Call and Response with Krishna Das

Call and Response Ep. 29 The Evaluative Mind, Grace, Dada Mukerjee “I said to Siddhi Ma, I said, ‘Ma, Maharajji said He has the keys to the mind, so to me that means that I am where He puts me, where He wants me to be. So, Ma, is it grace? In other words, is it His doing, or is it my effort that’s important? What’s the deal?’ So, She said, ‘Krishna Das, it’s all grace but you have to act like it isn’t.’ Which is very far out. It’s a done deal. None of this is happening. It just looks like it’s happening. But because we believe it, we have choices to make, we have practices to do. We have karmas to perform because everything is a karma. Every thought is a karma. So, you want to create the karmas that will bring the goodness into your life and into the life of other people around you also, since everything you do creates some kind of karma. Let’s at least try to create some happiness for ourselves with our actions and others. – Krishna Das   Q: I have a long time- very consistent and super crappy meditation practice that is really consistent. KD: Terrific. And on top of that, you have a long-term crappy evaluative mind. Q: So, the idea of aiming at a true life and aiming at my true self I’ve been doing for quite a few years. KD: Where’s the target? Q: This is my question. I just want to know, the first time that I heard you sing, I couldn’t stop crying. I felt… KD: That bad, huh? Q: That bad. The commonality of the broken heart was just unspeakable and you know, in my unspeakably crappy practice, I just wonder if there’s anything you can say about, I mean the side effects are worth it. You know, the side effects of the practice are certainly worth it. But aiming at the true self, or what you’re seeking, anything you can say. KD: Where are you aiming? It’s everywhere. It’s you. There’s nothing to aim at. Just be there in your crappy meditation. And as soon as you’re not trying to get somewhere, it won’t be so crappy. Notice all that stuff. It’s the noticing of it all. There’s nothing to do. There’s nothing to accomplish. It happened already. We’re here. Now let’s figure out what this is. Or let’s experience, find a way to experience what this is. It’s not like you’re going to be somebody else when you figure it out. You’re already who you are. That’s enough. So, instead, I don’t know what particular crappy meditation practice you’re doing, but whatever it is, you simply come back to your object of concentration.  It’s very difficult to do Nam, to do a meditation practice without concentration at first. You first have to be able to kind of calm your mind and your breath a little bit before you can kind of expand your awareness, so to speak. So you have to develop a little bit of the ability to come back from Neverland, well, not that place. From Dreamland, ok? That’s all. So when you do that crappy practice, just sit there and when you notice that you’re just lost in thinking how crappy this is, give the thought back and come back to the breath or the mantra, whatever you’re using for you anchor. You can use anything for an anchor. Q: For a very long time, my anchor has been just simple mindfulness and breathing and mindfulness of the body and sometimes it’s very scattered and sometimes it’s very focused and I watch whatever it is, but what I think the disconnect that I feel at the moment is so I notice this, I feel more connected, I feel less connected, the mind settles, the mind doesn’t settle, I pay attention to this, I come back to the breath. But the idea that this, in some way, leads to knowing who I truly am or what I truly am, this is where I feel the disconnect. KD: The idea that what you’re doing will lead you to yourself, you’re feeling, I don’t understand… Q: So, the practice is quite, seems quite settled. On some days, the mind settles quietly and it’s what I’d like to call a good sit.  And sometimes the mind is all over the place,

Call and Response Ep. 29 The Evaluative Mind, Grace, Dada Mukerjee “I said to Siddhi Ma, I said, ‘Ma, Maharajji said He has the keys to the mind, so to me that means that I am where He puts me, where He wants me to be. So, Ma, is it grace? In other words, is it His doing, or is it my effort that’s important? What’s the deal?’ So, She said, ‘Krishna Das, it’s all grace but you have to act like it isn’t.’ Which is very far out. It’s a done deal. None of this is happening. It just looks like it’s happening. But because we believe it, we have choices to make, we have practices to do. We have karmas to perform because everything is a karma. Every thought is a karma. So, you want to create the karmas that will bring the goodness into your life and into the life of other people around you also, since everything you do creates some kind of karma. Let’s at least try to create some happiness for ourselves with our actions and others. – Krishna Das   Q: I have a long time- very consistent and super crappy meditation practice that is really consistent. KD: Terrific. And on top of that, you have a long-term crappy evaluative mind. Q: So, the idea of aiming at a true life and aiming at my true self I’ve been doing for quite a few years. KD: Where’s the target? Q: This is my question. I just want to know, the first time that I heard you sing, I couldn’t stop crying. I felt… KD: That bad, huh? Q: That bad. The commonality of the broken heart was just unspeakable and you know, in my unspeakably crappy practice, I just wonder if there’s anything you can say about, I mean the side effects are worth it. You know, the side effects of the practice are certainly worth it. But aiming at the true self, or what you’re seeking, anything you can say. KD: Where are you aiming? It’s everywhere. It’s you. There’s nothing to aim at. Just be there in your crappy meditation. And as soon as you’re not trying to get somewhere, it won’t be so crappy. Notice all that stuff. It’s the noticing of it all. There’s nothing to do. There’s nothing to accomplish. It happened already. We’re here. Now let’s figure out what this is. Or let’s experience, find a way to experience what this is. It’s not like you’re going to be somebody else when you figure it out. You’re already who you are. That’s enough. So, instead, I don’t know what particular crappy meditation practice you’re doing, but whatever it is, you simply come back to your object of concentration.  It’s very difficult to do Nam, to do a meditation practice without concentration at first. You first have to be able to kind of calm your mind and your breath a little bit before you can kind of expand your awareness, so to speak. So you have to develop a little bit of the ability to come back from Neverland, well, not that place. From Dreamland, ok? That’s all. So when you do that crappy practice, just sit there and when you notice that you’re just lost in thinking how crappy this is, give the thought back and come back to the breath or the mantra, whatever you’re using for you anchor. You can use anything for an anchor. Q: For a very long time, my anchor has been just simple mindfulness and breathing and mindfulness of the body and sometimes it’s very scattered and sometimes it’s very focused and I watch whatever it is, but what I think the disconnect that I feel at the moment is so I notice this, I feel more connected, I feel less connected, the mind settles, the mind doesn’t settle, I pay attention to this, I come back to the breath. But the idea that this, in some way, leads to knowing who I truly am or what I truly am, this is where I feel the disconnect. KD: The idea that what you’re doing will lead you to yourself, you’re feeling, I don’t understand… Q: So, the practice is quite, seems quite settled. On some days, the mind settles quietly and it’s what I’d like to call a good sit.  And sometimes the mind is all over the place,

