Duncan Trussell Family Hour - Krishna Das

Episode Date: December 15, 2014

World famous musician, spiritual teacher, and Kiertan Wallah, Krishna Das joins the DTFH.

Ghost Towns, Dirty Angel, out now. You can get Dirty Angel anywhere you get your music. Ghost Towns, Dirty Angel, out now. New album and tour date coming this summer. Hello, dear friends. It is I, Duncan Trussell, the podcasting, and you are listening to the Duncan Trussell Family Hour podcast, which President Barack Obama recently awarded the

National Podcasting in America podcasting award. Thank you for that, President Barack Obama. I hope you enjoy your vacation in Hawaii, which is where I'm currently recording this from. I'm sitting in a little cottage in a town called Paella. If the sounds weird, it's because I'm using equipment I don't normally use. If I sound weird, it's because I just got back from another of these open your heart and paradise Ram Dass retreats.

And as always, I forgot when I was going to it how powerful these things are. I go to these things with a vacation mentality, like I'm just going to go snorkeling, walk on the beach, have some Mai ties, listen to Krishnadas, seeing transcendental sound vibrations that emanate from a love field that exists outside of time and space. Listen to Ram Dass talk about his guru, who is a man who is also a portal to this very same love field or listen to Jack Cornfield and Trudy Goodman teach about how to open your consciousness so that you completely

blend in with this love field. And then maybe I'll go and collect some shells, take a couple of naps. You forget that what you're doing is taking a kind of. I don't know, mystical LSD. It's the only thing I can compare it to. If you've ever taken a nice, healthy dose of LSD and had a successful psychedelic trip, then you know that the days following that experience are strange days where colors seem a little bit brighter, things seem

a little more vibrant, and you feel completely different yet exactly the same. That's what happens with these spiritual retreats. It's incredible and I always underestimate them somehow. I always underestimate them. But these people, Krishnadas, Jack Cornfield, Raghu Marcus, all of them, these spiritual teachers, they remind me of when I was a kid and I was learning how to swim. And I still remember the guy who taught me how to swim.

His name was Percy and it was a terrifying experience to learn how to swim. I was a terrified child and it is scary. When I was a kid, I remember floating in a swimming pool and I would wear those water wings, those inflatable floaties, and I could remember just sort of comfortably floating there on these water wings and enjoying myself. It's great. You don't have to worry about anything. You got these water wings on, you just float in the water, you're set.

I don't know if you guys remember back in the day, but water wings were incredible. If you've been a kid who's been spending most of your time in the kiddie pool, which is 90% child urine, and suddenly you get moved into the big pool and you've got these water wings on, it's exhilarating. Your feet can't touch the ground. You're not sucking back chlorinated piss every time you put your face in the water. It's freeing and you feel completely blown away by the fact that this entire new swimming pool dimension exists for you.

I can remember sitting there and floating with these water wings and some kid spots me, swims over to me, and just pulls the plug on my water wings, one then the other, and the air just goes out of the wings and suddenly I find myself sort of drown, basically drowning. It's funny now, but it was terrifying. I was screaming, water was getting in my mouth. I didn't understand why this kid had pulled the goddamn plugs on my wings. For no reason.

He was just some kind of swimming pool sadist. What a monster. I wonder how many toddlers he drowned that summer. But my mom yanked me out of the water and I was okay. Nobody had to give me CPR, but from that point on, I was really scared of swimming in swimming pools. And so my mom got me swimming lessons with this guy named Percy, who had taught countless children how to swim.

And it was really cool the way that he would do it, which is that he would take you, sands water wings, bring you out into the water, and then he starts telling you these really funny jokes so that in the midst of your terror, you would find yourself laughing. He had really funny ways of explaining how to put your head under the water and bring it up. And I don't remember exactly what it was. When you're a kid, pretty much anything will make you laugh. And so I don't remember he would like, he had a lot of water gags that he would do,

these bits that he would do that were really funny. And as you were out there, you didn't even realize that you were being taught how to swim without water wings. And you didn't realize that you were being completely empowered to swim around a big, deep swimming pool. It just seemed like fun. Well, that's what these spiritual teachers are like. They help you overcome the terror that many of us have embedded deep inside of us from

whatever thing happened to us, the time the universe pulled the plug on our water wings. And we thought we were going to drown. And that made us scared of everything and shut down and made it so that we became completely afraid of going into the deep water. These guys, they have learned how to teach your soul how to swim. And it sounds cheesy and sappy, but I can't think of a better way to put it. Because whenever you get to be around these guys, you don't even realize it, but they're slowly taking you into the deep, deep water.

And suddenly you will find yourself realizing that if you stop freaking out and panicking and struggling and just relax, that you go from drowning to floating. And that's what they're good at. And they're really good at it. So I'm very excited because we have two of my favorite spiritual swimming coaches in this dimension on this podcast today, Raghu Marcus and Krishnadas. And we're going to dive right into that. But first, some business.

