home. Wham bam thank you m’am. You’re outta here. And they never got to come back to Allahabad to even see Maharajji. And when Maharajji heard about this, He just went on and on, and He said, “Oh, those people tried to go to the highest place, the highest place, but look at Krishna Das is so humble. He just tried to do the lowest simplest thing and He’s the one who got to stay.” You know, it was bullshit because, and He knew and I knew it, everybody knew it. I had to go to Gaya, I couldn’t go to Delhi or else I would have gone just like everybody else. “Oh, he’s so humble.” Yeah, right. But the point is, He kept me there. And then He kept me there for another year after that as well. So, it was two and a half years. So, just towards the end of the two and a half years, I was with Him one day and He looked at me and He said, “Go to America when your Visa’s up.” Which was in a month or two. “Go to America.” I said, “But I’m just learning Hindi.” “Too bad. You go.” And then He said, “You have attachment there.” I didn’t know what He was talking about. When I left America, I was never going back. I gave my jeans away. I sold my records. Records? You don’t remember records but some of us do. And I sold my guitar. I sold my car. I got every dollar I could get together and I left and I was never going back. And now, all of a sudden, He says I have attachment there? What attachment? Well, I’ll tell you. Everything that happened to me from the moment I came back to America until this moment was exactly what He was talking about. There was so much stuff inside. So much stuff that just needed to come out. And it wasn’t gonna work for me to stay in India. First of all, I was really sick and I wouldn’t have lasted very long anyway. So, the stuff that’s inside has to come out. The question is, how do we deal with it as it arises?

Does it completely grab us and knock us out? Knock us down and screw us up for a long time? Or do we have a better way? A better option to deal with it? This is what practice does. We’re training ourselves to release whatever it is that is pushing us around. It’s not easy to see what it is because we’re being pushed from behind. It’s the shadows in our hearts, the dark corners in our hearts that push us around. So, it’s not easy to see the programs. That’s why, when we sit down to practice, we just keep letting go of anything that pulls us out of that moment of what we’re trying to do, and then come back. When we’re chanting, it’s one of those moments of practice. We’re repeating the Names and then we notice we’re not paying attention and we haven’t been. So, we’re back. Then we go back to the Name again and then we’re gone again. Then we see that we’re gone. We come back. Over and over and over. And this is training our minds to release those obsessive limiting thoughts and feelings. And that movement of releasing is something that functions all day long. We’re just increasing it. We’re just building it up and getting, making it more deep in those moments of practice and then through the day, through the rest of our days, things will happen but we get more used to not being stuck. For most of us, we are, we are who we think we are. And we’re thinking all the time. Thoughts are coming all the time and we get no vote as to how we meet those thoughts. We’re gone. But as we learn to sit more deeply in ourselves, we begin to get a little bit of a vote of how, how we interact with those moments when something strong comes along, some thought or some emotion. Somebody you know all of a sudden, like starts to be weird towards you, right? And you start, you develop a whole storyline in your head. “Why is that person like that? What did I do to them? I never did anything to them. Son of a… you know…” and you’ve got this whole thing going