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Taking time to look back and move forward. Conversations With KD episodes are derived from the recordings of KD’s online events from his home during the 2020/ 2021 days of social distancing and quarantine from the onset of COVID and beyond.
Call and Response Special Edition – Conversations With KD October 10, 2020
“You are the protector of sadhus and good people. You are ever a support to devotees.
You even fulfill the desires of wicked people when they take refuge in you.
Why should anyone be surprised by this? It is simply the nature of a true saint.
So please now have that kind of compassion on me and purify my mind and heart.” – Krishna Das, reading from the Vinaya Chalisa
I’m taking over. Good morning, everybody. It’s always morning somewhere, and that’s usually wherever I am.
So, we’re still here. Amazing. How’s everybody doing? I hope everybody’s okay.
Let’s just do the Hanumat Stavan, as we start. As you know, this is a prayer to Hanuman, a short prayer, and it describes many of the qualities that he has and many of the things that he’s accomplished and the things that he did. First, I’ll sing it, and then and then I’ll point another thing out to you at the end.
Pranawun Pawanakumaar khala bana paawaka gyaana ghana
Jaasu hridaya aagaar basahin Raama sara chaapa dhara
Atulita bala dhaamam hemashailaa badeham
Danujawana krishaanum gyaaninaama graganyam
Sakala guuna nidhaanam vaanaraa naama dheesham
Raghupati priya bhaktam vaata jaatam namaami
Goshpadee krita vaareesham mashakee krita raakshasam
Raamaayana mahaamaala ratnam vande neelaatmajam
Anjanaa nandanam veeram Jaanakee shoka naashanam
Kapeesha makshahantaaram vande Lankaa bhayankaram
Ulangya sindho salilam saleelam
Yah shokarvahni janakaatma jaayah
Aadaaya tenaiva dadaaha lankaa
Namaami tam praanjalir aanjaneyam
Manojavam Maaruta tuulya wegam
Jitendriyam buddhimataaåm warishtam
Vaataatmajam vaanara yuuta mukhyam
Shree Raamaduutam sharanam prapadhye
Aanjaneya mati paatalaananam
Kaanchanaadri kamaneeya vigraham
Paarijaata taru moola vaasinam
Bhaavayaami pavamaana nandanam
Yatra yatra Raghunaatha keertanam
Tatra tatra krita masta kaanjali
Vashapawaari paripurna lochanam
Maarutin namata raaksha saantakam
Bolo Bajrangbalee Hanumana Ki Jai
I don’t have the book here, but the last couple of verses really struck me very strongly, powerfully one time, many years ago. It describes Hanuman sitting at the foot of this tree, a special tree called the Parijat tree, which I think is, it’s supposed to be up in heaven somewhere. And it describes him as sitting there with his eyes full of tears, of bhava, of love for Ram, and I understood that this is how he is. He’s always in that feeling, in that flow of grace with Ram. With Ram. And it’s only when he has to do some service that he manifests whatever’s necessary to serve, and to serve Ram, to serve and to destroy suffering, but when he’s not being asked to serve or there’s nothing to do, he’s sitting there, lost in love, all the time.
This prayer is really like a visualization, like they have in Buddhism, Vajrayana, where you visualize a Being and you commune with that Being. So, this is really very much a visualization for Hanuman.
But for me, Maharajji is Hanuman, and someone once asked me, some Baba in India asked me, you know, who’s your Ishta Devata, who do you worship? And I said, “Well, Guru.”
“Oh, very good. Very good.”
So, we see Maharajji as Hanuman. He’s always engaged in helping people, all the time, everything. Dada used to say he has two blankets, an outer blanket, and an inner blanket. The outer blanket hides his body from us, because he was always taking people’s karmas and having sores and stuff on his body that would come and go and disappear. There’s a beautiful story in Dada’s book, I forget which one. It must be, I think it’s in “The Near and the Dear.” And if you haven’t read those two books, they’re extraordinary, “By His Grace” and “The Near and the Dear” by Dada Mukherjee. Dada was one of those wonderfully close, extraordinary devotees and we spent a lot of time with him over the years after Maharajji left the body. And he describes how, one time when Maharajji was away, he had knelt down at the tucket in the bedroom where Maharajji had stayed in his house, and he used to rub the leg of the bed of the tucket, the bed, and in his mind, without even really thinking about it, he took it as Maharajji’s leg, you know, he would just, it wasn’t a big thing. He would bow down and hold the leg of the bed. But one day, as he touched the leg of the bed, he came across a rough spot with splinters and little a rough place on the leg that he had never felt before, and it occurred to him that, “Now, wait a second.” He said, “If this is, if I take this as Maharajji’s leg, if I’m really plugged into Maharajji and I believe, and I experience this as his leg when I touch it, and now there’s a damaged part of it that I never felt before. What does that mean? Does that mean that he, there’s some problem with his leg?”
And he began to like, flip out and obsess about this, and he was having a meltdown.
“If it’s his leg and I feel this, then he, it must be true. He must have something wrong with his leg. But if it’s just all my imagination, then what is this all thing with murtis and, you know, images of the deities? Are they just our imagination or is there some reality to it? Can they possibly be a manifestation of the real thing? Or are they just like our way of pacifying ourselves?”
So, he was really going on and on about this in his head, and then sometime later, Maharajji came, maybe it was one of his unannounced visits. He arrives at that his house and he goes into the room and sits down and Dada is with him, and you must read it from Dada because it’s so much better, but at one point Maharajji was sitting there without his blanket, or something like that, or his blanket opened up, and Dada saw on his leg, a sore, an actual sore on his leg. Now, when he saw it, I think he, as it always was with Maharajji, things would happen and you would see them, but they didn’t really register in your, like, you didn’t really know you were seeing them. It was like you were in a dream. It was only later that he’s realized that he had seen that sore on Maharajji’s leg, and then it wasn’t there later in the day or the next day, or the next time he saw his leg, but it was there. He saw it and he didn’t recognize that he saw it until later, and he went, “Whoa. So, he was showing me that my experience was real,” and you know, that’s a really, really deep teaching because we are living in our own subjective universe. Everything we see, think and feel is only our version of what’s out there. Apparently there really is something out there, but everybody sees it differently, and so we need to really pay attention to what we see, think, and feel, and work with it directly.
So, in this case, Dada saw this, he felt this sore on the leg of the bed, and then Maharajji showed him that, yes, in fact, the leg of the bed represented Him to Dada, not to anybody else. We all have our own path into our own true nature within us. So, Maharajji was showing Dada that he, that yes, the leg of the bed represented his leg, and he should trust that, and that’s his path. That’s his devotional attitude, his devotional practice, which connected him, which was a direct connection to Maharajji.
We don’t trust ourselves. We don’t trust ourselves. We’re in reaction mode all the time, and we don’t drop out of that into our hearts very often, but we should allow that to happen, and we’re, even though we’re stuck in our own subjective version of the world, if we don’t see, if we don’t recognize what we’re seeing, we can’t let go of it. We can’t free ourselves from our fear, and our anger, and our shame, and our grief, and our selfishness, and our anxiety, and our tension, and our longings for this and that, and our aversions to this and that. If we don’t see them, we don’t notice them. We cannot let go of them. We can’t be free of them. And I’m not saying you have to do 20 years of psychotherapy for every little thing that you have, every little issue that we have, but through practice, through the doing of practice, how we see what we see, is changed. It’s altered. Just very simply. Like it says in the Hanuman Chalisa, “I take the dust from the Lotus feet of the Guru, the pollen like dust, which is consciousness, awareness, real love, to clean the mirror of my heart.”
