Call and Response with Krishna Das

Kirtan Wallah Foundation

Devotional yogic chanting with a Western influence. CDs and cassettes for sale, artist background, schedule of live appearances.

  1. 15 Jan

    Call and Response Ep. 85 | Dada Mukerjee, Maharajji, and the Practice of Ram Naama

    Call and Response Ep 85 |Dada Mukerjee, Maharajji, and the Practice of Ram Naama “When we chant, when we repeat the names mentally, physically, or when we even hear the names being repeated, when we chant, all we have to do is come back again and again to the sound of the name. We don’t have to manipulate our emotions to feel anything special. There’s no failing and there’s no getting anything. You simply come back, because you’re coming back to a flow, a living flow of grace.” – Krishna Das So, the story goes like this. Maharajji was staying in Allahabad at Dada’s House, which wasn’t really Dada’s house. It was Maharajji’s house, and it really was, because Dada had been living in a small apartment. Let me tell you about Dada. Dada was a communist economics professor, and he had absolutely no interest in religions and spiritual things at all. He was a good person, but he had no… his wife and auntie and mother, who lived with him, they were all into all that stuff, but he had no interest, and he had a group of friends who also had no interest in that stuff. So, one day he and his friends were sitting around drinking their tea, and his wife and aunt were getting ready to go outside to leave the house. So, Dada said, “Where are you going?” And they said, “Well, there’s this small house across the street that we hear this saint comes and visits, and we’ve been waiting, and we heard he’s there. So, we’re going to see him.” “Good. Go.” So, they left, and they came back in about a minute and Dada said, “What happened? Why are you back?” And his wife said, “Well, we walked into the house. It was a small mud house and a dark room. Couldn’t see very well…” So, they kind of had to bend over and come in the room, and just before his wife was sitting down, the Baba there said, “Jao, go.” But she said, she tells Dada, “I couldn’t believe he really wanted us to go. We just came. So, I sat down, and a minute later he looked at me and called me by my name.” “Kamala, go home. Your husband’s friends are waiting for their tea.” How he knew her name is also a mystery. So, this piqued Dada’s curiosity. So, the next day he goes across the street with them, and they walk into this little mud house. And as soon as they walk in, the Baba gets up from the cot that he’s sitting on, grabs a hold of Dada’s hand and starts walking across the street to Dada’s house, dragging Dada along behind him. And he says to Dada, “From now on, I’ll be staying with you.” Okay. Right. You just pulled up to the Stop-and-Shop, and you came out with your groceries and some homeless guy comes up to you and says, “From now on, I’ll be staying with you,” as he gets into your car? I don’t think so. But Dada being Dada, and India being India, this Baba comes in and sits down and the people from across the street all come to this house now, and all the other devotees start showing up and the Ma’s go into the kitchen. They start cutting fruit and prasad is served. And the whole thing starts. And it continued. However, that house was owned by a relative of Dada’s, and after a year or so, or some period of time, Maharajji started telling Dada, “You’re going to have to leave this place. You need to get a house. You need to get a house.” But they had absolutely no money. They were dirt poor. Dada used to tutor. Like I said, he was an economics professor, but he used to tutor students and stuff just to make enough money to live. So, every time Maharajji came and said, “Do you have a house yet?” Dada didn’t say anything. So, finally Maharajji says, “Okay, I’ll build it.” And so, this house was built and Dada was moved into it with his family. And from that point on, Maharajji came there to that house and it was a bigger house with a big sitting room, and over time, Dada gradually became a devotee. And he’s written two books that are really lovely. One is called “By His Grace,” and the other is called “The Near and the Dear,” in which his premise is that he didn’t learn anything from Maharajji at all.  He learned how to become a devotee from the other devotees who were already pukka, who already knew how to do it. And it’s a wonderful book. It’s really good. However, one year Maharajji goes off on a pilgrimage with Siddhi Ma, Jivanti Ma, and Siddhi Ma’s husband, who had become a very close friend of Dada’s. And they went to Calcutta, and they went up to Dakshineswar. Now, when Dada was a young boy, he had come home from college in the summer, and in those days, you could buy a day pass on the public transportation, and you could go as many places as possible in one day. So, in order to say that he had gone there, Dada had decided to go to Sri Ramakrishna’s Temple in Dakshineswar, this Kali temple where Sri Ramakrishna, who was a great saint, had lived, not because he was interested, but because it was a tourist place now. So, he went there and he pranamed to the Murti. Then there was a courtyard. I haven’t been there, but I think there’s nine Shiva Temples, It’s a small little mandir. It’s like this high, each one with a Lingam, and it’s a big courtyard. It’s the middle of the afternoon. It’s probably 120 degrees. But in order to say that he’d done it, Dada goes in front of each one and he goes like this, and then he goes to the next one. He goes like this, and then he goes to the next one. He turns around and there’s some bulky gentleman standing there saying to him, “Come, I’ll give you a mantra.” And Dada says, “I won’t take your mantra.” “Yes, you’ll take it. You’ll take it and you’ll do it.” “No, I won’t. I won’t do it.” And then this Baba says, “Yes, you’ll do it. You’ll do it after you do your Gayatri.” So, Dada was shocked. The Gayatri mantra is… when a Brahmin boy is initiated, he gets a thread and the Gayatri mantra. Now, Dada had been initiated by his father, who died very shortly after his initiation. So, in order to honor his father, he did the Gayatri mantra every day when he took a bath. But it wasn’t a spiritual thing, it was just to honor his father. How this Baba knew what he was doing? He said, “You’ll do it after your Gayatri.” So, Dada said, “Okay, give it to me.” So, this Baba tells him this mantra. Dada turns around, pranams to the Murti. He turns around again. Nobody there. Wow. A huge courtyard. I mean, just gone. So, he thought, “This is very strange.” So, now maybe 30 years later, Maharajji is traveling with this group, and they go to Ramakrishna’s Temple and as they go there, they walk by the courtyard and Maharajji casually points, and he said, “See there. That’s where I gave your Dada his mantra.” Dada had no idea. He never connected that event with Maharajji, but he did that mantra every day because he said he would. So, one time in Allahabad, during the time of one of the melas, one of the great gatherings, the festivals at Prayag, where the three rivers come together, a very sacred place, Maharajji left early in the morning, and he told Dada that he would meet him there on the banks of the Ganga in the evening. So, that evening, Dada goes to Prayag, and he’s walking around on the banks of the Ganga looking for Maharajji. It’s nighttime, and he has this young servant boy with him, and they’re walking. They don’t see anything. Where’s Maharajji? They don’t know. And the servant boy is getting anxious and says, “Dada, we should go back. Maybe Maharajji has gone there. We should go back. We should, it’s late.” And Dada was just standing there, and he wouldn’t go, but he was also concerned because the boy was so upset and this and that, and then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, a boat appears right in front of them, and Maharajji is on the boat, and he says, “Dada, what were you doing? What are you doing?” And Dada wouldn’t talk. He wouldn’t say anything. “Tell me, what are you doing? Why are you here? Why are you here?” He said, “You said you would meet me here. So, I stayed.” “Why didn’t you go back? It was late, then you didn’t see me. Why didn’t you go back?” “You said that you would come. So, I stayed.” “Oh, and what were you doing? What were you doing?” Dada was quiet. “What were you doing?” Finally, he said, “Tell me.” He said, “I was taking Ram’s name.” “Ah.” Maharajji goes, “Ram nam karne se sab pur ho jate hain.” From going on repeating the names of God, everything is accomplished. And he said this to us many times. And this is somebody who actually knows what’s going on in the universe. This is not like a chai wala on the corner of Seventh Avenue and 14th Street, although you never know. So, through the repetition of the names, everything is accomplished. I mean, how difficult is that to understand, word-wise? Very simple, right? You do this, then that. However…Personally, I mean, it’s now more than 50 years since I heard that. If I really believed it, if I had the karmas to believe it, if I didn’t have all the tamasic nonsense in my emotional body, what else would I be doing but Raam Naam all day long? So, that’s what I ask myself. So, Maharajji didn’t teach much. He didn’t give lectures. He didn’t write books. He basically said that the Westerners were qualified for the five limbed yoga. Eight limbed yoga, right? Ashtanga yoga. This is Paanchtanga Yoga. Eating, drinking tea, sleeping, gossiping, and wandering around. This was the yoga that we Westerners were qualified for. Unfortunately, I think it’s true. He used to say to us Westerners, he said, “You can get everything from devotion.” He said, “You don’t need yoga.” And even, one time I asked Siddhi Ma many years later, I said, “Ma, should I meditate?” I’ve taken a lot of meditation courses wit