on. And then you’re totally into it and all of a sudden you think, well, “There must be something wrong. Maybe he’s sick. Maybe he’s not feeling good. And then your program, your story starts to lighten up a little bit. And you become aware of what really might be going on out there. You kind of talk yourself down from being totally stuck in your version of what’s going on. And the point of all this is to uncover the love that we’re all seeking. It’s not to be a great yogi. It’s not to you know, shine and have everybody see, “Oh, he’s a great yogi. Wow, this guy is really fantastic.” It’s not anything like that. It’s simply to find out and uncover what’s already inside of us. These practices help that. Help that evolution. Speed it along. It’s a ripening process. Every time we come back from Dreamland, we’ve moved ourselves a little closer to the sunlight of love where our hearts are ripened. Every time. Every single time. Sri Ramakrishna, who was a really great saint in the 1800s, He once described how this practice of the repetition of the Name works. He said that every repetition of the Name carries shakti, carries power, just like a seed. A tiny little seed might have a whole tree within it, a huge tree. So does every repetition of the Name carry the essence of true reality of love. And He said, “Every repetition carries this power and the seeds of the Name are thrown up like this, and they’re carried by the wind and they land on the roof of an old house in the jungle.” And in those days, the roofs might have been made from clay tiles, but the tiles weren’t very hard. So those seeds of the repetition of the Name that we do are caught between those tiles on that roof. And as time and seasons come and go and wind and rain and sun and everything, those tiles eventually begin to break down and soften. And then, the seeds of the repetition of the Name start to grow. And the roots grow and grow and they destroy the tiles. They destroy the roof. And they keep growing and they destroy the house, the walls of the house. Ramakrishna says, “That house is who we think we are.” “Me.” “Me” is destroyed by the repetition of the Name. And what is “Me?” “Me” is the separate little feeling of “me-ness” which is different from everybody else’s feeling of “me-ness.” “It’s my house. You have your house. You have your house.” And that separation… we are locked behind the walls of our house, of our “me-ness” of our “ego”… sense of separateness. And reality is that that separateness is temporary. It is not permanent. It is temporary. And so, as the walls of that “me” break down, one expands to fill the whole the universe. Nothing is lost and everything is gained. Everything. Because that’s the way it is. And that’s who we are underneath who we think we are. And the real progress is, happens under the radar. You don’t get to pat yourself on the back. “Wow, this is a really great meditation. I’m really feeling very good these days. I’m able to deal with just about anything now. I think I’ve made it. This is great. Yes.” No. More stuff. But when that program is running, we’re not aware of it. We’re just in it. We don’t get a vote when you’re in it. When you’re not in it and you’re doing practice, it increases, it decreases the amount of time that you spend lost in your programs or your feelings or all that stuff that grabs us so much. And it’s the evaluator that’s getting thinned out. And I have a confession to make. I mope around less than I used to. Really. That’s a very big thing. I miss it. Really. Sometimes I mope around just for fun. It’s such a great feeling. But what are you going to do? I really do mope around less and what can I say? It’s reality. I was born a moper. And it’s taken a long time to mope around less but it’s actually happened. I think.

