Krishna Das:

When we chant, whatever else is happening, we're asking ourselves to remember to come back to chanting. Like right now you might be thinking about what I'm saying. That's okay. But once we start to chant, when you catch yourself thinking about it, just let it go and come back.

Karen Michel:

Krishna Das knows about staying focused, being on a path of twists and turns, and feeling filled with devotion. Once an aspiring rock and roll star, now the Grammy award nominated musician is known throughout the world for his long sessions of sacred chanting, kirtan, call and response evocations of the divine. When he and Nina Rao taught workshops on ecstatic chant at Omega Institute, hundreds of students, both familiar with and new to kirtan came to sing, to dance, to become part of a community seeking expression, connection through song.

Karen Michel:

This is Dropping In from Omega Institute, a podcast that explores the many ways to awaken the best in the human spirit. I'm Karen Michel.

Karen Michel:

Nearly all religious and spiritual practices include a sonic expression of faith. Well, kirtan is a Sanskrit word and the chants are to Hindu deities. In recent decades, Westerners have been drawn to kirtan, adapting the music and instrumentation, key among them, Krishna Das. For his sessions on the practice of chanting, the mood was of anticipation and sense of incipient joy. The stage was set with flowers in a large ohm symbol as backdrop. In front, on the floor, or in chairs sat a mix of generations. It was morning. So when he took the stage, Krishna Das proceeded to wake them up.

Krishna Das:

Hello? Are we here? Well, it's early in the morning. So the idea is to pay attention, okay? And be with whatever arises. If it's pleasant, fine. If your knee hurts, be with that, too. You don't have to manipulate your emotions. You don't have to try for some particular kind of feeling. There was a very great saint in the 1800s in India named Sri Ramakrishna. You might've heard of the book, Gospel of Ramakrishna, is one of the great classics in Indian spirituality, any spirituality.

Krishna Das:

And he described how the practice of the repetition of the name works. And it's very interesting, not for what it says only, but for what it doesn't say. He said that every repetition of one of these names of God, these holy names, sacred names, is a seed. And that every repetition of these names is a seed, and every seed has potentiality and power within it. Just like a huge tree can come from a tiny little seed.

Krishna Das:

So he says that, do the repetition, the name, these seeds get thrown out, and they're carried by the wind. And they get caught on the roof of an old house in the middle of the jungle. And this house, the roof was made from these clay tiles. And in those days, they didn't bake the tile so much in an oven, but just in the sun. So they weren't very hard. So the seeds of the repetition of the name get caught by the wind and land on the roof of this old house. And they get stuck between the tiles. And then over time and seasons, rain and snow and whatever else, the tiles get soft. They break down. And at that point, the seeds of the repetition of the name begin to grow. And they grow, and they grow, and they grow, and they destroy the roof of the house. And they keep growing, and they wind up destroying the whole house, all the roots growing, breaking down the walls of this house.

Krishna Das:

Ramakrishna says that house is who we think we are. And think about a house. There's walls that separate the inside from the outside. So with us, there's me. And then there's you. You're on the outside. I'm here in the middle, in the inside. And that's what's broken down, this... And a house, of course, is temporary, right? It's put together with stuff and it falls apart, eventually, just like me. And you're a me too. Don't forget it.

Krishna Das:

We're going for the big one. We're trying to dissolve our temporary, illusory sense of a separate self. And because we think we are who we think we are, we've got to do some practice. If we didn't think we are who we think we are, we wouldn't be who we think we are. Right? Right?

Karen Michel:

A workshop with Krishna Das is about being. Being oneself and being a vehicle, seeking a road to God by whatever name. We'll hear about his journey to find and be on the road that led him to sacred song. But 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, I'm 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 O-R-G.

Karen Michel:

Better yet, make this podcast your entry point into all things Omega. Subscribe to Dropping In, leave a review, and tell a friend.

Karen Michel:

Often called KD, Krishna Das' parents named him Jeff, but in 1971, his guru Neem Karoli Baba, also known as Maharaji, gave him the name he subsequently become known by. That was after months of Maharaji simply calling him Driver, apt as he'd been a school bus driver in upstate New York. And because he became his teacher's driver, taking over those duties from Ram Dass, he of Timothy Leary psychedelics and later Be Here Now fame. It was through Ram Dass that the young man, who was then Jeff, met his guru and his path.