This episode of the Duncan Trussell Family Hour podcast is brought to you by the Sweeties over at clefstash.com. That's C-L-E-F-F-S-T-A-C-H-E dot com. These guys are creating wooden guitar picks deep in the heart of Mormon country. Now, if you're somebody who plays guitar, then you've probably been using a plastic guitar pick, which is a horrible thing to do. Why are you creating music with something that's more than likely going to end up jammed into the eyeball of a baby dolphin trying to swim through the transatlantic gyre,

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They look awesome. They sound awesome. Give it a shot. And a big thanks to clefstache for supporting this episode of the Duncan Trussell Family Hour podcast. We're also brought to you by amazon.com. If you go through the portal located at DuncanTrussell.com, the next time you're going to buy something from Amazon, I highly recommend a bidet.

I know I've talked about it before, but the only thing that is missing from the paradise that we call Maui is my bidet. I wish that they made portable bidets, wearable bidets. I would wear a bidet on a necklace, something that I could just attach to toilet seats when I'm out in the world. I'd do it without shame. They're that incredible. You can go to amazon.com and order one.

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And finally, the DuncanTrussell Family Hour podcast is coming to Texas. I'm going to be in Texas at the end of January. On January 23rd, I'm going to be at the parish in Austin, Texas. On the 24th, I'm going to be at the come and take it comedy takeover festival in Houston, Texas. And on the 25th, I'm going to be at the sons of Herman Hall in Dallas. And these are all going to be live recordings of the DuncanTrussell Family Hour podcast tickets are available at DuncanTrussell.com.

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Today's episode of the DuncanTrussell Family Hour podcast would not be possible if not for Ragu Marcus and the MindPod Network. If you go to mindpodnetwork.com, you will be pleasantly surprised to find out that there is a brand new spirituality podcast network that has just come into existence with podcasts from some of today's most renowned spiritual luminaries like Sharon Salzburg, Jack Cornfield, Krishnadas, Ramdas, and of course Ragu and David Silver,

who are the hosts of the Mindrolling podcast. Go check this podcast network out. Ragu Marcus made it possible for me to sit down with one of my heroes, Krishnadas. Krishnadas is a badass. He's one of the most famous Kirtan Wallace in the world. He played Kirtans at the Grammys while wearing a flannel. He was a devotee, is a devotee of Neem Karoli Baba,

and he has been practicing the spiritual path of Kirtans for decades. So it was really mind-blowing to get to sit down with him. My apologies if I seem a little nervous or stiff, but I was feeling nervous and stiff because this is somebody who I've been listening to for years and years and years, and it was surreal to get to sit down at a table with him and talk about chanting. You can find out more about him by going to krishnadas.com.

You should also check out his new album called Kirtan Walla. Again, I'm sorry if the sound in this intro has been a little weird, and I apologize if the sound during this interview is a little weird. I was using equipment I don't normally use for the podcast. Okay, everybody, here we go. Please welcome to the Dunkin' Trussell Family Hour podcast two of the sweetest people living on earth today, Ragu Marcus and Krishnadas.

So Krishnadas, you have a new podcast coming out. What are you going to call it? I don't know. But we usually wait till people get out of jail, and then we invite them for the podcast. Oh, really? That's a great idea for a podcast. Interview people fresh out of jail.

Krishnadas interviews people fresh out of jail. Jail of worldly life. That's the jail we're talking about. Yeah. The jail of samsara. Yeah. The ocean of worldly existence. Yeah, well, you know, when I first many, many years ago heard those ideas,

they're pretty, it's a downer when you hear it the first time. You think, what is, why would anybody say this world is a jail? I don't understand that idea. Why do they say the world's a jail? Well, it goes back to the clearest teaching about that is the Buddha. He came out of the jungle and said, people, no matter what you do, no matter what you have, no matter what you get, no matter how much of it you get, there'll always be some suffering involved.

And the way, and there is the possibility of transcending suffering, but it involves accepting that it's real in the first place. If you don't accept that you are suffering, if you don't want to look at it, then there's no possibility of ever, you know, working it out and getting beyond it. You know, I love hearing you say that because at these retreats, what has happened to me, I've been, I've been, I went to the last one and got to listen to you do kirtan at night. And so what ends up happening to me is I get horribly stoned and I come and start singing the kirtan. And both times I am met fairly quickly with this fear inside of me that is

always, I think right there under the surface, but somehow the combination of super powerful marijuana and the chanting summons this thing up to the surface. And it is horrible, horrible. And so, and it seems impenetrable. It seems that there's no way out of this. It's like, the best way I can think to describe is it is like looking at a rock face that goes up and up and up and up is insurmountable. You're certainly not going to knock it down. It really does seem impossible to get beyond that. That's your mind. And when you smoke, when you, when you do those kind of chemicals, in fact, what's happening is you're weakening your will. You're taking strength from your inner

