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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 June 6 2020
Namaste everybody. Can you send some chai over from India? I didn’t bring my tea this morning. I’m a train station. Only best jive. So nice to see you all. And anybody have anything to say? How are you? I’m doing good. How are you? Good morning, I guess. Thank you. It’s a little early for me to be a good morning person.
I don’t go to sleep till like three or four. And then when, when everybody gets up and go to sleep, right?
My question, I have at least two questions because I’ve been waiting for a long time, like past giant chats. So the first question was that Ron does in his, one of his talks, he said that eventually not having something turns out we more interesting than having something. Not getting what you want. Turns out to be more interesting than getting what you want.
This is what I’m Gracie will cause wishful thinking.
Um, yeah. So then your question is what my question is, what
So what is the question again, is that I wanted you to know, I can interpret that in my model of thinking, but I, because you are more aligned to who Ramdas was, so you can probably better explain what he meant by that, because I, in my set of morality and the set of values, I can interpret. But I need to know what you think of that.
I think he was talking from a point of view of spiritual practice. When you deny yourself something that you want, or you don’t take it, then you see all your stuff immediately. You start thinking obsessing about it. Then you start thinking about it. It brings up everything in you that wants to grab onto something.
Uh, I think that’s really what he meant. It wasn’t, it was pretty, uh, pretty Maharaj Maharaji used to say you want it, don’t take it like that. So of course who’s, who’s capable of that, not me and most people, but when you don’t immediately take something that you want and you go for instant gratification, when you don’t do that, you see your reactions, you see how attached you are to something, how much you’re invested in trying to grab something outside of yourself in order to get it.
So I think it’s just a practice issue, not really in terms of daily life and going through the day and relationships, but with people and things, but in internally, if you don’t immediately go for something and grab it, you see the part of you that continually obsesses about it and wants it and can’t let go.
And then you start dealing with that place with yourself and that’s good work. It’s good work. So
the second question was about the prayer and it says that yet read the
So that probably means that wherever there is a key than four by one and a mile deep probably shows themselves in one form or another. So in your 50 years of gluten, has anybody ever come up to you and said that they might have seen Maharaji in any form?
You know, people who have their astral eyes open, so to speak, you know, there and can see other planes of consciousness. They always tell me that whenever I sing to her edgy comes and sits right next to me and plays with me and laughs and pushes me around and everything while I’m singing and stuff like that.
But I don’t see them. I don’t have those experiences. It’s nice to hear that. Even if it’s a fantasy, I like it. I’ll take it. That’s all. That’s all I can work upon. You know, I sang in through phenomena, like at the a couple of years I saw that. Yeah. It’s amazing. I was so shocked. They invited me. It was really
okay. That was the first time you sang in deli too, right? No, I think I had sung in Delhi before that stainless not in 2015. I think it was, maybe it was better than me. I just wake up and look around all day and then go back to sleep. I don’t know what time it is or what they, or what year? No, that’s good.
Thank you. Hello. Thank you, Krishna DAS. It’s great to see you this morning. I thought you must be in India because of the time I thought, well, there’s the us is going to be up at 10 30 in the morning. Yeah, I thought so too.
Anyway, I just want to talk a little bit about the times and get your take and some advice. So in the United States here, I’m in San Francisco, um, and, uh, you know, there’s a lot going on and a lot of it is very, a lot of it is good. Um, and they, I guess those things are not mutually exclusive. Uh, so, you know, a lot of us are feeling a little torn with, you know, being told to stay home, to be safe from the pandemic and having these wonderful, peaceful protests going on that are long overdue.
And I feel like we have a real momentum and change opportunity, uh, for the better. Um, but I also want to, you know, be concerned about my own, uh, not getting too much caught up in outcome. Um, and I don’t want to create more karma for myself or others. And it sort of brings me back to the, the part of the, the godlike Gita, where, um, rom is about to go into battle, but is it’s hard as broken and he can’t go and kill his basically other family members.
And I’m wondering if that’s, if there’s a lesson there that I could work with, um, or if you have any other perspective. So that’s, that’s what I’d like to talk about. Well, there’s a lot of lessons there more than I could even ever understand. One thing that Sri Krishna says to Argentina. When Argenta says, I can’t go kill my families.
You know, they’re all my, my relations. I can’t do that. Uh, Sri Krishna says your words sound wise, but are they real? Is it real wisdom or not? And then Christian begins to unpeel peel off the layers of delusion until finally by the middle of the Gita, he shows him his true form. And then it keeps on. It goes on after that as well.
So that first chapter, you know, they say that every chapter, the Gita is, is a yoga. So the first chapter is called the yoga of the desolation of Argentina, which is the first step and on the path. You don’t, you can’t, you can’t move you. Can’t everything you want to do seems to be wrong. You’re, you’re required to do things that you feel required to, to throw out attachment, but it’s my family.
What are you talking about? How do I not be attacked? So you seem to be fighting with yourself, but Krishna, uh, gradually show us and uncovers the truth for him. And then he, he sees that, that the right thing to do in his situation is to fight, but he has that experience himself based on his, the visions that Sri Krishna gives to him.
So for us who are stepping chapter one, the preamble, it’s like, wait a minute, how do we get the chapter two? You know? So first of all, in terms of the pen, You have to be healthy. You can’t do anything without embody on this plane. So that’s, you don’t want to jeopardize that. So step one, of course, we don’t want to jeopardize the health of our body because without a body, we’ll be, uh, we won’t be here able to do anything at this point.