    40 min

  2. 8 Jan

    Call and Response Podcast Ep. 84 | At Home With KD, May 7 2020

    Call and Response Podcast with Krishna Das Ep. 84 |At Home With KD, May 7 2020 “All we have is what’s in front of our faces, which is the ups and downs of life. So, you have to learn to deal with those situations in the best way… and there’s no God outside of your Self, your true Self. And that true Self is the same in every Being. So, if you treat other people the way you would like to be treated, you won’t have any problems at all.” – Krishna Das “Ram nam karne se sab pura ho jata” My Guru used to say that to us quite often. “From going on repeating these Names, everything is accomplished. Everything is accomplished.” A very simple statement. Easy to kind of just say, “Oh, yeah, ok,” but I’ve been thinking about that, or trying to truly believe that for 50 years or so. 40 Years. 45 years. So, if I truly believed that what He said, that from repeating these Names, everything is accomplished, I would probably be giving more of myself to the practice as I’m doing it. But, you know, we have our own karmic predicaments that we live in. Very distracted lives. Very fast lives. Although it’s a little bit slower these days. Although we can fill it up with stuff quite easily. I remember many many years ago, before I went to India I was up in the mountains of New Mexico with Ram Das at the Lama Foundation for about a month in the winter. It was fantastic. And every day we would spend many hours meeting together, singing, talking, meditating. And we heard about this New York artist who had moved out to New Mexico and lived just down the hill, down the mountain from where the Lama was, and he had been to India and he knew how to meditate. This was Big Time. So a group of us went down to meet with him, to see him. And we spent a couple of hours with him, talking to him. I just sat in the back of the room, listening. And as we were leaving, I was the last one to go out the door. As I was about to go out the door, he grabbed my arm and he looked at me and he said, “You. You have to find out why it is you can’t give yourself 100% to whatever you’re doing.” Oh. He nailed me to the wall. That was unbelievable. That was in 19-, the winter of, let’s see, ’69. That’s what? 50 years ago? I can still feel his hand on my arm. You know, if we look at ourselves, we notice how difficult it is to be fully engaged in something. We’re not talking about watching a movie where you’re fully lost for as long as the movie’s on or some kind of entertainment, but whatever you’re doing, being fully engaged. Not thinking about the future, not the past, not this and that, not the chatter that goes on in the brain all the time, but truly present. Truly present and aware. So, I’ve been working on that a long time. Or, at least noticing how little of myself I really can give to each moment. So, when it comes to chanting or a practice that you do regularly, you create a situation where you’re training yourself to let go and come back. Let go and come back. Over and over again. It doesn’t, it’s not about up here. It’s about in here. And it’s not an intellectual process. It’s not a learning process. It’s a training process. So, little by little your Being gets familiar with these sounds, with these Names in this case, and you begin to relax into the Name. And the Name, as we come to know it, has been brought into this world by a Being who has fully realized the reality of that Name, the reality of what is Named, and has brought that Name into this world for us as a practice, as a doorway into that Name, into the reality, which is our own true nature, which is our soul. The love we’re looking for exists within us. It lives within us. We look outside ourselves in the outside world. We look for it everywhere and we don’t find it. We don’t find it until we look within. It’s not like you look with your eyes within. It’s not like that. It’s moving more deeply into ourselves by releasing the stuff that holds us and takes us away again and again and again. That naturally moves us within. Letting go again and again. And we don’t have to make this up. We don’t have to manipulate ourselves. We don’t have to be looking for anything specific, any kind of experience. Once we know who we are, we’re wide open. Everything is here and now. Everything exists within us. We’re so achievement oriented in the West. We’re in such a hurry because everything is done so quickly here. But that’s not how we find ourselves. So, anyhow let’s take some questions for a while. Q: Who was Neem Karoli Baba’s spiritual master and what were some of the practices they would do? KD: We don’t know. We don’t know who His gurus were. We have no idea. He never spoke about it. He had some… We hear stories, when He was very young, He went to this ashram, that place, He met this guy, that guy. But nobody really knows that we ever spoke to, ever told us anything definitive about that. He never spoke about it. He never had pictures up of this and that, you know?  He was very much believed to be a manifestation of Hanuman himself. I don’t even know what that means. You know, we use all these words, all these words that we bring, we learn from India or from the spiritual path, but we don’t really know what these words mean. But, the lineage that He seemed to be a part of was a Ram lineage, the lineage of Ram and Hanuman. But more than that we don’t know. We know that He, He spent many years in a cave, in caves. There were two small caves, well, one big cave in a town called Neeb Karori, which is where He got His name, the Baba from that town, that village. I visited there and it was a very small village, a very funky village and they told us not to leave the temple, especially at night. You needed to be very careful. Apparently, there’s a lot of murders in that part of the country. But that’s where He decided to build the cave. The villagers dug out a cave for Him in this field, or it was, I think, in the jungle at the time. Later on it was cleared. And nobody knew that He was there. And He was existing on, existing on one glass of milk a day, which, this old village lady used to bring to Him. And then, she died and so He was starving. Nobody knew He was there. So, the story goes that He picked up His chimta, which is this metal tong for moving fire around, moving the logs around, and He threatened Hanuman. He had a little murti of Hanuman that He had in the cave. He threatened Him. He said, “You’ll starve me so I’ll beat You.” And apparently, the next morning, there was milk outside the door.   Q: Do I draw any inspiration from Eddie Vedder with my vocal style? KD: Excuse me. Eddie Vedder is a kid. I’m 20 years older than him. No, I mean, he’s great. In fact, I think his wife said something to somebody I knew, that she reminded me of him. No, I love Eddie Vedder, but I just sing. I don’t have a vocal style as far as I know.   Q: How do I remain focused on God when I have to deal with the ups and downs of life? KD: If you have to ask that question, you don’t know what God is, where God is or who God is. So, you can’t be focused on God, because you don’t know. We don’t know. All we have is what’s in front of our faces, which is the ups and downs of life. So, you have to learn to deal with those situations in the best way and there’s no God outside of your Self, your true Self. And that true Self is the same in every Being. So, if you treat other people the way you would like to be treated, you won’t have any problems at all. Calm yourself down. Calm your mind down little by little and find a way to get through the day without falling on your face too many times, or creating negative karmas by being angry at people and hurting others and hurting yourself. There’s no God out there. The God that you’re looking for is within us and until you learn how to be kind to yourself in a real way, which is to give yourself a break and learn to trust your own intuition about where to look for these deeper realities, you know, you need to do some practice. And  you need to treat others the way you want to be treated.   Q: Towards the end of your film, One Track Heart, you use a word. Someone said you were giving something to people. I tried looking it up but I found only something… KD: Yeah, Maharajji had asked me to be the pujari or the priest of the Durga temple that He had built in Kainchi in the courtyard and I had to distribute the charanamrit. That means the nectar of the feet, which is the water that was used to wash the feet of the Goddess in the pujas, in the rituals. Yes, it is water, but it’s blessed water because it was used in the ritual. So, distributing that charanamrit was a way of distributing the blessings of the ritual that the other pujari did. I just watched. “Charanamrit” is the name.   Q: I need advice on suicide. KD: You mean how to do it? I can’t help you. I needed advice, too, you know? I was going to jump in the river and kill myself. I was having a nervous breakdown in Kainchi, right there in the temple. Maharajji was there and it’s a long story. It’s in my book, Chants of a Lifetime.  It’s in that book. But the short story is that I was completely flipped out and I was going to kill myself and He called me over and He said, “What are you going to do, jump in the river?” And He laughed. “Ha.” He said, “Worldly people don’t die.” Us. Worldly people. People who are attached to this world and to the ego. “Worldly people don’t die. Only Jesus died the real death.” What? “Why? Because He never thought of Himself. He gave His life for His people. He never thought of Himself.” So, the idea is that, all we do is think about ourselves and suicide is not going to change that. You go from this body to some other body and the karmas that you have, that you can’t deal with now,

