Call and Response with Krishna Das

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 Dec 5 2020 Hi everybody. It’s nice to see some of the same faces, week after week or whatever it is. Somebody wrote to me and said, “Such a nice community has grown up.” Really? You know? Amazing. I never thought of that, but it’s true. It’s true. One time Sharon and I were doing a workshop weekend maybe, or maybe just one day together in LA and it was such a nice afternoon. It was really great. You know? So, at the end I said, “Oh, this is so great. Wouldn’t it be great if we could all find someplace and be together and we could just be together our whole lives?” And then I said, “Oh, we did that. Earth.” David Nichtern, my friend, our friend David, he said he was riding on the subway one day and he looked around and he thought to himself, ” What if I had to spend the rest of my life in this subway car, this train car, with these people?” In New York, you don’t look at anybody, because you look at anybody, they immediately look at you, “Yeah? What do you want?” But imagine, you know, if you were in a car with 30 people from all over, all different shapes and sizes, and these were the people you were going to spend the rest of your life with, you would need to, and you would want to connect eventually. You would have to connect. So this is where we are on this, as Jimmy Hendrix called it, “this third stone from the sun,” this planet. We’re all together here passing through. Passing through. Hi. Hi. Namaste. Ram Ram. Same to you. I just wanted to ask a question in regards to, back to when KK told you to give up smoking ganja. I’ve been listening to, over and over again, when you were still smoking weed and then KK Shah said you must give it up. Actually, it was Maharajji. Actually, it was hash in India and I wasn’t smoking much at all, every once in a long time, but we were standing outside his door, outside Maharajji’s window, and somebody asked him about I guess, about smoking hash, and he said, “It’s not good for you. It destroys your body over time. If it was good for you if it would bring us to God, I’d get a room built and we’d fill it with hash and we’d all go in together and smoke it.” The reason I ask is, because I’m trying really hard to give it up as a coping mechanism and it’s really hard to surrender into that. Why do you want to give it up? Because I have this ridiculous thing in my mind that, to be a good devotee, you have to do all these things. You have it in your mind that you’re supposed to give up all these things? Is that what you said? Forget about it. Smoke your ass off until you get sick of it and then you’ll just give it up. You won’t like it. Go somewhere where nobody’s going to bother you for the weekend. Get like about a half a pound of the shit and smoke your brains out. That’s why we do it. We’re looking for bliss. You see? We’re looking to be freed of our suffering and our fear and we can’t deal with our shit. So we try to numb ourselves. All that does, is it numbs us. And what, the other thing it does, it actually, over time, it destroys our will. It destroys our ability to actually take care of ourselves and gets us really confused about what we want and what’s good for us. It’s a very confusing situation. You know, there was a great Lama named Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche who said, “What most people call bliss is just a little less pain.” So,

Call and Response Ep. 65 | The Repetition of the Divine Names “Thoughts are going to come because thoughts come. That’s what they do. What we have to do is train ourselves to release them as soon as we notice that we’re stuck with them.” – Krishna Das How sweet the sound. So, what are we doing? In India, this is called, “The repetition of the Divine Names.” The Names of God. We don’t like the name, “God” here in the West. It’s such a hard sounding thing. Some guy up in the sky with a big beard throwing down thunderbolts at us. Not my idea of a fun night. That’s what I was doing last night. Getting thunderbolts thrown at me. How sweet the sound… so these Names, these are the, what are these the Names of? Some God floating around up in the sky or maybe by Venus or Mars or something? No. At least probably not. Well, maybe. I don’t know. These are the Names of who we really are underneath who we think we are.  That’s a big thing to say. Because we spend most of our lives in a very narrow bandwidth of who we think we are. We wake up. “What am I going to do today? Ok. I’ll go there. What’ll I wear? Yeah, I’ll wear that. Then I’ll go do this. I’ll do that. Maybe they don’t like me. Maybe I should go somewhere else. Maybe they don’t like me. Maybe I should go somewhere else. If I do this, maybe they’ll like me. I’ll do that, they’ll like me. I do this. Maybe I’m going to get my…” all day long. The movie of “Me.” We write, direct, and act in the movie of “me.” And we play all the parts in our movie. I’m playing all your parts in my movie. I don’t know who you are. But you know, you sit there like this, “Oh, that guy’s grumpy.” Or something else. The way you hold your hair. I’ve got a version of you and me in my life. It has nothing to do with who you really are or even who you think you are, but in my movie, I know who you are because I’m playing your part. And then, you write reviews which you read and get more depressed. And that’s how we go through our life. Stuck in this movie that we’re creating. So, these names, they come from a place within us that’s deeper than the movie and through the repetition of the Name, gradually but inevitably, the presence within us, the love that lives within us as who we really are is uncovered. It’s uncovered. It’s already there or we wouldn’t be here. It’s not something we get in each one of us, in everybody. So, through the repetition of the Name, that place, that presence within us, that living love is uncovered. But it’s not so easy to… you can’t stop thinking. That doesn’t work. Thoughts are going to come because thoughts come. That’s what they do. What we have to do is train ourselves to release them as soon as we notice that we’re stuck with them. So, you’re chanting, “Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare,” and then you know, you wind up thinking about what you’re going to buy tomorrow when you go shopping, you know, “Maybe I shouldn’t leave too early, there’s a lot of traffic Monday morning, you know,” and then, “that’s ok, I’ve got Sirius Xm. I’ll listen to the Krishna Das channel.” And then you remember, “Oh, wait a second, I’m supposed to be singing and I haven’t been paying attention,” and so you come back. And that happens every millisecond if you’re actually paying attention. You can’t pay attention for more than two breaths before you’re gone. Neither can I. But we keep coming back. That’s the thing. And that’s the amazing thing, if you think about it. Why do we ever come back from Dreamland?  I don’t know. But we do. So, you’re chanting and you know, “Wow, this is so great. This is fantastic. Oh, man. This is great. I can’t wait. You know what, I’m going to lead chanting myself. Yeah, next week I’m going to get people over to come, you know, we’ll vape a little bit, it’ll be great, man, yeah. Yeah, fantastic, you know?” And then you remember, you’re supposed to be chanting, you’re supposed to be paying attention. “Oh shit,” right?

