Nina Rao:

I'd never understood how important it was to do practice. And there are so many varieties of practice. As it happens for me, it's chanting.

Karen Michel:

During Omega sessions on sacred chanting, Nina Rao is often onstage when Krishna Das performs sitting next to him and singing. She grew up hearing devotional music as a child in Southern India.

Nina Rao:

My mother and her sisters, they could all chant, they knew the chants and we followed along and it was just the idea of everybody getting together and chanting was very meaningful for me. I don't think I'd ever really had that experience other than going to Catholic schools, which I did because of where we lived in certain countries. And the Catholic kids got to go to mass in the chapel and I wanted to go. And the school administration would say, "No, you have to go to moral science." That's what we got to do. And I said, "You know, really, I won't take communion. I just want to go sing the hymns with everyone." That's what I did.

Nina Rao:

So, but I did learn this chanting from my grandfather.

Karen Michel:

Do you remember the first chant you learned from him?

Nina Rao:

I do. It was called Vinayaka, which is another name for Lord Ganesha.

Karen Michel:

Could you sing this a little bit of it?

Nina Rao:

I can. So it goes like this. [Chants]

Karen Michel:

That's a chant the young Nina Rao heard many years before she listened to Krishna Das in upstate New York, an experienced that led to her becoming, in addition to a day job, his business manager and tour booker. When asked how she described herself now, she said,

Nina Rao:

A seeker.

Karen Michel:

What are you seeking?

Nina Rao:

Real understanding and acceptance of everything.

Karen Michel:

And how many lifetimes are you planning to do this?

Nina Rao:

I don't have a plan because I hear it takes a long time. So one moment at a time works for me right now.

Karen Michel:

And what are you doing for the search?

Nina Rao:

Chanting.

Karen Michel:

Nina was born in Jamaica, Queens, a borough of New York City. Her father worked for an airline. The family moved often to different Western countries, interspersed with periods of being back in India. Her family is from the huge country southwest.

Nina Rao:

The origins of my family are from the Southwestern coast of India.

Karen Michel:

So Kerala?

Nina Rao:

A little North of there, Karnataka is actually where we're from. And if you want to isolate a little town, now it's called Mangalore. It's now a bigger town.

Karen Michel:

I've been there.

Nina Rao:

Have you been to Mangalore? I love people who've been to Mangalore because I actually happened to love that town, but I never grew up there. My father's job took him to Mumbai and to Delhi, so I was there mostly. But we visited my grandfather in his country home much like your country home, but very remote. Actually it was on the border of Kerala and Karnataka, tiny town called Bakel where now cruise ships stop to look at the Fort.

Nina Rao:

But at the time my grandfather was the only person who had a car, a motorcar. Everybody walked, or they took their bicycles, and we loved going there. He had a country home in the Indian style, which is like literally on a fruit orchard. There are a couple of cows where we had got our milk from. And we went to the local market to get vegetables and he was an engineer, so he dug the wells and pumped the water up. It was such a different... I wish I could give that to my daughter now, when I think about my summers.

Karen Michel:

So was he a chanter then?

Nina Rao:

He was in the very natural way that Indians are. Where you don't need to be a musician to be a chanter. However, he was a wonderful musician, untrained, but he played flute, he played harmonium. He could play anything. And he could sing like Indian classical ragas just from listening. And he paid a lot of attention to certain South Indian poet saints. And one of them was Purandara Das and he would read the poetry and then come up with his own ragas that went with it and sang them.

Karen Michel:

It's a musical path that his granddaughter has followed. Now, she has released her own CDs and teaches others to sing songs of devotion. But it took a Westerner to bring the Easterner back to her roots.

Nina Rao:

I needed to be in the West to absorb the spirituality behind the rituals that were going on in India. And because Krishna Das went to India as a Westerner, as a seeker himself, when he talked about what he did and his time with Maharaji and how he understood the Hanuman Chalisa, nobody taught it to them. They took a little book that the temple was giving away, written in Sanskrit, in the Devanagari text, phonetically translated it, transliterated it, and then just learned it on their own. So with such devotion, to be able to do that.

Karen Michel:

It's the Hanuman Chalisa that Nina Rao taught in a session at Omega called Heart Practice of Chanting. And this is your chance to chant too, if you wish. The Hanuman Chalisa is a form of devotional song called the Bajrang, story poems, tales of the gods. Here's Nina Rao, introducing the text. Hanuman is depicted as the monkey god.

