Call and Response with Krishna Das

Call and Response Special Edition – Conversations With KD April 11, 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. “It’s very difficult time. So, it’s a good time to be kind to yourself and allow what is to be for now. This is the moment you have. You don’t have any other moments. Now is what you have. 10 minutes from that will be now… What happens three years from now, you don’t know, but now is the time that you have to try to relax about all these issues that you have in your life and in your emotions, come to peace with them, greet them, get to know them. Stop judging yourself so harshly for feeling these things. Stop judging yourself harshly for not having what you think you should have. ‘Maybe I’m not good enough. Maybe I don’t have what it takes for this to happen for me.’ This would be a good time to let the sting of all those kinds of stories dissipate a little bit and don’t believe them so strongly every minute of every day. Right now, you can’t do much about anything. We’re stuck at home. We have our minds to deal with, and it’s our minds that all the suffering comes from; our minds, our emotions and our stuff.” – Krishna Das I’ve been traveling for 25 years, almost nonstop. Which of course I love to do, and I love to sing with people, but I can actually spend a whole day now without worrying what’s going in the suitcase. It’s amazing. Because usually I have to travel, and I’ll go through two or three different climates. Right? So, I take two suitcases and the harmonium, wherever I go. And if I never came back home again, I’d have everything I need for the rest of my life. Now, having all this space around me, I have time to clean my room. I’ve been cleaning for weeks. I haven’t made a dent. Well, what do you want to do? What do you want to talk about? You know, trying very hard to achieve some particular kind of state of consciousness or some kind of feeling that we think we’ll be able to hold onto, that’s not really the best, beset plan. What we need to really cultivate is the ability to live with whatever shows up in our, in our life in the moment. When I was younger, when I was, and I was in India with Maharajji and every day when we’d come out in the afternoon, he would come out to sit with us. I’d take a bath, cold water bucket bath, put on some clean clothes and come out and sit in front of him, and one day I laughed almost out loud because I saw that I was waiting for something to happen, you know? And I realized, every time I sang, every time I meditated, every time I did any kind of practice, there was a program running behind, like waiting for something, waiting for it to happen. And that moment, sitting with him, I laughed because I realized, wait a minute, it’s already happened. I’m here. And I realized I had this, this idea that liberation, freedom, Nirvana, ultimate bliss was, when I would get that, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be there when that was here. I wouldn’t be there. And I laughed because I recognize that that moment, there will not be billionth of a second that I will not be here, that you would not be here, but we get washed away and blown around by the winds of this and that, and the waves of this and that. And so, we don’t recognize that we’re always here. It would be like the ocean thinking that it’s a wave only and every time the wave crashes and tries to hold on to that wave and then it crashes and disappears or grabs onto another one. But the ocean is always there, regardless of how many waves come and go. Q: Hi everyone.

Call and Response Special Edition – Conversations With KD April 09, 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. “One has to set boundaries. They have to be healthy boundaries and we’re not really trained to do that. We’re not really trained. We’re not trained, as children, to have healthy boundaries. Our parents tend to step all over our boundaries and not respect us. We’re trained to do that in life. So, it’s very difficult. So, when we talk about letting go, let’s first talk about it as practice. So, while we’re actually doing the meditation practice, while we’re chanting, that’s when we train ourselves to let go, because we’ve added the mantra into our consciousness and we’ve agreed that we’re going to try to pay attention to that. So that helps us be aware when we’re lost in thought. When we become aware that we’ve been gone, we’re actually already back. We come back to the mantra again. The rest of the day we try to be kind and compassionate and good to ourselves as well by setting healthy boundaries.” – Krishna Das Satsang is so important. You know, Buddha asked one of His disciples, I think it was Ananda, once,  “Ananda, what’s the most important thing in spiritual life?” And I think Ananda answered to Him, you know, “You are. The Buddha. Without you there’s no life at all.” Buddha said, “No, Ananda. Satsang or Sangha is the most important thing. The community of seekers.” The community of Beings who have gone to the other shore, so to speak, and yet remained here for us so that we would know what’s possible, so we would get a taste. And then the group of us who are trying to find where our asses are actually meeting the ground. So, company is very important. The company you keep is very important. And, it’s something that one has to keep paying attention to in life, no matter how far along you might think you are. One time, in Allahabad at Dada’s house, who was a great old devotee of Maharajji, I guess I was reverencing him a little too much, you know. So, at one point, he stopped and looked at me. He said, “Krishna Das, I may be a step or two ahead of you and you may be a step or two of someone else,” he said, “but we’re all on this shore. We’re all on this side of the ocean of samsara, this side of the world. Only He’s gone beyond. Only Maharajji has gone beyond.” So, what does it matter? You know? One has to live in one’s heart as best as one can and try not to take everything so personally. We all take everything so personally, as if it was aimed at us. But really, if we really look, we see that what we thought might be aimed at us or even caused by us in some way or degree, is really just someone’s suffering bursting out of them in all directions. It’s another person’s unhappiness, anxiety, fears, shame. Something motivating, creating that anger or that nastiness that happens in life. But we take it all so personally so it’s very hard to release it, you know? Very hard to release it. Very hard. And especially when we’re locked up like this with people, even that we love. Things get antsy every once in a while. So, we just have to keep letting go. That’s the whole thing. Letting go, letting go, letting go. Letting go allows us to be the best people we can be. It doesn’t mean “not engaging.” It means being able to really engage. Letting go of our subjective bullshit, our completely personal subjective version of reality. When we chant, we’re training ourselves to keep coming back to the sound of the Name, the sound of the Name. Let me see if I have something here that I want to read to you. “When a mantra is repeated, if one watches the source from which the mantra sound is produced, the mind is absorbed in That.”