And when you look in a mirror, if it’s covered with dust, all you see is the dust. You may see a little faint version of your face in the mirror, but it’s not accurate. There’s dust all over it and you see the dust. So, we take awareness to clean the dust off the mirror of our hearts, the awareness, the loving awareness, as Ram Dass used to say, because it is loving. It is love. To clean the mirror of our heart, and then gradually as that mirror is cleaned, we see our true face, our true being.
So, Hanumanji is always immersed in true being, which he calls “Ram,” which for him is Ram, the name of Ram. Maharajji’s used to say, “Krishna’s left this world and Ram has left this world, but their Names are still here.”
And so, we take those names to remember, to re-member, to put together that presence within us, to recognize. So, Hanumanji is always here, always immersed in Ram, and this is actually our own being. Our own true nature is always immersed, always turning towards God, towards love, towards reality. Ramana Maharshi used to say our true nature is invocation. Our souls are always invoking reality, the Paramatman, the Supreme Soul. We’re always bowing to that. We’re part of that. And so that’s what we will discover as we become less reactive, less attached to our own versions of ourselves and others, less attached to what we see in the physical world, the so-called physical world out there, and of course in these times, we’re just being banged up against the wall of our own mental issues, and fears, and anxieties and stuff all the time.
So, it’s so important to sit down, or stand up, or whatever you do, to calm down, to just calm down. Calm down. Let the body relax. Let the mind relax and just pay attention what’s going on in your head, and when you notice how stuck you are and how stuck we are in dreamland, we just come back to the Name. Come back to the name. “Through the repetition of the name, everything is accomplished. Everything is brought to fullness. Everything is completed.” That’s what he said, over and over again. Go on repeating the name, whether you feel good or bad, whether you have love or not, whether you’re tired or angry. Go on repeating the name and as time gradually, but inevitably you will definitely experience the grace of the Name. The grace of love will start to manifest in our lives. He said it, and that’s the deal.
Q: So, because the pandemic is going and the quarantine is going on for so long, I think that the people are having problems, like let’s say with people that they have to be close, not necessarily living with them, but around, because they can’t just go out anymore, so, let’s say people’s families or groups where family or a set of friends that they have a lot of contact with, and after a while, since its going on for so long, people could start getting on your nerves, you know? And not every time, you know, in relationships, whether it’s family members or, you know, like things can be worked through and just like be really honest, and the other person, you know, but people get defensive. They can’t, especially when there’s more than one person involved. So, I guess I have my question is like, like, what’s a good suggestion of how to handle it in terms of, if you’re feeling angry, sometimes I don’t think it’s worth, especially now, that you can’t just like go out and go do something to get things out of your system. I don’t think it’s necessarily good to just say you’re honestly like, “this is bothering me” and try to work it through. So, I think sometimes maybe it’s better to just distance, rather than talk about it. Just distance. But I don’t know.
I don’t think it was a good time to be confronting people with their shit.
Because it’s not like, a year ago where maybe you want to have a big discussion and you know…
Yeah, especially since it’s your own shit you’re confronting people with.
Well, it’s reactions to other people, so it’s not just your own shit.
Oh, I see. You have no problems yourself. You’re just a totally clear being it’s all everybody else’s problems. Okay.
No, it’s mutual.
Om Guru Om. Namaste. Yeah, it’s just your shit you’re throwing on people and they’re throwing it back at you. They’re throwing their shit. It’s a good time to go like this.
So, don’t say anything?
Be nice. Don’t force people to react, because it’s only your own reactions. It’s not their problem. It’s your problem. They have nothing to do with it. This is all you. Everything you see is you. You see they have problems, and they have issues, and they’ve done things to you in the past. That might be, there might be some reality to that, but the other reality is that you haven’t processed anything, that you’re still reacting inside. You’re still hurt. You still vengeful. You’re still angry. You still want to make them understand who you are.
Go into the bathroom, stand in front of the mirror and talk to yourself. That’d be the best thing you could ever do, and calm yourself down, and notice how caughtyou are, and don’t expect anybody else not to be caught. Everybody’s in the same soup here. It’s not a good time to be trying to justify your own subjective reality.
That’s what I was trying to say. It just feels like this is not, it’s not a year ago when you could do that, and maybe something good would come out of it. It feels very bad to do that instead of just…
Well, you know, love everyone.
Oh, but that’s the thing. What, in case you don’t feel the love? That’s my point. You don’t feel love, you don’t feel like… you try… you’ve got a list of things you appreciate about the person, but you’re not feeling it no matter what you do.
I said that sarcastically, by the way. You just missed it.
Wait a minute. Oh, when you said “love” you were being sarcastic.
I was being playful. Let’s not say “sarcastic.” That’s too negative. No, but recognize that you don’t love everyone and work on yourself
To love everybody?
First of all, love yourself. That’s the first thing. Give yourself a break from your own stuff, which we don’t know how to do. So how are we going to give anybody else a break? We can, we don’t have to be, what’s the word? We don’t have to make people angry. We don’t have to push stuff on people, but we also don’t have to, you need to recognize this is your staff. There’s not anybody else out there. Turn off the computer and you’re alone with your stuff. They’re not even there. It’s all in your head. And work on it. See what it is. See what’s bothering you and soften it. Breathe with it. Relax with it. Let go of it. It comes back. Let go, it comes back, let go, it comes back, let go, it comes back. If it takes you the rest of your life to keep letting go of one thing, that would be good work. This is not anybody else’s problem. This is your issues.
When people make you angry and let’s say you’re working on it.
Okay, wait a second. Okay. Stop. So, one time a farmer came to Buddha, an old guy, and this farmer, his son, had left the farm and become a monk, a Buddhist monk, and as a result, this old guy had to do everything himself. He was alone on this little farm. He had to do everything himself. He had no help, and he was furious with the Buddha for taking his son away. So, he comes to the Buddha and he starts yelling at him and Buddha sits there, and finally, the guy’s finished.
Then Buddha says to the farmer, he said, “Old man,” He said, “Can I ask you a question?”
“Yeah.”
“So. If you bring a gift to me and I don’t accept the gift, where does the gift remain?”
“Well, it remains with me.”
“Just so, old man. I don’t accept the gift of your anger, and it stays with you.”
So, all our stuff stays with us. It’s up to us to take it easy on ourselves, to see where we’ve been hurt, to see how reactive we are, to see how much we want validation from the outside world. We want everybody to see it our way, you know, and that’s never going to happen, because everybody wants everybody else to see it their way. That’s what they call Samsara. That’s this world. Nobody agrees on anything. And if they do, it’s just a business deal and they’ve agreed to agree for 10 minutes, and after that, they’ll stab you in the back.
So, this is good. It’s very good that you’re in the game here. You understand? This is good, and this is really, this is positive. This is not negative, even though it doesn’t feel good right now. You’re becoming aware of your issues. That’s what’s happening in the pandemic time. If you’re not aware of your stuff, how will you ever let it go? It just grabs you from behind. It’s like a shadow that will never leave you until you turn and face it.