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Call and Response Special Edition Conversations With KD July 2 2020 Feb 08, 2022

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Taking time to look back and move forward. Conversations With KD episodes are derived from the recordings of KD’s online events from his home during the 2020/ 2021 days of social distancing and quarantine from the onset of COVID and beyond. Call and Response Special Edition Conversations With KD July 2 2020 “All chants are useful. All practice is useful. If it’s not COVID, it’s the fact that you’re going to die of something else, but you don’t pay attention to that. COVID is just making you aware of that in a very nasty way. But yes, death is a part of life. We live every day as if it’s never going to touch us, we’re never going to get sick, we’re never going to die. We just go on piling shit up, getting more stuff. This situation has faced everybody with impermanence, as they say, which is one of the signs of samsara, of the world, that things are impermanent and changing, and it’s a very painful lesson for us, all of us. No question about it. “ – Krishna Das Namaste. Howdy everybody. We’re here again. Still here. So, let’s recognize that even though we can’t see each other physically, we are still in the same space together, the space of the heart, the sky of the heart, where we always are together. All we need to do is remember to look. One of the words for chanting is “bhajan,” which means “to remember,” one of the meanings of the word. So, we were trying to remember to remember. So many of the great saints that I met in India, and even up to this day, all talk about the practice of the repetition of the name and how, how effective it is, and how it’s the real practice for this age. It’s the easiest way to overcome the tendencies we have in our minds and hearts and the programs that run behind the scenes all the time telling us that we’re not enough, we’re no good, we’ll never get what we want, we’ll never be happy. So, you’ll notice how difficult it is to actually pay attention when you’re singing. You might feel good. You might feel bad. But whatever it is you feel, you should keep the awareness on the presence of the name, on the sound of the name, because that’s what will take us deeper into ourself. We don’t want to go sideways. We don’t want to, it’s not all about what you’re experiencing when you do this practice. All the saints say, all the yogis say that when you’re sitting down, that’s not the only time that the practice is important. It resonates through the day, and when you’re not looking, something arises from within, some understanding, some new way of seeing something will come from inside, and in these particular times now, when it’s, we’re all faced with our mind and our stuff right in front of us, and our emotions all day long, it’s big time stuff. So, this is the most important thing. Practice during this period will bring great fruits to our life, because we are so reactive most of the day, reading the papers, talking to people who are suffering, and our own unhappiness, our own suffering. So, this is the time to plant those seeds. All right, let’s take some questions. Here’s a long question. Q: Though the mind can play its own games and have its own irrelevant theories, what does your heart tell you about what Maharajji said about appearing in the body in America? I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but in the old days, Maharajji said, “I’ll come to you, I’ll come with you to America.” So, we said to him, “Yes, we’ll bring you in our hearts.” And he said, “Nay! In the body.” Well, I’m still waiting. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t been here. It just means I didn’t see him. So, you know, there’s no way of capturing him, no way at all, but if you see him, please let me know. Tell him I’m thinking about him and maybe he wants to give me a call or a text. Q: Thanks for the amazing start. Whatever that means. I have been having wild dreams lately. I wonder if you have seen Maharajji in dreams and what has been his message to you? Well, I had a couple of dreams of Ram Dass this week that were, they were very sweet. I don’t remember dreams that much, these days. I don’t remember the last time I dreamt about Maharajji. It wasn’t that long ago. Sometimes we’re just hanging out. Sometimes we’re going somewhere. It’s very rarely, as far as I remember, any kind of teaching or any kind of, anything like that. Sometimes darshan. That’s all I want to do is see him, anyway, be with him. Also, the use of hallucinogenic substances to instill translate states in order to experience visions, et cetera. Is that, or is it merely adding up to another layer of illusion? Well, we all like excitement. We all like experiences. On one hand, if it wasn’t for peyote, which is a psychedelic cactus from the Southwest, I don’t know if I’d be here, because that’s what blasted my heart open. I took it after my junior year in high school, and I remember very clearly that I had no doubt that what I was experiencing and what I was seeing was more real than the world I thought, the world I had been living in, the world as I had seen it before this experience. But of course, it didn’t last, but still, it definitely woke me up to some degree. Now, you know, Maharajji had said that LSD, the “yogi