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,

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.

Taking time to look back and move forward. Conversations With KD episodes are derived from the recordings of KD’s online events from his home during the 2020/ 2021 days of social distancing and quarantine from the onset of COVID and beyond. Call and Response Special Edition Conversations With KD August 15 2020 “Maharajji said, “Repeat the name, whether you feel good, bad, whether you have devotion or not, whether you’re tired, whether you’re angry, keep repeating the name.” The Name will save you. It’s not your feelings that will save you. It’s the Name that will save you. There’s a big difference, and we don’t even know what that difference is because we are what we are, but Maharajji, when he was leaving the temple for the last time, he said, “I only know two things, ‘Ra’ and ‘Ma.’” Those two syllables can wipe the destiny from your forehead. This is what we’re talking about. You’re talking about becoming liberated from suffering, free of our ideas about who we think we are, finding out who and what we really are…” – Krishna Das Q: Hi. Hi. I have a question. The question is, I have heard Ram Dass a lot of times, and you spoke about karma, you know, most of your calls, and last time when I had a conversation with you, you said, “You have some karma with your sister and your mother,” and we spoke about your picture, with your mother’s picture on the past Chai and Chat. My sister and I had karma with my mother. That’s what I said. Yeah. So, I want to ask you, you said you want to clear this from your heart and everything, so how do we, is it like any family we are born in, we have karma with them? And if it is so, how do we clear this family karma from our heart? Everything that’s in this moment as a result of our karmas. Everything. This moment through the computer, that’s also a result of our karmas. It’s an effect of the causes that created this moment. So, parents are a very big thing. They imprint us with their stuff, which is also their karma stuff, and they provide us with a form, a physical form, an emotional form also, with which we go through our lives. Most people just accept that and don’t even think about it and then they just live their life the way they live their life, but if we’re on the spiritual path, it becomes obvious that our programming, so to speak, needs some tuning up, that there some fault in the code, in the programming code. We need to clean it up somehow, and that means we need to learn to accept it and love it. That’s the only way karma is released: when we no longer react negatively, so to speak, when we break, when our attachment, our identification with ourselves as a person or as a, as an ego that was programmed this way by that person. So, you know, it’s not as if our parents do anything to us, necessarily. They’re just being themselves, and we take everything personally and we develop a personality around that. Even if our parents have left the body, we’re still here, and we’re actually made up of their bodies and we’re still carrying their programming with us. So, if we want to be able to love everyone, that includes our parents and it includes ourself. So, but because our parents are so basic to the way we feel about ourselves, and our parents and our upbringing and all the things that happen to us, we need to forgive and release the negative responses and negative reactions that we have in our own heart about it all, and that takes a conscious effort. But like Maharajji said, through the repetition of the name, everything is achieved. Through the repetition of the name, you will have a deeper awareness of yourself. You won’t be so attached to your reactions. You won’t be so attached to your stories that you tell yourself about yourself, that you don’t like,