will to actually digest that fear. And a lot of people, Maharaj, we used to smoke all the time, Maharaj said, you know, don't smoke. It's not good for your health. And if it, if it brought you to God, I put you in a room full of them, we'd all smoke together. Oh, wow. So he was very clear about that. On the other hand, when it came to acid, he said, he called it the yogi medicine. And he said, it brings you into the room with Christ, but you can't stay. So the only way to stay, he said, is love, not love, real love, unconditional love. And so at some point in one's life, one gets tired of going in and out, up and down, getting thrown out of the kingdom of heaven again and again. And one says, okay, fuck it, I'm going to deal with this. And then you kind of have

to just kind of look at your life and see what's helpful in the long run, and what's not helpful. So at some point, I had to stop doing drugs because I couldn't stand coming down anymore. It got too painful. And I saw if I kept catapulting myself into outer space, and then crashing down onto the earth, you know, if I stopped doing that, I understood intuitively that the plateau of my consciousness would rise gradually, not dramatically, not like Hollywood, but gradually over time, I wouldn't go so low. And that's kind of the way it worked. It's not a good and evil thing. It's not a should or shouldn't. It's just each person has to decide what works for them. But when you do, when you like, when I smoked dope, my mind ate me alive.

Yes. And I finally just had to stop because I couldn't stand it anymore. Well, is that now see this is something that I've wondered about. And, you know, I've obviously have stoner friends and we talk about this, the thing that happens from time to time where you get pulled into the deep water by your mind when you get stoned. The question is, is it shining a light on something that you need to see? Or is it just a delusional paranoia that doesn't even exist in there at all? I think it's a little bit of both. I think if it wasn't there at all, you wouldn't see it, period. I think it changes your relationship to what's already there. And you experience it in a different way. You experience your thoughts and emotions in a different way without the kind

of the ego strength of saying, who cares? And you don't let it come. When you do those drugs, you lose the ability to do that. And you also lose the ability to digest it and ultimately transcend it. Right. Because when you come out of it, you only have a kind of remnant of what happened, a brief flickering idea of what happened, but you definitely don't hold on to it. And I hate to say this, but eventually you'll look at those moments when you've come back as if you've got a wound in your side. It's more like a wound that takes time to heal because you've wounded yourself and your will. Will is really misunderstood. People say, I don't know about will. Without will, we have nothing. You want that apple? The hand is raising itself. It's moving. It's grabbing the

apple. This is all your will. If you want things, you need will. And if we do things that paralyze our will, we're screwed. I was sitting in the jungle with a yogi who was 163 years old at the time. And he looked at me and he said, you need itchha shakti, which means willpower. Itchha means desire, shakti is power, strength. So itchha shakti means you need willpower. And I swear to you, my first thought was willpower, what do I need that for? And then he looked at me again because he could tell me, read my thoughts. And he showed me, he did something, and he showed me inside myself what he was seeing. And I went, oh, shit. What was he seeing? He saw somebody who was shackling himself at every step of the way, crippling himself in life every step of the way

every day, not going after what he wanted in life, not really going after this or that, not copying to the fact that he had desires, not copying to the fact that he wanted this and wanted that, was trying to get around it the easy way by slipping around the side, which is impossible. He saw that. And he showed me what that looked like. And it was, it changed my life. Why were you shackling yourself? Why did you want it? Why? Regular old fashioned neurosis, you know, this is what I was taught, my parents, my their parents, everybody, you know, I just was neurotic. I was afraid. I was, I had a lot of self-hatred. I had a lot of insecurity. I didn't know if I was loved by women and in relationships

and people, you know, just the usual stuff everybody has. Yeah. And it was, and the other thing I saw, by the way, at that moment was that there's only one life. There isn't spiritual life and worldly life. That will that I was not using that I was crippling applied equally to meditation, chanting and all that stuff. It's the same me that I'm crippling. So if I couldn't go after this stuff, I wasn't going to get that stuff either. Right. Right. And then I saw, oh, you know, and, you know, that moment was a big moment that led to me ultimately starting to sing with people again in the way I'm doing it now. So you had stopped? I hadn't started after India. This is in still in the period before I started singing with people

again after I came back from India after Maharajah died. After I went through, you know, despair and torture and all that stuff for all your years, so many years. This was a big awakening moment for recognizing that I had to get my shit together or wasn't going to come together. Right. And nobody wants to hear that. Nobody wants to hear that you have to work. Nobody, people don't want to hear, you know, for example, the, the four regulative principles that the Hare Krishna has talked about, if you ever heard about this, don't eat meat, don't have sex, don't gamble and don't do drugs. These are, this is advice that is given. And I think about that sometimes. And I was talking with Raghu about Kundalini and the, the idea of this Kundalini