So, this is great. Take the opportunity to spend this time, calming your ass down, relaxing, taking it easy. Scream and yell if you want. Stand in front of the mirror and imagine the person you’re angry at and yell at that person, but you’re seeing your own face while you’re yelling, and that’s going to be an extraordinary experience.
Why do you say, “you’re seeing your own face” if you’re reacting to what they said in your, like let’s say they said it and you would not say that to yourself. Why is it youyourself?
It’s not that you would say it to yourself. It’s your reaction to what they said. What they see and do is their problem. This farmer was angry at Buddha, and Buddha said, if you’re angry and I don’t accept that, where does that stay? So you’re angry and you don’t know where to give it away. You can’t even give it away. You have, it stays with you. So, that’s what I mean by, it’s our issues.
So, really, I’m telling you, try this. This just came to me. Just stand in front of the mirror, if there’s a mirror you can sit in front of, and you look at yourself and talk to the person that you’re pissed off at. Talk to them, yell at them, scream at them, throw them kisses, whatever you want to do. And you’re going to see so much about yourself in those moments. It’s going to be amazing. So just try it. And if you come back next week or whenever, let me know how it goes. I think it’s a great practice to do. I think it could be really intense, because you’re going to see the person making all these faces, and the person whose face is contorted in anger is not the person you’re imagining is in the mirror. It’s your face.
I really do like that you said that my reaction to somebody… it’s… how can I say it? Really, it is their issue. Like whatever they did that got me upset, really you’re right. It has nothing to do with that. I mean, that is like so true. It has nothing to do with me, and my decision, like the farmer, to take it so seriously and be upset about it for days. It’s really my decision.
No, no, it’s not a decision. You see everything like up in here. You’re up here between your ears. It’s not a decision. You haven’t decided to make yourself miserable for days with this feeling, but you can’t help yourself.
Right.
That’s not where you want to be living. You want to be able to help yourself, don’t you?
Yes.
So, would you please what I’ve asked you to do. I’ve explained and asked you to sit or stand in front of a mirror and just sit there and just on one hand, imagine this is that other person, but on the other hand, you’re gonna imagine that the other person, but you’re, it’s your face you’re going to see. I wonder what’s going to happen. You know, give it a shot. Don’t do it from here. Do it from here. Ok? Do it. Feel. You will feel. See what happens.
This is why Maharajji said, “I love suffering. It brings me closer to God.”
Because God lives within you. God is what you’re seeing in the mirror. But you’re covering that up with your subjectivity. You’re going to be talking to this other person and you’re imagining you’re really talking to that person, and in your head, you are, but you are seeing yourself at the same time, and you’re going to see your own face contorted. You may see yourself crying. You may see yourself happy. You may turn away, but the mirror is always there, and the mirror is pure awareness, our own awareness. It’s reality. It’s not what you see. It’s the seeing of it.
Anyway, don’t worry about that. Just sit in front of the mirror and have a conversation with this person and just, you know, let’s see what happens. You might spend a lot of time in the bathroom. You never know.
Okay. Thank you.
Good to see you. Take care.
Q: Hi, and hi, everybody.
Where are you?
I’m in Tanzania now, in Africa, East Africa.
My goodness gracious. Hello? How are you?
Hello. We’re fine. But, in fact, I’m from Brazil, and I have spent, I have lived three years in India in Delhi from 2015 to 2018, and I went to Delhi. I went to India. It really opened and wishing to have a spiritual experience, and I did have. I changed a lot. I grew a lot, but I wanted so much to meet a guru and I couldn’t. I can say that I met many gurus because the people that I met every day, most of them, they would have something to teach me. But when I went to ashrams, when I made trips to meet a Saint, to meet a guru, I met a lot of celebrities. So, my question to you is, maybe I don’t know how to look? Or it is business now. It is a lot of business. There’s a lot of business. And so, are there still gurus like Maharajji?
Yes. So, underneath everything you’re saying is your belief that a guru is a physical being like you. That’s not the case. A guru, a real guru is not at all identified with the physical body. It’s just like driving a car. You get in a car, you drive it and then you get out of the car when you get where you’re going, when you’re finished with your work.
What they say in India is, Guru, God and Self are not different. Because we are identified with our physical body, we want to guru in a physical body. We want somebody we can talk to, somebody who will pat us on the head and tell us we’re good little boys and girls, and teach us in words that we can hear and think about. You know, guru is always with us because we are here. Guru is your own true nature. It’s not outside of you. If you happen to meet a being in a body that you recognize as your guru, that’s because that was the best thing for you. That’s what you needed, and that was, what was able to happen for you according to your karmic situation. But if you don’t, you don’t. That doesn’t mean you stay home and watch TV for the rest of your life. You know, you’re here. So do what you have to do to find out who that is. What are you? Who are you? What is, where is that love inside of you? This is, there’s no sense thinking that you have to wait to meet a guru in the physical body. That is not true. It’s not true. It’s not helpful and it’s not the way things really are. Guru is always with you because Guru is always with you. You may not see the Guru. You may not be aware of the Guru as something outside of you, another thing, a person, but that doesn’t mean that Guru is not with you. Guru is always with you, with everybody, but we don’t know how to look. So, because you’re identified with your body and your emotions and your thoughts, you want something you can find in that little box, but you know, that’s just what you want. That may not be what you get. The other thing is, your guru is always doing what’s best for you. So, if you meet one physically, that’s what was best for you. If you don’t, that’s what was best for you.
Most people who say they have a Guru, they don’t even know what a guru is. They make an emotional attachment with another human being who is more than happy to, in the worst case scenario, more than happy to allow you to worship them and take your money and your time and make himself polish his own ego up. That’s the worst case scenario. It’s not, not all the people you meet who are thought of as gurus are bad. Not all of them. And not all of them are deluded either, but we don’t know. How would we even know? Are we qualified? Have we gone to Guru recognition school? But on the other hand, when you know, you know. It happens from the inside. It’s not something you do. It’s not something you imagine. At some point, it’s possible that you will recognize someone as your Guru, whether you meet them physically or not. That’s not required. It’s not necessary, because a Guru is not away from you.
You know, we’re like little bubbles in a huge ocean, and we think we’re separate from every other bubble in the ocean, and that’s called “ego.” When the ego pops, you’re in the same ocean, just the same way, but you don’t feel separate. So, this identification with being separate is what causes us pain. Guru knows that they are the whole universe. There’s no separation, that this temporary belief that we have that you are you and I’m me, is a temporary delusion. Guru is not deluded. And Guru lives inside of you as who you are. Really. Who you really are underneath your thoughts, underneath your identification with the body and physical sensations, underneath your emotions, underneath everything you believe about who you are. Guru is there. Guru is here.
So, run around and look for Gurus if you like. If you enjoy doing that, that’s fun, but you’re going to find the Guru inside of you. When I met Ram Dass for the very first time in 1968, ‘69, when I walked into the room where he was sitting, before eye contact, before a word was spoken, I knew inside of myself, the thought I had was, “It’s real.” It’s real, whatever it is. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew, it’s real, it’s in the world, you can find it. And that was Maharajji. And then happened to me like that. I didn’t meet Maharajji. I didn’t see his picture at that time. The first thought I had when I walked in that room wasn’t even a thought, it was an epiphany, you know? It’s real.
Because I had been searching for years already, reading books, pretending to meditate, doing yoga, but no light ever went on and this, the light went on. That’s where it happens, inside of you. So, don’t spend your time running around too much. It’s not, you just get tired. You spend a lot of money. Stay home, relax, take it easy. Find that loving presence within yourself.