Call and Response Ep. 63 Hanuman, How Chanting Heals Q: Can you tell us a story about Hanuman? Any story. “There are certain things that we need that, that Being that is Hanuman allows us to realize in our lives to get what we want. Why shouldn’t we have what we want? God is not your mother telling you, “You can’t have that.” That’s a program. We have desires based on our karmas and many of those desires are good for us to fulfill. Some of them are not. Hanuman boosts up the ones that are positive and removes the ones that are negative.” – Krishna Das Q: Can you tell us a story about Hanuman? Any story. KD: What’s that? Q: Tell us a story about Hanuman. Any story. KD: Well, stories you can read in books. For us, when we got to India, we noticed that Maharajji’s devotees considered to be Hanuman in the body. Considered Him to be a manifestation of Hanuman.  When we talk about these things, it’s very difficult to talk about these things correctly. And even Maharajji used to say, “They say Hanuman’s a monkey.” Hanuman is the flow of grace in the universe. It’s the flow of connection between the individual soul and the supreme soul. The nature of those two supposed things is not different. The Atma is not different than the Paramatma in its quality, except that it’s limited to an individual reflection. For instance, the moon is reflected in many different lakes and pools. It’s exactly the same moon. It’s exactly the same reflection. But it’s limited in some way. That’s the soul. The personal individual soul. And a lake is like a mirror. It reflects the light of the moon, which itself is a mirror reflecting the light of the sun. So, if that lake is covered with leaves and stuff, you can’t see any moon in the lake. Hanuman is what removes those leaves. That dirt on the mirror of the heart. It’s the flow of love, the flow of grace. Hanuman is considered to be the remover of obstacles, the destroyer of problems and suffering. And also, the bestower of the very things we need to get on with our lives. There’s a sloka in Sanskrit which I don’t remember, but it said, “Not only does Hanuman bestow liberation by uniting the Atma with the Paramatma or removing… and he does that by removing the dust on the mirror, not only does He do that, but He also makes it possible for us to satisfy the desires that we have that need to be satisfied.” We’re hungry people. We’re hungry beings. We need to eat. We need to sleep. We need to do a bunch of things. Which I won’t talk about here. And if we don’t do those things, we’re frustrated, and we don’t, our energy doesn’t flow. So, there are certain things that we need that, that Being that is Hanuman allows us to realize in our lives to get what we want. Why shouldn’t we have what we want? God is not your mother telling you, “You can’t have that.” That’s a program. We have desires based on our karmas and many of those desires are good for us to fulfill. Some of them are not. Hanuman boosts up the ones that are positive and removes the ones that are negative. That’s what they say. Here’s a story you won’t like. It’s from the Valmiki Ramayana. There’s many different versions of the story of Ram, which is called the Ramayana. So, in the Valmiki, which is the original, Seetha, Rama’s wife, was stolen by the demon Ravana. Seetha is the individual soul. Ram is the Supreme soul. Ravana is the ego. So, He steals the shakti. But He can’t mate with it, because He’s cursed. That if He tries to mate with a woman who doesn’t want Him, His heads will explode. He had ten heads. Every one of them will explode. So, He has to kind of seduce the soul into falling in love with Him, which is impossible. So, anyway, at some point in the story, Hanuman goes, all the monkeys go out to try to find Seetha and Hanuman jumps over the ocean and He gets to Ravana’s kingdom and He’s cruising around looking for Seetha. And one of the places He winds up looking is in Ravana,

Taking time to look back and move forward. Conversations With KD episodes are derived from the recordings of KD’s online events from his home during the 2020/ 2021 days of social distancing and quarantine from the onset of COVID and beyond. Call and Response Special Edition Conversations With KD August 1 2020 “One must try to get what one needs in life. One can not refuse to enter the fight because by doing that, you’ve given up. And if you think you can find God or find real love or be liberated without going through the battle, you’re dreaming. It’s only through getting into the fight, getting into the battle, the battle to be real and be present regardless of what’s going on in the emotional or outside world. That’s the battle, and if we don’t get involved in the battle, we will not be able to ever find any peace of mind or find any real love. We have to get in there and fight so we can see what our issues are.” – Krishna Das Q: My question is, I was doing one of your courses from your website, and I saw a story where Maharajji asked you to perform puja of your mother when she was at the airport going back home. Yeah. I have a mother and an elder sister. I have a hard time connecting to them. Whatever you did, whatever Maharajji asked you to do with your mom at the airport, how did at affect your relationship with your mother? Whatever it was, it wasn’t instant, really. My mother and I had a, we had a difficult relationship, mostly, until towards the end of her life. Then we got much closer. He brought her to India in order to purify the karmas between us and to help her, of course, but to also help me. And the puja in the airport was interesting, because many years later there, it was in the middle of the airport… in those days, It was just like an airport hangar in Delhi. At the airport in Delhi in ‘72 was like a cow shed. There’s nothing wrong with that. Sometimes there are flying cows also. So, there I was. She gave the camera, her camera to somebody and I, he told me I had to get down on my knees. He told me I had to get down on my knees. So, I did the arati with the lamp and I said a couple of mantras, and when I look at the picture that was taken at that moment, the look on her face was so extraordinary. I tell you, she looked like the goddess Durga. The love that was coming from her at that moment, when she was looking at me there, she never looked like that. That was the only moment in her life that she looked like that. It was amazing. He had really done a lot for her, really helped her a lot. Although, she had been, she was an alcoholic and she had, at that particular time I don’t think, yeah, she had been through a round or two already of rehab at that point. And then even after she went back, once again, she still had a hard time, went through another rehab, and then finally the last 20 years of her life or more, she was not drinking. So, he really, I believe that was by his grace because there was some kind of karmic black hole in her soul, which I have had, the same thing, have the same thing. And he saved her and then he saved me also from addiction. But as far as my relationship, it was very difficult. So, what can you do? You don’t have to sit down in front of your mother, kneel down and do puja, but you do have to look inside of yourself and start to release all the negativity around your relationship with her. You know, in Buddhism, they make a really big point of recognizing that your mother is the most important being in your life, because our mothers carried us for nine months in their own bodies. We’re made up mostly of her body and a little bit of our father’s one night stand or whatever, but the father has very little role after just at that first moment. The mother supports us. We live off of her. She feeds us inside of herself, and if we’re here today,

