98 episodes

"Call and Response" podcast series is made possible by the Kirtan Wallah Foundation: Your support via direct donations are tax deductible under 501c3 guidelines and go toward new offerings such as this series as well as the the compilation of all of KD’s work on the Path, for the purpose of sharing it with everyone in a variety of media. It is also the intention of Kirtan Wallah Foundation to eventually be able to offer assistance to organizations around the world, whose efforts are in alignment with the teachings of Neem Karoli Baba.

Call and Response with Krishna Das Kirtan Wallah Foundation

    • Religion & Spirituality
    • 4.9 • 98 Ratings

"Call and Response" podcast series is made possible by the Kirtan Wallah Foundation: Your support via direct donations are tax deductible under 501c3 guidelines and go toward new offerings such as this series as well as the the compilation of all of KD’s work on the Path, for the purpose of sharing it with everyone in a variety of media. It is also the intention of Kirtan Wallah Foundation to eventually be able to offer assistance to organizations around the world, whose efforts are in alignment with the teachings of Neem Karoli Baba.

    Ep. 75 | Humility 

    Ep. 75 | Humility 

    Call and Response Ep. 75 | Humility 

    Q: I just wanted to mention how 2019 was the year of practicing humbleness for me because it was how I understood love, how to get into somebody else’s shoes in order to understand where they’re coming from so that we can all be at peace. Can you speak about humbleness?

    “Our inability to really do anything that’s for our own sake, that will be good for us, that would lead us to happiness, to openness, to being a good human being; our inability, so, the strength of God, of the Universe; it’s all from that place that all goodness comes. Of course, that place is within us.” – Krishna Das

    KD: Yeah, hi.

    Q: So, I have a hard time being in love and when you have, like, a neighbor that hates you or you hate them and trying to find that place of love

    KD: You love hating that neighbor. It’s so wonderful, isn’t it?

    Q: So, we play your music and the neighbor hates it.

    KD: Ah, good. Excellent. Play it louder.

    Q: We do. And so, we also have another neighbor that, her father passed away and she came over crying one day that, you know, “thank you for playing your music. So, it was totally contradictory to…”

    KD: Well, put the speakers on that side of the lawn. So, you know, I have this friend who wrote to me and she said, you know, she’s breaking up with her husband and it’s so painful and she wishes it wasn’t happening. So, I said, “Well, what’s going on?” She said, “Well, you know, I love your chanting, so I play it in the kitchen. I play it in the living room. I play it in the bedroom upstairs. I play it in the guest room downstairs all the time.” I said, “Turn that music off and save your goddamned marriage.” So, put the speakers only so that one person can hear it. Leave that poor guy alone, you know?

    Q: Well, with that in mind, I just wanted to mention how 2019 was the year of practicing humbleness for me because it was how I understood love, how to get into somebody else’s shoes in order to understand where they’re coming from so that we can all be at peace. Can you speak about humbleness?

    KD: I don’t know, you know. I’m so humble, it’s hard to really talk about it. People say that to me all the time. “Oh, you’re so humble.” And I say, “Well, I know me.” But nobody gets it. They think I’m humble. It’s so weird. You know, real humility is the whole thing. Real humility is, you know, so I was in India and I was in a little town called Vrindavan and I was walking down the street and I stepped in a hole in the street and I snapped my leg, my knee, like this, and when I woke up in the morning my knee was like, swollen, like huge, right? So I figured I was going to have to go to the hospital. Now, Maharajji had forbidden us to come to the temple before four o’clock in the afternoon because the local Visa guy, Visa official, was harassing Him about the Westerners.  It was politics. He just wanted some money, you know. And Maharajji wasn’t going to give it to Him so He was giving Him a hard time, so but I woke up in the morning with this knee and I thought, “I have to go to the hospital down in Mathura which is the town about 20 miles away, but before I go I should tell Maharajji I was going.” So, with great difficulty, I walked to the temple, leaning on a friend of mine, you know and I limped in, you know, like this and He was sitting all alone on, sitting on His cot, a tucket, they call it, in the middle of the courtyard, a completely empty big courtyard and He was right in the middle of it and there was one Indian guy sitting with Him. So, I kind of limped up, you know, and I pranamed and bowed and I sat down but I couldn’t bend my knee so I had to put my leg out straight underneath the tucket, you know? In India, you don’t really do that. You don’t point your feet towards your teacher. So, He didn’t say anything, right? He just looked at me and then after a few minutes, He gets up and He walks towards the