Well, in fact, if I’d seen this perspective, I think I have met my guru many times, because I had many meaningful encounters in India. Not with Saints, but people who would change me forever, and I’m still in the process of changing the three years to two years after I left India. And those peoples, like a beggar, a teacher, they changed me for life and the lights, they turned on the lights.
Trust that. You should really trust that. That’s the deal.
I can feel that I can do that. Thank you. Thank you.
Q: Hello. Where I saw you, the first time I saw you was in Sacramento… and then saw you in Nevada City too.
Grass valley. Yeah. Wonderful.
Yeah, God, I got such a hit that first night I saw you. It was amazing. I just went because I was in this yoga class and these three pretty ladies invited me to go see you, and that’s kind of where my head was at, but then when I heard you sing and I heard you do that Jesus song, Jesus on the Mainline, I got such a hit off that song. It was just, it was amazing. And this “Greatest Hits of the Kali Yuga,” I love that. The DVD was so good. The story you told about Jesus, I mean, it totally changed my perspective, it turned me around about God and Jesus and everything and just God, I get such a hit off it. I guess my question is, how did you come up with that Jesus song? Did you really do it to mess with people or, I think you used a different word.
Well, I, you know, I love the blues and I always listened to blues music, and I discovered blind Willie Johnson and he’s, that’s his song and it’s you know, my whole life I just… Blind Willie Johnson was an incredible Being. I have no idea who he really is, but he just, he was, you know, in those days he was a black minstrel who was basically homeless, and he wandered around the streets, singing gospel songs, and then at one point I think he got married. He was with a woman who sang along with him, and he was blind and he just, he would just wander, singing the songs, and finally somebody heard him and somebody else heard him, and he got, they recorded his songs. So, you know, we’re so lucky that somebody recorded, otherwise, and you know, who knows how many people there were like that. This was in the early 1900s, or I think, yeah, the 1920s, maybe 30’s at the most? The latest? So, yeah, he’s got an incredible song. So many amazing songs, really. And he had two voices. He used to sing, he could sing in this beautiful high falsetto and he could also sing… extraordinary. He was really amazing. Check him out. Blind Willie Johnson.
Blind Willie Johnson. Ok.
So yeah, you know, same thing for me. It wasn’t until Maharajji, he started talking about Jesus that, that my whole mind, my whole thing changed. You know, because I grew up with such an attitude about it, you know? I was born Jewish, and in those days there was a lot of discrimination, a lot of negativity about being… people would say things and, you know, so I didn’t want to be Jewish, you know? I wanted to be something else. So, actually it looks like I made it, right? I’m like a HinBhuJew, but even then in the old days are, I remember when I was probably like six or seven, I made my parents get a Christmas tree. I don’t, I have no idea what I was thinking, but I remember I had a fit and I made them do it and they did it, to their credit. They brought a little Christmas tree in the house, but it was only when I heard Maharajji talk about Jesus and the way, that incredibly powerful depth of emotion that he spoke about him. I mean, it just washed away all the illusions about him, all the stuff that the church teaches you about good and evil and original sin, and you know, it was like all that stuff that people do to other people to control them for their own selfish desires, self-centered needs and desires, it just washed all away. It was so amazing.
Somebody said once, you know, the four wise men who came from the east with gifts for the child, this is how the Tibetans recognize the reincarnation of their teacher. They come to meet the baby, bringing things with them to test the child. They’ll bring beautiful new, shiny things, and then they’ll bring some old dusty beads or some dusty, old thing, you know, that belonged to the previous incarnation, and the child will grab the old stuff. You know, most kids go for the shiny stuff, but the Reincarnation grabs the smallest stuff and goes “mine” many times, and then they know that this is really theirs. So, those four wise men that came from the east to test, you know, to bring gifts for the child, that could have been testing the reincarnation of one of the Lamas that they knew. And then it’s been said that Jesus spent time in Tibet, too. There’s two monasteries in Tibet where there are records, apparently, of him being, of this guy being there. You know, I’m not sure if it all works out chronologically, but anyway, it’s a nice story. I’ll take it.
Thank you. Thank you.
All right. Take care.
Q: Hi, how are you? First ofall, I want to say thank you because the last time we spoke, you helped me a lot, but now I have a question. Things happen to me like when I get in touch in with nature, you know, like this love, like overwhelming love, and it feels like it’s too much, like it’s kind of unbearable. Like almost like, like if I get high, you know, and I feel all this love and I get to feel like I want to love everyone. And it almost feels like, dangerous, you know, sometimes.
Fear comes.
Yeah, like if I get to love that much and if I get to experience that love, like I get like…
Love isn’t something we do. Real love is not a verb. You don’t do “love.” There’s no requirements to act out any feeling or show anybody anything. And when your heart starts to open, you know, many things start to happen. A lot of the stuff that we’ve held inside and hidden from ourselves, different times where we’ve been hurt, where we haven’t gotten what we wanted, when we’ve been betrayed, when we haven’t felt good about ourselves, that stuff’s all, you know, it’s still, we’re holding it in. So, when you start to relax, these things start to be released and very powerful feelings.
So, it’s okay. It’s all good. Just allow it to come and go. You know, there’s nothing you have to do. There’s no right or wrong way to do this. Even the fear, that has to do a lot with, when we previously exposed ourselves to other people, we were hurt. So now you feel, you feel you want to be more real with people, so to speak, but there’s going to be a lot of fear there. So, take it easy. What’s the problem? Where are you going? Relax. You’re here. You’re not going anywhere. So just allow it to come and allow it to go. And when you get caught in that fear, just try to just notice it, release it, let it go. Just don’t push it away. You can’t push things away. This is not, you’re not trying to change anything here. You’re just trying to be with whatever arises, because eventually, what will be arising is only love, everywhere, all the time. But not a love that comes and goes, not a love that’s between two things, two people. You don’t fall in it. You don’t fall out of it. You know, it’s always here. This is our true nature. This is underneath all our stuff. So, as you start to allow yourself to relax a little and breathe a little, and you give your heart some room to kind of relax, you know, a lot of stuff comes up.
It’s all good. It’s good and bad, but it’s all part of the path of letting go, and once again, if you don’t see these things, if you don’t see your fear, if you don’t see it, the feeling of danger, it’s like a shadow, it’s always behind you, and it’s influencing the way you go through your day. It influences who you choose as partners, who you choose as friends. It influences where you go. It influences what music you listen to it, what you eat, everything is influenced by our stuff. So, just relax, take it easy. There’s no rush. You’re not going anywhere. You’re just being you. You’re just being, and you don’t have to convince yourself to love everyone.
At one point in our life, we hope, we will see that all there is everywhere is love, but that’s not today, you know? And that’s okay. That’s okay. We’re here with our stuff. And if we don’t deal with our stuff, it deals with us. So, have courage and give yourself some space to be really stupid and really unhappy and really hurt and all that stuff. But keep coming back. Keep letting it go and coming back.
One should try, I don’t like to say “should” or “must,” but it’s important to develop a little bit of a regular practice. So, the practice brings you back. It extracts you from whatever you’re stuck in, little by little, but it’s necessary to do regular, a little bit every day, even if it’s just five minutes, three minutes of just that. You turn your phone off. No matter what happens.