Call and Response Ep. 62 The Spiritual Heart, Addiction, Longing Q: I was curious to hear about your experience with your sobriety… “If I had to fight with my desire for drugs, I would have lost. That’s the deal. That’s the way I was made. If it had been up to me, every day to fight that desire, I couldn’t have done it. I just, you know, I’m being honest with you. So, I have such respect and honor so much the people who really do have to work with that every day and do work with it. Whether they’re successful every day or not. It’s a fierce battle for survival. And it’s very difficult. And truly, I don’t think anybody can do it on their own. I think if a person is doing it, it’s coming out of some kind of spiritual strength, inner strength which is not ego-based. Which is not based in the separate self, it’s based in the real self and that real self, your own self, your own true nature, is strengthening you to fight that battle.” – Krishna Das KD: Anybody? Q: Over here. KD: Hi. Q: Hi. There’s some talk in quantum physics community or whatever, for really some years now, maybe 10, 15, 20 years that consciousness is non-local and we are more like satellite dishes and it’s about, you know, your thoughts or absence thereof would be more about tuning into different channels, so to speak, almost like the radio. Like you get tuned to the channel of love or you know, or you could get caught in some just train of thought that is just in the vicinity or just happens to, you know, tune or something and then you could choose to maybe change it if you’re able. I don’t know. Have you heard anything about that? I was just curious if that resonates or anything like that. KD: Well, Ramana Maharshi who was one of the greatest saints that ever lived, said that, like you say, “Consciousness is everywhere all the time,” but there’s one spot in the body where we connect to it. It’s called the hridayam or the spiritual heart. But it’s not the heart chakra, He says. It’s on the other side, He says. I don’t say because I don’t know. So, that’s what He said. And there’s like a little kind of thing that connects us to the universal consciousness and that, the seed of that consciousness is here and when the body dies then that connection, obviously, dies with it. The body is no longer connected to consciousness. It’s just what it usually is, as in, inert. The light goes off. The light was not in there. It wasn’t coming from the body. It was coming from the connection to the light, so to speak. That’s what He says. Q: That’s beautiful. KD: And He says, “That’s the seat of the Self.” That’s where the Atma, the connection to the Paramatma, the Supreme Being, the individual connection is there through that spot. Q: Beautiful. Thank you. KD: Yeah. There’s one over here. Why are you sitting out there?   Q: Hi. I asked you a couple questions yesterday. KD: Good because I don’t remember. Q: It’s ok. I gave you a high five on the beach… and I, instead of asking you about that, I asked you other questions and it was just kind of, I was curious to hear about your experience with your sobriety and like, the longevity you have there, like that, and your relationship to… KD: I don’t think of myself as sober. Q: Ok. Yeah, I just want to hear it because I’m going to be coming up on 12 years. KD: Yeah. Good. Q: And I don’t really… my relationship with it has changed over the years. In the beginning I was like, proud of it, and now it’s just become part of my lifestyle and I just thought I’d ask you KD: Sure. When I say, “I don’t think of myself as sober,” it’s not, in other words, it’s not a way I identify myself, in that way. But, in fact, I am sober. Very sober. Sober and boring. For many years. And sometime in the 80’s I was strung out on freebase cocaine for about a year and a half and I was going down.