energy being blocked and how when you are, it's how perhaps those types of things are blocking the flow of that energy. Maybe, maybe. Is Khan is a particular path. Every path has its rules and regulations in order to follow that path and in order to carry the juice that that path offers. There are other paths that think about things differently. Yes. Oh, yeah, sure. Tibetan seed meat. Yep. They make kids. Yep. They do all kinds of things. You can't say that they're not on the path. So all these things are open to discussion and, and all I think they're all, they're all part of a path. If you're on that path, then you need to follow those rules. But there are other paths, other ways of looking at it and approaching the same or

approaching the goal of life that, that don't include those kind of things that are much less traditionally life, worldly life negating. They're less negating about daily life. Right. That's a very renunciate type of path. And it's for people who are drawn to that. Do you consider yourself to be a renunciate? God forbid, so to speak. No, no, I thought I was going to be a monk. When I went to India, I was celibate. I became celibate. And I was planning to stay celibate. And I was also planning to stay in India. The result was that I had so much Shakti that I kind of walked like a robot. I couldn't move. I mean, I was, because I had, it was like trying to shit. It was like an elephant, like it's like, like a mouse trying to

shit out an elephant. It ain't going to happen. You know, I had so much energy, and it was so blocked. What was it blocked for from my desires? Who the things I want in life? You can't pretend you don't want these things. You can in at certain times you can, and certain people can override those desires and work with them in another way, like it's like it's kind of like the higher Christian people. Whether it's successful for everybody, it's never successful for everybody, no matter what path you're on. But that's one way of dealing with them. No. Right. There's another way of dealing with them. And this is what Maharaj sent me back into America. He said, you have attachment there. Go back. And I had to deal with my life and all the unfinished and undigested

emotions and emotional pain and the betrayals and the hurts from childhood and on and on. You have to, these things have to be looked at. They have to be let go of, not pushed away. Pushing away is holding on. They have to be released. And you can't release them unless you pay attention. How does Kirtan Enchanting help with this release? It helps with release. Does it? I had no idea. No, really, it's, doing a practice is the only way that you can get the leverage to let go of something. Because you're learning, you're training yourself to sit more deeply in yourself. And so those things that happen on the surface of your mental and emotional world, thoughts and emotions

and stuff like that, when you're sitting more deeply in yourself, they don't grab you the same way or grab you for as long. You don't get any vote as to what's coming. You can't tell me that you can program what thoughts are going to come through your head. What you can do, what we have, the only moment of freedom that we have is in that moment when we notice what's going on. What happens? Do we react? We're already reacting. Let's say we're already reacting, right? Because that's probably what's going to happen. So at that moment, you notice you're reacting. What can you do? Usually very little at that moment, which is why you train when you're not in a storm. Right. Okay, yeah, I get that. And then that training carries through

that the emotion comes through, but it doesn't grab you for as long or as deeply. It's not that you're doing anything at that moment. It's just that the training has created a deeper place for you to be sitting. But this is something that's very subtle. And it's hard because it's subtle. It doesn't pay off right away. Right. The pay off right away is the joy of the singing. Yes. That's the pay off. You get with a group of people, you start singing, you have a good time, you forget your problems, you enter a lighter space, and that's great. That's the pay off. Then you go home. And you start dealing with life again. The fact that you spent two hours chanting definitely has an effect on how you meet life after that. But it's not like you can push a

button and change everything. The real changes take time. I have a question for you. On behalf of Krishnadas, we're at a retreat, everybody. And in the midst of this retreat, we've been telling stories about our Guru, Nimkara Obama, Maharajee. And I wrote to Duncan. And I said, Gee, how did you like this panel where we're all telling stories and so on about Maharajee? And Duncan wrote back and said, you know, I have a very difficult time listening to you guys' stories about Maharajee. Connecting. Connecting. So can you explain what you're talking about? Yeah, well, my experience with Maharajee has only been from the energy that comes out of you guys. That's it. So when you're singing, and also you all, I don't know what you would even call you guys. I don't know there's no

there isn't a name for it, but the satsang, I guess, is the name for it. So there's a very specific, loving, sweet, forgiving, empathetic, compassionate energy that seems to come out of everyone. And it's very unique. And whenever I get around it, it's overwhelming in a beautiful way. So I am whenever when I come to these retreats, one of my big hang ups is dealing with everyone being so kind to me. And I and it's hard. It's hard. And and and I and it's like you want to put your eyes down, you do you want to turn your back to it for some reason, that's my thing. So that's that's my connection with Maharajee. That person is is in the same way when you're like, you know, when you so you find a rescue dog, you don't know who the previous owner was. But you know,

he was an asshole, because the dog, every time you start putting your belt on flinches and goes into the corner. So you're like, Oh, the thumbprint of that dog owner is on that dog. And he was a bastard. And in the same way, when you come into contact with you guys, you see, Oh, Oh, I don't know who this person was, except through the way every single one of you is not only your own person, you're not like every each of you have your own completely your own personality. Some of you are kind of erasable and like, in a hilarious way, some of you are like Ramdas, just like this like love beam. Some of you are like, it's just all different. But underneath it all is this identical sense. So that's how I know Maharajee. But the stories,