medicine” he called it, can bring you into the room with Christ, but you can’t stay. So, after you get thrown out of that room a few million times, don’t you want to stay? But drugs, hallucinogenics won’t allow you to stay, partially because there’s still a “you” having the experience, regardless of how subtle it is and what you’re seeing or experiencing. At least that’s my feeling about it. And as long as there’s a “you” or a “me,” we’re going to get kicked out of the room, but when there’s only Christ, only love, what room is there to get kicked out of? You know, when Ram Dass gave Maharajji the acid the second time, I was there. I’ll tell you the story. So, the first time when Ram Dass went to India in ‘67, he met Maharajji, and he had this incredible transformational experience the first day, and his heart opened and it was incredible, changed his life. The next day, when he came to see Maharajji, Maharajji said, “You have medicine? Give me.” So, Ram Dass thought Maharajji had a headache. So, he took out some aspirin and Maharajji said, “Nay nay. The Yogi medicine.” So, Ram Dass thought, “Well, he must be talking about acid.”. So, he had three or four pills of humongously powerful and pure Owsley acid. He holds them out to Maharajji in his hand and Maharajji takes them, throws them in his mouth and they sat around all day and nothing happened. There was no change in Maharajji all day long. This was very big, big thing for Ram Dass because he knew that acid had changed his life, but he didn’t know what it was. What is it really doing? What is it? So, he brought some to India with him to give to people, to try to find out what this is. Who knows? But nobody he met… Some people liked it. Some people didn’t, but nobody seemed to know, and then when he got to Maharajji, nothing happened. I mean, he took enough acid to put a horse on the moon and nothing happened. So, when Ram Dass came back to America and was telling these stories, some people came to him and said, “You know, he scammed you. He threw it over his shoulder. Nobody could take that much acid.” So, Ram Dass didn’t think so, but he did have a little bit of doubt. So, the next time we were in India, a whole bunch of things happened and we found ourselves with Maharajji in Vrindavan at his temple, and we were sitting there and Maharajji, he looks at Ram Dass and he said, “When you were in India last time, did you give me medicine?” And Ram Dass said, “Yes.” He said, “Did I take it?” Ram Dass said, “I think so.” “Oh, got anymore?” “Yes.” “Give it to me.” So, I don’t know if you can see this, but Ram Dass offered the acid to Maharajji and Maharaji took each pill like this four times. And then we sat around for a while. He said, “Can I drink water?” So, he drank some water and after a few minutes, he takes his blanket, and he puts it over his head like this, and then he opens it up and goes like this, and Ram Dass turned purple. I have never seen a human being turn purple. He turned purple. Because he, he said to himself, “Oh my God, he really didn’t take it last time. But he knew I had doubts. So, now he wanted to prove to me he could take it. I’ve killed my guru.” So right. As soon as he thought that, Maharajji dropped the whole show and just laughed and said, “Yogis have known about this for thousands of years. It used to grow up in the Kullu valley,” which is a valley in the Western Himalayas, and he said a few other things. He said, “For a Yogi who knows God, no poison can affect him.” He said, “It’s good for beginners.” So, it kind of depends how you see yourself and what you’re able to do and how you see yourself, what you want out of life. Q: The lady next to Neem Karoli Baba? That lady?This is Siddhi Ma. Siddhi Ma is Maharajji’s great devotee and she had been with him for 40, 45, 50 years, maybe, 40 years or more. Since he, since Maharajji left the body in ‘73, which is what, almost 40 years ago, right? ’73.. more… anyway, she’s his closest disciple and devote and she and another Ma named Jivanti Ma spent much time with Maharajji in his later years. She took care of us Westerners so sweetly and with such grace and love and tolerance and patience over all these years that we’ve been going to India since Maharajji left the body in ’73, and she left the body about two years ago. So, yeah. She is very wonderful. Q: What is the best book to read about Maharajji? There’s really a number of books and they’re all good. “Miracle of Love” that Ram Dass put out, Ram Dass wrote. And then there’s two books by Dada Mukherjee called “By His Grace” and “The Near and the Dear,” and there’s two other books, one by Larry Brilliant called “Sometimes Brilliant,” and in it, he tells the story of how Maharajji sent him to work for the United Nations organization, health organization, and how they eradicated smallpox, and there’s many beautiful stories about Maharajji in that book. And another one called, “Love Everyone,” which Parvati Markus, who Maharajji used to call “private secretary,” she took all our diaries and she pulled things out of our diaries and created like, how it was hanging out for the day with Maharajji, what it felt like, all the things that we thought about and experienced while we were hanging out. It’s a fantastic book and that’s called “Love Everyone.” And there’s a couple others, but that’s a good way to start. Q: Is there an English unabridged edition