Call and Response Ep. 28  Suffering, Gratitude and Burning Out So, I can feel this softening thing happening in my personal relationships and my everyday life. I’m having a really hard time with the world stage, how to not either not run away from it or like, bring just furious disgust and I’m not sure how to handle, like, what do you suggest with that? “We don’t know what’s going on… Western culture is a few hundred years old. Modern science is a couple hundred years old, maybe, at the most, and we think we know everything about everything. We don’t even know who we are. How are we going to know who anybody else is. So, the best idea is to become the best human being that you can and everywhere you go and everything you do should be from the best place you can do it from.” – Krishna Das   Q: So, I can feel this softening thing happening in my personal relationships and my everyday life. I’m having a really hard time with the world stage, how to not either not run away from it or like, bring just furious disgust and I’m not sure how to handle, like, what do you suggest with that? KD: Well, what can come from furious disgust except more furious disgust? And what can come from running away? Just keep running? So, neither one is very useful. Now what? Q: Go on twitter and practice, I guess? KD: One time, somebody came to Maharajji, you know, Janaka in Indian stories, King Janaka was a raja, a king, also a rishi, a saint, a realized Being. So He was a Rajarishi they called Him. He was a king that was a fully realized being, but he was still a king. So somebody came to Maharajji once and said, “Baba the world is so screwed up.” This was 40 years ago. Can you imagine? “But what’s going to happen in, you know, I wish there was some king like Janaka who could…” Maharajji said, “There’s a king much greater than Janaka.” We don’t know, you know. The ones who know seem to know. All we see are the results of everybody’s negativity. Q: All the suffering which is so hard to watch. KD: Yeah. But you know the story in the Ramayana, right? You know the story of Ram. So, Ram was an incarnation of God who took form to destroy the negativity in the world. And the negativity in the world was represented by this one demon king named Ravana, so however, the whole story was essentially written by Brahma, the Creator. The whole, the story about the release of negativity, the destroying of the negativity in the world, this whole story, the drama was written out by Brahma, so Brahma was looking for somebody to play the role of the demon, so there was this great yogi who had just three lives left before he was fully enlightened. And Brahma came to him and said, “Hey man, we need somebody to play the bad guy, and if you agree to do it, Ram is going to shoot you in the heart with His arrow and you’ll be liberated and just, it’ll just be one birth.” He said, “Fantastic, I’ll do it.” So Ravana was actually a great yogi who agreed to play the part of the bad guy so that all that negativity can be destroyed in one shot, so to speak. So, we don’t know who anybody is. We don’t know what’s going on. We have, Western culture is a few hundred years old. Modern science is a couple hundred years old, maybe, at the most, and we think we know everything about everything. We don’t even know who we are. How are we going to know who anybody else is. So the best idea is to become the best human being that you can and everywhere you go and everything you do should be from the best place you can do it from. What else can you do? And the less you react, the less you allow the world, you know someone once asked the Dalai Lama, “Your Holiness, are you happy?” And He said, “Well, I guess you could say I had a really hard life. I had to take the reigns of my country at a very early age. And then I had to watch the Chinese invade and take my country and kill millions and millions of my people,

Call and Response Ep. 28  Suffering, Gratitude and Burning Out So, I can feel this softening thing happening in my personal relationships and my everyday life. I’m having a really hard time with the world stage, how to not either not run away from it or like, bring just furious disgust and I’m not sure how to handle, like, what do you suggest with that? “We don’t know what’s going on… Western culture is a few hundred years old. Modern science is a couple hundred years old, maybe, at the most, and we think we know everything about everything. We don’t even know who we are. How are we going to know who anybody else is. So, the best idea is to become the best human being that you can and everywhere you go and everything you do should be from the best place you can do it from.” – Krishna Das   Q: So, I can feel this softening thing happening in my personal relationships and my everyday life. I’m having a really hard time with the world stage, how to not either not run away from it or like, bring just furious disgust and I’m not sure how to handle, like, what do you suggest with that? KD: Well, what can come from furious disgust except more furious disgust? And what can come from running away? Just keep running? So, neither one is very useful. Now what? Q: Go on twitter and practice, I guess? KD: One time, somebody came to Maharajji, you know, Janaka in Indian stories, King Janaka was a raja, a king, also a rishi, a saint, a realized Being. So He was a Rajarishi they called Him. He was a king that was a fully realized being, but he was still a king. So somebody came to Maharajji once and said, “Baba the world is so screwed up.” This was 40 years ago. Can you imagine? “But what’s going to happen in, you know, I wish there was some king like Janaka who could…” Maharajji said, “There’s a king much greater than Janaka.” We don’t know, you know. The ones who know seem to know. All we see are the results of everybody’s negativity. Q: All the suffering which is so hard to watch. KD: Yeah. But you know the story in the Ramayana, right? You know the story of Ram. So, Ram was an incarnation of God who took form to destroy the negativity in the world. And the negativity in the world was represented by this one demon king named Ravana, so however, the whole story was essentially written by Brahma, the Creator. The whole, the story about the release of negativity, the destroying of the negativity in the world, this whole story, the drama was written out by Brahma, so Brahma was looking for somebody to play the role of the demon, so there was this great yogi who had just three lives left before he was fully enlightened. And Brahma came to him and said, “Hey man, we need somebody to play the bad guy, and if you agree to do it, Ram is going to shoot you in the heart with His arrow and you’ll be liberated and just, it’ll just be one birth.” He said, “Fantastic, I’ll do it.” So Ravana was actually a great yogi who agreed to play the part of the bad guy so that all that negativity can be destroyed in one shot, so to speak. So, we don’t know who anybody is. We don’t know what’s going on. We have, Western culture is a few hundred years old. Modern science is a couple hundred years old, maybe, at the most, and we think we know everything about everything. We don’t even know who we are. How are we going to know who anybody else is. So the best idea is to become the best human being that you can and everywhere you go and everything you do should be from the best place you can do it from. What else can you do? And the less you react, the less you allow the world, you know someone once asked the Dalai Lama, “Your Holiness, are you happy?” And He said, “Well, I guess you could say I had a really hard life. I had to take the reigns of my country at a very early age. And then I had to watch the Chinese invade and take my country and kill millions and millions of my people,