    53 min

  3. 17/04/2024

    Ep. 76 | Judaism, Christ and Namdev

    Call and Response Ep.76 Judaism, Christ and Namdev  “So, Maharajji, it seemed like He started to say something and then His eyes, He just stopped and His eyes closed and He just sat in front of us, perfectly still. We had not seen Him sit still for more than two seconds. It was always fruit in all directions, laughing, joking, barking orders to the people at the temple, talking to this one then all of a sudden, boom. I remember thinking we’d killed Him. He just sat there and it was, the feeling was like the whole world stopped turning. And then two tears came down His cheek. Then He kind of shook Himself. He opened His eyes. He said, ‘He lost Himself in love. That’s how He meditated. He lost Himself in Love. He’s one with the whole universe. He never died. No one understands. No one understands. He lost Himself in Love.’ He immersed Himself in Love.” – Krishna Das Q: Hi, KD. Hello. KD: Hi. Q: How are you? Thank you for being here today. Ok, I was just wondering, you being Jewish, I’m Jewish as well. KD: I’m Jewish on my parents’ side. Q: On your parents’ side? You don’t really practice anymore do you? Any of the Judaic traditions? KD: Anymore? Q: yeah. Or did you back as a child? KD: You know, my family’s about as Jewish as the Pope’s family, that’s all I can tell you. Q: I was reading the Yoga Sutras and they were talking about praying to God, and we were talking about “What does ‘God’ mean to you?” And it was interesting to see how people were like corrupted by religion and how they grew up, and you know, like, originally nobody really mentioned the nature of the “one-ness.” KD: I’m sorry Q: Of their one-ness and what Christ teaches us. But I was wondering, when you came into realization of that and who taught you that and what you thought of before, before like the little bit of your changing “awakening” to realize that and how that helped you. KD: You know, a woman once said to me at a workshop, she said, “Last weekend I was at a Jewish weekend and they say you can’t say the Name of God.” And I said, “Absolutely right. You can’t.” Maharajji used to say, “Go on, sing your lying Ram Ram. One of these days you’ll say it right once. Boom. You’re out of here. The real Ram will come.” So we’re practicing.  You can’t say the name of God because God is beyond Name and Form. It’s beyond any concept and anything that comes out of our mouths is a concept of some kind. So, it can’t be God. So, that being said, I remember I actually was bar mitzvah’d and I went to Hebrew school to learn the Haftorah, they call it, and my Hebrew school teacher used to bang his head on the blackboard and said, “If I didn’t see this class, I would not believe it.” And bang his head. Great memories. Yeah, you know, nobody in my family believed in God. Or forget God, nobody believed that they could even be happy. There was no idea of a path. All they did was complain. You know? We had one saint in the family and her qualification was that she did not complain. That was literally, I was told. I said “Why is Bubby a saint?” “Because she never complains about anything.” That was the qualification, you know? You know the Jewish lady sitting around, “Oh, how are you doing, is there anything all right?” You know the joke the old Jewish guy driving, driving though the mountains through a storm and the wind’s blowing and the snow and everything and he drives off the cliff and the car goes down down down, spinning, spinning, spinning and lands like upside down on the branch of a huge tree. So, the highway patrol guy comes up on his motorcycle and he runs down the mountain, he finds the guy, he’s hanging upside down in the car, right? He said, “Sir, sir, are you comfortable?” And the guy goes, “Eh, I’m making a living.” Oh, you know, I’m married to a Brazilian. She does not understand one joke I tell her. It’s torture. Not one. All the years I practiced abuse, being abused by all this Jewish humor I can’t share with her. It’s terrible. So. That’s about how Jewish I am. I don’t know. But like I said, Jesus was Jewish by the way. Did you know that? People seem to forget that, you know; painting Him like a white man with like long, straight hair, blonde. Forget it. He’s about as blonde as Bob Marley. It’s, you know, forget it. That’s not it. You know? And people, He wasn’t a Christian. He was a Jewish guy. They called Him “Rabbi”. For what, you think He was like, the Pope? He was a Rabbi. He just happened to, you know, find Reality somewhere along the line. He wanted to clean up. Just like Buddha did with the Hindu religion, you know. The priests had become all powerful and anybody who wanted to get good karmas had to pay the priests to do pujas for them or ceremonies or teachings. It was the same, all the money changes in the temple, you know the whole story. So, somebody said, “This is not the way it’s supposed to be” and tried to change it and you know. In India, they don’t hang people up quite as easily as they did in those days. Maharajji talked about Jesus, it was so powerful. I mean, He talked about Hanuman, of course, Ram and Krishna and Kali and Durga, but when He talked about Jesus it was, I can’t, I can’t, it was so powerful. Really. I mean, you must have heard me tell this story but I’ll tell you again. So, a Canadian guy came to the temple for the first time and he didn’t know anything about Maharajji, how He was, you know. He didn’t give lectures. He didn’t teach. He didn’t write books. He didn’t initiate people. He just hung around. So, Maharajji says to Him, “Why did you come? What do you want?” So, the guy thought he should give like a you know, spiritual answer, he said, “Well, could you teach me how to meditate?” “Get out of here. Go in the back with the crazy people, the Westerners.  Go on. Go.” And as he’s walking away, He said, “Just meditate like Christ. Go on. Get out of here.” So, the guy comes in the back and we, you know, we debriefed anyone who spent two seconds with Maharajji. What’d he say? Then what’d He say? Then what’d you say? And then what’d He say? What did He do? Did He give you fruit? How many pieces? You know. What can I tell you. So, the guy said, “Well, you told me to meditate like Christ.”  What? You know? So later on, we’re sitting in the back and Maharajji came to spend some time with us and Ram Das was there and Ram Das said, “Baba, you said we should meditate like Christ. How did He meditate?” So, Maharajji, it seemed like He started to say something and then His eyes, He just stopped and His eyes closed and He just sat in front of us, perfectly still. We had not seen Him sit still for more than two seconds. It was always fruit in all directions, laughing, joking, barking orders to the people at the temple, talking to this one then all of a sudden, boom. I remember thinking we’d killed Him. He just sat there and it was, the feeling was like the whole world stopped turning. And then two tears came down His cheek. Then He kind of shook Himself. He opened His eyes. He said, “He lost Himself in love. That’s how He meditated. He lost Himself in Love. He’s one with the whole universe. He never died. No one understands. No one understands. He lost Himself in Love.” He immersed Himself in Love. That wasn’t my idea of what meditation was, you know? I thought you had to sit down, fight with yourself and beat yourself up and pretend you were meditating. He lost Himself in love. I mean, what else do we want, right? Wouldn’t we like to live there no matter what else was going on? Wouldn’t you like to be in that space where you are open and flowing and connected with everything and at ease of heart with whatever arises in your life? You know? And you weren’t a prisoner of your own reactions and your own knee-jerk reactions and your own programming from the trauma we’ve had in our lives and the pain and the broken hearts. Wouldn’t we like to be free of that? That’s what that is, when we can immerse ourselves in that love that lives within us as who and what we already really are. It’s not something else. It’s really, it’s not something else. It’s who we are. Right now. So, I’m just going to read you this quick little poem I thought of today. It’s from a Saint in India named Namdev. “I have delved into the four vedas”- You know what the vedas are? The ancient teachings. “And I’ve drawn forth their hidden meaning. I’ve churned the six philosophies”- the different dualism, non-dualism, semi-dualism, UCONN basketball, you know, the six philosophies. “I’ve churned the six philosophies and I’ve extracted their essence And I’ve learned the ultimate goal of yogis and ascetics I’ve known the joy of merging in Brahma, the formless Lord Oh, My friend,” says Namdev, “I’ve transcended all this through the grace of the Saints. Realize, realize my mind that the secret is the Lord’s love. The secret is the Love.” That’s the secret. Everything we think we want, everything we’re looking for, the secret essence is the Love. We all want to get back home. Now. He’s a devotee so He, He expresses it in that way, that the grace of the Saints, but a non-dual person would say, “This is your own true nature. This is your essence, is this state of grace and that’s always pulling us home.”  It’s like gravity for the heart. The secret is the love and the chanting, all these Names are the Names of that place. So we’re constantly evoking, invoking and evoking that place which is the Love. These are the Names of that place within us that is the Love. It’s not in India. It’s not somewhere else. It’s everywhere. So, anybody have anything they want to say important? Otherwise we’ll sing. Yeah? Ok. Give her the mic. Q:  Hi.  You talk about the