Nina Rao:

Just as a little background, this prayer is actually a very popular one in India because Hanuman is considered the remover of obstacles. Just like Ganesha, you might have heard is also worshiped in that way, so is Hanuman. And in India, a lot of people like to take refuge in this prayer. And at my guru's ashram that is the case. And so that has become the case for me too.

Nina Rao:

My go to practice is this chanting of the Hanuman Chalisa and it started when I first heard Krishna Das chant it actually. I spent all those years in India, but I came here and heard it from him. Neem Karoli Baba said that the Hanuman Chalisa is Maha Mantra, whatever feels most powerful to the practitioner can be Maha Mantra.

Karen Michel:

Literally "great mantra."

Nina Rao:

So in this case, Maharaji Neem Karoli Baba said that every syllable, every word of the Hanuman Chalisa is Maha Mantra and it's 40 verses long.

Nina Rao:

My guru, Siddhi Ma, she gave it to us as a practice. And for any question we ever had, any complaint, anything we were grateful for, the solution or the action that was to be taken was to go chant the Hanuman Chalisa. So it's a great place to take refuge in for whatever is going on in your life. You could be feeling very grateful. You could be feeling sad. You could be angry. And one of the things Ma said was, she said, "Just take everything to the feet of Hanuman and he'll take care of the rest", but we have to do that part, which is the doing of the practice.

Nina Rao:

Okay, ready?

Nina Rao:

Mangala moorati maaruta nandana. Sakala amangala moola nikandana

Karen Michel:

As Nina and the participants go through the ancient text, you may wish to join in.

Nina Rao:

Shree Guru charana saroja raja nijamanu mukuru sudhaari Baranaun Raghubara bimala jasu...

Karen Michel:

After the group repeats all 40 verses, the chanting begins and then sing and dance if you like, as long as you're not driving. Either way, hang on just a bit. We'll be hearing from Krishna Das too when we continue. First, a word about Omega Institute for Holistic Studies.

Karen Michel:

For more than 40 years, Omega has been hosting workshops and retreats on yoga, mindfulness, art, sustainability, women's leadership, health. It's a rich mix. And with this podcast, introducing you to some of the remarkable teachers exploring Omega's mission to awaken the best in the human spirit. To learn more about Omega, visit eomega.org that's E-O-M-E-G-A dot org. Better yet make this podcast your entry point into all things Omega. Subscribe to Dropping In. Leave a review and tell a friend. We'll be hearing a bit more from Krishna Das in just a bit, but now it's time for the Hanuman Chalisa.

Nina Rao:

Ready?

Karen Michel:

May listening and possibly chanting to have brought you the intended joy.

Karen Michel:

There was a relaxed feeling in Omega's main hall that afternoon when Krishna Das rejoined the group. He came to the stage to field questions, something he only does in workshops, not performances. To a question about the Hanuman Chalisa, Katie responded that it can change fate. A woman asked if chanting touches grief. His answer came down to whatever you're dealing with, however you are, chanting or not, what counts is being there, being here.

Krishna Das:

One time I came, sit down with Maharaji. He was come out and I put on a new clean shirt and came out and I sat down in front of him. And then when I sat down, I just laughed to myself. And I thought... Because I saw my idea of enlightenment was, or liberation, was some other place to be. Someplace where I wouldn't be. Right? I couldn't imagine what that was. But my idea was when it happens, it's going to be something else. It's going to be someplace where I won't be because... But where is that going to be? Where? Every place in this life, everywhere you go, you're going to be there. Try as you might not to be there, that's where you are.

Karen Michel:

As Ram Dass famously wrote in a book published the same year he introduced Krishna Das to his teacher, his guru, "be here, now."

Karen Michel:

Dropping In is a presentation of Omega Institute, dedicated to awakening the best in the human spirit. If you like what you hear, tell your friends, leave us a review on Apple podcasts and everywhere. It helps new ears find us. And to learn more about Omega visit our website at eomega.org.

Karen Michel:

I'm Karen Michel. Dropping In is written and produced by me. The editor is Katherine Stifter. The music and mix are by Scott Mueller and Cali Alpert is the executive producer. Thanks for dropping in.