Call and Response Ep. 27 Spiritual Experiences, Auschwitz and Bernie Glassman Recently I’ve been having a draw to learn or feel more of my tradition and the ancestors and who’s come before me, and what moved me that I saw online was when you were in the barracks in Auschwitz, (you) sat down and sang to the children. My parents survived the holocaust. Their people did not. And when you sang and I experienced that video, I felt you were singing to and for me. I don’t know if that’s what your intent was but if you want to speak to that, please do because I want to know your experience and by way of request, if you want to sing that for our children, please do, Krishna Das. “I had a great friend named Bernie Glassman who’s a Zen Roshi, who had many deep enlightenment experiences and finally realized that the only thing keeping him and others out of that place was his own fear. So, he began to move towards the places where he had the most fear and where culturally in the world there was a lot of fear. So, one of those places was Auschwitz. And he began going to Auschwitz every year and bringing people to bear witness to the suffering. It wasn’t to just to go and suffer, but it was to bear witness and that’s a practice, to bear witness. And the idea was, in order to bear witness to something, one has to look at it and see it and in order to see it, one has to drop one’s ideas about it. And be with it. To see it clearly, one has to drop one’s stuff.” – Krishna Das   Go ahead. Q: Jai Ma. Thank you Krishna Das, for being here. I’m just wondering, when you were the pujari of the Durga temple in India, did you have any experiences where you really felt the presence of the Mother. KD: No. Q: No? KD: Of course not. What do you think I am? Q: You have all of these amazing other experiences that you talk about. I’m sure there’s something. KD: Like what? Q: I don’t know. Anything. KD: Experiences come and go. At my age, I forget them anyway. It doesn’t make any difference But they change you. That’s all. They do their work and then they go. You don’t have to hold onto them. In fact, holding on to them is just destroying them anyhow. Just making a big thing about nothing. If you have some experience that is in some way more opening for you, to try to cling to it and keep it is closing you down right away. Live. All these things pour into you like streams into the ocean. You don’t hold onto the stream. You’re the ocean. It’s not important. It’s not important at all. It’s ok. You can enjoy. But if you’re trying to cling to something, you won’t enjoy it for long because it’s gone already. So just be with it. The more fully you can be with everything, every minute, you know, but we think, we think something has to happen. Somebody’s going to push a button and change everything, you know? I remember, I was sitting with Maharajji once and I’d taken, washed in the afternoon because I was working in the morning, singing in the morning, so I put on my clean clothes and I went to sit in front of Maharajji and I laughed. At one point, I just laughed because I saw in my mind, I recognized that I thought that enlightenment would be someplace where I wouldn’t be. Why? Because I hated myself. So, there’s no possibility of me being in Enlightenmentland. Right? Because I hated myself. And then I laughed because I saw there was never any place I wasn’t going to be. It was a big thing. It was a big experience. So, experiences come and go and they may help us open our hearts more, but to cling to the experience itself or try to get it back or try to manufacture other experiences means you’re not here in the first place. Maharajji and all great saints are Love. They don’t love you. They’re not busy loving. They are Love. And so are you. If you’re busy loving then you’re not Love. You’re doing something. Once I was very much in love with somebody, right?

Call and Response Ep. 27 Spiritual Experiences, Auschwitz and Bernie Glassman Recently I’ve been having a draw to learn or feel more of my tradition and the ancestors and who’s come before me, and what moved me that I saw online was when you were in the barracks in Auschwitz, (you) sat down and sang to the children. My parents survived the holocaust. Their people did not. And when you sang and I experienced that video, I felt you were singing to and for me. I don’t know if that’s what your intent was but if you want to speak to that, please do because I want to know your experience and by way of request, if you want to sing that for our children, please do, Krishna Das. “I had a great friend named Bernie Glassman who’s a Zen Roshi, who had many deep enlightenment experiences and finally realized that the only thing keeping him and others out of that place was his own fear. So, he began to move towards the places where he had the most fear and where culturally in the world there was a lot of fear. So, one of those places was Auschwitz. And he began going to Auschwitz every year and bringing people to bear witness to the suffering. It wasn’t to just to go and suffer, but it was to bear witness and that’s a practice, to bear witness. And the idea was, in order to bear witness to something, one has to look at it and see it and in order to see it, one has to drop one’s ideas about it. And be with it. To see it clearly, one has to drop one’s stuff.” – Krishna Das   Go ahead. Q: Jai Ma. Thank you Krishna Das, for being here. I’m just wondering, when you were the pujari of the Durga temple in India, did you have any experiences where you really felt the presence of the Mother. KD: No. Q: No? KD: Of course not. What do you think I am? Q: You have all of these amazing other experiences that you talk about. I’m sure there’s something. KD: Like what? Q: I don’t know. Anything. KD: Experiences come and go. At my age, I forget them anyway. It doesn’t make any difference But they change you. That’s all. They do their work and then they go. You don’t have to hold onto them. In fact, holding on to them is just destroying them anyhow. Just making a big thing about nothing. If you have some experience that is in some way more opening for you, to try to cling to it and keep it is closing you down right away. Live. All these things pour into you like streams into the ocean. You don’t hold onto the stream. You’re the ocean. It’s not important. It’s not important at all. It’s ok. You can enjoy. But if you’re trying to cling to something, you won’t enjoy it for long because it’s gone already. So just be with it. The more fully you can be with everything, every minute, you know, but we think, we think something has to happen. Somebody’s going to push a button and change everything, you know? I remember, I was sitting with Maharajji once and I’d taken, washed in the afternoon because I was working in the morning, singing in the morning, so I put on my clean clothes and I went to sit in front of Maharajji and I laughed. At one point, I just laughed because I saw in my mind, I recognized that I thought that enlightenment would be someplace where I wouldn’t be. Why? Because I hated myself. So, there’s no possibility of me being in Enlightenmentland. Right? Because I hated myself. And then I laughed because I saw there was never any place I wasn’t going to be. It was a big thing. It was a big experience. So, experiences come and go and they may help us open our hearts more, but to cling to the experience itself or try to get it back or try to manufacture other experiences means you’re not here in the first place. Maharajji and all great saints are Love. They don’t love you. They’re not busy loving. They are Love. And so are you. If you’re busy loving then you’re not Love. You’re doing something. Once I was very much in love with somebody, right?