    26 min

  4. 08/02/2024

    Ep. 72 | Family Troubles, Chant Etiquette

    Call and Response Ep. 72 | Family Troubles, Chant Etiquette Q: I was curious if you could speak to having family members that are making choices that seem not helpful for them. “People are going to do what they’re going to do. There’s not a lot we can do about that. We wouldn’t want anybody telling us what to do and the first step is letting them be who they are, you know? And hopefully, if you are with them in a way that’s not judgmental or you know, they might feel comfortable enough sharing with you what they’re going through and in that process they can open up a little bit. But if you’re going to be the enemy, there’s no way they’re going to be open.” – Krishna Das KD: Hi. Q: Hello. KD: Hi. Q: Ok. Hi. KD: Ok. Q: I was curious if you could speak to having family members that are making choices that seem not helpful for them and… KD: Or you. Q: Definitely not for me, I know. I might be about me. But I don’t know if you have some sort of… reaching to people who are not reachable at the moment from family members. KD: Yeah, well, first thing we say is, “If you want to know how your spiritual practice is going, visit your family.” Nothing will show you your stuff as quickly as that. You know, yeah. People are going to do what they’re going to do. There’s not a lot we can do about that. We wouldn’t want anybody telling us what to do and the first step is letting them be who they are, you know? And hopefully, if you are with them in a way that’s not judgmental or you know, they might feel comfortable enough sharing with you what they’re going through and in that process they can open up a little bit. But if you’re going to be the enemy, there’s no way they’re going to be open. It’s not easy, because we want them to be happy and we think we know how they’re going to be happy and we think we know that what they’re doing is not, you know, good for them but, you know, they don’t know that. There’s a rule in India about grandparents. This is how grandparents have to behave in India. You know, you don’t say nothing and I’m a grandparent now and I try to follow that rule. I mean, you know, I know my daughter, I know where she got her stuff from.  Hello.  You know? So, how can I get, you know, what can I say? You know? I could just try to be available if anyone is interested, which is almost never. So, if that’s going to hurt me, I mean, if that’s going to make me crazy, that’s not fun. It makes her mother crazy. Ha ha ha. Which I like. No, I don’t. Much. So, you know, it’s a letting, you’ve gotta, you know, but on the other hand, you know, you want someone to feel that they care for them. That they’re cared for by you, regardless of what they’re doing, you care for who they are. So it’s a tricky thing, you know. We get caught in our own wantings for people. On the other hand, you have to think, you have to use your own, you have to trust your own intuition about situations. There are times when you just have to, you know, where it might be helpful to put your hand up. “Stop, now.” Or “Not here.” You know? You have to, if you can create some boundaries that they agree to respect, that’s a big thing, if the boundaries aren’t angry boundaries, you know? It’s not easy because nobody did that for us, right? I mean, not for me. Not my house. I wasn’t allowed to have boundaries so I grew up, it was very hard to learn how to say “no” and it was even to learn how to say, “thank you,” was hard. Because where was I? Who was I? Where was I standing to do that? You know? So, to make boundaries is, but it’s hard. But you know, if someone feels you’ve always been on their side, even if you haven’t been overly, you know, then they can come back at a certain point. You might be there. It might be good. But I’m sure people know better than me, so read a book or something. There must be books about this stuff. Q: Hi. KD: Hi. Q: First I want to say, I have a lot of gratitude for a love that comes through the chanting and it saves my life every day, so thank you. KD: Mine, too. Q: And I never thought I was going to have grandkids but in three years I have four and another on the way. So, my granddaughter loves to chant and “Bhajelo Ji” is one of my favorites but she always asks for “Baby Lotion Ji Hanuman.” KD: Baby Lotion Ji. That’s kind of what I thought it was the first time I heard it, you know? What are they singing? Baby lotion? Baby lo? Baby lo? Baby love. Baby love ji. Q: Baby love. KD: Baby love, my… Q: And I did have one question. The call and response, I have a habit, I don’t know whether it’s good or bad, of singing for both. KD: A little closer to the mic. Q: Oh, I’m sorry. I’m doing the singing for both the call and the response. Is there a reason? Is that ok? KD: Not if I have anything to say about it. Whatever gets you. I don’t care. Whatever. If the people next to you don’t beat you up, you’re all right. Q: Yeah, well my voice is not great. But I just wondered if it was a tradition to have the listening and the singing as more effective… KD: You mean on Long Island? That tradition? I have no idea. You know, I don’t know. Q: It doesn’t matter? KD: When I’ve heard chanting, it’s always been call and response, when the guys I used to sing with… there were three guys there. There was one call and then two responders and then the leader would change the melodies and then the people would respond one at a time. Sometimes together but also separately sometimes so you know, I don’t know. Don’t think about it too much, that’s all. Q: Thanks.       The post Ep. 72 | Family Troubles, Chant Etiquette appeared first on Krishna Das.