The minute you sit down, you go, “Oh, geez. I think I left the food on the stove. I better turn it off.”
Let it burn. Five minutes. You know? Cause you’ll get up and you’ll go and you’ll go, “Oh, I did turn it off.”
So, this is really giving yourself a break, and it takes tremendous courage to sit down and just let yourself be there. Not to try to love everyone, not even to try to love yourself, but to just allow, because real love is letting yourself be who you are. Right? And it’s not easy when we see all the hurts and the pains and the betrayals and the dark stuff. It’s not easy. It hurts more, but we should be relieved that we are seeing it, and recognize that it’s come in order to go, that it’s from the past. It’s manifested right here now, and now it’s on its way out.
Yes. Tomorrow the same thing could happen. But the strength that we’re developing of letting go is a very big thing. A very big thing. So, it’s all good, not necessarily pleasant, but good. Don’t look for good feelings all the time, because those kinds of pleasant feelings, that we think, “Oh, I’m going to meditate. It’s going to be very calm. I’m going to feel peace.” You know, that’s not required. That’s an obstacle, because you’re creating, and you’re imagining, “this is what it’s going to be,” and if it’s not that, which it probably will never be, you always feel that you didn’t do something right. So, notice the expectation. Notice the imagining, also. Keep letting go of that. And just be you. Be there. That’s all. That’s where you are anyway. You can’t be somewhere else. Right? You go to the kitchen, where are you? You’re in the kitchen. You’re here. You go there, you’re here. You’re always here, wherever you are.
So, as we practice letting go, as we practice releasing, as we practice coming back, as we practice just being, and just letting it be, we get more comfortable just being with ourselves in a very simple way. And it doesn’t necessarily feel this way or that way. It’s just here. And being here gets deeper. The feeling deepens. There’s an endless depth to it because it’s an infinite space. Right? Ultimately. So, we’re just touching it. And just touching it releases so much stuff. It’s all good. Cry all day. Cry for weeks. It makes no difference. It’s good.
And then, you start to see the stuff that happened in our lives that forced us into this, taking this position, so to speak. It’s like, when my mother was dying, she was in the hospital and she was pretty stoned on morphine. She had cancer, and so she was lying in her bed and she had, you know, they had those tables in front of you, a little hospital tables on the bed and there was a glass and a pitcher of water, so she asked me to pour some water for her. So, I reached over, and as I reached over, I bumped the table just a little bit. Right? And she went like that, and my stomach clenched. It was like getting punched right in the stomach, and at that second, I recognized she was always doing this to me, and she had done this to me before I can even remember. Right? Before I was even aware. She and I saw that I had adopted this shape in relationship to her, and that I carried this shape around with me in life, and I was always waiting to get hit in the stomach. I was always in a defensive mode or always expecting hurt to come in certain situations, and it was, I can’t even describe to you. It was just such a powerful understanding of why I have all the kind of stuff I have, you know? This is what happens. You’ll see something like that, and then you can let go. But if you don’t see, you can’t let go.
So, it’s not always fun to see, but it’s not always horrible either. Sometimes it’s just like, “Oh, I got it.” It doesn’t have to be all big and emotional, although it can be, 99.9 times of the time, but it doesn’t have to be. So just keep sitting, keep allowing yourself, you know, sing. You know, you don’t have to try to, you can’t grab your mind and kill it. You can’t grab it. Where is it? You know? I don’t see it anywhere. Although actually, it’s the only thing I see. So, you just allow yourself to be with it. Take it easy, relax. You never know. We don’t know who we are unless we actually relax and take it easy and stop trying to please some inner need to be this, or be that, or be seen this way or that way, you know. It’s okay to be who you are already.
Q: Hello Krishna Das.
Namaste. How are you.
I had a question to you, which is there’s this picture of Maharajji which, in which he has dark hair and he’s very young.
Yeah.
There’s only one picture. Can you, do you know anything more about it?
Yeah. His name at that time was Lakshman Das, and He was a Sadhu, you know, he wandered around. He had left home at a very early age, at about eight, because his father’s second wife, his mother died, his father’s second wife didn’t feed him, wouldn’t take care of him well, because she wanted her son to inherit the property owned by his father. So, he left home and became a Sadhu, wandered around. We don’t know too much about those days, but yeah, that was from that time period. I think it must be, eventually his father found him and brought him home and then he married the girl he had been engaged to when he was eight, you know, in the villages. So, and then he, they had three children, and his daughter describes him as the perfect father.
You know, Maharajji, no one really knows anything about him. Let’s put it that way. We have a few little facts that we think are facts, that look like facts, but if they’re really true or not, we just don’t know, because he was completely in control of how and what you saw and thought of him.
And he used to say, “I have the keys to the mind.” “I have the keys to mind,” and he would tease us. He said, “I could turn your minds against me.”
And we would go, “Baba, don’t do that. Don’t do that.”
He would laugh. He loved it, you know.
So there seems to be some basic story, but you know, whether it’s true or not, we don’t know. But those were the days, probably between the time he first left home and the time that his father found him and brought him back home, and then he stayed around a lot more, until the time when his daughter, who was the youngest child, went off to a school. She was about 15 or 16 and she went to college, I guess, and then from that point on, he was always wandering after that. But for some years he was always around the home, it seems more often. There’s another picture right after he got his hair cut off. Have you seen that one?
He’s under a very big statue.
No, that’s later. That’s in Neeb Karori. That’s when he came out of the cave that he was living in for five years, and then again, for another three years or something like that. I think he came out of the cave and they did a big bhandara.
Our experience of him is what he wants it to be, and he shows us just as much of him as we can take, and he reveals just as much of himself that will be right for us, because we all have these karmas to live out and some karmas have to be lived out and some karmas can be removed, so to speak, through grace, but we still have to, there’s still a lot of karmas that we have to live out, and for instance, when I was living in India, I thought I would always stay in India. I never thought about coming back to America. Really. I was dedicated to staying there and he let me stay. He kept me there for two and a half years. And then He said, “Okay, you have to go back. You have attachment there.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about. I never thought about America. There was nothing I wanted there. I was happy with Him, but now 50 years later, I see everything that’s happened to me, everything, and I see, oh, that’s what he was talking about. This is, these seeds were inside of me and they had to come out this way. That was the best way for them to come out, rather than trying to keep me in India and blah, blah, blah. I would have exploded. It wasn’t going to work, really. So, this was the best thing for me. And since he knows what’s best, he allowed it to happen that way.
So, that’s really actually, if you really think about that, if you have that understanding, if you really believe that, if we really believe that, that’s it then? Right? We have no problems. Whatever has to be here is here. Whatever’s not here, didn’t have to be here. So, whatever’s here is what we need to deal with, and it’s his will that it’s here, because he could change it if he wanted to, or if it was best for us.
Like for instance, with the stroke, with Ram Dass, what a terrible thing. And he suffered so much for all those years, over 20 years in a wheelchair, and at first he would say, “Maharajji stroked me.” He would say that Maharajji essentially gave him the stroke for his spiritual advancement, but when he went back to India in the wheelchair, the one time that he went back after the stroke, Siddhi Ma looked at him and, “Ram Dass, that’s not right. The stroke was your physical karma. Was your physical karma. Maharajji’s grace is the ability to overcome that stroke and be able to use it as spiritual practice. You know, you transcend the effects of the stroke on your soul.”