I don't know, it just helped for me. I like hearing about it. But I don't know. It's just hard for me to connect with the stories of of being around them. Maybe I'm jealous. Maybe I'm player hating, because I because I don't get to experience that, you know, the person to person. So far. Yeah. Yeah. So that's my answer. Interesting. Because I hear that a lot in one form or another, because people, I, I sing with people and do workshops with people who many of them have never met Maharajee. And they say, Well, what, you know, what can I do? You know, I haven't met him. Well, I'll never meet him. He's not here. But I went to India and met him and become totally attached to him. Yes. And then he died.

And there's something in me died. Or I thought it did. I'd live as if it had died. Because I would never see him again. I would never feel like that again. And so was the sense, you know, I wasn't going to kill myself. But I also just was resigned to a life of quiet despair here. And it was getting worse and worse and worse and worse and worse. And then I couple of things happened and they helped me a lot. But one thing I was standing in my room in New York. And I realized if I did not sing with people, I would never be able to clean out the dark corners of my own heart. Behind that was the understanding that that was the only thing that was causing me suffering.

It wasn't the fact that it was the fact that these all these issues in my own heart. And that was what was coming. And the only method given to me to deal with that was chanting. And I had to be with people. This was all like a flash I got. And it took me a while to cop to it because I didn't want to. Wow. So the point was that so now I'm I've been chanting for almost 20 years since that day. And less of me still believes the old stuff than there was before. Those thoughts about being having lost him, never knowing what it's like, never finding love, never. Those thoughts arise. When they do, it's a pain in the ass, but they don't arise the way they used to arise. And that's what we're talking about practice. So I and here's another thing,

like sometimes people bring their babies to meet me. And these babies have grown up, have been gone through the nine months have been born listening to my chanting CDs. And they look at me. And they hear my voice. Half of them freak beyond belief. Wow. That that huge voice that was everywhere, even in the womb, you know, yeah, is like coming out of this little mouth. And the other half come grab me and hold. Oh, you know, it's extraordinary. So it's kind of like that, you know, you, you've never met somebody that love like that, that could let you love like that. Right. And so you hear about it. And it's like, you want it. But at the same time, you know, it can't be. I don't want to go. That's it. Yeah, it's skepticism. I'm glad you said it,

because that is truly what it is. I just want to be a jerk. There is skepticism there. You have a way to go because you have to get to cynicism. And then you're still a skepticism. There's no problem. But it is skepticism. But it is. But it also is a little bit of jealousy. It's also a little bit of like, well, I mean, I don't get to meet him in that way. So, but I, isn't it part of the yoga or the having a guru is telling stories of him? Isn't that sure? It is. Yeah. And the him you think you're not meeting, you obviously already know who that is. Yeah, you know, I think you would, I'm pretty sure he would have thrown me out right. I would have been one of the ones who always like out. He only sees us now. I also on a side note, and I'm sure you do to get this all

the time. But when I after my mom died, we went to her this house that she has on a little island, where she spent many of her last months and your CD was there and she'd been listening to you. And I was so wonderful because it was like there. I was able to listen to you, you know, in in the house after she was just beautiful. We listened. I listened to you nonstop for that week. I mean, you have, I'm certainly one of the people who've been profoundly impacted by you. I've been listening to you for, oh, God, probably 28, I don't know, 15 years or so long. So that being said, you got to tell the story. I mean, you told it yesterday. It's just of going because you're talking about Maharaj and the stories about him. You have a story about Ram Dass that will be a

story that you'll be telling other people when you took me to his house. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, we're a goo right after my mom passed away. Sort of surprised me at the spring retreat by everyone was going up on the ball. I don't remember they're doing some field trip was with Roshi, Joan Halepax. Yeah. And then he's like, don't you're not going on that. We're going to Ram Dass's house. And, you know, this is I was truly heartbroken at the time. And yeah, we, we, we got there. And, you know, suddenly I'm swimming in the swimming pool with Ram Dass and Roshi, Joan Halepax, and she's, she's carrying him around like a baby laughing. Yeah. But he's laughing and they're playing. And, you know, he looks at me and

this is, you know, this is their podcast. To me, this was the summation of everything that you guys are putting out there. But, you know, in beautiful pool in Hawaii, and it's like the energy is so light, there's no like heavy anything going on here. It's just pure playfulness in the moment. And he looks at me and he goes big smile and that I'm like, that's where I want to be. Because when I get to Hawaii, I'm enjoying it. But I'm going to tell you, if I'm snorkeling, 60% of the time thinking about getting bitten by a shark. Do you know? That's what life's like, man. We're looking for happiness. We're looking for happiness but 60, 90% of the time we're waiting to get stabbed in the back. That's right. Yeah. And if you don't mind,