    • 15 min
    Ep. 74 | Fear, Trauma, Cultural Appropriation, Mindfulness Club

    Ep. 74 | Fear, Trauma, Cultural Appropriation, Mindfulness Club

    Call and Response Ep. 74 | Fear, Trauma, Cultural Appropriation, Mindfulness Club



    “We’re seeing the movie that we are projecting from within. So, we get to see what we have to work with a little bit. And little by little, that movie can be transformed into a screwball comedy from the 30’s. Carole Lombard? Nobody knows who she is. But we can, that movie can change. We can’t change the movie because we are the movie. But the movie can change through our aspiration to be free and the things that we do to help ourselves, to free ourselves from those negative emotions and aspects of our own personality.” – Krishna Das

    Yes, the alien.  What can I do for you?

    Q: Yes, I’m the alien.

    KD: Do I speak your language?

    Q: Yeah. So, thank you so much for today. I just wanted to share…

    KD: Is it over? I don’t think it’s over.

    Q: No, no for being here and serving us.

    KD: Oh, I’m here.  Thank you.

    Q: You talked about serving and it made me think of a story I wanted to just quick-share, really short, because I know you don’t want people to talk for a long time.

    KD: Which planet is the story from?

    Q: Let’s see, Lehra. I was five and an intruder came into our house and I was upstairs with my knees shaking and this man was chasing my mom around the table and he was going to hurt her and she just laid down on the floor and went to go on top of her and he had a knife and everything and she said, she said an angel came to her, whatever, an inspiration and she just looked him in the eyes and said, “What do you want from me? I am your brother.” You know, you were talking about the oneness and we’re all the same blood and connected and he just looked at her and he’s like, “I’ll leave you alone now, ma’am.” And he got up and he walked out and that was sort of a miracle or something.

    KD: Yeah, wow.

    Q: And I remember then the police came and we were all happy and relieved, the kids in the house, because the authorities were here and I said to my mom, “I hate that man. I want him to die. I want to kill him, mommy.” And she said, “No darling, don’t hate him. He needs love. He’s sick and that’s why he was doing what he did.” And it just struck me, this memory came flooding back just today when you said, “Be of service” and that stayed with me my whole life, to see the soul of everyone. You know? Underneath their pain, underneath their stories and their suffering and their violence.

    KD: Yeah.

    Q: I just really wanted to share it. That’s it.

    KD: Thank you. Because we are so hurt, we don’t let ourselves see the pain of other people too much. And we take everything personally. Whatever programs we have running, I have a friend who’s program is humiliation and he’s always being humiliated by things that happen. Even when they truly didn’t happen to humiliate him the way experiences it as if this person or this situation is humiliating him directly, you know? Or other people are hurt by other people, like that. It’s our programs, you know? And to unravel that program is very difficult. Very very difficult. Very difficult. But you have to start somewhere. Wherever you are, start. And things will, little by little, fall into place if one wants to be free, one can free one’s self. With a lot of help. A lot of help. Yeah.

     

    Q: Hello.

    KD: Where are you?

    Q: Right to your left.

    KD: Hi.

    Q: Hi. Long time meditator and I recently have found you and chanting.

    KD: I’m sorry about that.

    Q: I’m very grateful for it.

    KD: Ok.

    Q: Over thirty years, I studied under Doctor Jon Cabot Zinn.

    KD: I know Jon.

    Q: And what, and to this day, I do it. And I’ve added the chanting to it and what I’ve learned throughout the years is how judgmental we automatically are as human beings, which arises a lot of stresses in people.

    KD: Yeah.

    Q: And one of the methods that Dr.

    • 26 min
    Call and Response Special Edition Conversations With KD Jan 2, 2021

    Call and Response Special Edition Conversations With KD Jan 2, 2021

    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 January 2, 2021



    “You’ve got to have some courage when it comes down to it. Don’t let anybody tell you what to do that doesn’t feel right to you. Don’t do that to yourself. Listen to your heart. If it feels right? Fine. If it doesn’t? Fine. More than fine. Just listen to yourself. You know better than anybody else what you want to do, and if you’re not doing what you want, how will you get what you want? You’ll always be hungry and never feeding yourself. Desires are not bad. They are not meant to be destroyed. They are meant to be transcended. That’s a very big difference.” – Krishna Das

    Thanks for coming today. This pandemic reality of isolation and distancing from other people, on one hand, it’s very difficult. On the other hand, if we pay attention, we can actually feel close to people without the bodies having to be in the same place, and that’s big thing because, in reality, we are all together all the time, and in fact, we are one body.