Call and Response Special Edition – Conversations With KD April 02, 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. “You know, all this craziness in the world is our doing. Nobody else is doing this. It’s us. We human beings are doing this. All of us. So, we human beings can change it. But not everybody believes that. Not everybody believes that there’s a better way to live. Most people live in fear, shame, guilt and selfishness and greed. And that’s what drives us and when we’re in that mode, it’s us and them and we’ll do anything we have to to protect ourselves and our small circle of people. That’s the kind of thinking that kind of has to go. It has to loosen up a little. Will it happen? I don’t know. I hope so. “ – Krishna Das It’s amazing how connected I feel these days. Every time I turn my computer on, there’s forty people checking in or putting up something online. It’s really amazing. All my Lamas from, living in Nepal, they’re online today and every day there’s teachings, so many teachings available, it’s incredible. So, really plug into those if you’re home, instead of sitting around worrying and panicking. It’s wonderful to get these teachings from these wonderful Beings, these Great Beings. It’s extraordinary. So, we’re here. The same place. The next week. And next week. And next week. And next week. The chanting is so important to overcome the habits of thought, the way we, we shutter ourself inside this dark, this dark room that we call ourselves, our emotions. It’s just, we’re brought up that way. Our parents were that way. Our grandparents were that way. It’s very rare that we meet people in our growing-up phase that are at all really plugged into something really deep, you know? It happens. But so, it’s extraordinary. You know when I was first getting interested in this stuff, there were like three books on yoga and meditation.  There wasn’t, I don’t even think there was any yoga studios anywhere. Maybe a few people teaching yoga here and there. So, now so much is available and we need it, as you know. We need it and it’s there. So, use this time to get deeper into your own being and to open your heart and let go of fear and embrace feeling, wishing this world and everybody in it, well. Breaking down the barriers that we have: shame and fear and sadness and betrayal and broken hearts and all that stuff. We’ve got to get over that stuff. We’ve got to digest it. You can’t push it away but we’ve got to digest it and use it as fuel, as food to move on into a deeper, a deeper love. And the chanting, it’s just so powerful, too, because either you’re paying attention or you’re not. It becomes very obvious to you. So, every time you’re not, you keep coming back. And little by little, there’s a, you know, when you drive towards the ocean, like out in L.A.,  on the Pacific Palisades and you’re driving towards the ocean and the windows were open in the car and I went, “Oh… I smell the ocean.” Just then there’s a street, what was it called? I forget, but it was like, you could, that street was where you could smell the ocean and then you know you’re moving in the right direction. So, as we do these practices, as we chant and meditate, pray and do whatever we do, we touch that place where we can, we can taste it just a little bit. We can smell that fragrance of sweetness just a little bit. You can’t hold onto it. But you cultivate it through your practice. So, let me see, there’s some questions here. Q: How does Ram Das come to me now? You know, I can’t even say it’s a memory. It’s not a memory at all. It’s a living presence. He’s so, he’s such a natural part of me.  We bonded so deeply towards the end and especially in these last years,

Call and Response Ep. 42 Only Jesus Died the Real Death Question: He, so the thing that kind of like I had an epiphany about was He never died, the part about Jesus, you know, “I never died.” I had that experience with Jesus, when He said, “I never died.” Could you say a little bit more about somebody who never died, and that whole idea? “States of mind have their own qualities. Now, heaven is a state of mind. It’s not a place that you go to. Where are you going to go? How are you going to get there? Right? So, it’s a state of mind. When you’re in it, it’s eternal. That’s why it feels like heaven. “It will always be like this.” Pleasure, beautiful pleasure, unending pleasure, the world of the Gods. Heaven. The lower Gods. The devatas. Indra and the whole posse. But then there’s also hell, which they also say is eternal. But it’s not like it lasts forever. It only lasts as long as your karma puts you there. And when you’re there, it feels eternal. That’s why it feels so bad. It’s always going to be like this. It’s like our normal depression states. We think they’re going to last forever, but then they’re gone after ten or fifteen years. Or until we meet somebody else that knows how to push the right buttons. So, He lost himself in love. That’s how Maharajji said Jesus meditated. He didn’t watch His breath. He didn’t stand on one toe. He lost Himself in love. He immersed Himself fully in the love that surrounds us all the time. That lives within us. That’s who we really are.” – Krishna Das   Q: Namaste, beloved. It’s Karuna. KD: Hold on, louder please. Just want to get the sound right. Q: This question has to do with your Guru, Maharajji and the story that you shared at another workshop. It has to do with somebody who came in, a Canadian who came in and ask Maharajji how to meditate. And Maharajji said, “Meditate like Jesus.” And then, the Canadian asked, how would he meditate like Jesus. And then Maharajji closed His eyes, almost as if He went to ask Jesus how He meditate, and a tear, you said a tear came out of His eyes and Maharajji said, “He’s lost in love. He never died.” KD: He loved everyone. Q: yeah. So, He, so the thing that kind of like I had an epiphany about was He never died, the part about Jesus, you know, “I never died.” I had that experience with Jesus, when He said, “I never died.” Could you say a little bit more about somebody who never died, and that whole idea? KD: Everyone in a body, dies. The bodies die. But the Being doesn’t die. The real Being doesn’t die. Jesus left His body, but He never died. There’s a difference. You don’t think you’re think you’re the body, do you? I didn’t think so. In that case, you have nothing to worry about. You won’t die. But you will watch the body go. Because that’s inevitable. One time, Maharajji said, “I’m really old.” I’m like, what? You know? What does He mean by that? You know? And there’s stories about, for instance, one time, we were in Allahabad at one of the devotees’ houses. His name was Dada, which is also funny because Maharajji called him “Dada,” and “Dada” means “elder brother” and then Maharajji insisted that Dada’s wife call him “Dada.” And she said, “He’s not my elder brother.” Maharajji said, “If he’s my Dada, he’s your Dada.” So, she had to call him “Dada.” So, we were singing to Maharajji in the room, in the big room, just singing Sri Ram and He was sitting on the cot, the tucket, they call it. And these two young Indian men came in and sat down in the back of the room. Maharajji saw them and He immediately sent them away. He said, “Go, go, go bring the old lady. Go on, go.” So they left. They came back later and, with a very old woman, and they sat down in the back of the room. The minute they came in, Maharajji got up and He went into His bedroom and He called for them to come in and the old lady’s looking at maharajji and she said, “Baba, how could this be? How could you be here.