Taking time to look back and move forward. Conversations With KD episodes are derived from the recordings of KD’s online events from his home during the 2020/ 2021 days of social distancing and quarantine from the onset of COVID and beyond. Call and Response Special Edition Conversations With KD July 25 2020 “Hanuman is a being that not only liberates us, gives us freedom, but he allows us to satisfy the desires that we have that will be useful to us in progressing in life. It is not a renunciant sannysasi path. This is a path very much in the world, seeing God everywhere in everyone, not just in one little place, but seeing, being in the world and yet not of the world. So, as you do these practices and as you grow, a lot of things will happen, and the main thing is really just to have some humility about the practice itself, you know, to understand that it’s a spiritual practice, regardless of what comes to you in your life.” – Krishna Das That invocation to Hanuman has a secret in it. Those last two verses have this secret. Aanjaneya mati paatalaananam Kaanchanaadri kamaneeya vigraham Then it goes: Paarijaata taru moola vaasinam Bhaavayaami pavamaana nandanam So Hanuman is always sitting at the foot of this tree, lost in love, lost in Ram. Paarijaata taru moola vaasinam Bhaavayaami pavamaana nandanam He’s lost in devotion for Ram. Yatra yatra Raghunaatha keertanam Tatra tatra krita masta kaanjalim Wherever and whenever Ram’s name is sung or spoken, Hanumanji comes there. Whenever and wherever. So one time, Maharajji went up to the, he was in Chitrakoot with some devotees and they went up to the top of this mountain called Hanuman Dhara, and the story is that, after burning Lanka, Hanuman flew to the top of this mountain and hit the ground and a stream of water came out, and in that water, he cooled his body down because he’d become very fierce, and he’d just burnt Lanka. His whole body was, his tail was on fire as he flew around Lanka. He didn’t feel any pain, but he was cranked up. And so, he then flew to this mountain and cooled himself. So Maharajji was sitting there at the spot and he said to Dada, “Dada, this is where Hanumanji came to cool off to calm himself after burning Lanka,” and then kind of under his breath, he just said, “But Hanumanji was always at peace.” So, no matter what he was doing in the outside world, no matter where he was going, what he was doing, he was always at peace. He was always completely in Ram. So this gives us a sense of direction, because no matter what we experience in our daily lives,, it is possible to always be at peace, to always be existing in our natural state, which is peace, which is love. So, every issue that we have dissolves into that peace, into that Ram, into that love, into that space. It’s vast space, huge, vast presence in which everything is held. This is Maharajji’s big form. This is Ram. This is Hanuman at one with Ram. So, this is why we repeat the name. This is why we do practice, so that we can release the stuff that catches us all life long, and trying to find some reality within ourselves, something deeper than our normal everyday experience. Which is why Maharajji said, “Go on repeating the name. Go on repeating the name, even without any feelings of devotion or love, even when you’re tired, even when you’re angry, just go on repeating the name and sooner or later, the grace will manifest. The real Ram will show up.” So, no matter what else is going on in our lives, we really need to be doing some turning within, or we’ll never be able to let go of our stuff. You just can’t. It’s like trying to pick yourself up like this. It can’t be done. You need some leverage to get up. You can’t pick yourself up just with your own strength, with your hands.

Call and Response Ep. 61 Do What You Like, Taking It Personally, As Time Goes By Q:  I go to kirtans. I put in music in my car and I chant and I’ve developed a little bit of a practice. I have a daily sadhana, ultimately because of you… But I’m wondering what it looks like… besides going to kirtan or in my car, (what) do you recommend as part of… a daily sadhana of sitting, like in a meditation pose, and chanting and with music on in the background, that I’m chanting to? Or memorizing various… lines? I’ve memorized a few. “Do what you like. Find out what it is that you like. You’re the only one who knows. Somebody can give you suggestions. Somebody can order you to do things. Somebody can tell you to do things. Somebody can say, “Don’t do this, don’t do that.” Fine. If that feels right to you. See, that’s what’s happening anyway. Even if somebody tells you something, you’re agreeing to either do it or not do it, for whatever reason. It might be you like to be punished, so you can do what you don’t like. I tried that for about 50 years. So, really, in all seriousness, the whole thing is to trust yourself.” – Krishna Das Q:  First, thank you for your music and being you and I’ve told you before, but I guess your music and you really changed my life, ultimately. KD: Mine, too. Q: And so, I do have a question. The practicality that, the actual on-the-ground practicality of chanting, I hear from others, just chant, chant the names. Well, I go to kirtans. I put in music in my car and I chant and I’ve developed a little bit of a practice. I have a daily sadhana ultimately because of you and my yoga. But I’m wondering what it looks like besides going to kirtan or in my car. And I chant and I’ve developed a little bit of a practice. But I’m wondering what it looks like, besides going to kirtan or in my car, do you recommend as part of like, a daily sadhana of sitting, like in a meditation pose, and chanting and with music on in the background, that I’m chanting to? Or memorizing various, you know, lines? I’ve memorized a few. KD: I’m going to give you the secret teaching here. You ready? Do what you like. You have to find out what you like, what works for you, what you want to do, and do it. Don’t do what you don’t like. See how that feels. You might not do what you don’t like and feel bad. So, then you’d better do something. It’s up to you. What does it matter what I say? If I say something, then you’ll do it, maybe, and say “Ah, he’s full of shit, it didn’t work. I’m not going to do that. Good. Do what you like. Find out what it is that you like. You’re the only one who knows. Somebody can give you suggestions. Somebody can order you to do things. Somebody can tell you to do things. Somebody can say, “Don’t do this, don’t do that.” Fine. If that feels right to you. See, that’s what’s happening anyway. Even if somebody tells you something, you’re agreeing to either do it or not do it, for whatever reason. It might be you like to be punished, so you can do what you don’t like. I tried that for about 50 years. So, really, in all seriousness, the whole thing is to trust yourself. Learn how to find what works for you. Now, of course, there are many traditional, many lineages and many teachings already available that have worked for somebody, maybe many “somebody’s”, that doesn’t mean it’s going to work for you right now. It doesn’t mean it’s right for you right now. Only you know. Who else would know? Q: Thank you. _____________ Q: Hello, Krishna Das. KD: Where are you? Hi. Q: I met you before Jivamukti out in the desert out in California and I’d seen you moping. I saw you. I get it. KD: Sometimes I mope just to make people look at me. They feel sorry for me, you know, and then they give me stuff and they’re nice to me. Q: It was all you. It was real and I get it. And we’re both from Long Island and we’ve got the same schtick. KD: Well,