So, and that’s exactly what happened, especially over time. So, we can relax in a way, you know, because everything that’s happening is the way it has to be. It can’t be any other way. So, let’s just be here and open our hearts and be as calm as we can, and as open as we can with whatever arises in our life. It’s not easy, but we have to develop those muscles, our letting-go muscle. It brings us back home again and again.
Yeah, and not have desires, not to have as many desires as we still end up having.
The desires come. They’re the result of past karma. What we do with them in the moment is up to us. Some desires, there’s no problem. You know, in the Vinaya, you know, do you know the Vinaya Chalisa? So, what does it say in there? It says, “You only satisfy the desires that are good for us.”
So, not all desire needs to be killed here. We’re humans. We have to breathe, we have to eat and we have to watch TV. So then? There’s nothing wrong with that. If it’s happening, he allows it to happen because that’s what we need. But the things that we would do that would destroy us or interfere with our becoming our true selves, He makes sure that doesn’t happen. So, if we have that kind of faith, we can just relax really and enjoy and be present.
On the other hand, you know, when he would talk about desire, he would say, he would hold up a teacup or banana, and He would say, “So you want it? Don’t take it.”
Once again, anything you say about him, the opposite can be said, so the point is you just have to do whatever is right for you, you figure it out, and that’s what he wants you to do, is what’s right for you. For one person in that group at that time, that teaching might’ve been exactly what they needed. Maybe I was the guy and I didn’t get it, and I kept taking more bananas until I got sick and threw up and had to go to the hospital. But then I learned not to take the banana. Right? But other people, it might not have been relevant. They might not even remember that.
That was the other thing. We sat around with him, 20 people. If each one of those people could write what happened in that period we were with him, it would be 20 different stories. Absolutely. Because each person was seeing him, he was relating to each person differently at the same time, showing this one that, showing this one that, saying this to that person, but meaning it to that person, and only that person got the message. It was so amazing. It’s just extraordinary. Have you read Dada’s books?
Yeah, I have them. I have started reading them, but I’m reading the book on your website now, Divine Reality.
So, after that, read Dada’s books, too, because “By His Grace” is such a great book. Oh my God. It’s really amazing. So yeah.
I have one quick question, before we go, I could not find the Vinaya Chalisa sung by you. I have looked for it everywhere. You have not recorded it?
I have not, you know, I actually read it in English mostly. I mean, I can sing it in Hindi somewhat, but I don’t…
It’s difficult in Hindi.
A little bit. Yeah. It’s not quite, yeah, maybe, but I want to, in the case of that particular prayer, I want the meaning to really resonate deeply. I want to connect with the meaning. I don’t want it to be just, you know, like when we first started singing Hanuman Chalisa to Maharajji, we didn’t know what we were singing, but still he loved it and he encouraged it, and over the years, now the meaning arises to some degree, but that’s okay. But with the Vinaya Chalisa, I want the meaning to be the main thing for me. You know? So, I keep reading it in English, and even then sometimes I don’t, you know? Yeah. I’ve changed some things. “I’m ignorant. I have no faith and devotion, so I’m offering this prayer because it’s the only thing I can fucking do. God dammit.” You know, I yell at him, you know?
Yeah. Do your fake prayers and still it will hold.
Thank you. Nice seeing you again.
Q: Hi. KD I am with Aditya Hridayam Punyam. Hello from Kainchi. We’re both in Kainchi.
You’re in Kainchi now? I didn’t even know there was so much wifi there, there was so much internet. That’s amazing.
Yeah, we lost the call twice. We just wanted to say to you, “Hi from Kainchi.”
Yeah. Lovely. Thank you so much. For those of you who don’t know, Kainchi is one of Maharajji’s temples that I spent much time in. It was one of the main places we were with Maharajji over that time.
Wonderful. Wonderful. Wonderful. Wonderful. It’s getting cold up there now.
Now the weather is supportive.
Have you been to Nainital?
Yes.
Accha. Are you going back there?
We’ve also been down to Anandamayi Ma’s ashram.
Down the road there. Wonderful. How long will you be in the Hills?
10 days.
Why don’t you go? Have you been to Kakrighat?
Every day. Every day.
Okay. I’m just going to shut up, you know everything.
We sat exactly where you sat and sang the Kakrighat Hanuman Chalisa.
Wonderful. Very nice. Good. Very good. Okay. Well, don’t forget to say, give my pranams to Girish and Naresh, and their mother. She runs the whole show. She’s the goddess of the whole Kainchi Valley. Make sure she gets my love and pranams.
Sure. In the morning. Ram Ram.
Q: First, I have to say you and your team have been a silver lining for me through these times, and so I appreciate all of you and all of your work. But I also wanted to share, I started meditating when I was about 21 with TM, so that was $33, a long time ago, and a few years later, a friend of mine took me to see Muktananda in New York and I got Darshan from him. I couldn’t remember “Om Namah Shivaya,” because I need to see it written. So, he gave me “So’ham.” So, I’ve been back and forth between those two mantras. So, now when I sit down to meditate, I don’t know which one to use. Sometimes I use “Sri Ram” and anyway, songs and chants always pop into my mind. It’s like, I can think of a mantra, but there’s a song, and I can’t. So, I don’t know if you have anything to say about that. I love the Hanuman Chalisa. I play that. I have a copy upstairs and downstairs in a less than 800 square foot house. I really love it. And all your CDs. I’ve seen you a few times, actually. I saw you in Yogaville and about 2008. And I have a picture of us.
Yeah. I it’s no problem. Whatever, you know, sometimes you feel like a nut. Sometimes you don’t, You know, you just, whatever mantra works for you, allow them to come and go, you know. It’s the effort to be aware of whatever’s going through your head which is the best. So, if these mantras and these songs, these chants are coming to you, that’s good. They’re pulling you out of your thoughts and out of your subjective stuff and bringing you back. Right?
Right. I love that. I like that.
So, it’s all good. You know, I wouldn’t obsess about it, and I would not worry about it. I would not try to fit yourself into a straight-jacket because you think you have to. That wouldn’t be that wouldn’t be useful in any way. So just recognize the coming back as much as you can, you know, that’s all and enjoy the chant going on in your head or the mantra, the name repeating itself, because these names, these mantras are, they are repeating themselves within us. It’s not us doing it. It looks like that to us, but that’s because we think we are who we think we are, but that’s not reality. The reality is that the name is repeating itself within us, bringing us back home from dreamland. So, it’s all good. Just be at ease of heart and take care. That’s it. No problem.
I’m fairly disciplined. I usually sit twice a day. That’s from TM, I established that. So that works. Okay. Just be at ease and keep doing it.
Don’t try too hard.
Okay I won’t. That’s good. It’s all good. Really.
Q: Hi. How are you?
I’m good. Was that your question? Okay. I’m fine. Thanks.
I have a picture of Hanuman, which is Hanuman in the middle and he’s got many other faces. Yeah.
Panchmukhi Hanuman. Five faced Hanuman. Ok, go ahead.
Very cool. And I got it. It was part of a calendar when I was in Delhi, it was part of a calendar. So, I thought, and I feel like it’s all connected to like Ganesh and Shiva and all of them in like one picture, and wondered if you had anything to say that.