Call and Response Ep. 41 Karma and Consciousness, Dealing With Negativity Q: I’ve been putting a lot of emphasis on my mind a lot of my life and to turn that around, I find that quite difficult. I’m a recovered Catholic and I’m trying my best to remove all belief systems. They’re inappropriate. Lately, in trying to find, and this is one of my shortcomings, always the quickest way to get somewhere, and I’m reading quite a few things on YouTube, believe it or not, and I found out that some people believe that there is no such a thing as karma when we reach a certain level of consciousness and I was wondering if this (karma) is a belief system? “It’s real easy to see the atmosphere you create for yourself when you’re kind to people, when you care about people, when you’re someone that’s open to being with people in a good way. Your life becomes simple and filled with good things. Consciousness doesn’t have to be created. It’s here. Always.” – Krishna Das Q: I’ve been putting a lot of emphasis on my mind a lot of my life and to turn that around, I find that quite difficult. I’m a recovered Catholic and I’m trying my best to remove all belief systems. They’re inappropriate. Lately, in trying to find, and this is one of my shortcomings, always the quickest way to get somewhere, and I’m reading quite a few things on YouTube, believe it or not, and I found out that some people believe that there is no such a thing as karma when we reach a certain level of consciousness and I was wondering if this is a belief system KD: A what? A belief system? Q: That karma is a belief system? And at a certain level, our spirit, when it’s very evolved, can create not having karma or is one with the godliness, the essence of godliness, that they, it can create whatever it wants so it certainly doesn’t want karma except, naturally, the good karma. Is there such a thing as being able to remove karma by just creating, being evolved eventually, etcetera. KD: Yeah, if you have good karma. Yeah, so karma, yes, it is a belief system, so to speak. But it’s pretty misunderstood, you know? Karma is actually the key to freedom, because it says, every action has an, every action has an effect, has a, no not necessarily an opposite reaction, not at all, but every action is like a seed that gets planted and that seed will grow, sooner or later. So, if you’re a cranky nasty person treating people bad all the time, you’re thinking always about yourself before others, these are the kind of seeds you’re planting. A lot of happiness doesn’t seem to be able to come from that. If you’re a kind person who’s thinking about others and serving others and taking care of yourself as well, that’s a whole different atmosphere that you’re living in. And in that atmosphere, different things can happen. When you’re living in a very dark, unhappy, cold atmosphere, in a very self-centered kind of way, then you’re creating all those kinds of karmas as well, and the way you’re talking, someone would say, “Well, you have very good karmas, very positive karmas, because you’re already thinking of how to create more freedom, rather than more bondage.” So, even being involved in that process is already very positive, very, there’s sattvic, so to speak, harmonious way of living, because you recognize if you’re treating other people bad all the time, you create a very negative atmosphere about yourself, around yourself, and it’s, it’s not easy to free one’s self from that. And so even, you could say, karma’s just another belief system, like any so-called belief system, but my experience tells me that, regardless of what I think about karma, it seems to be a way of dealing with cause and effect. Because one of the things they say is that nothing can come, nothing can be, exist, without a cause for existence. You know? If you have children, there was a cause for their existence. If you have money, if you have money in life,

Call and Response Ep. 40 Dark Night of the Soul, Gratitude and the Renaissance of Psychedelics Q: So Ram Das talks a lot about how, as you awaken or you go on this spiritual journey, the passions of life kind of start to fall away, and for me, personally, it can be such a release some days when I look out and I see people that this is it and that car is it and doing this and winning is it and I kind of see through it, and then there are days when I just want to go back to sleep because I want to be lost in it. It’s so hard sometimes, I mean just to, I don’t know, everybody’s going bowling as Ram Das says in his talks and you don’t want to bowl anymore. It’s just like, “I can take it or leave it.” Are we just supposed to get to that point where the highs are gone, the lows are gone and we’re just here? Now? “On this path, those moments of darkness, all that energy fuels the longing to be free, fuels the longing to connect more deeply with what we want to connect with. It’s a good thing, ultimately. It’s a dark night of the soul but there’s a morning right after the night.” – Krishna Das Q: Can you just talk a little bit about the dark night of the soul. KD: Oh. Q: I know. So Ram Das talks a lot about how, as you awaken or you go on this spiritual journey, the passions of life kind of start to fall away, and for me, personally, it can be such a release some days when I look out and I see people that this is it and that car is it and doing this and winning is it and I kind of see through it, and then there are days when I just want to go back to sleep because I want to be lost in it. It’s so hard sometimes, I mean just to, I don’t know, everybody’s going bowling as Ram Das says in his talks and you don’t want to bowl anymore. It’s just like, “I can take it or leave it.” Are we just supposed to get to that point where the highs are gone, the lows are gone and we’re just here? Now? Just kidding. KD: Like, be here now, you mean? Oh, wow, I never thought of that. Yes and no, of course. Dryness of heart is not something that’s useful, so when shit doesn’t work for you anymore, you can start to feel very dry and very disconnected from life and very, you know, you can really feel like, isolated from things and cut off. So, that’s not useful. That’s neurosis, essentially. But the problem is that we’re so used to trying to squeeze water from a stone that everything we see, we try to squeeze and bring out pleasure from it. It’s very hard to break that habit so that when it’s not working for whatever reason, the hands are still going like this but there’s nothing there, you know? That’s why there has to kind of, that’s why, when you have a practice that you’ve been doing for awhile and you recognize that you understand that you’re not supposed to be, it’s not about how you feel. How you feel is irrelevant. You do the practice. If it makes you feel a certain way and you’re still doing the practice in that moment, that feeling becomes the object of awareness and you come back from being lost in how good this feels, then you can also extend that to how bad this feels. You get lost in that. And the more you’re used to letting go, the more you’ve trained yourself not to be identified so strongly with the experience, you come back naturally a little quicker. So it doesn’t feel dry. The dryness is that you still wish there was something coming from that stone, which there isn’t. But when you become aware of that, see, you have to get used to, so what I was saying, It’s not easy. It takes time to cultivate that motion of letting go. So, Sri Ramakrishna was a very very great saint who lived in India in the 1800s and he talked about the way the practice of the repetition of the Name works, for instance. There are other practices, of course. But this one… and he said, every repetition of the name is a seed that gets planted in your mind stream, so to speak, in your heart stream in your life.