of Sri Ramacharitmanasa? Yes, the Gita Press puts out a full bilingual edition. One of them is even like, trilingual. One has the Hindi, the English and the transliteration, and one has the Hindi and English translation. So, they’re out there for sure, and I think Motilal Banarsidass also does that. Q: How about me? Do I take LSD or anything else to help you connect with higher spirits? Yes, I do coffee. Mochas every morning. It helps me connect with real life because I can’t wake up without it. No, I don’t do any more chemicals. You know, I haven’t for, I haven’t done… When’s last time I did acid? It was when I asked Maharajji. I had some acid Ram Dass had given me an India and I said, “Baba, can I take this?” And he said, “Yes. When you’re in a quiet place, and a cool place, and your mind is at peace,” which is almost never, but I found a minute there where that I fit those categories and I took it and I fell asleep and I woke up, you know, 10 hours later. That was it. So, I don’t, I don’t take anything, any chemicals anymore, any psychedelics or anything. I haven’t for many years. Q: How do I feel that getting old and dying one day? will you go to Vaikuntha? That’s a heaven world. You know, in the Hanuman Chalisa, there’s a line… What is that line? Anta kala raghubara pura jai Jaha janma haribhakta kahai It says that “At the end of time, when you die, you’ll be reborn in Ram’s world as a devotee of Ram” So, Arjun, who plays tabla with me when we play together, once asked Siddhi Ma, “Does that mean, like when we die, we’re going to go to heaven? Like Ram’s world?” And she said, “Not exactly.” So, I don’t know. I don’t know where I’m going, but I hope there’ll be TV. Okay. Q: Can I please explain if it’s easy to let go of things, feelings, especially letting one’s self let go of one’s emotional attachments? No, it’s not easy. It’s very hard. The whole spiritual path is about letting go of attachment and your identification with your thoughts and your feelings and your emotions. It’s not pushing away because it’s painful. It’s not pushing away. It’s letting go. And there’s a huge difference. Letting go takes practice. That’s why we chant. That’s why we meditate or do spiritual practice. Every time we notice we’re gone in dreamland and thinking about something, we come back. Gone, back, gone back, gone, back. This is what trains us to release those negative feelings, and it’s not easy. No, it’s very difficult. But what else are you going to do? Allow all that stuff to eat you alive for the rest of your life? No, you have to do some practice or nothing’s going to happen. So, each one of us has to figure out what we want in life and what we want to do to get those things for ourselves and for others as well. One can’t really have peace of mind if one’s angry at everybody. One can’t have peace of mind if one is trying to find all this stuff in the outside world. You’re always off center. So, the idea is, find out who we are and move more deeply into our true being, into our hearts, and it is not easy, but it’s not impossible, and every bit of practice you do on this path is very important. It’s big. Every time you remember to let go and to come back to the practice, come back to the sound of the name or whatever, that’s a tremendous thing. And Krishna says in the Gita that every effort we make on this path is huge, because mostly we’re just floating down the river towards the waterfall, and we’re going to go over the falls and be destroyed. We don’t even realize we’re moving towards the falls. So, in fact, anytime you recognize that, and you try to swim to the shore or swim against the stream of life as it’s been going on, it’s a very big thing. So, even though finding real love, finding what lives within us, is not an instant thing, it’s possible for everyone, and if you’re even thinking about these things, you already have grace, you already have the karmas to bring this into your life, otherwise… Not many people in the world really have the option to be thinking about this, for many reasons, some of them external, some of them internal. Q: How does Maharajji show up in our lives if we are householders? Are you human? If you’re a human, he shows up. What do you mean “householders?” You think he only shows up to renunciates? To swamis? Why would that be the case? He himself wasn’t a Swami. He never, he didn’t wear Swami clothes. He wasn’t a Swami. He’s a Baba. Different. He wasn’t a renunciant, externally. Within, he had renounced everything and had become one with the universe. Whatever you, what you do has nothing to do with who you are, and he is with you all the time, because he is the indwelling presence within us. We don’t look and we don’t remember to look, and even if we remember to look, we don’t know how to look, and even if we don’t know how to look, we don’t know where to look. So, but that doesn’t mean he’s not with us. That doesn’t mean God is not with us every moment, householder or not householder or dog or cat makes no difference. Q: Are you finding the situation, not being able to travel and sing with people, difficult? Yeah. It’s so difficult. Rolling out of bed whenever I feel like. No, I don’t find it difficult at all. I didn’t find traveling difficult. I don’t find staying home difficult. It’s just life. There are difficulties in everything. So, you just do the best you can. My body is…