Taking time to look back and move forward. Conversations With KD episodes are derived from the recordings of KD’s online events from his home during the 2020/ 2021 days of social distancing and quarantine from the onset of COVID and beyond. Call and Response Special Edition Conversations With KD July 18 2020 “The only answers that you need have to come from you. There’s no shortcut there. You have to listen to your own heart about what you want to do and what you need to do, and then you have to have the courage to go do it, if that’s what it takes.” – Krishna Das The bottom line is that no matter what the issue is, no matter what the suffering is, the real pain is in the mind, because that’s how we’re reacting to the physical, if there is physical issues, and if it’s mental issues, it’s also the way we react, and the only way to overcome or transcend or thin out or leave behind those reactions is to be able to invoke a deeper place within us, the presence of the love that lives within us, in whatever form opens your heart to that; counseling, therapy, talking; every other kind of assistance one can get. All they do is, they help us to let go. And the greatest help that we can get is to train ourselves, to release the stuff and move more deeply into our own hearts and into our own being. So, Maharajji always said, “Constant repetition of God’s name, even without feelings of devotion, in anger or lethargy, brings out His grace.” And once this is realized, then there’s no misunderstanding about anything anymore. There’s no… True faith and true understanding arises. But to reach that point, now, this is me, to reach that point where we actually have that experience, it takes some work on our path, on our part. We have to align ourselves, first with the real intention to overcome suffering, the intention to understand where it comes from, and the practice to build up the internal muscles to be able to let go. You can’t let go of something unless you have something else to hold on to. So, we hold on to the repetition of the Name and to, eventually the realization that brings to us directly, to us, ourselves, within us. We hold on to that and then it becomes easier to let go of this stuff. So, I guess that’s the deal. See ya. Q: Hi Krishna Das.  How are you doingn? Did Maharajji ever speak to unscrupulous teachers and… well, let me… a little background, I received the teachings of yoga for the last three years from someone that I just found out was abusing their power as a teacher among my friends and other, and colleagues and my sangha, and my work now is to separate the teaching from the teacher, I think. That’s what I’m trying to do, and what you just opened with is definitely something I can do. But I don’t, I’ve heard you speak about it before, but I thought it was never gonna happen to me. So, I didn’t really pay attention. So, your yoga teacher has been abusing his or her position as teacher? Well, regardless of what kind of abuse it is, if it’s something that doesn’t feel right to you, yoga teachers are, there’s like 40 yoga studios on every block. Go somewhere else. Like Starbucks. Yeah. Oh yeah. I’m definitely going to myself. It’s no reflection on you that it hurts, that you were part of that group. What do you want to know? You did the right thing. You left. So, you leave those people to do whatever they have to do. Some people find it hard to recognize abuse and some people find abuse everywhere. So, it’s really up to you, what your experience is with the situation, how you feel about it, and whatever karmas this person has created, they’ll be living through that for a long time. So, there’s no reason for us to be angry, because anger just destroys whatever we have to offer and whateve...

Call and Response Ep. 60 Gurus, Programs and Practice “We’re training ourselves to release whatever it is that is pushing us around. It’s not easy to see what it is because we’re being pushed from behind. It’s the shadows in our hearts, the dark corners in our hearts that push us around. So, it’s not easy to see the programs. That’s why, when we sit down to practice, we just keep letting go of anything that pulls us out of that moment of what we’re trying to do, and then come back.” – Krishna Das So, the poem I was looking for was by Rumi. A Sufi poet. Great poet. One of the Great Beings. It’s called “Love Dogs,” and I’m going to ruin it, but I’ll do the best I can. So, it starts off, “One night, a man was praying, ‘Allah, Allah’ and his lips grew sweet with the chanting. And then a cynic walked by and said, ‘Why are you calling out? You never get an answer.’ And the man was struck by that and thought, ‘He’s right.’ So, he stopped praying. And that night, he had a dream in which the guide of souls came to him and said, ‘Why did you stop praying?’ ‘Because I never got an answer.’ He said, ‘The calling out is the answer.’ He said, ‘You hear that moan of the dog crying for its Master? That’s the connection.’” So, the idea is probably that we’re already being called from within to move more deeply into our own true nature, the love that lives within us as who we really are and when we respond, either through a spiritual practice or through caring for others or kindness to others or doing good in the world, we’re actually answering the call of our own hearts. This isn’t something that comes from the outside. We’re not being, there’s no manipulation in love and love is what lives within us so the whole path is to learn to pay attention to our inner hearts and to do that, we have to learn to trust ourselves and listen to ourselves and honor our own truth, our own feelings, whatever they are. You can’t pretend to be who you’re not. It won’t work. So, really, one of the things that spiritual practice does, it gives us the strength to, little by little, overcome the programs that are running within us that tell us we’re not enough, that tell us we’re not worthy of love, that tell us that we can’t love, that things are not all right and will never be all right. And those programs run all the time. So, practice takes some of the energy away from those programs, little by little. If it happens too fast, they put you away. Right? I said, “Right?” All right, anybody have anything to say? Raise your hand and you’ll be punished. You’re going to make me talk more? Yesterday we were talking about Gurus and sometimes I can get a little bit cranky when we talk about Gurus. Because everybody, ok, just a second… everybody thinks I got started already, you can’t stop me. What’s that? Oh, you have it? I ruined it already, thank you. Q: Hello, Krishna Das KD: Wait, wait. I’m in the middle of something here. I’m in a program. Don’t kill it. So, yeah, I get cranky about it because I guess I have issues myself with physical Guru and the inner Guru because when I was with Maharajji physically, that was it for me. I didn’t want to be anywhere else, ever. That was home. I got home somehow. I tripped and fell and I was home. But, there was still all this stuff inside of me, uncooked seeds, so to speak. Uncooked desires. Desires that were calling out to be fulfilled and to live through. So, after 2 and a half years in India with Him, and He kept me there. He made it, He actually kept me there. One time, I was at Dada’s house in Allahabad, one of Maharajji’s great old devotees and my Visa, I had a tourist Visa and I had gotten one extension so I had been there about six months and… maybe I got it wrong… but anyway, I had to go and do, get another Visa, extend my Visa so I could stay but I knew that if I went back to this place, they would probably send me back to America. But I had to go.