Call and Response Ep. 39 Bad Aim and the Importance of Spiritual Practice “The key to doing a spiritual practice is actually doing it. Every day whether you feel like it or not. Because if you only go with your, “You know, I’m tired today, I think I’ll skip it”, then the habits that are already pushing us around just get stronger and stronger. We have to create new habits that turn us within, that make us more available to our own inner self.”   – Krishna Das KD: Well, so, what are we doing? Why do sing, “Sri Ram Jai Ram”? Why do we do these practices at all? And, ultimately, the reason is that we’re not happy as we want to be. We have suffering in our lives. We have, we don’t know how to get what we want. We don’t know how to get rid of what we don’t want. And the reason for that is that we believe what we think. Very simple. Right now, you believe that you’re hearing what I’m saying, which is pretty interesting.  But we believe what we think and we believe how we interpret what our senses, the information our, we, our senses bring in to us through the course of the day, the course of our life. So essentially, we’re living in a prison with one little window way up high, which we can’t see out of. But we can hear and we get some idea of what’s out there but we don’t really see what’s really out there. But we want to. And the prison we live in is the prison made of thought, our thoughts, all of our thoughts, and the way we believe our thoughts and you can’t think yourself out of a prison that’s made of your thoughts and your beliefs, our beliefs. Believe me, I include me in “us.” There’s no way out of it through thinking or emotional manipulation or trying to, you know that joke about not wanting to join any club that would actually let you join? That’s what it’s like. We have some version in our minds of what it’ll be like when and if we feel the way we want to feel and have the experiences we want to have of freedom or God or nirvana or happiness, whatever you want to call it, love, real love. But because we don’t know what that is, conceptually, we all share one major problem: bad aim. That’s the deal. Bad aim. You think it’s over there but you wind up over there. How did I get over here? Bad aim. We go after what we think we want and it’s not what we want when we get it for more than, you know, ok, sixty seconds if you’re really good. So, why, what do these practices do? Well, it’s very simple. You don’t know, I don’t know what who Ram is or what Ram is. But they say that through the repetition of the Names, gradually but inevitably, now that’s the deal. “Inevitably” is the kicker here. Inevitably, what lives within us, our own true nature, who we really are underneath all the things we think and feel and believe, gradually but inevitably, through the practice of the repetition of the Names, that’s uncovered. You can’t know what it is before it’s uncovered. We’re digging. But you don’t know what it is until you hit something. And even then, you just get a little glimpse. You think, it’s like digging out a corpse from underneath the ground. You hit the foot. “Oh, that’s what it is.” No. That’s just a part of it. That was kind of a gross… I’m sorry. I can’t help myself. So, that’s it. So, the idea is you sing and because it’s a spiritual practice, that means that we have one job only, that’s to pay attention. That’s the beginning. Without some attention, there’s no possibility of ever being here or ever recognizing our true nature or ever finding real love or merging with the divine, because it’s all here and we’re not. We’re lost in our thoughts. We’re lost in our day dreams. We’re lost in our knee-jerk reactions to things. All day long, all life long, boom, then we’re dead. And we have to do it again in another body. It’s a pain in the ass. And you’ve got to deal with your parents all over again, a whole new set of bullshit, you know? First, you have a Jewish mother,

Call and Response Ep. 37 Maharajji’s Language, Why Is Chanting Important? Why is chanting transformative? Why is the chanting of names transformative? Does it require an understanding of what those names, the stories behind those names, in order for the chanting of those names to be transformative?  “These names are mantras. These are sounds that come from a deeper place inside of us and they were brought into this world so you and I could hear them by saints, by yogis who have recognized the truth, have experienced reality through these names and they’ve experienced the reality of these names.” – Krishna Das Q: Thank you so much. This is just a question about linguistics. Did He speak English? Like when you have all these conversations, how did this actually happen? KD: No. He could say things like “Quick march.” From the English time. “Quick March.” “Sit down.” That’s it. That’s about all I heard Him ever say in English. Q: When you speak of all these communications that was all through a translator KD: There were always Indian people around who spoke perfect English. Not always, but most of the time. And when He had, sometimes He just would make you understand what He wanted, without a word at all. One time, I was walking towards the front of the temple and all of a sudden, I was running towards the front of the temple and He was right at His window, “Come here!” I went there. “Ok.” And I ran off to do something and I was halfway gone when I went “Wait a minute” how did I know what He said? Like that, you know? He didn’t need anything. I mean, He didn’t need to be told anything. He knew everything all the time. It was, it was just extraordinary to be in the presence of somebody like that. Q: Can I ask one more question? KD: Yeah. Sure. Q: I’m just interested. I believe it and I kind of get how it worked, but you often speak of the abuse and anger?  And even language, like colorful language KD: Oh yeah. He cursed. You can’t believe the things He said to people. Q: Can you expound on this? KD: Like what? Q: In Christian background, it’s forbidden. You don’t speak that way. You’re always kind and good. KD: Really? Q: Supposedly. KD: You’d have a tough time proving that in court. Always kind and good, uh-huh. Well… it was a way of changing the atmosphere of, and it was only the close people who were really abused, because they could take it. They loved it. They would look… and we’d be sitting there. We didn’t know Hindi at the time. “What is He saying?” “Sister fucker?” Things like that. The worst shit. You can’t imagine. These village people, this is how they talked. That’s what they do.  You know? I was recently with a young Baba in India and I had met Him once or twice before and He’s very wild and very loving, sweet but He likes the abuses so I came there from Delhi and I spent the day, and then in the evening I was going back to Delhi. I said, “Baba I’m going back to Delhi now.” “Why?” I said, “You know, now. I like my comfort. I’ve got my hotel room and everything.” “Ney. That’s not why. You’re afraid to shit in the latrine. That’s why. See this guy? He’s afraid to shit in the latrine. See this guy over here. He doesn’t want to shit in the…” He just was like abusing me in front of all these Indians. They were laughing, they were laughing. So, I had to stay.  But that’s love. That’s the way, you know? They’re not afraid. They don’t throw people out of their hearts. We’re all scared shitless that if somebody looks at us crooked, they hate us. And that’s why we’re, that’s why everything’s so screwed up here. They’re not afraid of that. It’s all loose and open and wild. They’re free with that. They know when to do it and when not to do it and who to do it with. And people, like expect that from Babas, too. They expect, especially these kinds of Babas who live in the jungle their whole lives, they’re not,

