Ep. 75 | Humility Call and Response with Krishna Das

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