Karen Michel:

Though Neem Karoli Baba passed on in the mid-1970s, for KD, his guru is always present. As he explained when we spoke at his home, north of New York City.

Krishna Das:

He was the most human being I've ever met. And the most divine. There was no difference for him. It was all luck. It was all God everywhere. And he was a human being. And he expressed feelings through his human body and love and compassion and kindness, and transmitted that presence of God, of love.

Karen Michel:

And is that what you seek to do?

Krishna Das:

I'm just his radio, his transmitter. He turns me on, turns me off, and transmits when he cares, when he wants to. That's the way I see it. I don't feel like I'm doing anything, telling the truth. If you want my experience. Other people have their own versions of what happens and who I am. I get a lot of that. But my experience is that I'm singing to him, and he's transmitting to me, as well as everybody else. And so people feel him. I'm not trying to do anything to anybody. Not even trying to do anything for anybody, other than share what's helped me and what helps me in my life every day. Other than that, it would be ridiculous to think that the person you just described could do anything to help anybody.

Krishna Das:

But this, I see it, and my experience is that it's all his grace. And it's all he's doing, actually. People have dreams of him. Did I give them their dream? I can't even take a headache away from myself without an aspirin, Tylenol, Advil. So it's not me. It's not the person you mentioned before. Jeff. But Krishna Das means a servant of God. And my guru is God.

Karen Michel:

In your work and in your teaching, talking about the names of God, and that it's one, essentially, were you ....

Krishna Das:

They say that in India. The name and what is named are not different. They don't say it's one because that's the subtleties of all the philosophical bullshit. But they say not different. That means.. And Maharaji said "Go on, sing your line - fake, false 'Ram Ram'"- one of these days, you say it right. Once. Boom, that's it. The real Ram will come. So the idea is that the name and what is named are not different. So when we're repeating the name, if we really and fully give ourselves to the repetition then you will ascend to that moment, and the real Ram would come. Will come when that happens. In the meantime, it's a purification for our hearts and our lives, and all those things, to practice, which ripens on our hearts to be able to speak that name purely just even one time.

Karen Michel:

Where you, as a child, raised in a religious tradition?

Krishna Das:

Mickey Mouse, Roy Rogers, Andy's Gang, those were my religions.Children's theater. My parents were about Jewish as the Pope. There was no belief in anything my family. No one didn't believe anything. And so I grew up with no belief or understanding that there might be anything else in life, other than what's visible with your physical eyes and experiencing through the senses, which was the way most people grow up. And even the people who supposedly have faith in God. It's just wishful thinking, really, for the most part.

Karen Michel:

How did your family respond when you journeyed to India and met your.....

Krishna Das:

No, I didn't tell them I was going forever, which I was. My plan was to leave and never come back.

Karen Michel:

It didn't happen that way, as Krishna Das recounts in his book, Chants of a Lifetime. That's C-H-A-N-T-S. Krishna Das, Jeff back then, was at heart, a musician. He was drawn to the chants, learning them, singing them to his guru and becoming what he refers to as a kirtan wallah, a vendor, in effect, of sacred chants. Just as in India, a chai wallah offers sweet hot spice tea. But after his guru's death, it was many years before KD was able again to chant the songs of devotion he'd learned at Maharaji's feet.

Karen Michel:

And he did so at a yoga studio in New York. It's in New York, in the mid-1990s, that Nina Rao, who became his business manager and kirtan collaborator first heard him. Though unlike KD, she grew up hearing the chants in 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.

Karen Michel:

We'll be back with more chanting, possibly by you, and a visit with KD's co-teacher Nina Rao In the next episode of Dropping In. 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. To learn more about Omega, visit our website at eomega.org. I'm Karen Michel. Dropping In is written and produced by me. The editor is Catherine Stifter. The music and mix are by Scott Mueller, and Cali Alpert is the executive producer. Thanks for dropping in.