Call and Response Ep. 36 There’s No Maharajji Outside of You, Committing To A Practice So, when I try to tap into the energy or the meaning of Neem Karoli Baba, I feel like I’m grasping at clouds because I wasn’t there. He hasn’t written anything that I can read to understand. “You’re looking to feel something from outside in a sense. You think He’s out there and you want to connect with Him. It’s not like that. He’s not out there, in fact, there is no “out there” there’s only here. But we’re not here, so we’re lost. We’re in dreamland. Sleepy-poo. So, when we wake up, you’ll remember everything.” – Krishna Das Q: I have my real question, but I have to follow up with one of the questions, one of the topics before. There was actually research done after World War 2 here in the US to see whether or not Americans would also do what the Germans did, this was the Milgram studies. KD: They said, “wait 50 years, you’ll find out?” Q: And they found that Americans, you know, for the most part, 80% or so, were willing to kill people in these shocking experiments that they did up at Yale University. So, this was Yale University students. The reason is interesting, I think, because it does tap into our humanity, as you say is you know, to be Beings who are also impacted by our surroundings and I think if I was in Germany I’d be the guard next to you and you know, because our environment, while we have our sense of self and our self we also, through osmosis, take in culture and everything around us. I think it’s part of tapping into our humanity to be open to that angle. So that’s my back question, but now I have my real question. KD: OK. Now I’ll give you the unreal answer. Q: So, this is about Neem Karoli Baba, because I’ve thought about it a lot. You clearly respect and admire Him and I respect and admire you and I have many other people who I respect and admire who also respect and admire Neem Karoli Baba and I’ve thought about it myself that, well, I therefore need to respect and admire Neem Karoli Baba and try to tap into that. A lot of people are pointing me and say, “I came from there, that’s a good place. I came from there.” KD: What do you mean? I came from there? Q: I came from Neem Karoli Baba. He’s like a lineage of sorts. But when I, He didn’t say anything. So, when I try to tap into the energy or the meaning of Neem Karoli Baba, I feel like I’m grasping at clouds because I wasn’t there. He hasn’t written anything that I can read to understand. KD: There’s a lot of stories about Him that have been written. Q: There are the stories and the stories, the stories are of Beingness. KD: Stories of? Q: Of being around Him. Of like, He was sort of a Being, but there’s not meaning that is easy for the next generation to hold onto.  Like the written word, that’s how knowledge is typically passed down. KD: Wait a minute. That’s bullshit. First of all, the written word, like the Bible? So, they’ve proven that less than three percent of what’s in the Bible can actually be traced linguistically to the time of Jesus. Three percent. So, what about those people who believe every word that’s in the Bible and if God said it, that’s the truth, and the world was made in, what, a day and a half? Seven days? Whatever. So, you can’t believe anything you read either. Q: I was thinking books and academics. KD: The bible’s a book more or less. Q: That’s true. KD: So, go ahead. Q: So, I find myself not able to hold onto what He is. KD: Your idea of Neem Karoli Baba, which is something outside of you. Q: yeah. KD: Someone who was outside of you some years ago and is no longer here. Q: What wisdom to bring into me from Him? It’s hard to hold. KD: Yeah. Look in the mirror sometime. That’s the best thing to do. There’s no Maharajji outside of you. There never was. The person next to you is in a body,

Call and Response Ep. 35 Too Little Too Much, Violence and Compassion I’m searching for understanding of how someone can be on this earth and literally be so unloved that he could walk in and kill people in a yoga studio and take his life. How can we make sure people feel the love that we feel in here?   “Don’t try to make it ok. It’s not ok. Eventually it won’t hurt so much. That doesn’t mean you’ll have figured it out. It just won’t hurt so much.” – Krishna Das Q: This morning was very profound and I was able, I was really able to feel unconditional love. KD: I’m sorry to hear that. Q: I know, right? For like, every being in the universe and I just felt very expansive and then when we got ready to go to lunch, I stood up and I’m like, oh I have to use my legs? Like, all right. And then I just, I was physically shaking like, vibrating, but then I was physically shaking out of fear. So, I’ve really been letting myself be gentle and process. KD: So, the thing you left out in all beings was yourself, right? Q: Yeah, and I had shared with you last night so much that is coming from my family. I was raised southern Baptist evangelical and when I came out of the womb was pretty much told I was a wretched sinner. You needed the Lord and that never resonated with me, and my dad actually reminded me, in the middle of an argument, how when I was little I actually came to him and asked him if we could pray for the devil because I only felt love for whoever this being was, I was told. And I thanked him for reminding me of that, because it gave me validation that I am who I know I am and it’s been a really troubling year. This Sunday is my niece’s birthday and I don’t feel safe calling so I have mailed both her and my nephew cards and I’m just going to keep being who I am, but it’s been really challenging, at times, being in my body. Thank you for the space you create. It’s really beautiful. KD: Well, we all have our own, each one of us has our own storyline about why we are who we think we are and the beauty of practice is that, as time goes on, less energy is stuck in those belief systems. That’s not something rip off and just throw away and forget because, we’re made up of all that stuff, you know? And without doing some practice, there’s really, we won’t ever get a vote as to how we go through our day. Right now, most of us are on automatic, you know? We’ve been programmed by our lives and we don’t get much vote about how we meet different situations. And the only time that we’ll ever, the only time that there’s a possibility to get a vote is as things arise. But we don’t get a vote as to what arises. We only can get a vote as to how we meet those situations. And right now, usually the wave crashes over us and we don’t even realize we’ve been hit by it until we wake up on the shore and then, you know. So, that’s why they say, do practice when you can. When you remember. Because those seeds that you plant, that we plant in our quiet time, so to speak, those seeds continue to grow through the rest of our lives and most of the real change is off the radar. But we want to know now.  So, and that’s just more ego bullshit, you know? Because we want to feel the way we feel. We want to feel good. We don’t want to feel bad. And that’s already too bad. But that’s where we find ourselves. We want pleasure and we don’t want pain. We want pleasant circumstances and we don’t want unhappy circumstances, so we’re screwed. The great, the third patriarch of Zen, Chinese patriarch of Zen, wrote a beautiful sutra called the “trust in the heart sutra,” which I stole for one of my, the name, the title, I stole for one of my CDs. He said it was ok. And the first line, “The great way is not difficult for those with no preferences.” Oh. Ok can I try the not so great way? You know? But really that’s our whole thing. Maharajji used to, many times, he would sit there and he would go,