    Maharajji used to go like this, you know. “”Sab ek.” All one.

    This is not something that we have to convince ourselves about, you know, or try to talk ourselves into believing. There’s no need to try to, what’s the word, anyway, force ourselves to believe anything. What we need to do is find a way to actually experience this stuff directly. Otherwise it won’t help us in the deepest way.

    Our knee jerk reactions to daily life will continue endlessly until we actually find a way to move more deeply into our own being. But that being is the same being, that sense, that very fine, subtle sense of just being here, so to speak, where just existing is the same in everyone. It’s actually where we truly live, but we are so attached to our thoughts and emotions and the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, and the programming we received entering into this life, and the programming we have coming from, endless lifetimes of nonsense. It’s not easy for it to wind down.

    So, if we feel called to it, we can start paying attention to stuff and start practicing letting go. Letting go is the one thing we can do. Letting go is not pushing away. When I say, “Let go,” like say, you’re feeling like shit, right? Okay. So, “I want to let go of this,” but what are you going to do? You’re going to pick it up and put it over there. Where is it, you know? It’s not something you can grab onto and kill, or move, or dissolve, or evaporate.

    But what we can do is notice how stuck we are, and we notice that we are stuck, and in that moment of just noticing that we’re stuck, we’re not that stuck. Of course we get stuck again immediately, but that’s why we add a practice to our lives, any practice, repetition of the name, coming back to the feeling of the breath, any type of practice that forces you to pay attention.

    Tightrope walking over a raging fire will definitely make you pay attention. You won’t be thinking about, you know, what that person did to me and what I’m going to do to him. You’ll be thinking of not falling in the goddamn fire. So once we recognize that we are on fire already, then we want to cool that down. We’ve already fallen into the fire.

    You know, the Buddha gave a sermon called “The Fire Sermon,” very early in his teaching, and he said, you know, “Hey monks, guess what? The eye is on fire with seeing. The ears are on fire with hearing. The tongue is on fire with taste.

    • 1 hr 54 min
    Ep. 73 | Ease of Heart

    Ep. 73 | Ease of Heart

    Call and Response Ep. 73 | Ease of Heart

    Q: Two years ago, you used the phrase, “ease of heart” and I was like, “Whoa,” that’s it. That’s what I got. That’s what I need. That’s what I always needed. And so, I carry it, in my head, you know, all day, kind of. It goes in and out of my mind. Then today when I was coming, I thought, “I don’t know if I really know what you think it is.”

    “You can’t cure anger with more anger. You can’t cure hate with more hate. The only transforming power in the universe is Love and real Love means… Listen to me, as if I know… Real love means accepting things as they are and including them.” – Krishna Das

    Q: Hi. So, I heard you speak like two…

    KD: Where you?

    Q: I’m here. Two years ago, you used the phrase, “ease of heart” and I was like, “Whoa,” that’s it.

    KD: I used the part… what?

    Q: Ease of heart.

    KD: Ease of heart, yeah yeah.

    Q: And I was, “Whoa, that’s it.” That’s what I got. That’s what I need. That’s what I always needed. And so, I carry it, in my head, you know, all day, kind of. It goes in and out of my mind. Then today when I was coming, I thought, “I don’t know if I really know what you think it is.”

    KD: What?

    Q: I don’t know if I really understand what it really means to you, but I think it’s what you were just talking about, right?

    KD: Yeah.

    Q: Ok. That’s all I needed to know.

    KD: It comes from the Metta, the Metta Loving Kindness Meditation practice, which was originally given by the Buddha to some monks. He had sent some monks to meditate in a forest and they went to the forest and they tried to meditate but the tree spirits were causing trouble for them and harassing them. So, they came to the Buddha and they said, you know, “Give us a weapon to defeat these angry spirits that are giving us a hard time.” And the weapon the Buddha gave them was the Loving Kindness Meditation and it transformed the whole forest, of course. That’s the only way. You can’t cure anger with more anger. You can’t cure hate with more hate. The only transforming power in the universe is Love and real Love means… listen to me, as if I know… real love means accepting things as they are, and including them. Like, once again, a heart as wide as the world. And so, this practice is really great and right near here in Barry, Massachusetts is IMS, the Instant Meditation Society. Insight Meditation Society. And they teach, they teach that practice there quite a lot along with Vipasana also. But Metta is its own practice and it comes in that phrase. So, it starts off, they teach you four phrases, four phrases, and one is, “May I be safe, may I be happy, may I have good health and may I live at ease of heart.” “At ease of heart in this world and with whatever comes to me.” And you’re asked to offer these phrases to yourself. And the first couple of days of the practice, they describe the whole thing to you and they give you these phrases and they’re doing now and the meditation practice is to sit there and not to struggle with your mind and your thoughts, but to sit there and offer these phrases to yourself, to repeat them, not automatically or mechanically, but to try to connect with them. You know, “may I be safe.” “May I be happy.” “May I have good health and may I live at ease,” and on and on. So, after two days I was ready to commit suicide. I couldn’t feel a damn thing. I was just like getting harder and harder and more destroyed. I was like flipping out. And then they say, now take the phrases and offer them to what they call the benefactor, which is somebody who’s always been on your side. Maybe your grandmother, maybe somebody or a teacher who’s just always been there. Certainly, usually not your partner. Somebody who’s really always been there for you. And then offer the phrases to that person, and you know, in like, in a half an hour you’re flying because you bring that p