    10 min

  5. 12/12/2023

    Call and Response Special Edition Conversations With KD September 26 2020

    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 September 26, 2020 “Obstacles are always there. They’re either obstacles or they’re opportunities. It’s up to you how you take it. And always, you have to ask yourself, is what I’m trying to do what I really want to be doing? That’s the main thing. It’s not what you do. It’s why you do what you do. That’s what important. I mean, we have to learn to really listen to ourselves about what we really need and really want in life, and how do we want to go through this life? How do we want to spend our time? What do we want to get? In what way? What’s the best thing I can do for myself and others that I meet?” -Krishna Das Hi everybody. How are y’all doing? If you’re here, you’re doing okay. Q: Hi, Krishna Das. KD: HI. Great to be here. Yeah. So, I don’t have a question, but I felt like I just needed to show up in the space, or in my heart, or something. I’ve been getting, staying up till 12 to 2 on a Thursday for the satsang and it’s been amazing, and spending more time with horses, that was something that came up the last time I asked a question on Zoom. So, there’s, I’m sort of quiet, you know, so I just, I felt, I think it was important just to try and you know… Yeah, you know you can watch the Zooms, the Thursday nights replays? It’s not the same, because even like where I live, it’s not so private, but like, it’s fine, but I’m singing quietly. Everyone else is asleep and I’m there with the light off, and it’s just like, bliss. I can’t explain it. I just have two hours of, I just feel so happy ,and then not much sleep or anything, and a lot of hard work the next day, but just like no problems, which is kind of strange, actually. Actually, that’s your true nature. No problems. No problem. Yeah. The problems are in our mind and the way we interact with everything, but our true nature is perfectly okay, always, and that’s where we really live. So, we’ve been, because of our stuff, we were locked out of our own house, you could say. We’re like, living on the lawn of our own house, and instead of a bathroom, we have a porta-potty and a bucket to take a bath in and, you know, and the bed’s out there on the lawn, and we don’t even know there’s a house there, and then if we did, we wouldn’t know where the key was. Yeah. But I feel like I’m kind of, maybe I’m on the porch? And that, and then it’s like, “Oh, it’s so different.” It’s sort of like, I could surrender a little more, but it’s a bit like, “Is this okay?” Like, am I allowed to feel this okay? What do you think? Yeah. I feel it. Yeah. Well, you don’t need to be allowed, actually, but we do need to allow ourselves. That’s the thing. Yeah. And that’s okay. I mean, growing up in this modern world, none of us have been allowed to be ourselves. We become identified with all the programming that, put into us from every possible direction. So, we need to allow ourselves to be at ease with whatever is there, because that’s our true nature. It is at ease. It is okay. And it’s hard to recognize that because we’re, it’s like we’re in free fall, and we’re grasping, we’re trying to hold onto something that breaks off, and it breaks off, it doesn’t work, but if you just lay back into it, it’s perfectly okay. For me, it comes down to Maharajji, because emotionally, I don’t feel okay myself, for most of the time. I don’t feel at ease with myself. I don’t feel at home in my own self, but when I remember him and who he is to me, and when I enter into his presence more deeply, then I just naturally relax, because my experience with him and my relationship with him is that he is everything that I want, I am trying to see in myself, you could say. That way. So, I have that. I have that. People have asked me, “Do you ever lose faith?” And I say, “Well, I have very little faith in myself, but I don’t lose faith in him.” I understand. When you were in Dublin, I was at the kirtan, and I hugged you afterwards, and it was it was a game changer, like total, just like stepping into another world, but that’s my point of reference. So inside, it’s not great, but when I remember what that felt like, then it’s never sort of being on my own. It’s never on my own. There’s always a presence. Yeah. That’s true. And that presence is really you, looking in the mirror and seeing yourself. That’s far out. Oh, my God. Because there’s dust on the mirror, most of the time we don’t get a clear look at our face. No, I was like creosote, you know? Yeah. That’s nothing. Good. A little Creosote is no problem. But creosote keeps the bugs away, you know that right? That’s true yeah. So there’s no more bugs, you can take the creosote off. Okay. Very good. Yeah. Good. Well, nice to see you. Yeah. Nice to see you. Thank you. Take good care, huh? Q: Ram Ram, KD. KD, I just wanted to ask you your fondest memory of Siddha Ma? Of Siddhi Ma? I’ll tell you a story, and it’s not a story about Ma. It’s a story about Maharajji that Ma told me. Actually, she had Jaya, her disciple, tell me. It was in 1995 in the temple in Kainchi. I was a not doing very well, and I sent a message to Ma saying that I wanted to talk to her. So, a couple of days later they came to get me and she, Ma had come out and was sitting in the back of the temple, in the ashram part of the temple. Things were being prepared for the Bhandara, the June Bhandara, and so she said, “What is it?” And I said, “Ma, you know…” I don’t know if you know my whole story, but you know, Maharajji had called me to come back to India. He had sent me home and then he had somebody write to me telling me to come back, but I didn’t get there on time because of my own stupidity and Tamasic nature. So, I said, “Ma, you know, I don’t think I’ve ever recovered from not coming back to see Maharajji.” This is already 23 years later, 22 years later. And I said, “I feel like there’s a knife in my heart, and I can’t take it out.” So, she was quiet for a minute, and she said something to Jaya, and Jaya said, “Ma asked me to tell you this story…” Everybody was in Rishikesh, at the temple in Rishikesh, and they had made plans to go to South India for the winter, and they had 40 reservations on a train from Delhi to Madras, to Chennai, and just before, a few hours before they were getting ready to leave, all the devotees, Jivanti Ma had another heart attack. She was having heart attacks regularly. Not major ones, but small ones. But she had a heart attack, and she could barely breathe, and then, “What should we do? If we cancel the reservations, we will never get more reservations in time,” and so they all decided to go. Of course, Jivanti Ma wanted to go also. So, they helped her get into the car and she could barely breathe, and all the way, had to drive from Rishikesh to Delhi to catch the train. So, they drove all that way. For everybody that doesn’t know, it’s probably a minimum seven hours of driving and the roads are about as good as they were before the Roman empire. So, they get to the old Delhi train station and JIvanti Ma can’t walk So, they carried her on a dandhi. Underneath the tracks there’s a tunnel that you can walk through that goes up to each of the tracks, and that’s only used for the luggage, the bearers and the police and stuff like that. They carried her underneath the tracks and up to the platform and into the train and into the compartment, and they helped her into her berth, the sleeping berth, and the train takes off. Somewhere in the middle of the night, Siddhi Ma needs to use the bathroom. Now, for those of you that don’t know, on these, in these train cars there are bathrooms at either end of the car, and you walk down the hall to the end of the car, and then you make a turn which goes out to the door, out of the train, but then you make a quick right turn to the bathrooms. So, middle of the night, Siddha Ma needs to use the bathroom. So, Jaya walks with her. First, they went to one side of the train, one bathroom, and it was really dirty. So, they turned around and they went, walked down the long walkway to the other side of the train car to use the other bathroom. When they turned the corner at the end of the hallway, they were facing the door outside the train, and there, huddled down at the foot of the door was a, she used the word “fakir,” which is a word, it essentially means like a Sufi or Muslim Saint. She did not say “Sadhu.” She said, a “fakir,” because he had a black blanket or black shawl around him, covering his head, and you couldn’t see his face. He was looking down. And when they turned the corner and came in front of this fakir, he, still looking down and his face covered, he goes like this, “Jai.” “Jai” means “hail,” “victory,” or “respect.” Jai. So, Siddha Ma goes like this, bows to him, and then she goes into the bathroom. So, then Jaya comes back and she says to the Baba, she said, “Baba, do you know this woman?” And again, still covered, completely covered, He says, “She is the mother of the universe.” And Jaya goes, “Whoa.” But then Siddhi Ma comes out of the bathroom, and once again, she pranams to the Baba, and walks back with Jaya to the compartment. Now Jaya decides that Jivanti Ma has to see the Baba, has to meet the Baba. So, with great difficulty, because she can’t breathe. She’s had a heart attack. With great difficulty, they make their way down the hallway, and they come in front of the Baba and Jivanti Ma sil