Well, actually it’s not Shiva and Ganesh. It’s different avatars of Ram. There’s the Boar, the Horse, Garuda, and Narasimha, and then Hanuman, the monkey face. Those are the five faces. And that’s a very powerful manifestation of Hanuman for destroying evil and negativity. Yeah. Very powerful diety. Yeah. Very nice. I have right there. I have one beautiful murti of five faced Hanuman.
Are you able to go outside a little bit and get some fresh air?
Oh, there’s lots of fresh air here. This is the windows. There’s windows in this house.
And you are able to do some yoga and take care of yourself?
I’m doing the best I can. Yeah, it’s good.
I can’t wait to see you.
You’ll have to.
I know.
Okay. Thank you so much. Be well.
Q: My only question was just, if you had any more stories about Anandamayi Ma meeting Maharajji? Because I know somebody who used to hang out together at the Jaganath temple, and I was wondering, is there anyone alive that was there when they met? Probably not, right?
No. Well, the first time they met, Tiwari was with Maharajji and of course he’s long gone. When I was on pilgrimage around the Narmada river, the yatra, I was told that Anandamayi was also on that, the same one that Maharajji was on, that there were thousands of sadhus traveling and Anandamayi was one of them, in her previous body. That’s what I was told. And I’m not sure, but it seemed to me, I can’t quite remember, but it seemed to me that her previous body was a male body, by the way. That was, I think that’s what I was told, the way it was told to me.
That was amazing pilgrimage. I was traveling with Mr and Mrs. Tiwari and the Narmada river starts in a place called Amarkantak, and it travels, which is in the center of India, and it travels Southwest to the Arabian sea, and it goes underground and comes up and disappears and comes up and yeah, I had some amazing, really great experiences on that yatra.
So, this Baba that I was with was the old Baba, 160 something at the time, and he told me that those, they used to, they would start, a thousand sadhus would start at Amarkantak, and they would walk on the Southern bank of the river all the way down to the Arabian sea, and then they would go out into the ocean, into the sea about 15 kilometers, 18 kilometers, and that’s where the river came up. You could see the waves, and they’d go around that and then land on the Northern bank of the river. And there’s a temple on the Northern bank with two murtis, a young, beautiful young Narmada, Goddess Narmada, and an old, very old looking murti, image. And they represent the, what they call it, the source and the end of the river. And the sadhus would make their way along the Southern bank and then never cross over to the Northern bank until they went around the river and then make their way back to Amarkantak on the Northern bank, and it would take 12 years to do that pilgrimage because they would just walk a few hours every day and then sit down and they’d make their fires and cook food and do bhajan and stuff, and then get up in the morning and do it again.
And those pilgrimages, they, it was led by a thousand year old Yogi named Gauri Shankar Maharaj, and this old Baba I was with, we were sitting by the river one day, in the middle of the pilgrimage, and he said, “It was right here that Gauri Shankar Maharaj was talking to the river. He spoke to the river and the river spoke to him. He addressed her as “Daughter, his daughter, the Narmada.” He saw her as his daughter. And he was talking to her and said, “Oh my daughter, what should I do now? My body is so old. It’s just useless.” And he goes, “Oh, okay.”
And he got up. I mean, he was sitting right next to this Old Baba at the time, he gets up and he just wades into the river and disappears, and no one ever saw him again. He took Jal Samahdi, water samahdi, he just disappeared, dropped the body in the river. She had told him to do that. She said, “Well, just come into me then,” and he disappeared.
Yeah. And we were sitting right at that spot. The Baba told me, the old Baba told me this story. He was a young Baba in those days. And he told me this story. It was beautiful place. A beautiful place. Amazing places along the Narmada. They say, in the Kali Yuga, all the yogis hide along the banks of the Narmada. The Ganga is for the Sat Yuga. But these days, everybody hides. They don’t see people, they don’t meet people. They stay along the banks of the Narmada. That’s what they all say.
Did I tell you the story about Dhuniwala Dada Maharaj? He was an extraordinary Siddha who lived in the early 1900s, maybe the twenties and thirties maybe, and as far as I know, and he used to walk around completely naked all the time. He never wore clothes, and not even a langoti, nothing. He just was, he was really extraordinary Siddha. He would be seen many places at once. One time he was seen, he got eaten by a tiger and then he shows up somewhere else. I mean, these things were happening all the time with him. He was really something.
So, along the banks of the Narmada, his main place was, and right by the banks of the river, there was like, a big roof built, but it was all open, and unlimited the roof there was an old, huge old black car from London, England, one of these really big old model, like a model T Ford, something like that, you know, that kind of thing, and inside the car, there was hanging on a hook, a tuxedo type thing with a top hat. And once a year, this Baba, who never wore clothes, would put on this tuxedo with a top hat and shoes and everything, and he’d get into that car and he would drive back and forth along in this tiny little village, maybe it was just a few hundred meters long, the road, dusty, old road with holes in it, you know, a dirt road, just potholes and everything. And he would just drive back and forth all day long, back and forth along this little dusty piece of road in this village, and then he would park the car and take off the tuxedo and walk around naked again for another, the rest of the year. One day a year. And this went on for a long time and they kept the car there. They Polish it and the tuxedo is inside. And his fire is still burning. Dhuni is the fire, the sacred fire, and he was called Dhuniwala Dada. The elder brother. “Dada” means elder brother of the fire. That was his name, Dhuniwala Dada, and that is a powerful place, an extraordinary place.
India is just another universe. I mean, now it’s, the ancient stuff is kind of disappearing. It’s harder to find, covered up with MTV and fancy cars and big houses. But underneath that, mystical India is still totally raging alive. No problem. Amazing.
Q: Hi. I just, I don’t have a question. I just wanted to truly thank you so much. I don’t know if you remember, over the past few months I’ve asked a few things about my mom who has been dying, and excuse me while I cry, but she left her body two days ago, and I just want to thank you so much, not just for the support that you gave when I asked questions, because that I really carried that in my heart through this process, and there were times when remembering things that you said really helped give me courage and strength and the capacity to be there with her and with my own stuff that was coming up as everything was going on. And I really just want to thank you for the fact that you’ve shared your practice in the world, because that’s what introduced me to chanting, and the chanting practice that I have has given her so much peace and ease of heart in these months. And I never could have anticipated that. I mean, I never would have thought that would have been such a support for her in the process of dying. And I was able to be with her virtually when she actually took her last breath and right up until then it was chanting for her that night, and it was really beautiful and really peaceful. And I just really, I’m so grateful. So, thank you so much. Thank you.
Thank you. I remember when I was in India, my mother came. No. It was later. I think it was later, my mother wrote a letter and she asked Maharajji to bless her mother, something like that, who was, had a lot of anxiety and a lot of fear and was pretty out there sometimes, and Maharajji said, “She’ll have peace.”
So many years later, he was long out of the body, what happened was, I think it was a Haitian woman, was her caretaker, would come and take care of her. And she was a Christian and they used to sit out on the balcony in Miami beach, which was like, you know, like a Jewish enclave in those days, all the old Jews went there to die. So, they sat on this little Veranda, and the woman would read the Bible to my mother, my grandmother, the New Testament. And my grandmother got peace at the end of her life. From that. It was amazing. You would have never imagined, you know. But there it is. Maharajji can do anything for anyone at any time. So, that’s wonderful. I’m very happy to hear that.
And I also just want to mention, probably a week before she left her body, she told me that, you know, because sometimes I would play her your chants, also, and she said that she felt like you had become a real part, a big part of this part of her life and that it was really special and precious to her.