Call and Response Ep. 34 Trust In Your Self. Maharajji and Buddhism  When you talk about this incredible love, is it just the simple presence of consciousness that you can achieve through vipassana or different meditation techniques or is it something else? And if it is something else, how do you connect and experience that? “As you sit and you go more deeply, you know, you shouldn’t think that you’re finished, just because you feel a little peace. That’s good. But you should be with that. You shouldn’t push it away or hold onto it. Be with whatever arises, right? And you’ll have many different experiences over time, lifetimes of practice. And whatever is, whatever your karma dictates, will come to you in the way that it’s supposed to.” – Krishna Das Q: Thank you, Hi. I’m Dominique. It’s nice to meet you. I’m really enjoying my time here and KD: It’s just been a few hours. You’ll get over it. Don’t worry. Q: So far so good. But I’ve been meditating for a while and I come from more of a Buddhist background, and when I meditate, I do feel a great sense of peace and spaciousness and awareness within but when I hear you talk about Maharajji, I hear you talk about this kind of incredible love and this unconditional love and to be really honest, I don’t necessarily feel that when I meditate and I’m wondering how you connect with that kind of… KD: I don’t feel when I meditate either. So… what can I tell you? But go ahead, sorry Q: So, my, that’s kind of my question. When you talk about this incredible love, is it just the simple presence of consciousness that you can achieve through vipassana or different meditation techniques or is it something else? And if it is something else, how do you connect and experience that? KD: Good question. Really good question. Very good question. Well because of my experiences, in my life, when I talk about love and talk about presence and being, in my consciousness that’s Maharajji to me.  And because of my experiences, that’s the way I experience the love and the devotion and the caring and all that stuff and from that feeds me and then it goes out to other people as well. Because He’s, everybody’s included in that, it’s not just mine. You know? It’s just this feeling of presence and being, and that’s everywhere. And that’s Him for me. That’s who He is for me. So, you have to be with your experiences. And they say that the nature, our true nature is Satchidananda. Truth, Consciousness and disgusting Bliss, ridiculous amounts of ecstasy and happiness. That’s what they say. That’s who we are. So yes, the answer is, as you sit and you go more deeply, you know, you shouldn’t think that you’re finished, just because you feel a little peace. That’s good. But you should be with that. You shouldn’t push it away or hold onto it. Be with whatever arises, right? And you’ll have many different experiences over time, lifetimes of practice. And whatever is, whatever your karma dictates, will come to you in the way that it’s supposed to. So right now, you’re not feeling… I don’t feel any peace when I meditate, so how do you get that? All I feel is His absence because I’m a crazy emotional devotee and half the time He’s everywhere, the other half the time I can’t even find Him, so what can I tell you? It’s better you sit and be quiet and happy than be like me. So, it’s a trade-off. It’s a different path. You know Ramana Maharshi, who was one of the greatest saints who ever lived, he said, there’s two ways to go. Either you go the path of jnana, or wisdom, where you try to penetrate into your true nature through awareness and through meditative practice, or you surrender to God. That’s it. They both go to the same place, but they feel very different while you’re on that path but neither one of those things can actually be achieved through your personal will. You can’t surrender yourself. Love surrenders you when you melt down into it.