    1hr 53min

  6. 05/12/2023

    Ep. 68 | Maharajji Stories

    Call and Response Ep. 68 | Maharajji Stories I just wanted to ask if you could please share your most favorite experience of spending time with Maharajji. Thank you. “You know, He knew everything. Oh, Jesus. Every single thing. He knew how many times you chewed your toast in the morning. He knew what you were going to do 50 years from that moment. And He loved you completely. Totally. Every part of you.” – Krishna Das Q: Hi Krishna Das. My name is Chad and I just wanted to ask if you could please share your most favorite experience of spending time with Maharajji. Thank you. KD: I don’t know. One time I walked to the temple from, the town’s about a three and a half, four hour walk over the mountains, and I was practicing my Hindi. Over and over I was saying this, trying to learn how to say, “Maharajji, my life is in your hands.” And I was saying it over and over in Hindi, like, for hours, a big moment, you know? So, I got to the temple and I was up, coming down the ridge and I saw He was sitting all alone on His tucket, on His bed. I ran into the temple, I came. I ran up to Him and I said, “Maharajji, your life is in my hands.” He went, “Get out of here, go on, Jao.” Q: You said it in Hindi though. KD: Yeah, I said it in Hindi. I said it backwards. Another time, you know, He would get up, you know, He walked like a kid. He’d like, bounce from one leg to the other. He looked like He was ready to fall over. So, people would put their hand out. And He would take somebody’s hand and walk with somebody. So, one day, I always, I happened to be right in front of Him when He stood up. So, I put my hand out. And He looked at me and He laughed and He grabbed my hand and we went walking to the back of the temple and then He stopped and let go of my hand and He took a couple of steps, so I took a couple of steps, and then He looked at me and He said something I didn’t understand, and then He took a couple of steps, so I took a couple of steps and then again, He said something and He took a couple of steps and I took a couple of steps and then He just looked at me like this, and He squats down and He pees. He just wanted like 18 inches to take a piss and I wasn’t going to give it to Him. Ah, Divine Love. Those are the moments that, you know, it wasn’t all the other stuff. It was those moments where it was just too amazing, you know? One time, so after I met Ram Das, I told you last night if you were there, how I came into the room and, you know, I understood that whatever it was that I was looking for in the world was real. It could be found. It was a big thing. So after that, I actually began to dream about Maharajji and all I’d seen was a little black and white picture that Ram Das had, but I dreamt of Him, you know. So I’d had this dream long before to India, where I came back to my elementary school and I walked into the gym where we used to have school plays and used to play dodge ball and you know, do square dancing and all the stuff that people on Long Island did. And there on the other side of the gym, on the stage was, Maharajji was sitting on the bed, on a cot, and next to Him, standing behind Him was this guy with a white shirt and a dhoti, a cloth, and a black vest and he was standing behind him. And I came into the room and I fell down and I did what they call “danda pranam”. I just full out on the floor like this with my head like this. And I was just praying. I was saying, “Please, let me feel something. I have to feel something. Please let me feel something.” This is in my dream. And in my mind’s eye, I saw Him get up and walk down the stairs at the edge of the stage and come over to me and He put His hand on the back of my head and I started to calm down, calm down and as I was calming down, this bliss started to run through my body like, you know, it was unbelievable and it was getting stronger and stronger and stronger and I thought, “I’m going to die” and at that moment, He took His hand off of my head, went back and sat down and I woke up. So, this was in 1969. So, fast forward to maybe early 1972. I came to the temple. We were living in the town nearby and every day we would come to the temple and hang out with Maharajji and then in the evening we’d go home, go back to the town. So, this day, for some reason, I came late by myself. Usually, either we’d… anyway, so I came into the temple and I was holding some apples that I was gonna offer to Him and I walked into the courtyard and He was walking by Himself across the courtyard, right? Now, I realized that I had never seen Him walk before. We’d always been either brought into the room where He was already sitting or He’d just come out the door and plop down on the tucket out there on the cot right there by the door. But I’d never seen Him walk. And I just stopped at the edge of the courtyard and I watched Him walk and I, my mind completely blitzed out because, He was walking the way He walked in my dream, you know? I was just like, like this.  And the next thing I know, I’m standing right next to Him and He’s grabbing the apples and throwing them, I didn’t even offer the apples, I was just like… ahhhhh. And He was going, “These westerners.” And He takes the apples and He’s throwing them to people. It was just an amazing moment, you know? So, He had come to me. They say, when you dream about a Saint, you’re not making that up in your dreams the way we mostly make up our dreams. You can’t create the form of a Saint in your dreams. Only the Saint can come to you. That’s what they say. I don’t know if it’s true, but that’s what they say. So, if you dream about somebody, a great Guru or something like that, He or She has come to see you. That’s what they say. One time, we were sitting with Him in the evening. This was after I was living in the temple. So, everybody would go leave the temple for the day and just the people who were living there and the workers would stay, and He’d come up to the back of the temple and sit and a few people there would sit around Him. So on this day there was maybe about six or seven people and I was sitting kind of behind Him and there were these people sitting on the other side of the cot and it was, the sun was setting, there was a sweetness in the air, there was this fragrance of what they call Raat Ki Rani, the Queen of the Night Flowers, it makes Jasmine look like poop, smell like poop. You have no idea. It’s completely intoxicating, this scent. And that was wafting through the air, you know, and I was thinking, “Wow, this is so great.” He looks over at me and goes, “Watch this.” Or, “See this,” He said. And then He casually just said to this person sitting, He said, “Is it cold in America now?” and in two seconds, everybody said, “Well, there’s different parts of America. There’s the North, there’s the South, and then it could be this, it could be cold there.” It was total insanity and He just looks over to me. It was like, “You see what’s in people’s heads? You thought it was peaceful.” Things like that. You know, He knew everything. Oh, Jesus. Every single thing. He knew how many times you chewed your toast in the morning. He knew what you were going to do 50 years from that moment. And He loved you completely. Totally. Every part of you. And He knew everything. And if you think it’s easy to sit in front of somebody like that… half the time it was the most incredible unbelievable never-wanna-move, the other half of the time it was like living in hell, because we’re not used to that. We can’t be open. We’re just like… We close down. So, then, He would hit you in the heart with a banana. And you’d look, and then you’re open again. And then you’re closed down. And then He’d bang you with an apple. Or He’d look at you and go Ha Ha. And He’d look and He’d laugh. The minute you closed down, He’d open you up, or He’d let you sit there for a few days like that until you just were burnt to a crisp, you know, and then somebody would call your name and you’d turn and you’d get hit with a pomegranate. And He’d go, Ha. That’s how He taught. He didn’t lecture. He said, “If I know…” He said, what did He say, something like, something like, “I don’t know anything, I just know how to open hearts.” Something like that. And He didn’t want anything. Nothing. He never took anything from us. We couldn’t even donate to the temple. I mean, nothing. He didn’t want anything from us. To be around somebody who doesn’t want anything, who has everything, is so discontinuous with our everyday lives. Everybody we meet is hungry. We’re hungry for so many things. We live in a hungry world. There are people out there who aren’t hungry, who’ve got everything and who are ridiculously disgustingly happy. One time, so, Ram Das had bought this Volkswagon bus from these people and we used to drive it from the town. We used to get sixteen or seventeen people in this Volkswagon, hanging off the back, up on the roof, and it became a bit of a scene, you know, and the Indian people, like the word was getting out, who were these crazy hippies and everything. People were coming to see what’s going on. So, He broke the bus. One day, it wouldn’t start. Anyway, that’s a long story, but anyhow, so He took the keys away from Ram Das and He gave them to me and He said, “Ram Das, you’re a saint, you have to go on the bus, on the regular bus.” And He said, “Jeff will drive.” Jeff was my name. “Jeff will drive.” And at that moment, He started calling me “driver.” So, for the next year, my name was “Driver.” “Driver! Ha. Come here.” Like this. Not a bad name. Kind of cool.  Hey. So, I had the keys to the bus and my desire was to drive Maharajji in the Volkswagon bus. I never told anybody. I never said anything to anybody. But I always h