Wonderful. That’s great. Wonderful.
Thank you.
Okay, I’m going to read the Vinaya Chalisa. “Vinaya” means to beg, or to implore, or to you know, request with great intensity, something. Right. I think that’s what it means. I’m not very good on what these things mean, actually, but that’s okay.
And there’s one thing I want to say. There’s a lot of stuff in here where it says, “not only do you give liberation, but you also bring wealth to the home and happiness to the home.” You know, we have this idea in the west that, you know, we get from some sannyasis, from renunciates, that you have to be a renunciate and you have to push everything away and deny everything and have no desires. But that was not what Maharajji was about. He was about bestowing the fruits of life, all the good things in life, on the devotees, and allowing them to fulfill their desires and get on with it and have a good life. So, you’ll see. There’s a lot of that in here.
“Lord, I’m ignorant and lack faith and devotion. I don’t know how to pray to you. Still, I humbly offer this prayer. “
That’s not the way I say that line. I say, “I’m ignorant without faith and devotion. I don’t know how to pray to you, but I’m going to do it anyway. God dammit.” That’s what I say to him.
“Lord, I am ignorant and lack faith and devotion. I don’t know how to pray to you. Still, I humbly offer this prayer.
Glory, glory Neem Karoli Baba, please purify my heart with your grace.
How can I sing your praises when I don’t know anything about you?
Just a glance of your grace is enough to remove disease, grief, and suffering.
It is only by your grace that one can come to know you.
Offering you everything – body, mind, soul, and worldly belongings – Is the way to true happiness.
Just to see and touch you, Lord, Is enough to fill one’s heart and home with happiness and prosperity
Glory to you, bestower of happiness to saints and devotees, giver of all kinds of abilities and wealth.
You are Vishnu, you are Rama, you are Krishna. You wander about satisfying the needs of those you meet.
Again and again I sang “Glory to you God”. You are Hanuman incarnate.
Now I accept what Vibhisana said as supreme truth:
“No one can meet a saint without God’s grace, and with that grace comes the end of suffering.”
I realized this in my heart the first day I saw you.
The troubles of those who fill their hearts with you are destroyed.
Glory to you my beloved Gurudev. I am yours in every way.
Please bless me soon. Let me feel that great peace that destroys suffering.
Please wipe out sickness, grief, and suffering and let me continually repeat the name of Ram
Whatever way I may attain supreme salvation, please bless me with that boon.
In every way may I worship Hari and be free from hatred, jealousy, and the confusion of dualities.
May I always serve the saints. Lord, you can grant everything in all respects.
Please give me everything so I may be saved from this ocean of birth and death.
The fruit of all my past good deeds is refuge in you.
Glory to you beloved Gurudev. Again and again I offer my all to you.
At all times you are aware of everything everywhere. Your daily food is very simple.
Your appearance and dress is so simple that no one can know you as a sadhu.
Oh Lord, this is your way of living; your every word has deep meaning.
You turn non-believers into believers when you give them an awakening warning.
I always just say, “You turn non-believers into believers when you give them a shot of your real love.”
Followers of all religions bow their heads to you.
Totally free of selfishness and free of desire, you wander about fulfilling the desires of devotees.
Oh Lord, how can I pray to you and earn the prasad of your grace?
You are the protector of sadhus and good people. You are ever a support to devotees.
You even fulfill the desires of wicked people when they take refuge in you.
Why should anyone be surprised by this? It is simply the nature of a true saint.
So please now have that kind of compassion on me and purify my mind and heart.
Whoever sings your glory daily is attracted to righteousness and good deeds.
They are blessed with the virtues and achieve all happiness and wealth.
All their desires are fulfilled and in the end they attain peace.
The four fruits of life are easy to obtain with your grace.
Save me, save me. You are my refuge. Remove all my troubles and suffering.
It is the greatest blessing to have even seen or touched your wonderful form.
I have performed no good deeds and devoid of intelligence; it is only by your grace that I can even speak of you.
I gently place these few flowers of faith at your feet.
Ocean of Grace, my dearest Guru and Lord, please accept them.
You know, Maharajji was, I’ll tell you a quick story, one time Maharajji was in Vrindavan, and he was walking down the street the middle of the day. It was about 120 degrees, brutally hot, and on the way, a sadhu comes up, a real, you know, with jatta, the long hair, and naked with ashes, and when they saw each other, they jumped and they danced around together and they were so happy, and the sadhu says, “Oh Baba, this is so great. We’re meeting after so much time together. We used to spend so much time together in the Himalayas and now here, finally, after so many years, we’re meeting,” and they just enjoyed each other so much, and then finally Maharajji said, “Okay, you go, now. I have to go.”
And the sadhu said, “Baba, I’m not leaving you.”
“No, no, don’t stay with me. Don’t stay with me.”
“No, I’m not going anywhere. After all these years, we’ve finally met. I’m not going to leave so quickly.”
And Maharajji said to him, “You don’t understand. I’m surrounded by worldly people now. It’s not good for you. You should go back. You should go to the mountains. Don’t stay with me.”
And the sadhu says, “No way. I’m staying with you.”
And Maharajji said, “Okay, let’s go.”
And they started walking to Mathura from Vrindavan, which is about, I think, 18 kilometers in the middle of the day. And in those days, there was nothing, only desert between Vrindavan and Mathura, and they’re dying of thirst and they’re in the desert, and in the distance they see a well, and there’s a woman at the well, bringing up water in a pale. So, they go running.
Maharajji gets there first and he puts his hands out like this, and he says, “Ma, pour water for me.”
So this lady pours water into his hands and he’s drinking and she’s pouring. He’s drinking, drinking, drinking, and then he finishes and the other Baba comes and puts his hands out. No, he puts his gourd. He had this gourd pot with him, and he puts his gourd out, and the woman pours the water in. As she’s pouring in the water, Maharajji just starts chatting her up. He starts talking to her, because that’s where he did.
“Oh, Ma, what’s your family? what village? what’s your caste? Where are you from?”
And she says she’s an untouchable.
When the sadhu heard this, he flipped out and he took his gourd, and he smashed it on the ground. And he looks at Maharajji and he says, “This is your fault! Now this, my gourd has become impure because it’s been touched by this woman who’s an untouchable. And it was my only possession and I needed to bathe and drink and everything, and now because of you, I had to destroy it, and how could you do that?”
And Maharajji’s going, “What’s what’s the problem? What’s the problem? I don’t understand. I don’t understand. I thought you were a sadhu. what is caste to you? What does that mean? I thought you were a sadhu.”
And the Baba realized what had happened, and Maharajji said, “He washed my feet with his tears and went back to the mountains to finish his work.”
Maharajji warned him. Maharajji was so soft-hearted. He did not want to see anybody suffer, and he knew what was going to happen. He warned the sadhu, “No, don’t stay with me. It’s not good. I’m only with worldly people now. No, no, don’t, it’s not good for you. Go away.”
The sadhu wouldn’t leave him because of the love, because of the love we can’t turn away. And that forces us to release all our negativity, all our bullshit, all our attachments, all our stuff, all our fears, all that stuff, because we want to be in the love. The love pulls us into it into itself, and in order to get there, we have to let go of our stuff. There’s no other way.
Ram Ram Ram Ram
Namaste everybody. Wonderful to be with you again. See you in a couple of weeks. Be well.