Call and Response Ep. 33 | The Real Guru Is Within, This Happened Because It Had To  “There’s no Guru outside of yourself. Guru is not that body. Guru might be in a body if we need it, if that’s the best thing for us but Guru, God, Self are the same. Guru, God, and Self are One. And nobody’s going to come along and touch you and make it all perfect. You know? Unless somebody comes along and touches you and makes it all perfect.” – Krishna Das Q: Mahalo, Krishna Das. I wish some of my friends were here to see me speechless. It doesn’t happen often. KD: Praise the Lord. Q: Mahalo, in part, for sharing the humanity of the practice. KD: I’m sorry? Q: Mahalo for sharing the humanity, the story, because even though the story is not us, so much of what you shared tonight was just for me.  To be succinct, I was in not a dissimilar situation where I was teaching and began to be a door to and things were starting to spread horizontally but I wanted to go vertical. I wanted to go deeper. I ran from there, from the whole experience.  I ran. I lived in six different countries to run away from it and guess what, I ended up teaching there, too and I was suffocated by my own self. And I have run away from it, as far as I can but I got back to California, which is kind of like my school, and I know I can get lost in love but I also want to find myself in love. You know, I need to get back and I’ve been blessed to have you and a dozen other teachers in my life who’ve been incredibly generous but I’m not from a group or somebody that I can totally let go into. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cry. I guess I’m defrosting from being tough for years. I just, the fact that I’m even asking a question and trusting… I’ve had a long relationship with you, for almost 25 years and I just, the word that keeps coming up is I need to, it’s grace brought me here. I know that it’s grace that brought me here tonight. I came from L.A. I rather wanted to be here tonight. I don’t know how to find the courage or the way back. Practice, yeah. I do it all. None of it matters. I try to surrender with every thought and I’m just blah blah blah blahing.  I’m just ready. I feel the ripening and I am speaking it out because I haven’t spoken it to another soul in twelve years. The closest thing to the guru experience that you mention, the place of home and joy and beauty and the longing is nature. Nature has saved my butt in everywhere I’ve lived. If it wasn’t for nature, for animals, for everything that surrounds me that’s alive like that, I would, I don’t know what would have happened. What do I do without a guru? Something that I can, like you say, hold onto in a way KD: I guess there’s no hope for you. Q: Good then I can go have some fun. KD: I’ll meet you over there.  There’s no Guru outside of yourself. Guru is not that body. Guru might be in a body if we need it, if that’s the best thing for us but Guru, God, Self are the same. Guru, God, and Self are One. And nobody’s going to come along and touch you and make it all perfect. You know? Unless somebody comes along and touches you and makes it all perfect. But until that time, relax. Take it easy. What’s the problem? The things that are happening now, Maharajji put in motion 50 years ago. He didn’t tell me. He didn’t ask me. The things that are happening now might have started in motion a hundred lifetimes ago. I don’t remember. You don’t remember. All we can do is the best we can do and be ourselves and treat people well. There’s not something to know. The one who wants to know is the one who has to go. Now, there’s a t-shirt. Hey. Alright I said it. Nobody else said it. I got the copyright. The one who wants to know is the one who has to go. All right. Let me write that down. It’s just more self-obsession. Yada yada yada. I want this. I want this. I don’t want this. It’s gotta be this way. I need this. I need that. Next.

Call and Response Ep. 32 Keep Coming Back and Cleaning Out The Dark Corners “You don’t have to know anything. All you have to do is be happy. And think about other people once in a while instead of yourself. That’s all. It’s ridiculous how happy you can be when you don’t think about yourself. Ridiculous. Completely absurd. You wouldn’t think that would be the case but it is the case.“ – Krishna Das So, these are the people who couldn’t get enough abuse last night, right? Very good. I can’t wait.  In India they call it “teasing.” Galli, it’s called. It’s when a teacher, not me, but when a Guru or somebody teases His devotees by, you know, like, abuse, flinging abuses at them.  Huh? Q: It’s a sign of love. You love us. KD: Oh, very much. It means you’re really; it means there’s no, you’re really close, you know? You’re really, there’s no distance or formality, you know? You miserable… How many, there’s no children here today, are there? Anybody under 30? You see what I mean? It’s going to be a good night. There’s, well, I ‘m not going to go into the curses. I actually learned, you know, Maharajji used to do this all the time and the Indian people would kind of just look down like this, like… and we kept saying, “What’s he saying? What’s he saying?” “Oh, never mind.” “You naked babies!” I mean, if you really want to get somebody angry in India, call them a “naked baby.” Oh, my God. So, I had learned all these curse words and abuses that He used to offer to people, so to speak. I had to force myself to forget them because I was using them in the wrong situations. So, what we’ve just been doing is called the repetition of the Names of God.  That’s what they call it. Personally, I don’t know about God. But that’s a Name that doesn’t appeal to me that much. But in India, all these Names have different qualities and different aspects and they understand there’s only One. All One. But it has many Names and can be approached from within each one of us, our own particular shape or form, insanity.  And it’s through all that, these Names will pull us through all our stuff into our Self.  Another Name for God is “Self” with a capital “S.” The sense of Being. It’s not a Thing. But it’s a, it’s a, the Presence. So, when we sing, we try to pay some attention to the sound of the Name, whichever Name we’re repeating and as soon as we notice that we haven’t been paying attention, we come back to the Name. At least for the next millionth of a second. And then after a while, of course, you notice that you haven’t been paying attention, so you come back again, but actually, the moment when you notice that you haven’t been paying attention, you’re already back. How did that happen? We didn’t do that. We were lost in our thoughts. How did we come back? How did that happen? Well… first of all, that’s the fruit of practice that we ourselves have done before.  That’s the fruit of our own practice. Every time you come back, we’re planting a seed in our own consciousness that continues to grow and that seed keeps bringing us back.  The other aspect is that we’re always here, we just forget.  And so, when the energy of a particular thought runs out, we’re back because that’s where we were anyway, but we weren’t paying attention.  So, that’s why it’s not necessary to create anything or manipulate your emotions or try to feel any particular type of thing, like I don’t care about bliss or ecstasy. Screw it. I just want to be here. And if some of that comes, well, good, I’ll enjoy it. But if it doesn’t come, that’s ok, too. Don’t try to make anything happen. Why would you join a club that they’d actually let you join?  I wouldn’t. So, anything I can create with my mind is going to pass sooner or later. What’s the sense? Just keep coming back and what’s within us will start to be uncovered, and we’ll start to have direct intuitive experience that’s beyond the thoughts and emotions.