    18 min

  7. 25/10/2023

    Call and Response Special Edition Conversations With KD October 10 2020

    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 October 10, 2020 “You are the protector of sadhus and good people. You are ever a support to devotees. You even fulfill the desires of wicked people when they take refuge in you. Why should anyone be surprised by this? It is simply the nature of a true saint. So please now have that kind of compassion on me and purify my mind and heart.” – Krishna Das, reading from the Vinaya Chalisa I’m taking over.  Good morning, everybody. It’s always morning somewhere, and that’s usually wherever I am. So, we’re still here. Amazing. How’s everybody doing? I hope everybody’s okay. Let’s just do the Hanumat Stavan, as we start. As you know, this is a prayer to Hanuman, a short prayer, and it describes many of the qualities that he has and many of the things that he’s accomplished and the things that he did. First, I’ll sing it, and then and then I’ll point another thing out to you at the end. Pranawun Pawanakumaar khala bana paawaka gyaana ghana Jaasu hridaya aagaar basahin Raama sara chaapa dhara Atulita bala dhaamam hemashailaa badeham Danujawana krishaanum gyaaninaama graganyam Sakala guuna nidhaanam vaanaraa naama dheesham Raghupati priya bhaktam vaata jaatam namaami Goshpadee krita vaareesham mashakee krita raakshasam Raamaayana mahaamaala ratnam vande neelaatmajam Anjanaa nandanam veeram Jaanakee shoka naashanam Kapeesha makshahantaaram vande Lankaa bhayankaram Ulangya sindho salilam saleelam Yah shokarvahni janakaatma jaayah Aadaaya tenaiva dadaaha lankaa Namaami tam praanjalir aanjaneyam Manojavam Maaruta tuulya wegam Jitendriyam buddhimataaåm warishtam Vaataatmajam vaanara yuuta mukhyam Shree Raamaduutam sharanam prapadhye Aanjaneya mati paatalaananam Kaanchanaadri kamaneeya vigraham Paarijaata taru moola vaasinam Bhaavayaami pavamaana nandanam Yatra yatra Raghunaatha keertanam Tatra tatra krita masta kaanjali Vashapawaari paripurna lochanam Maarutin namata raaksha saantakam Bolo Bajrangbalee Hanumana Ki Jai I don’t have the book here, but the last couple of verses really struck me very strongly, powerfully one time, many years ago.  It describes Hanuman sitting at the foot of this tree, a special tree called the Parijat tree, which I think is, it’s supposed to be up in heaven somewhere. And it describes him as sitting there with his eyes full of tears, of bhava, of love for Ram, and I understood that this is how he is. He’s always in that feeling, in that flow of grace with Ram. With Ram. And it’s only when he has to do some service that he manifests whatever’s necessary to serve, and to serve Ram, to serve and to destroy suffering, but when he’s not being asked to serve or there’s nothing to do, he’s sitting there, lost in love, all the time. This prayer is really like a visualization, like they have in Buddhism, Vajrayana, where you visualize a Being and you commune with that Being. So, this is really very much a visualization for Hanuman. But for me, Maharajji is Hanuman, and someone once asked me, some Baba in India asked me, you know, who’s your Ishta Devata, who do you worship? And I said, “Well, Guru.” “Oh, very good. Very good.” So, we see Maharajji as Hanuman. He’s always engaged in helping people, all the time, everything. Dada used to say he has two blankets, an outer blanket, and an inner blanket. The outer blanket hides his body from us, because he was always taking people’s karmas and having sores and stuff on his body that would come and go and disappear. There’s a beautiful story in Dada’s book, I forget which one. It must be, I think it’s in “The Near and the Dear.” And if you haven’t read those two books, they’re extraordinary, “By His Grace” and “The Near and the Dear” by Dada Mukherjee.   Dada was one of those wonderfully close, extraordinary devotees and we spent a lot of time with him over the years after Maharajji left the body. And he describes how, one time when Maharajji was away, he had knelt down at the tucket in the bedroom where Maharajji had stayed in his house, and he used to rub the leg of the bed of the tucket, the bed, and in his mind, without even really thinking about it, he took it as Maharajji’s leg, you know, he would just, it wasn’t a big thing. He would bow down and hold the leg of the bed. But one day, as he touched the leg of the bed, he came across a rough spot with splinters and little a rough place on the leg that he had never felt before, and it occurred to him that, “Now, wait a second.” He said, “If this is, if I take this as Maharajji’s leg, if I’m really plugged into Maharajji and I believe, and I experience this as his leg when I touch it, and now there’s a damaged part of it that I never felt before. What does that mean? Does that mean that he, there’s some problem with his leg?” And he began to like, flip out and obsess about this, and he was having a meltdown. “If it’s his leg and I feel this, then he, it must be true. He must have something wrong with his leg. But if it’s just all my imagination, then what is this all thing with murtis and, you know, images of the deities? Are they just our imagination or is there some reality to it? Can they possibly be a manifestation of the real thing? Or are they just like our way of pacifying ourselves?” So, he was really going on and on about this in his head, and then sometime later, Maharajji came, maybe it was one of his unannounced visits. He arrives at that his house and he goes into the room and sits down and Dada is with him, and you must read it from Dada because it’s so much better, but at one point Maharajji was sitting there without his blanket, or something like that, or his blanket opened up, and Dada saw on his leg, a sore, an actual sore on his leg. Now, when he saw it, I think he, as it always was with Maharajji, things would happen and you would see them, but they didn’t really register in your, like, you didn’t really know you were seeing them. It was like you were in a dream. It was only later that he’s realized that he had seen that sore on Maharajji’s leg, and then it wasn’t there later in the day or the next day, or the next time he saw his leg, but it was there. He saw it and he didn’t recognize that he saw it until later, and he went, “Whoa. So, he was showing me that my experience was real,” and you know, that’s a really, really deep teaching because we are living in our own subjective universe. Everything we see, think and feel is only our version of what’s out there. Apparently there really is something out there, but everybody sees it differently, and so we need to really pay attention to what we see, think, and feel, and work with it directly. So, in this case, Dada saw this, he felt this sore on the leg of the bed, and then Maharajji showed him that, yes, in fact, the leg of the bed represented Him to Dada, not to anybody else. We all have our own path into our own true nature within us. So, Maharajji was showing Dada that he, that yes, the leg of the bed represented his leg, and he should trust that, and that’s his path. That’s his devotional attitude, his devotional practice, which connected him, which was a direct connection to Maharajji. We don’t trust ourselves. We don’t trust ourselves. We’re in reaction mode all the time, and we don’t drop out of that into our hearts very often, but we should allow that to happen, and we’re, even though we’re stuck in our own subjective version of the world, if we don’t see, if we don’t recognize what we’re seeing, we can’t let go of it. We can’t free ourselves from our fear, and our anger, and our shame, and our grief, and our selfishness, and our anxiety, and our tension, and our longings for this and that, and our aversions to this and that. If we don’t see them, we don’t notice them. We cannot let go of them. We can’t be free of them. And I’m not saying you have to do 20 years of psychotherapy for every little thing that you have, every little issue that we have, but through practice, through the doing of practice, how we see what we see, is changed. It’s altered. Just very simply. Like it says in the Hanuman Chalisa, “I take the dust from the Lotus feet of the Guru, the pollen like dust, which is consciousness, awareness, real love, to clean the mirror of my heart.” And when you look in a mirror, if it’s covered with dust, all you see is the dust. You may see a little faint version of your face in the mirror, but it’s not accurate. There’s dust all over it and you see the dust. So, we take awareness to clean the dust off the mirror of our hearts, the awareness, the loving awareness, as Ram Dass used to say, because it is loving. It is love.  To clean the mirror of our heart, and then gradually as that mirror is cleaned, we see our true face, our true being. So, Hanumanji is always immersed in true being, which he calls “Ram,” which for him is Ram, the name of Ram. Maharajji’s used to say, “Krishna’s left this world and Ram has left this world, but their Names are still here.” And so, we take those names to remember, to re-member, to put together that presence within us, to recognize. So, Hanumanji is always here, always immersed in Ram, and this is actually our own being. Our own true nature is always immersed, always turning towards God, towards love, towards  reality. Ramana Maharshi used to say our true nature is invocation. Our souls are always invoking reality, the Paramatman, the Supreme Soul.  We’re always bowing to that. We’re part of that. And so that’s what we will discover as we become le