For my own karma, I would like to resolve those things that I’ve felt that I could have done better. Situations I could have handled better and I just wondered what your thoughts were on that, like, if you’ve hurt people in your past that you want to redress the situation but, I just wondered what your thoughts are, because sometimes people don’t want to be, a situation, you might be in a different frame of mind but they might not be, I’m just speaking very generally, but I just mean with respect to your own karmic situation. “Well, you know, there’s the inner and the outer. In the outer world, not everybody we’ve hurt wants to forgive us. That’s their problem. Our work is to release all that energy that’s blocked up in those intense emotions and I don’t think we need to try to forgive other people right off the bat. I think we need to first kind of calm ourselves down” – Krishna Das   Q: Thank you. I’m really enjoying being here. My first time experiencing something like this. KD: Me, too. Q: I wanted to ask you about karma because you were saying about, when you get a negative thought, you have different options, the way, you know, you can let it go, or get more angry, or just fall into it, so I know for myself and my past, I’ve made some, you know, I’ve been the rollercoaster where I haven’t been really thinking about my emotions and I’ve been reacting rather than going forward and there’s probably a whole lot of people that have been affected along the way. KD: Everybody. Q: Yeah. So, for my own karma, I would like to resolve those things that I’ve felt that I could have done better. Situations I could have handled better and I just wondered what your thoughts were on that, like, if you’ve hurt people in your past that you want to redress the situation but, I just wondered what your thoughts are, because sometimes people don’t want to be, a situation, you might be in a different frame of mind but they might not be, I’m just speaking very generally, but I just mean with respect to your own karmic situation. KD: Yeah. Well, you know, there’s the inner and the outer. In the outer world, not everybody we’ve hurt wants to forgive us. That’s their problem. Our work is to release all that energy that’s blocked up in those intense emotions and I don’t think we need to try to forgive other people right off the bat. I think we need to first kind of calm ourselves down and learn how to kind of get back into our bodies a little bit, because with trauma we’re really blasted into outer space and it’s physical, too, I mean the adrenal glands go on alert and they’re pumping adrenaline into the body and they don’t stop. There’s not an easy way to change that physical response and then around the adrenalized self, a whole, other storylines are built up, but they’re all built up based on that wall of adrenaline so you’re already outside of yourself and building more outside of your Self, our Selves. You know? Just sit down, relax. You’re never going to figure anything out, so it’s ok. Relax. Take it easy. Let yourself Be Here. Because you’re nowhere else, might as well be here. Watch your breath come in and out. That’s going to be there no matter what you’re experiencing. And just be with that. Let it come, let it go. And then you notice it. Ok. You see, it’s not easy. But it’s the beginning of pulling that energy out of the trauma responses, out of those programs and letting it be. Sit inside yourself. And then, you reach a certain point, you may need, you want some help, you need some counseling, somebody to talk to, because talking really helps open up some of those places where we’ve been wounded and hiding from that wound ourselves. So that can be very useful. Or not. It’s completely an individualized, you know, experience. But on the other hand, people can talk all day and never let go. Yeah. My father was a therapist. That’s how he made his money.