Full show notes at the publisher

Ep. 59 | Real Love Feb 01, 2022

Show notes

Call and Response Ep. 59 Real Love

Q: I just wanted to ask you if you believe in true love and whether you find or think that personally you have experienced True Love. That’s my question. Thank you.

“Love with a capital ‘L’ is a different thing. It’s not an emotion. It’s not a feeling like an emotion. It’s the whole universe. It’s very big. It’s vast presence. It’s like the sky of the Mind in which everything exists. It’s… outside of which there can be nothing, outside of real love. Everyone is included. Love is looking out of our eyes right now. Each one of us. Right now. Love is looking out of our eyes. But we don’t see the love. We see the stuff. We don’t see what’s looking. We only see what the looking sees.” – Krishna Das

Q: Krishna Das, I’m an old hippie from Haight-Asbhury and I turned 70 last year and I’m proud to say that, for the last 31 years, I have had a very strong practice in Sivananda Yoga and the hour that I do every weekday morning is the rock of my life and as a result of that, I’m finding that I’m able to sustain longer periods of bliss consciousness. I think that’s a direct result of my practice. But lovely ex-wife gave me your Kirtan Wallah cd two or three years ago. I have it in the car. I listen to it all the time. I sing along with all the words. I drive along through the English roads singing my lungs out to your wonderful music and what I find with your music is it brings me into Bliss Consciousness almost immediately. And I wanted to thank you for that. It’s a wonderful wonderful gift. And I think the result of those two things, four or five years ago, I found, I fell into a new relationship, funnily enough with an Indian woman named Saraswati. So, the Goddess has smiled on me, largely thanks to your music. But I do have an important question to ask you, which I hope will be of interest to everybody else. Because I think we are all looking for the One. We’re all looking for our Soul Mate.

And I just wanted to ask you if you believe in true love and whether you find or think that personally you have experienced True Love. That’s my question. Thank you.

KD: I’ve definitely experienced true love up to the limit that I could experience it, and that’s with my Guru. And His people who are rooted in real love, they just emanate that. So, definitely. Up to the amount that I’m karmically able to feel at this moment, I felt that with Maharajji. I feel that with Maharajji all the time. Anytime. So, if that’s your question, consider it answered. If it’s not, you can continue.

Q: I’m very happy with your answer. Thank you so much and thank you for your wonderful music.

KD: You’re welcome. I was very much in love with a woman, more than once, but one time, this one particular one, and I was with my Indian father who was a great yogi. I mean, just extraordinary yogi. He was involved in the world. He was a headmaster of a very prestigious school. He had a large family, children, grandchildren. But he was, had been with Maharajji for 40 years and he was just extraordinary. He seemed to know everything. So, I was telling him about this woman and I was going on and on and on for awhile, and he was listening. Finally, I stopped and he said, “My boy.” He said, “Relationships are business. Do your business. Do your business. Enjoy.” He said, “But love? Love is what lasts 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Love is our true Being.” You don’t get it from somebody. You don’t give it to anybody. Everybody already has it. I hated him. It took me a year to get over my anger at him for destroying my bubble. Breaking my bubble. Relationships are wonderful. I mean, they are probably the way we can learn the most about ourselves. Human relationships. We’re in relationship to everything all the time. But human relationships between people are really such a powerful of seeing ourselves and seeing our stuff and when you develop a real friendship with someone, when you really can trust someone, it’s an incredible experience. But that doesn’t mean that you’re getting love from that. You’re getting affection, friendship, caring, all those things, but love with a capital “L” is a different thing. It’s not an emotion. It’s not a feeling like an emotion. It’s the whole universe. It’s very big. It’s vast presence. It’s like the sky of the Mind in which everything exists. It’s… outside of which there can be nothing, outside of real love. Everyone is included. Love is looking out of our eyes right now. Each one of us. Right now. Love is looking out of our eyes. But we don’t see the love. We see the stuff. We don’t see what’s looking. We only see what the looking sees. Through practice and caring and kindness, little by little we move deeper into ourselves, into that love, into that Being, into that part that sees and is aware of all pure consciousness, pure bliss, pure Being, pure joy. It’s a question of expectations because we don’t know how to see ourselves. We think we’ll find it somewhere else. Yeah. Maybe for a little while you’ll feel that way. What are you going to do when something happens and the love disappears? The so-called love disappears. Love doesn’t disappear, but affection can disappear. Caring an disappear. A person can turn off and run away and do something else. Does that mean that there’s no love in the universe? There is love. There’s always love. That’s what we’re looking for: the love that doesn’t come and go, the love that is what lives within our own hearts. That doesn’t mean you can’t have relationships. You should. You should do whatever you want to do. Why not?