    • 28 min
    Ep. 72 | Family Troubles, Chant Etiquette

    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.

    • 9 min
    KD Call and Response Special Edition Conversations with KD November 21 2020

    KD Call and Response Special Edition Conversations with KD November 21 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 November 21, 2020

    “Whenever you think of it, just take a couple of breaths and let go. You’re washing dishes, take a breath and let go. You’re watching TV. Take a breath in the commercials. If there’s no commercials, just pause the thing, take a breath and then start again. Practice letting go. Practice just letting go.” – Krishna Das

    Hi, everybody. Good to be with you again. It’s getting cold and people are stuck inside, which makes it even harder to wade through the mud of the mind, of the thoughts. It’s a good time to practice, and it’s just too easy to be swept away the tides of mental bullshit and the stuff that goes on and on and on and on, and the circular obsessive thinking that goes on all the time. We have to make an effort to release ourselves from that. And when it’s so intense like this, it’s almost easier because it’s so apparent how out of control we are. And actually, we’re always out of control, but we can be aware by remembering to look and remembering to remember. That’s all you can do. You can’t transform yourself. You can’t move to another planet. You know, all we can do is bow to the endless flow of nonsense that goes through our heads, and practice letting go of it. That’s all. That will change the way we live inside of our lives. And that’s what all the practices are about, ultimately. Every path leads to the same goal because the goal is reality, and that’s what lives within us as our own true being.

    So, just to continue to pay attention, to continue to remember, to let go, as the day goes on, you know, every time you just remember, just release for a minute, you know, even in the middle of something you’re doing just take a breath or two and let it be.

    Q: I am so, so pleased to be here today. Thank you for this opportunity. I’m from Maryland, and found you, I would say, actually, because of this situation that we’re under; home and tinkering around with Ram Dass, and I found you singing on a piece of his, Heart As Wide As The World, and I just was completely enamored.

    Yeah. Most people find me by mistake.

    It was, but a beautiful mistake.

    Yeah. Maharajji trips and then they fall in it. That’s what happens, you know?

    Oh, that’s great. That’s really great. Well, the thing I wanted to ask you about is this notion of surrender. And I feel, for me, sometimes we can distinguish it as surrender. It’s almost like a physical experience, like a relaxing, like you say, you know, giving it up, letting it go. And you also speak about finding, I don’t know, I can’t think of how you say it right now, but you know, yourself inside, and I’m wondering if those two things are similar in some way.

    There was a great Saint in India, not too long ago, named Ramana Maharshi, and he lived in South India and when he was a young boy, not that young, he was probably 16, He stayed home from school one day because he was feeling a little sick and he felt he was going to die, and he was perfectly healthy, but he felt, “I’m going to die.” And for some reason it didn’t upset him. He just said, “Well, what’s this going to be like?”

    And he laid down on the floor. He was alone in the house. He laid down on the floor and he clenched up his body and just wanted to see what, what not breathing would be like, and you know, what, if the body becomes like rigor mortis, and what was happening, actually, his consciousness was leaving the body, leaving the physical plane.

    • 1 hr 38 min

Customer Reviews

4.9 out of 5
98 Ratings

98 Ratings

nickanderhoey ,

Thanks to kd!

Sundhara Chalisa is the jam!

Brian Nuckols 777 ,

Jai Jai Guru Dev

Love, serve, remember. Thanks Krishna Das for the wisdom and compassion. Ram Ram!

sconchi2 ,

Thank you

Beautiful podcast. Love hearing your lessons at work. A step back from the negativity. Much appreciated

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