    1hr 44min

  8. 12/04/2022

    Ep. 64 | Consciousness, Spiritual Names, Vipasana

    Call and Response Ep. 64 Consciousness, Spiritual Names, Vipasana Q: When you sing other lineages’ Names like “Tara” or “Jesus on the Mainline” like how do you integrate that with all the other Names that you got from the Vedic tradition? “My parents were about as Jewish as the Pope. So, but still, I didn’t know much about Jesus and then I get to India and He looks at us and says, ‘Hanuman, Krishna and Christ are the same.’ Terrific. Who wants to hear that?  I’m in India. You know? But He started talking to us about Jesus and whoa, it was powerful. Really powerful. I have to say, it was more powerful than the way He spoke about Hanuman, Krishna and Ram.” – Krishna Das Q: Namaste. KD: Hi. Q: Hi. Yesterday you were saying that all the mantras are love. KD: All the what? Q: All the mantras are essentially love. KD: Yeah. Q: And today you were talking about how we get what we need. And I kind of have this theory that I’ve been running with that certain mantras just come to me and I’ve been thinking maybe it’s my Guru sending me what I need and I just wondered if that happened to you or what you kind of thought about that. KD: I never thought about it. But if that thought works for you and that helps you do your practice more sincerely and more completely, that’s a good thing. But ultimately, it’s another thought. Some thoughts are helpful because they help us let go and they help us enter more deeply into our self, and some thoughts aren’t helpful. Q: Hello. You spoke about the heart connection to consciousness. Could you touch a little more on that. Just, you said it’s not heart chakra but it’s a different connection? KD: No. Because I don’t know. I was repeating what I read that Ramana Maharshi said, who was one of the great saints that ever lived. So, whatever He said is cool. So, that’s what He said. He said there’s this consciousness is always present and there’s a spot in the body that we kind of, like a little… that fills up the body with the consciousness. When we leave the body, the body’s just inert. There’s no consciousness in the body itself. It’s just flesh and bone and blood and pus and all that stuff. Q: Could I ask you anything that you have taken from that for your life? KD: You could ask whatever. Ask. Q: From that insight that He gave you? KD: No. I mean, I don’t think about that stuff. I thought, “That’s true.” And that’s about as far as I went with it. Q: Thank you. KD: Ok. _________ Q: I have a question around, in certain moment you were given the name “Krishna Das.” KD: Yeah. Q: But you were born “Jeffrey.” KD: Yeah. So… Q: Sometimes I struggle with this thing about the spiritual Names. And I think to myself, “What happens when the spiritual Name is not just given, but you embody it.” Can you share a little bit about that? KD: It’s just more stuff to deal with. My real name was “Driver.” For a year, Maharajji called me “Driver” because He took Ram Das’s keys away to the van and He gave them to me. “Driver.” Then I was going to kill myself because He didn’t give me a Name. So, finally He gave me a Name. He said, “Arjun. Krishna. Nay. Krishna Das.” I said, “Krishna Das? I’m a Hanuman guy. What’s that stuff?” And He just laughed. He said, “Don’t worry. Hanuman served Krishna, too.”  It didn’t change me at all. It just gave me pride which was hard to get rid of. You want a Name? Q: No. And about singing other lineages, where you have sung, “Tara” or “Jesus on the Mainline…” When you sing other lineages’ Names like “Tara” or “Jesus on the Mainline” like how do you integrate that with all the other Names that you got from the vedic tradition? KD: I like it. I sing what I like. Right? What’s the big deal? If I don’t like it, I don’t sing it. A Name is a Name is a Name. Right? Different traditions, same God. Big deal. You know? Come on. Argue. Come on. Come on. What do you think? Q: No, I think it’s true. KD: You know, Maharajji talked to us about Jesus. Listen, I’m Jewish from Long Island. My parents were about as Jewish as the Pope. So, but still, I didn’t know much about Jesus and then I get to India and He looks at us and says, “Hanuman, Krishna and Christ are the same.” Terrific. Who wants to hear that?  I’m in India. You know? But He started talking to us about Jesus and whoa, it was powerful. Really powerful. I have to say, it was more powerful than the way He spoke about Hanuman, Krishna and Ram. For us, He Himself would just like, you could see how intense it was for Him to talk about Jesus. “He never died. He felt no pain on the cross. He loved everyone. He loved the people who nailed Him to the cross. He tried to die but He couldn’t. He became immortal.  Why? Because He never thought of Himself. Thoughts of “Me” never arose in that Being. Why would they arise? There’s only God in there. There’s no “Me” anymore.” So powerful and deep. Q: I like Jesus on the Mainline. KD: Yeah, there’s a lot of songs I like that I sing.   Q: I was wondering if you’d ever practiced Vipasana meditation. KD: If I did Vipasana? Sure. I did five or six ten-day courses in a row in Bodhgaya in 1970-71. And I’ve done other, you know, since then I’ve done a few courses. Q: Were you already into kirtan chanting? KD: You know, somewhat. Not that much at the time. Not yet. That kind of started…when we started… not so much at that moment during those courses. I had just got to India and then after a couple of months, Maharajji sent us away and disappeared and then we went to Bodhgaya for a few months and then after that we found Him again. You know, the bus story? You know the story of the bus? You don’t know the story of the bus? So, we were all, it was a break between like, the fifth and the sixth ten-day course. There was like a day and a half between the courses and this guy arrived in a huge beautiful Mercedes bus that he had driven across from Europe to India. And he offered. He said, “Anybody who wants to go back to Delhi, I’ll give you a ride in the bus.” So, we were pretty much, me and the other folks… Ram Das had shown up and done a few of the courses and the other Westerners who had come to see Maharajji were there, so we had decided, it’s time to leave, let’s go find Maharajji. So, and Sharon was there and she still can tell you how she felt as she watched that bus drive away. Anywhow. So, we took off and we’re on the way to Delhi and one of the guys in the group said that he had been to the Mela in Allahabad. A Mela is a festival that happens every year in different places in India and it’s a gathering of pilgrims and spiritual aspirants and yogis and teachers and all those people. And there’s… one of the places it happens is in Allahabad at the Sangham where the Ganga, the Ganges and the Yamuna and the Heavenly River, the Saraswati, comes together. “Sangha” means “together.” Coming together. So, we were going to pass within a few miles of that on the way to Delhi, so it was a big discussion about whether we should just go right to Delhi, which was the Ram Das group, or whether we should go visit the Sangham and see what was going on there, sounds cool. That was my group and almost everybody else, other than Ram Das. Ram Das just wanted to get to Delhi and that was it. “We’re going to Delhi, we’re going to find Maharajji. That’s all we’re going to do.” But there was a lot of discussion about it, for hours. So, finally it was decided that we’ll just go. We’ll see it. Boom. Then we’ll turn around. Then we’ll head to Delhi so we could make it by nightfall. That was the idea. So, the bus pulls into this area where there had been maybe ten million people up until about two days before. Now, everybody was gone. There was hardly anybody there. Ten million, that was forty years ago. Now there’s 20 or 25 million at those festivals. They call them “Melas.” “Kumbh Mela.” “Ardh Mela.” “Magh Mela”. So, the bus pulls into this, the Mela grounds, which is absolutely deserted. Nobody. A dog. I remember there was a dog running across that thing. So, we pulled into this big vast place where there’s nobody. A vast field. So, the bus starts making this big turn, maybe this way and so Danny said, “Well, you know, there’s a Hanuman temple over there in the corner. Why don’t we go have darshan of the temple, see the temple, and then we’ll head back to Delhi.” Ok. So, the bus comes around this way and it’s at the edge of the field and there’s like a path at the edge of the field and the bus is going this way and who’s walking the other way? Maharajji. And He’s holding somebody’s hand and He’s walking and the bus passed Him and one guy just happened to see Him. And they said, “Wait, there’s Maharajji!” And the bus and we all went running off the bus and everybody’s weeping and crying and so then Maharajji said, “Ok, everybody get back on the bus and follow us.” He hops in a little rickshaw with Dada, this man with Him and this huge big silver Mercedes bus follows this little cycle rickshaw all through the streets of this little village and the rickshaw stops in front of a house and Maharajji and Dada go inside. We didn’t know Dada yet. They go inside and the bus stops and we get off the bus and we’re like, “What do we do now?” We’re looking around. And the woman comes out and says, “Come in. Come in. Come in and take your food.” And we said, “Food? There’s like 27 of us. What do you mean, food?” “Well, when Maharajji woke up this morning, He told us to prepare food for 27 people. That you would be coming later.” So, who decided that we should go see the Mela spot? We had… it seemed like we were making a decision, to us. There was a lot of discussion. There was anger and there w

    18 min
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Devotional yogic chanting with a Western influence. CDs and cassettes for sale, artist background, schedule of live appearances.

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