Taking time to look back and move forward. Conversations With KD episodes are derived from the recordings of KD’s online events from his home during the 2020/ 2021 days of social distancing and quarantine from the onset of COVID and beyond. Call and Response Special Edition Conversations With KD July 2 2020 “All chants are useful. All practice is useful. If it’s not COVID, it’s the fact that you’re going to die of something else, but you don’t pay attention to that. COVID is just making you aware of that in a very nasty way. But yes, death is a part of life. We live every day as if it’s never going to touch us, we’re never going to get sick, we’re never going to die. We just go on piling shit up, getting more stuff. This situation has faced everybody with impermanence, as they say, which is one of the signs of samsara, of the world, that things are impermanent and changing, and it’s a very painful lesson for us, all of us. No question about it. “ – Krishna Das Namaste. Howdy everybody. We’re here again. Still here. So, let’s recognize that even though we can’t see each other physically, we are still in the same space together, the space of the heart, the sky of the heart, where we always are together. All we need to do is remember to look. One of the words for chanting is “bhajan,” which means “to remember,” one of the meanings of the word. So, we were trying to remember to remember. So many of the great saints that I met in India, and even up to this day, all talk about the practice of the repetition of the name and how, how effective it is, and how it’s the real practice for this age. It’s the easiest way to overcome the tendencies we have in our minds and hearts and the programs that run behind the scenes all the time telling us that we’re not enough, we’re no good, we’ll never get what we want, we’ll never be happy. So, you’ll notice how difficult it is to actually pay attention when you’re singing. You might feel good. You might feel bad. But whatever it is you feel, you should keep the awareness on the presence of the name, on the sound of the name, because that’s what will take us deeper into ourself. We don’t want to go sideways. We don’t want to, it’s not all about what you’re experiencing when you do this practice. All the saints say, all the yogis say that when you’re sitting down, that’s not the only time that the practice is important. It resonates through the day, and when you’re not looking, something arises from within, some understanding, some new way of seeing something will come from inside, and in these particular times now, when it’s, we’re all faced with our mind and our stuff right in front of us, and our emotions all day long, it’s big time stuff. So, this is the most important thing. Practice during this period will bring great fruits to our life, because we are so reactive most of the day, reading the papers, talking to people who are suffering, and our own unhappiness, our own suffering. So, this is the time to plant those seeds. All right, let’s take some questions. Here’s a long question. Q:  Though the mind can play its own games and have its own irrelevant theories, what does your heart tell you about what Maharajji said about appearing in the body in America? I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but in the old days, Maharajji said, “I’ll come to you, I’ll come with you to America.” So, we said to him, “Yes, we’ll bring you in our hearts.” And he said, “Nay! In the body.” Well, I’m still waiting. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t been here. It just means I didn’t see him. So, you know, there’s no way of capturing him, no way at all, but if you see him, please let me know.