But don’t expect unending happiness and joy to come from something outside of you. And if you’re feeling love with another person, in a relationship, where are you feeling that love? Out there? Over there? No, you’re feeling it here. So, what happens when that person no longer loves you and you don’t feel love anymore? Then it wasn’t real love. Because real love doesn’t come and go. It was emotional connection. It was fulfilling certain needs that we have to feel and to feel loved and affection and all those things, which we need as human beings. But as spiritual aspirants, one has to recognize that real love is something else. True love is something else. It includes everyone all the time. Not just the people we like. Not just the people we are attracted to. So, that’s ok. We’re working on it. I’m sorry. And the less you demand another person to be who you need them to be, the more they can be who they are, which is love. And then there’s two beings who are love hanging out. It’s fantastic. But if you need, if we need someone to look at us a certain way and be a certain way for us and they stop doing that for whatever reason, what are we going to do? It’s going to hurt. And that’s life.

But the more practice we do, the more we understand what this is all about, the less we have those unreal expectations. We’re brought up with those, all the tv shows, all the advertisements, all the programming that we get as a kid. It’s all about getting it from the outside. That’s a lot to overcome.

Anybody want to argue?

Come on. Let’s fight. Come on. Somebody’s saying, “This guy’s full of it.” Which 5,000 of you are saying that? Chickens. Maybe tomorrow. “I’ll get him tomorrow.” I remember once I was in this place called Chitrakut, which is a very holy place for Ram, Seetha Ram, and we, we had arrived early in the morning and the temple we were supposed to stay at was still closed. It was like three in the morning. We got there by car. So we just sat outside in the car. And so, while we’re sitting in the car, just across the road, right there, there was a little shack on posts, right? About this far off the ground. So, the shack opened from inside, right? This beautiful woman comes out and she’s got a clay pot. It’s up on her head and she walks down the road. She comes back in a little while with water. She puts it down. Her husband comes out, starts chopping some wood, making some kindling to start a little fire. And they start making some chai and I was watching this, you know, it was so beautiful, you know? They all, they both had their job to do. They weren’t talking. It was 3 in the morning. There’s nothing to say. They knew what to do. He was doing this. She was doing that. It just struck me so deeply. I wanted that. I wanted that kind of relationship. It was just so beautiful, you know? That was my programming. That’s what I wanted. That was my fantasy. They probably hated each other. I didn’t care. I was seeing my fantasy. And that’s what we do. “Sundari” means “beautiful”. So, I was with this old guy, one of Maharajji’s old devotees who was a real funny guy. He used to say to me, “Let’s go get some Sundari chai. Some beautiful tea,” he said. So, the woman was very beautiful. That’s what he was talking about. “Let’s go get some Sundari Tea.” He would tease me. Yeah.

We want love. Where are we going to find it? That’s the whole question. We have to kind of, start looking in the right places. That’s all. Or, rather, looking in the right way. The correct way. That doesn’t mean, that doesn’t negate human relationships. Why would we do that? We don’t want to negate them. We want to enjoy them and have them. But we don’t. We don’t need to feel that everything is going to be perfect all the time if we only find the right person. We already have the right person living within us as our own true nature. As our own self. As our own Atma. But every Atma is exactly the same. Your Atma, my Atma, their Atma, Her Atma, His Atma. Exactly the same. It’s just got a different covering.

Anybody else?

Not after that.

Q: I was thinking I could just talk in my very loud voice. A few years ago you were going to take a sabbatical and then you didn’t.

KD: I was, yeah. I kind of did. I didn’t get on a plane for four months, which was a big thing. But I sang around locally. I tried.

Q: I’ve been on a sabbatical, too. It’s good to be back.

KD: Praise the Lord. That’s great. I love sabbaticals. Someday, I’ll have a life that is a sabbatical. But not this one. Yeah, I tried to take some time off and I did, you know, with four months of not traveling and I was home every night except one for those four months. That’s a big thing. So, that was good.

One more before we quit?

Ok. Now we’re going to have the quitting mantras.

The post Ep. 59 | Real Love appeared first on Krishna Das.

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