can we bring it back to, could you tell that story about that you told about the Ramakrishna, the story about how each chant is a seed? Sure. Ramakrishna was a great saint who lived in the 1800s. He left the body in 1886, I think, or something like that. And he described the way that chanting, he was talking about the chanting practice, particular at the time, chanting of what they call the names of God. And he said that every one of these names carries energy and power. And that even though you may not experience that power at the time of the practice, while you're doing the practice, sooner or later, when the causes and conditions arise, those names, which are seeds, will take root and grow. And he said that you could say that each

repetition of the name is like a seed that gets thrown into the wind. And it lands, they land on the roof of an old house in the Indian countryside, right? And in those days, the roofs, if they were made by tile, they weren't, they were like tile that was hardened in the sun, not in a kiln. And so over time and seasons and rain and heat and sun, those tiles break down and get soft. And that point, those seeds start to root. Those roots start to grow. They grow, they grow, and they destroy the roof of the house. And they keep growing and they destroy the house. Ramakrishna said that house is who we think we are, our conventional sense of self, me. And that's destroyed. And that house is temporary.

That house was created from certain causes and conditions. Built a house with materials, built it a certain way. And now time is taking it apart. And once it's gone, the inside and outside are no longer inside and outside. There's just open space, oneness. So our sense of self, of being separate, of being me and that person being them is what slowly destroyed the sense of separate self, which is temporary and itself, an effect of certain causes and conditions, is destroyed, the separateness, the sense of separateness. There is no separateness, but we believe there is. And so that belief is destroyed just like the house in the jungle. Wow. Through the repetition of the name.

That is so cool. That is the coolest explanation I've ever heard for it. One of the reasons it's so cool is because you know what, it ain't about me. He doesn't say, oh, you'll feel this, you'll feel that, you'll feel that, then you'll have this experience. He never says that. Why? Because it isn't about that. Right. It's about what is dissolving in us, you know? That's, well, it's incredibly, that is a kind of a scary idea. That's kind of scary because we're identified with me. Yes. Me doesn't want to die. Me doesn't want to be destroyed. Yes. But me is not, even when you think you're me, you're still your true self. You just think you're you. Yes. And you believe you're you. But there is something,

why there is something scary about it. Yes. Absolutely. So that's a real thing because when, you know, anytime that I've ever practiced for any length of time, the few rare times that's happened, I will hit a point where it's scary, where it's like, oh, shit, man, this is changing me. And I don't necessarily want to change. You're not, you're the kind of practice you're doing is obviously you're using your will to do a certain practice in a certain way. There's a tension there. There's a desire to accomplish something, experience something. Yes. So you're not touching, see, the space in the house and outside of the house is bliss. Okay, that's cool. It's not nothing. Right. It's love. Right. Bliss. It's truth. It's

ecstasy. It's oneness. Right. It's not a negative. So it's just the fear in itself that prevents us from feeling that because me doesn't want me wants to hang on to stuff. In order to get that bliss, me has to learn to let go. How do you learn to let go? You practice. Every time we do, we chant, we're practicing letting go. Right. We're singing and as soon as we notice we're not paying attention, we come back a billion times in an hour. Right. We're training ourselves to let go. And that training carries over to the next day and the next day and the next day. And the letting go, it's there's this huge, it seems like there's a huge component of listening in it too. Your awareness, listening, sure. Because you're listening to the way that a

Kirtan works, because maybe some people listening don't know. There's an, I don't know what the names for the pattern is, but there's a call and response. And you listen to the call and then you respond to it. But in the listening, your mind will wander and in the response, your mind will wander. And so it sort of functions as a... It's an anchor for you. Right. Keep coming back to it. And it's, it's not so much that you have to use force to come back. It's just like when a boat drops an anchor down in the water, when the wind blows it, there's a point where it's just not going to go past a certain point because it's anchored. So as you keep doing these practices, you're anchoring to your true self, your deeper presence, your own true nature. And so you'll

go away, but you won't go that far. It's not that you have to stop yourself and like stop thinking and come back. By the time you notice, you're thinking, you're already back. Right. And then at that point, you rededicate yourself to paying attention. And then that might last a billionth of a second, and then you're gone again. Every time it happens, whether we experience it or not that way, it creates another neural pathway, so to speak, in the brain that gets deeper and deeper and deeper and holds us more deeply in ourselves as time goes on. Would you mind talking a little bit about what your personal practice is? What? Well, I try to wake up every day. That's important. It doesn't always happen.