For my own karma, I would like to resolve those things that I’ve felt that I could have done better. Situations I could have handled better and I just wondered what your thoughts were on that, like, if you’ve hurt people in your past that you want to redress the situation but, I just wondered what your thoughts are, because sometimes people don’t want to be, a situation, you might be in a different frame of mind but they might not be, I’m just speaking very generally, but I just mean with respect to your own karmic situation. “Well, you know, there’s the inner and the outer. In the outer world, not everybody we’ve hurt wants to forgive us. That’s their problem. Our work is to release all that energy that’s blocked up in those intense emotions and I don’t think we need to try to forgive other people right off the bat. I think we need to first kind of calm ourselves down” – Krishna Das   Q: Thank you. I’m really enjoying being here. My first time experiencing something like this. KD: Me, too. Q: I wanted to ask you about karma because you were saying about, when you get a negative thought, you have different options, the way, you know, you can let it go, or get more angry, or just fall into it, so I know for myself and my past, I’ve made some, you know, I’ve been the rollercoaster where I haven’t been really thinking about my emotions and I’ve been reacting rather than going forward and there’s probably a whole lot of people that have been affected along the way. KD: Everybody. Q: Yeah. So, for my own karma, I would like to resolve those things that I’ve felt that I could have done better. Situations I could have handled better and I just wondered what your thoughts were on that, like, if you’ve hurt people in your past that you want to redress the situation but, I just wondered what your thoughts are, because sometimes people don’t want to be, a situation, you might be in a different frame of mind but they might not be, I’m just speaking very generally, but I just mean with respect to your own karmic situation. KD: Yeah. Well, you know, there’s the inner and the outer. In the outer world, not everybody we’ve hurt wants to forgive us. That’s their problem. Our work is to release all that energy that’s blocked up in those intense emotions and I don’t think we need to try to forgive other people right off the bat. I think we need to first kind of calm ourselves down and learn how to kind of get back into our bodies a little bit, because with trauma we’re really blasted into outer space and it’s physical, too, I mean the adrenal glands go on alert and they’re pumping adrenaline into the body and they don’t stop. There’s not an easy way to change that physical response and then around the adrenalized self, a whole, other storylines are built up, but they’re all built up based on that wall of adrenaline so you’re already outside of yourself and building more outside of your Self, our Selves. You know? Just sit down, relax. You’re never going to figure anything out, so it’s ok. Relax. Take it easy. Let yourself Be Here. Because you’re nowhere else, might as well be here. Watch your breath come in and out. That’s going to be there no matter what you’re experiencing. And just be with that. Let it come, let it go. And then you notice it. Ok. You see, it’s not easy. But it’s the beginning of pulling that energy out of the trauma responses, out of those programs and letting it be. Sit inside yourself. And then, you reach a certain point, you may need, you want some help, you need some counseling, somebody to talk to, because talking really helps open up some of those places where we’ve been wounded and hiding from that wound ourselves. So that can be very useful. Or not. It’s completely an individualized, you know, experience. But on the other hand, people can talk all day and never let go. Yeah. My father was a therapist. That’s how he made his money.

KD discusses the importance of practice, particularly the practices of Mantra repetition and the Hanuman Chalisa, and recalls how Maharajji’s Western devotees initially began chanting the Chalisa. “So, Maharajji said a couple of things. He said, “Hanuman Chalisa, every line of Hanuman Chalisa is Mahamantra.” Second, He said, “Hanuman Chalisa has the power to change fate.” Now, don’t, I have no idea what He’s talking about. But that’s what He said. And it feels to me, you know, we don’t know what’s going to happen, what’s coming to us tomorrow and the next minute and the next second, but not everything is pleasant. There’s sickness, there’s disease, there’s suffering, all kinds of things, so through this practice, those rocks, those boulders in the river of our lives are removed.” – Krishna Das KD: You know, I don’t know if you know the story about how we came to know the Chalisa. I think I’ve told it a few times, a few million times. We used to come to the temple every day and we were handed this little pamphlet, a little booklet, with a picture of a flying monkey on it, you know? We knew it was a Hanuman temple. We knew that much, so after I had about 100 of these books in my room, these booklets, I just happened to ask the guy giving it out, I said, “Well, what is this thing?” You know? And he said, “It’s a prayer to Hanuman.” And I said, “Oh, really?” So, I thought, if we learn this, then we could sing it to Maharajji because, you know… The whole, I keep saying this but it’s really, we’ve grown up with one tiny little type of love understanding. You know? That it’s between two people or two things, that it’s a, as my Indian father used to say, “Relationships are business. You do your business. Enjoy. But, love,” he said, “that’s something else that lasts 24 hours a day.” The idea is that real love is who we are. It’s what’s breathing in and out of our bodies. It’s what’s looking out of our eyes. It’s who we are. You don’t get it from somebody else. You don’t get it from anything. You don’t even get it from God. It’s God within us, is the love, is our own true nature. This is a big thing because we can hear this a million times and it just stays in the head, but it doesn’t get into the gut, you know? And even, we talk about compassion and kindness and loving kindness, you know, one of my teachers, Tsoknyi Rinpoche invited me to come sing at one of His retreats where he was going to teach about devotion for the first time. Usually devotion is a part, an integral part of the Tibetan path, but it’s not spoken of separately usually, it’s understood that without devotion, nothing happens. Not like gooey yucky slurpy slimy miserable devotion, but real natural aspiration of the heart to be living in love. And so, one of the things he told his own students, he said, you know, “You think you can have compassion for another person or all beings and hate yourself? How could that possibly happen?” It’s not possible. So, for us Westerners who are so locked inside of our little cell, a little jail cell of egoistic cravings and desires and fantasies and imaginings, for us it’s really the only way to get the key out of that jail cell, is to be kind to ourselves. Try to figure out how to be kind to ourselves. So, think for a second about how your day goes, ok? Where is your head? What are you thinking about? How are you feeling as you go through your day? You wake up, you know? Stagger to the kitchen for a cup of coffee or tea, chamomile tea… but think about how you go through the day. How much of the time you go through your day are you living in love? How much of the day everybody you see is like, full of beauty and grace and their just to bless you by their presence? Huh? How many? One? Your dog? Joseph Goldstein, one of our good friends and great meditation teachers, was giving a private interview to one of his students, and his student was really struggling with depression and anger and all kinds of stuff tha...