Call and Response Ep. 31  Find Out Who You Are, Maharajji and Buddha, Starting on the Path Do you have any advice for… I guess for someone who’s starting off or seeking their spiritual practice or spirituality all together. “Relax. Take it easy. Watch some tv. Be good. Listen to music. It’s a ripening process. It’s not a learning process. It’s a ripening process and we ripen our hearts when we turn towards that love. And what turns us towards that love is the longing, the longing that’s in there, to really be in that love. That itself is the fruit of practice. The fruit of love is the longing for more of it. To be more deeply in that love. That longing is, it’ll ruin your life. But it saves your life.” – Krishna Das Q: KD. KD: Sir. Q: It’s good to see you. KD: I can’t see you so I can’t say the same thing. Aha. Hi. Q: Hi, about six years ago I sat with your chanting and you put my ass down on the ground with your chant. And it’s been really profound because I wasn’t a big fan of kirtan. I was more of a japa guy. But… KD: I’m a fucking Buddhist. Q: Yeah, there you go. But the kirtan that’s offered has cause some really interesting things. And one of them is a relationship to the Names of God and all the unfolding that comes within me as we chant. I’m having this really interesting thing go on. I have an issue with Krishna. KD: Really? Q: I don’t know why but… KD: Has He been screwing around again? Q: Yeah, that’s it. But it’s, I’m afraid of Krishna. It’s so strange. And the question I would have for you is if, as you’ve gone through your practice and your experience, have you seen different aspects of relationship to the Names of God, or is it all just, like you said, grace? KD: I have no idea what you’re talking about. You know? It sounds like a bunch of stuff to me and I think you should just keep repeating the Name and drop that shit and get on with it. Q: Cool. KD: You’re not scared of Krishna. You don’t know who Krishna is. It’s just a fantasy in your imagination. Krishna is not other than you are. And until you know who you are, you’ll never see Krishna. So, relax. Just let go of that stuff. It’s useless. Useless. The Name “Krishna” and Krishna Himself are not different things. So, when you repeat the Name of Krishna, you don’t experience Krishna, so what are you talking about? Find out who you are and as long as you’re dealing with all this fantasy and imagination, you’ll never find out who you are. Just let it go. Whether you sing or do japa or stand on your head or do nothing. You still have to find out who you are and what you are and how to be present in your daily life. There’s not somewhere you get to go where you’re going to find Krishna. He’s not waiting for you up in the sky. If He was, you’d get a rocket ship and go up there. He’s not up there. He’s in there as your own true nature. He’s not other than you. Your own true nature. He knows it. You don’t. So, you know, try to simplify your mind. You’re very complex. And nothing but thoughts and concepts. They don’t lead anywhere. You can’t think yourself out of a prison that’s made of thought and every thought is a prison because you identify with it, you’re stuck in it, you’re glued to it. Drop it. Little by little. Little by little, let go. Maharajji said, “Go on, sing your lying Ram Ram.” One of these days you’ll say it right once, Bam, the real Ram will come and you’re out of here, you know? So, keep lying but don’t think about it so much. Really, it’s not… it’s a dead end. And they’re infinite dead ends. And every thought is one of them. So just relax, take it easy, don’t try so hard. You’ll never understand it because you won’t be here when it is. You’ll be present but your whole schtick will be gone, hopefully. Sooner than later, I hope. Give us a break. Oh, this is a good night.  Not too long ago, I was really cranky one time,

Call and Response Ep. 30 Family Karma, KD’s Mom I feel that my dharma is taking me into different direction, that family karma. Karma related to a lot of suffering, a lot of what I would consider tamasic energy, toxic and so if you or Maharajji would have any advice when you feel your dharma is, you know, upholding you and protecting you and… “We don’t know our parents as people, for the most part, until maybe we get older. They’re people. I don’t know how my mother went through the day. I don’t know what my father… what tortures he had in his life, and betrayals and hidden desires that he couldn’t fulfill. I have no idea what went on with him. All I know is how he treated me and you know, another thing and it’s a theory of mine, I can’t prove it, but I kind of feel like we learn to see ourselves the way our parents saw themselves. Not the way they saw us. But the way they saw themselves, we absorb that. And we mimic that by seeing ourselves the same way. I don’t know, I can’t prove it, but it feels like that to me.” – Krishna Das Q: Thank you for coming to Encinitas.  And I have a question. You mentioned the ripening, ripening of the karma, you also mentioned that when you let go of, you know, being obsessed or identifying with the movie of ourselves, thinking about others you may feel happy, so at this moment, I feel that my dharma is taking me into different direction, that family karma. Karma related to a lot of suffering, a lot of what I would consider tamasic energy, toxic and so if you or Maharajji would have any advice when you feel your dharma is, you know, upholding you and protecting you and… KD: Is what, opposing? Q: No, upholding dharma, you know? Holding you? And then the family karma kind of pulls you in the direction and yeah… it doesn’t make me happy to think about what’s happening with the family and this is sixty years. It’s not one year or five years. KD: Yeah, yeah.  Well, there’s family and then there’s family. First of all, we’re made up of our parents. We didn’t come from the sky. We’re made up of them. So, there’s an inner. The outer is not as important as the inner and you can’t really free yourself… Maharajji said, as long as your parents are alive, the greatest worship that you can do is to honor your parents. Forget the temples. Forget the deities. Forget your japa. Serve your parents. He said that. I remember one time, this couple was having a fight, right? They came to Maharajji, and He said to the man, and He said, “It’s ok, just see her as your mother.”  And he says, “I hate my mother” Maharajji just couldn’t understand.  So, it’s big stuff, you know? Big stuff. And you just, you do what you can. You deal with what you can. That’s all. You don’t, there’s no clock ticking, you have to get it all worked out by 10:30 tonight otherwise it’s over, you know? You deal with what you can, the best way you can and you recognize that parents, somebody did it to them, just like they did it to you. Just like you’re doing it to your kids. So, who’s the victim and who’s the perpetrator? Where was the first perpetrator? How did that start? So, you know, we don’t know our parents as people, for the most part, until maybe we get older. They’re people. I don’t know how my mother went through the day. I don’t know what my father… what tortures he had in his life, and betrayals and hidden desires that he couldn’t fulfill. I have no idea what went on with him. All I know is how he treated me and you know, another thing and it’s a theory of mine, I can’t prove it, but I kind of feel like we learn to see ourselves the way our parents saw themselves. Not the way they saw us. But the way they saw themselves, we absorb that. And we mimic that by seeing ourselves the same way. I don’t know, I can’t prove it, but it feels like that to me. Q: Thank you and I hear you and I know that honoring the parents is one of the greatest, if not the greatest honor.