My personal practice, you know, really my personal practice, all my practices are personal, whatever they are, even if they're public, because I'm just doing my practice. Right. You know, I'm not singing for you. I'm not entertaining. I'm sharing my practice. And so you'd have to say that the most intense moments of practice for me are really with people. You know, I do sing alone at home. I do meditate at times through different techniques, breathing, a little asana, a little this, a little that. But really the moments when I'm singing with people are the most when I've gathered as much of me as possibly can be gathered into the moment. So I'm totally dependent on people coming to sing with me. It's terrible.

Oh, that is so cool. How wonderful that you that those. It's an interesting thing that your karma is such that your practice has become this. It's something that has made you a super. You're a superstar. You don't you don't act like it. You're the most humble person ever. But my own mind, I'm a superstar anyway. You are. You know, it's true. I mean, you really are. You are a world famous Kirtan. Well, would you, you know, get rid of this illusion? No, it's true. Transfer it. You're your podcast. Now what? 80,000 downloads a week? He was at the Grammys. 80,000 a week. How do I care? He was at the Grammys. Okay.

And 80,000 downloads is not the grant. I mean, not that there's a hierarchy here, but if we're going to like, there's really not a there's not a comparison, man. Stupid star. But here a question. What is it that's what do you think's happening with with this podcast that you've got going in the last couple of years, you know, you when you wrote to me and said, gee, you guys should be doing a podcast around us as all this material. And and then I started to tune in and I see how much consciousness stuff you kind of share. Yes. And what's what motivates you there? What what do you what do you think is happening? And

some of your audience is here at this retreat. Yep. Well, and, you know, kind of in the same way you're talking about how your practice is chanting. I don't really have a practice, but somehow I get fortunate enough that I get to sit down with people like you. And in the little bit of time I have, I can throw out every single neurosis and hang up that I'm having in relation to my practice and and get these one on one sessions with people who I consider who are my heroes and who I've listened to forever. So and then I think people get to hear not so much like a 60 minute style interview, like, when did it start for you and that kind of thing,

but they actually get to hear a sort of neurotic, hung up guy work through his shit with super smart, awakened people. So I think that's part of what people like about it because most of us aren't Ram Das or Krishna Das or Raghu Marcus. Most of us are really just sloth slogging through this thing, man. And it's and we didn't get a we didn't go to we don't go to India. We don't take trips out into the there's no jungle moment. We don't have a moment in the jungle where a yogi goes into our minds and shows us where our hangups are. We watch forensic files for six hours at a time. You know, so so I think that's what part I think partially that's why people listen to the podcast is because it's a chance for them to

because they recognize that I'm where they're at or probably a little under that. And it's cool to hear advice, real simple advice, like what you're getting. I mean, not that you're giving advice, but it's cool to hear these questions answer, which is like, how do what do I what about smoking marijuana and listening to Kirtan? And also, how about the fact that listening to Kirtan does get you high? And I know you are saying that that's not the point. But it really gets you blasted. Can you talk about that for a second? Well, you know, the way I think about it is if a kid is sick and needs to take medicine, you hide the medicine in a sweet syrup. And the sweetness of the syrup gets the kid to take the medicine. But what's going to cure

the disease or the sickness of unhappiness is the medicine that's hidden in the syrup. So because the music is enjoyable, hopefully, we get we do this, it also keeps us paying more attention and stuff. But it's the name. This is what our groove said over and over. He used to say in Hindi, Ram Nam Karnase, Sub Pura Hojata. That's a very simple phrase, a simple line, but he said it over and over. And it means from going on repeating these names like we do when we chant, everything is brought to completion is made full. It's a ripening process. And by doing this practice, we're, we're taking our hearts out into the sun where they can ripen. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's good. That's really good. Do you do these names where I think about Hari Krishna, or I think about

the chance that I know, and I always wonder, was there a point where someone was, where do they start? You know, I'm not scientifically, I'm not exactly sure. And historically, I'm not sure. But basically, you'd say that there was a saint, or yogi, or a being who experienced a full awakening, or a kind of awakening, and brought it back to this level for us as a way of finding our way out again. You know, there was he went out, brought this back and said, here, do this as well. It's just like that. And all these names in India, they call the names of God. Then, but what does that mean? Yeah, what are the gods? We don't even know. But the thing about these names is that they say that through the repetition of the name, the presence that's within you is uncovered.