KD discusses the importance of practice, particularly the practices of Mantra repetition and the Hanuman Chalisa, and recalls how Maharajji’s Western devotees initially began chanting the Chalisa. “So, Maharajji said a couple of things. He said, “Hanuman Chalisa, every line of Hanuman Chalisa is Mahamantra.” Second, He said, “Hanuman Chalisa has the power to change fate.” Now, don’t, I have no idea what He’s talking about. But that’s what He said. And it feels to me, you know, we don’t know what’s going to happen, what’s coming to us tomorrow and the next minute and the next second, but not everything is pleasant. There’s sickness, there’s disease, there’s suffering, all kinds of things, so through this practice, those rocks, those boulders in the river of our lives are removed.” – Krishna Das KD: You know, I don’t know if you know the story about how we came to know the Chalisa. I think I’ve told it a few times, a few million times. We used to come to the temple every day and we were handed this little pamphlet, a little booklet, with a picture of a flying monkey on it, you know? We knew it was a Hanuman temple. We knew that much, so after I had about 100 of these books in my room, these booklets, I just happened to ask the guy giving it out, I said, “Well, what is this thing?” You know? And he said, “It’s a prayer to Hanuman.” And I said, “Oh, really?” So, I thought, if we learn this, then we could sing it to Maharajji because, you know… The whole, I keep saying this but it’s really, we’ve grown up with one tiny little type of love understanding. You know? That it’s between two people or two things, that it’s a, as my Indian father used to say, “Relationships are business. You do your business. Enjoy. But, love,” he said, “that’s something else that lasts 24 hours a day.” The idea is that real love is who we are. It’s what’s breathing in and out of our bodies. It’s what’s looking out of our eyes. It’s who we are. You don’t get it from somebody else. You don’t get it from anything. You don’t even get it from God. It’s God within us, is the love, is our own true nature. This is a big thing because we can hear this a million times and it just stays in the head, but it doesn’t get into the gut, you know? And even, we talk about compassion and kindness and loving kindness, you know, one of my teachers, Tsoknyi Rinpoche invited me to come sing at one of His retreats where he was going to teach about devotion for the first time. Usually devotion is a part, an integral part of the Tibetan path, but it’s not spoken of separately usually, it’s understood that without devotion, nothing happens. Not like gooey yucky slurpy slimy miserable devotion, but real natural aspiration of the heart to be living in love. And so, one of the things he told his own students, he said, you know, “You think you can have compassion for another person or all beings and hate yourself? How could that possibly happen?” It’s not possible. So, for us Westerners who are so locked inside of our little cell, a little jail cell of egoistic cravings and desires and fantasies and imaginings, for us it’s really the only way to get the key out of that jail cell, is to be kind to ourselves. Try to figure out how to be kind to ourselves. So, think for a second about how your day goes, ok? Where is your head? What are you thinking about? How are you feeling as you go through your day? You wake up, you know? Stagger to the kitchen for a cup of coffee or tea, chamomile tea… but think about how you go through the day. How much of the time you go through your day are you living in love? How much of the day everybody you see is like, full of beauty and grace and their just to bless you by their presence? Huh? How many? One? Your dog? Joseph Goldstein, one of our good friends and great meditation teachers, was giving a private interview to one of his students, and his student was really struggling with depression and anger and all kinds of stuff tha...

“We don’t know who we are. We don’t know what we really are. We don’t know what’s looking out of our eyes. We don’t know what’s experiencing the things we experience. We just experience, we wake up, drink some beer, go back to sleep and drink some more beer. That’s all we do. So, if we don’t know our Self, how are we going to know guru? How are we going to know God? Well, when your karma is ripe, to a certain point, I guess, the Self recognizes itself in someone that looks like they’re outside of you. Another human. Another Being. Another body. You recognize something in that Being and it’s something that comes from within. A recognition from within that is like coming home, you know?”   – Krishna Das   So, what we’ve been doing is called the repetition of the Divine Name. So, The deal is this: we are imprisoned within our thoughts and our emotions so we are imprisoned within our thoughts because we think we’re thinking. Don’t we? And you can’t think  yourself out of a prison that’s made of thought. Every thought is the prison. Every thought locks us into identification with our stuff. So through this practice of the repetition of the Name, all we do is we sing and when we notice that we haven’t been paying attention, we sing. That’s the whole thing. Nothing else is required. No visualization, no imagination, no anything, doing anything, trying to make anything happen. You just simply come back. Now, that’s an interesting thing. So there you are, sri ram jai ram jai jai ram and then 20 minutes later, you realize, “oh, I haven’t been paying attention.” How did that moment happen? The moment when you realized you weren’t paying attention? Right? You didn’t do that. We didn’t do that. It happened. We didn’t do that with our personal will. In other words, we didn’t say, “Ok, now I have to pay attention.” We were lost in thought and then we noticed we were lost in thought. How did we notice? Because we didn’t do that. It happened. So how did that happen? Well, that is the fruit, that moment of recognition or waking up from dreamland, is a result of the practice we’ve done in the past, our previous karmas. Or it would never happen. So, that’s what we’re doing. Every time, when that happens, and we notice that we haven’t been paying attention, we simply come back to the sound of the Name going on again and again. Because even while you were singing, the chances are you weren’t paying attention. But since you were singing, there was still a part of you that was doing it. And then you noticed, oh, wow, I’ve been thinking about that girl sitting next to me. Then you come back to the Name. That’s all. Any thought about that situation, you just let it go again and keep coming back and eventually, little by little, we get used to that feeling of coming back home. Coming back. And that mechanism, so to speak, keeps working during the day, the non-practice times. We’re cultivating awareness, presence and these Names that we chant are, they’re the Names of that place, so to speak, within us, that’s always here. The Awake Place. Presence, Being. When I was with Maharajji, my Guru, He just kept bringing us back. Bringing us back, reminding us, waking us up again and again. And the, being in the presence of this kind of Love, it’s not like He loved us or loves us because He understands, He’s realized the oneness of the universe and we’re all part of that. That might be true. But on a personal level, He loves us because we are who we are. Because we are already who we are. That’s what He loves. He loves us just as we are. I had never met anybody that loved me that way. The people who cared about me, no question about it, but if I looked closely, I could see that they wanted something in return. They wanted some affection in return, some attention, some support. That’s ok, but this was different. So different. And it really ignited a place in me that wanted to live in that love all the time.