Call and Response Ep. 59 Real Love Q: I just wanted to ask you if you believe in true love and whether you find or think that personally you have experienced True Love. That’s my question. Thank you. “Love with a capital ‘L’ is a different thing. It’s not an emotion. It’s not a feeling like an emotion. It’s the whole universe. It’s very big. It’s vast presence. It’s like the sky of the Mind in which everything exists. It’s… outside of which there can be nothing, outside of real love. Everyone is included. Love is looking out of our eyes right now. Each one of us. Right now. Love is looking out of our eyes. But we don’t see the love. We see the stuff. We don’t see what’s looking. We only see what the looking sees.” – Krishna Das  Q: Krishna Das, I’m an old hippie from Haight-Asbhury and I turned 70 last year and I’m proud to say that, for the last 31 years, I have had a very strong practice in Sivananda Yoga and the hour that I do every weekday morning is the rock of my life and as a result of that, I’m finding that I’m able to sustain longer periods of bliss consciousness. I think that’s a direct result of my practice. But lovely ex-wife gave me your Kirtan Wallah cd two or three years ago. I have it in the car. I listen to it all the time. I sing along with all the words. I drive along through the English roads singing my lungs out to your wonderful music and what I find with your music is it brings me into Bliss Consciousness almost immediately. And I wanted to thank you for that. It’s a wonderful wonderful gift. And I think the result of those two things, four or five years ago, I found, I fell into a new relationship, funnily enough with an Indian woman named Saraswati. So, the Goddess has smiled on me, largely thanks to your music. But I do have an important question to ask you, which I hope will be of interest to everybody else. Because I think we are all looking for the One. We’re all looking for our Soul Mate. And I just wanted to ask you if you believe in true love and whether you find or think that personally you have experienced True Love. That’s my question. Thank you. KD: I’ve definitely experienced true love up to the limit that I could experience it, and that’s with my Guru. And His people who are rooted in real love, they just emanate that. So, definitely. Up to the amount that I’m karmically able to feel at this moment, I felt that with Maharajji. I feel that with Maharajji all the time. Anytime. So, if that’s your question, consider it answered. If it’s not, you can continue. Q: I’m very happy with your answer. Thank you so much and thank you for your wonderful music. KD: You’re welcome. I was very much in love with a woman, more than once, but one time, this one particular one, and I was with my Indian father who was a great yogi. I mean, just extraordinary yogi. He was involved in the world. He was a headmaster of a very prestigious school. He had a large family, children, grandchildren. But he was, had been with Maharajji for 40 years and he was just extraordinary. He seemed to know everything. So, I was telling him about this woman and I was going on and on and on for awhile, and he was listening. Finally, I stopped and he said, “My boy.” He said, “Relationships are business. Do your business. Do your business. Enjoy.” He said, “But love? Love is what lasts 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Love is our true Being.” You don’t get it from somebody. You don’t give it to anybody. Everybody already has it. I hated him. It took me a year to get over my anger at him for destroying my bubble. Breaking my bubble. Relationships are wonderful. I mean, they are probably the way we can learn the most about ourselves. Human relationships. We’re in relationship to everything all the time. But human relationships between people are really such a powerful of seeing ourselves and seeing our stuff and when you develop a real friendship with someone,

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 June 25 2020 “There’s a way that even through this camera and the computer and the internet, we actually are connecting in a very deep place, and so little by little one learns to be more aware of the places that we are connected and the way we are connected, and those emotions, which once seemed so huge, don’t seem so huge anymore.” – Krishna Das I’m going to read you something. As you know, this practice that we’re doing is called “The repetition of the divine name or names.” In India, in the east, they understand that the Supreme being is beyond all form, but actually embraces all form as well. So, they said, there’s an unlimited amount, number of names of God, and that every being has divinity within them, their soul, the soul, that reflection. That ray of light that lights up every being is the same in all of us. Each one of us has that same ray of light. So, a great Saint named Sri Anandamayi Ma, wrote this: “At all times the repetition of the Lord’s name should be kept up. Through the practice of the Name, enjoyment, liberation, peace, all these will blossom forth. Invoke him by the name that appeals to you most for as much time as you can. The longer, the better. In this way you will, at some auspicious moment, discover the rosary of the mind, the Mala of the mind, the beads of the mind, and then you will continually hear within yourself the praises of the great master, the Lord of creation, like the never ceasing music of the boundless ocean. You will hear the land and the sea, the air in the heavens reverberate with the song of his glory. This is called ‘The all-pervading presence of the name.’” That’s why I always say, just do the practice and live your life. It’s not up to us to make something happen. All we’re doing is trying to tune into that place where it’s already happening within us. Remember, try not to attract, don’t get caught in trying to manipulate yourself into one particular type of experience that you feel might be blissful, et cetera, et cetera. Through the practice of the repetition of the name, the presence within us is uncovered. That presence is always here, but we’re not looking. We are not paying attention. Through this practice of the repetition of the name, we’re continually invoking that place within us. Q: It’s wonderful chanting with you this way, but I find myself missing the ecstatic moments of chant together in person when the energy and excitement really heat up. Do I miss that? I miss chanting with people, but probably not for that reason. It’s a wonderful experience to be in a room full of people, everybody chanting, and to feel, hear the name, and to feel the presence more deeply. When you chant, the idea is to focus on the name itself. The name is the name of your true nature, of the place within you that is joy, happiness, peace, bliss, the kind of bliss that doesn’t come and go. It’s the kind of bliss that you are. One can’t see it from here. It’s covered up. So, if you’re desiring a certain type of experience while you’re chanting, then you’re looking for that experience and you’re not looking at the name itself. The name is a door. We’re in a room full of stuff. We’ve been playing with stuff our whole lives, a little bit of this, a little bit of that, too much of this, less of that. I’ll take this. I’ll throw that away, playing with ways to feed our senses and feed ourselves pleasurable experiences. The name is a door out of that room into real love,