It's not something we're getting from the outside. But we're uncovering this presence. It's like if you keep calling someone calling, eventually they'll hear you. And they start to move closer to you. That's an external way of looking at it. When you're calling ourself, we're already here. What we're doing is removing the covers over our own being, over our own hearts. So, an awakened being opens up and hears this sound. It's tricky stuff. You know, we're talking about stuff that just like we can never really know the meaning of these names intellectually. These kind of, to talk about that event or what happened to a being when he's in a completely discontinuous state of mind is pushing it, you know? Sorry, it's just

something I think about. You're pushing, we're all pushing it. It's just like something that's not possible. When I was in liberal arts college, I had, I remember the school guide, I don't know what you call it, one of the school psychologists came out and said, we can invent our own mantras. And I've invented a mantra. Oki doki doki do. Oki doki doki do. And I had been chanting Hare Krishna at the time with the Hare Krishna's. And I was at a liberal arts college. So I was a supreme asshole. I was just like, this is black. Blast for me. You can't make up a mantra. There's only one more. I was still in that kind of fundamentalist mind state that I'm not anymore. But what about that? Can you just come up with any mantra? Is it possible to invent it yourself?

Well, and the sense of mantra being a sound that's repeated, of course. But the thing about the names is that even though there's a storyline involved with most of the names like Krishna had a Leela, did all these things, Ram did all these things. There's stories about Shiva and Kali and Durga, all these things. Their nature is what we're talking about. The nature of the being that is Krishna or Ram, which is not different than our true nature. That's what these names are the names of. Okay, right. So yes, you can have mantras, people would call it a mantra. But if there's a concept, like if you pick Sri Frank, Jay Frank, Jay Frank all day, you know, everybody named Frank in the universe will start showing up in your life, probably. But but Frank's true nature won't show up in

your mind or won't arise in your heart from chanting these names, which are which are which have been brought to this world from the compassion of the beings that realize the truth. The true nature of these beings and our true nature arises in our in our self, that awareness of that arises inside of us. So yes, you know, people like it's not positive thinking. There's nothing wrong with positive thinking. I am strong. I'm positive. I can do it. I can accomplish my goals to repeat that over and over again may give you a sense of strength. But because it's conceptual, it can't take you beyond concepts. Right. Yeah, that's cool. I mean, that we're on definitely on the same page there. It seems like

there's something very special about them that's hard to put your finger on. Oh, wow, cool. Can you do you have any just really quick I know we're praying a rush one. Do you have time for one more question for the people listening who want to get into chanting or get into Kirtan? Can you give any recommendations about what they can read or how they can keep going? You know, there's a lot of chanting going around almost every city in the United States now around the world. So many people are singing and entering into this practice. You can always find some group to practice with. If that's too creepy for you, you can go out and buy my CDs, do not rip them off from the interview and chant along with those or somebody else's CDs. I mean, it's just a question of getting used to

the use to it. It's a little crazy. It's a little weird. It's a little out there. It's not every day. But if and when you do it, if you feel good, trust that. If you don't, then forget it. Right. But if you feel good, then it means that you feel good. And why would you throw that away if you feel good? So you just if you know your life flow will bring it to you if that's what you want, you know, just keep your eyes open and it'll show up in your life somehow. That's what happened to us. We didn't we knew even less. You see, you people your age and people these days are surrounded by this stuff. Maybe it's not the big saints in India on every corner, but there's teachers everywhere. There's there's awareness of the Dharma everywhere. You know, you can really there's so many places

to go to get a hit. In those days, there was nothing. We had to go to India. I mean, there wasn't happening here at the time. So right, it's very different now. So you don't have to go to India anymore. Well, if you're overweight, you know, and you need to lose some weight, you know, you get dysentery, you shouldn't for weeks and you'll lose a few pounds. Cool. It's so great chatting with you. Thank you so much. I'm going to at this point, we have to recommend because you asked about aside from Christianity's music on downloads and CDs is his book, which you forgot about Chants of a lifetime, which is really great. C H A N T S of a lifetime. And you can go up on Amazon and go through mind pod network.com slash Krishnadas. And there's an Amazon button there.

Just click on it and bookmark it and everything you do through Amazon, a little piece of it will come to Krishnadas and mind pod. Do you have an audio book? Is it on audio? Do you have it? It's not. That's not. Cool. So yes, there you go. Great. And what are we going to do? We're going to we're going to share this, right? Yes, which is what you're all you've been sharing all this stuff. And he's really great. He shares and he can't even stop himself, which is really the same, you know, I just love chatting with you guys. It's just a blast, man. I wish I could say it's because I want to share it really. There's no altruism. It's just cool talking to folks like you. I'm singing to save my miserable ass. I don't know what anybody else thinks. I don't care.

That's cool. That's so cool. Everybody come along. It's no problem for me, but I got to go too. So I got to be doing it. I'm doing my practice and so that's and everybody's invited. Cool. Hare Krishna. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks for listening, pals. And a big thanks to clefstash.com. That's C L E F F S T A C H E dot com for sponsoring this podcast. Go check them out. Go check out Krishnadas at krishnadas.com. And if you like us, give us a nice rating on iTunes or subscribe to us on Stitcher. See you guys next time. Hare Krishna. We know you can get the job done faster if you don't have to stop and come into the store all the time. That's why we've updated our app with your business in mind. With the app,

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