“We don’t know who we are. We don’t know what we really are. We don’t know what’s looking out of our eyes. We don’t know what’s experiencing the things we experience. We just experience, we wake up, drink some beer, go back to sleep and drink some more beer. That’s all we do. So, if we don’t know our Self, how are we going to know guru? How are we going to know God? Well, when your karma is ripe, to a certain point, I guess, the Self recognizes itself in someone that looks like they’re outside of you. Another human. Another Being. Another body. You recognize something in that Being and it’s something that comes from within. A recognition from within that is like coming home, you know?”   – Krishna Das   So, what we’ve been doing is called the repetition of the Divine Name. So, The deal is this: we are imprisoned within our thoughts and our emotions so we are imprisoned within our thoughts because we think we’re thinking. Don’t we? And you can’t think  yourself out of a prison that’s made of thought. Every thought is the prison. Every thought locks us into identification with our stuff. So through this practice of the repetition of the Name, all we do is we sing and when we notice that we haven’t been paying attention, we sing. That’s the whole thing. Nothing else is required. No visualization, no imagination, no anything, doing anything, trying to make anything happen. You just simply come back. Now, that’s an interesting thing. So there you are, sri ram jai ram jai jai ram and then 20 minutes later, you realize, “oh, I haven’t been paying attention.” How did that moment happen? The moment when you realized you weren’t paying attention? Right? You didn’t do that. We didn’t do that. It happened. We didn’t do that with our personal will. In other words, we didn’t say, “Ok, now I have to pay attention.” We were lost in thought and then we noticed we were lost in thought. How did we notice? Because we didn’t do that. It happened. So how did that happen? Well, that is the fruit, that moment of recognition or waking up from dreamland, is a result of the practice we’ve done in the past, our previous karmas. Or it would never happen. So, that’s what we’re doing. Every time, when that happens, and we notice that we haven’t been paying attention, we simply come back to the sound of the Name going on again and again. Because even while you were singing, the chances are you weren’t paying attention. But since you were singing, there was still a part of you that was doing it. And then you noticed, oh, wow, I’ve been thinking about that girl sitting next to me. Then you come back to the Name. That’s all. Any thought about that situation, you just let it go again and keep coming back and eventually, little by little, we get used to that feeling of coming back home. Coming back. And that mechanism, so to speak, keeps working during the day, the non-practice times. We’re cultivating awareness, presence and these Names that we chant are, they’re the Names of that place, so to speak, within us, that’s always here. The Awake Place. Presence, Being. When I was with Maharajji, my Guru, He just kept bringing us back. Bringing us back, reminding us, waking us up again and again. And the, being in the presence of this kind of Love, it’s not like He loved us or loves us because He understands, He’s realized the oneness of the universe and we’re all part of that. That might be true. But on a personal level, He loves us because we are who we are. Because we are already who we are. That’s what He loves. He loves us just as we are. I had never met anybody that loved me that way. The people who cared about me, no question about it, but if I looked closely, I could see that they wanted something in return. They wanted some affection in return, some attention, some support. That’s ok, but this was different. So different. And it really ignited a place in me that wanted to live in that love all the time.

Given that we often refer to our minds as a wild monkey, that thoughts come up that we have no control over, it seems that, to be held responsible for thoughts that come up, that are not coming up because we intend them to come up, if there’s no intention, are we really responsible for the karmic consequences of our thoughts? “You don’t have to believe blindly in karma… you’re not required to believe anything. Blind faith is not useful in any way whatsoever. But when you look at certain situations, when you look at your own behaviors, you can kind of see where certain things are coming from, you know? You can see where you were born, you can see how you grew up, you can see how your parents treated each other. You can see how they treated you, you can see how they treated themselves, and you can feel, kind of the effects on that, of that, in who you feel you are, and out of who you feel you are, that’s how you will meet every moment that arises, whether it’s a mental moment of thoughts arising or it’s a moment in the physical world of stuff happening. How you greet each moment, every moment, every second of your life is not only an effect of certain causes, but also, becomes the cause of certain effects at the same time.”  – Krishna Das   Q: I want to comment on your remark that our thoughts also instigate karmic responses. Just two quick thoughts, one… KD: Be careful what you’re instigating. Q: Given that we often refer to our minds as a wild monkey, that thoughts come up that we have no control over, it seems that, to be held responsible for thoughts that come up, that are not coming up because we intend them to come up, if there’s no intention, are we really responsible for the karmic consequences of our thoughts? A., and B., I tended to think that our thoughts were the result of our karma. I’ll leave it at that. KD: Lot of thinking. Well, it’s interesting how you say, “How can we be held responsible?” Who else is having the thought? That person is having a whole different thought. So, the thought you say you’re having, must be individual for you. It must be a part of you somehow. Q: I accept that but… I’m not intending it. In other words, sometimes a thought will come up KD: Sometimes? Every thought you have comes from somewhere else. You have no idea… you don’t think them. Q: And I’ll say, “Stop thinking… that’s a terrible thought.’ You know? And I recognize that it’s some KD: Negativity… Q: Yeah. KD: You have options at that point. You can let it go completely, which is very difficult. You can notice it and work with it, try to release it, release that energy that’s clinging to that negative feeling or you can go out and shoot somebody. All three levels, if not more levels, have karmic consequences. But the thought itself doesn’t come from nowhere. Where does it? Does it come from nowhere? If it came from nowhere, everybody’s thoughts would be more or less the same. They’d come from the same nowhere. Our… each individual stuff is a result of waves we’ve created in the ocean, many… who knows when. And they’re individual for us to some degree. We share also many of the same karmas of being born, the same culture, of speaking the same language or different languages, of being born in, at a time when people view themselves a certain way, you know? Individuals. It might not have been that way a few thousand years ago in another culture. So, somebody born in that culture, wouldn’t, would be, being born in a different culture is a result of different karmic situations in the past. Because, you’ve got to understand, I mean, you don’t have to believe blindly in karma but, you’re not required to believe anything. Blind faith is not useful in any way whatsoever. But when you look at certain situations, when you look at your own behaviors, you can kind of see where certain things are coming from, you know? You can see where you were born,

Given that we often refer to our minds as a wild monkey, that thoughts come up that we have no control over, it seems that, to be held responsible for thoughts that come up, that are not coming up because we intend them to come up, if there’s no intention, are we really responsible for the karmic consequences of our thoughts? “You don’t have to believe blindly in karma… you’re not required to believe anything. Blind faith is not useful in any way whatsoever. But when you look at certain situations, when you look at your own behaviors, you can kind of see where certain things are coming from, you know? You can see where you were born, you can see how you grew up, you can see how your parents treated each other. You can see how they treated you, you can see how they treated themselves, and you can feel, kind of the effects on that, of that, in who you feel you are, and out of who you feel you are, that’s how you will meet every moment that arises, whether it’s a mental moment of thoughts arising or it’s a moment in the physical world of stuff happening. How you greet each moment, every moment, every second of your life is not only an effect of certain causes, but also, becomes the cause of certain effects at the same time.”  – Krishna Das   Q: I want to comment on your remark that our thoughts also instigate karmic responses. Just two quick thoughts, one… KD: Be careful what you’re instigating. Q: Given that we often refer to our minds as a wild monkey, that thoughts come up that we have no control over, it seems that, to be held responsible for thoughts that come up, that are not coming up because we intend them to come up, if there’s no intention, are we really responsible for the karmic consequences of our thoughts? A., and B., I tended to think that our thoughts were the result of our karma. I’ll leave it at that. KD: Lot of thinking. Well, it’s interesting how you say, “How can we be held responsible?” Who else is having the thought? That person is having a whole different thought. So, the thought you say you’re having, must be individual for you. It must be a part of you somehow. Q: I accept that but… I’m not intending it. In other words, sometimes a thought will come up KD: Sometimes? Every thought you have comes from somewhere else. You have no idea… you don’t think them. Q: And I’ll say, “Stop thinking… that’s a terrible thought.’ You know? And I recognize that it’s some KD: Negativity… Q: Yeah. KD: You have options at that point. You can let it go completely, which is very difficult. You can notice it and work with it, try to release it, release that energy that’s clinging to that negative feeling or you can go out and shoot somebody. All three levels, if not more levels, have karmic consequences. But the thought itself doesn’t come from nowhere. Where does it? Does it come from nowhere? If it came from nowhere, everybody’s thoughts would be more or less the same. They’d come from the same nowhere. Our… each individual stuff is a result of waves we’ve created in the ocean, many… who knows when. And they’re individual for us to some degree. We share also many of the same karmas of being born, the same culture, of speaking the same language or different languages, of being born in, at a time when people view themselves a certain way, you know? Individuals. It might not have been that way a few thousand years ago in another culture. So, somebody born in that culture, wouldn’t, would be, being born in a different culture is a result of different karmic situations in the past. Because, you’ve got to understand, I mean, you don’t have to believe blindly in karma but, you’re not required to believe anything. Blind faith is not useful in any way whatsoever. But when you look at certain situations, when you look at your own behaviors, you can kind of see where certain things are coming from, you know? You can see where you were born,

Call and Response Ep. 22 Meditation and Moping I don’t like the outside silence leading me to the stuff in my head. But when I feel it with the chanting, I feel like, movement, and I process things. So I’m wondering, is there a difference for you between what we call meditation and now I think mindfulness and I’m wondering if you think there’s a difference between like, mindfulness, meditation, mantra chanting, like all the words? “I sit down and I start singing and once I start singing, it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except the singing and that, I don’t even know what to call it, that reflex, almost of paying attention, as soon as I’m gone, I wake up, I remember and I come back to the Name. Again and again and again. I don’t analyze what I was thinking. I don’t analyze how I’m feeling, you know? I just let it go and come back.  It’s not important.   I am not important. The reason I mope around less is because I and how I feel and all my emotions and “how am I now? How am I now? How am I now? Is it good? Is this good? I think this is better if I do it this way. A little Vaseline over here will make it easier…” becomes unimportant. It’s just not about that. So, be unhappy. It’s ok. Enjoy. “ – Krishna Das   Q: Going back to the moping, I realized I’ve become so good at moping that it has turned into KD: Your spiritual practice. Q: Yes. KD: Excellent. Q: Thank you for saying that. KD: You’re welcome. Q: And thank you for mentioning it, too, because literally, right before you said that, I was wondering “Well, what’s his deal and where does he struggle.” Because if we’re all human, and in relation to that, the advice, suggestions, whatever I always get, is meditation and going back to what you said about the thoughts, like, I do feel like the moping leads to, I create really good thought prisons. And I’m starting to pull out of it and I realize just even being here for a little bit that this has done a lot and that I don’t feel the same weight or I don’t, I might be impatient, but I don’t feel the same way during meditation, which I know means a lot of different things and I’ve been saying that chanting and kirtan is my meditation because when I hear what people talk about what meditation’s supposed to bring, I get that from this and I honestly, I hate meditation. Like, absolutely hate it. So I’m curious as to what, the thing is, I don’t like the silence. I don’t like being completely… KD: Don’t worry. It’s never silent in your head. Q: That’s what I’m saying. I guess let me rephrase that. I don’t like the outside silence leading me to the stuff in my head. But when I feel it with the chanting, I feel like, movement, and I process things. So I’m wondering, is there a difference for you between what we call meditation and now I think mindfulness and I’m wondering if you think there’s a difference between like, mindfulness, meditation, mantra chanting, like all the words… I hope that’s a question. Thank you. KD: Sure. Well, the best meditation is the one you do.  Meditation is a very big subject. There’s a lot of different techniques of meditation. My guru said, “From going on repeating these names, everything is accomplished. Everything is brought to fulness and completion.” That’s what He said. You know, there’s ashtanga yoga, the eight limbed yoga, you know? All that shit. But Maharajji used to say that the westerners were qualified only for the five limbed yoga, which means, “Gossiping, drinking tea, eating, wandering around and talking.” Gossiping, wandering around, eating, drinking and sleeping. That’s what we were qualified for. I believe Him.  That’s why I chant. That’s what I’m qualified for. I don’t know what… you know, I’ve done a lot of different practices with a lot of different teachers and wonderful Beings, but the thing that works for me, the thing that I feel I have to do and want to do is the chanting.