So that’s step one. Step two is about the social action. The situation is horrific. You know, this, this is, this racism has been going on since day one and it has to be rooted out and it has to be destroyed. And it has to a new way of incorporating all, all of us into a righteous and just system has to develop.
So everybody has to do what they’re called to do from their own part. So you have to see what, what works for you. You’re the only one who, who knows, nobody else can tell you, you have to listen to your heart and find out what’s right for you. Uh, there are other ways to help, uh, then go into the streets necessarily.
You have things that can be done without going to the street and jeopardizing your health. So, um,
this is no different than every day. It’s just becoming more apparent. This is and going on in America and in the world all over for men, you know, since then. So
yeah, I forget who it was. I think it was the poet beer. Maybe that Maharaji quoted. He said, you know, you can do whatever you do, but you don’t throw anyone out of here, but that’s hard. That’s a multilevel state. Because sometimes in order to, to, you have to say no to certain people, or you don’t have to say it with anger.
You can say it with force, but if you are caught up in emotion, then you’re creating karmas. You’re always creating climates. Every thought is karma. So you have to choose what actions you, you, uh,
th th you have to choose what actions you perform based on what you feel you want to happen, but even so the results of our actions. So not up to us,
what’s up to us is to do what we do a hundred percent or give ourselves fully to it. But whether it works out the way we imagine it’s going to or not, that’s not up to us at all. So with that in mind, you go ahead and file. Just like RJ and I had to fight
the key to the, to that whole thing is, uh, just to backtrack a little in the Mojave part there, which is where the bug of I get this from, uh, before the war, uh, both crude, both Arjun and dirty Odin, the bad guy suppose or bad guy go to ask Christina to help on their side and so dirty and then gets there first.
And he sits at Christmas. Christian is asleep. So durian van Gogh gets there first and he sits at Krishna’s head by Krishna’s head. Arjun comes in right afterwards and stands like this at Christmas feat. So Krishna wakes up and he sees Arjun first. Then he sees 30th down. So they’re doing done, says I came first.
I get to ask what I want. Christian says you came first, but I saw Arjun first. So what I’ll do is I’ll split, I’ll split myself in two, either. You can pick me or, and I won’t fight, or you can pick, you can have all my warriors, the greatest warriors. And, uh, so I’m going to just drop their child.
Okay. Or you can, or you can have my, my whole army, your millions of the greatest warriors in the world. So dirty Don said, I’ll take your warriors. And at that moment, the fate was sealed because wherever Christie is there’s Victor. So we want to be with Krishna regardless of what we do. We want to have that awareness in our hearts as deeply as we can.
According to how you know, how we see the world and what kind of practice we’ve done in our lives and where, where our vision is. We want to be with Christian, regardless of what we do, because there will be victory and who is Krishna. Krishna is our own true nature. So we want to follow our own truth as best we can and recognize that real victory may look different than most people think it will look.
And that’s just the way it is. Not everybody gets what they want, even if they go fight for it, because there’s a, a logic behind the whole thing. That’s a functioning. And, uh, we’re not in charge of that, but that doesn’t mean we don’t fight. We fight and we give it our, all the thing about Argento, which made him the greatest warrior was that he had full concentration.
He was able to give himself fully to what he was doing. There was no distraction, boom. And so that’s how we need to act. And if you’re angry and emotional, you’re not going to be able to give you a full, but you’re going to be, and all you’re going to be a churning churning inside. Yeah. So yeah, this is good.
You know, it’s very hard to talk about this stuff with most people, because most people don’t, I don’t even feel that there’s anything to find in life besides pushing re reorganizing things on the physical plane, what to do. They each live by our own truth, our own understanding of things and do the best we can.
Okay. Where in San Francisco are you. Very nice place. Very close to integral yoga institutes.
I love it. I lived out there for a long time. Thank you. Nice to meet you. Hey Katie, how are you? Hello. How are you? This is, this is unbelievable. We saw you last Thursday. And then, uh, we, we thought, you know, we’ll do a giant chit chat with you. And, uh, so this is awesome. Um, my question was as a young 20 year old KV, going back as a young 20 year in his young, 20 year old, 20 year olds already.
Sure. What made you, um, motivate to take this leap of a journey to India or, you know, As a young guy, who’s back like being from India, we usually are in that, you know, parents tell us, you know, you have to be an engineer, you have to be a doctor. So we are kind of trained and being the 32 years old right now, I am, it took me last four years to kind of understand what really matters and kind of focus on the spiritual side of life.
Right? As a young, 20 year old kid, what made you do kind of take that progression towards this journey? You know, I remember when we first got to India, you know, there weren’t a lot of Westerners there yet. It was, uh, August, 1970 people looked at us like, what are you doing? How could you leave the country of everything for this country of nothing?
You know, they, they, they just, you know, and we just looked at, we looked at them like they were. The country of everything sucks. You know, what’s wrong with you? There’s nothing there, but stuff. There’s no love there. There’s no happiness. There’s no peace. That’s what we want. We don’t want that shit. So it was like that, you know, but, uh, on a personal level,
I always, my whole life, I always felt something was missing. Everything was just slightly out of focus. I don’t know how to explain it. No matter what I did, I wasn’t, uh, I couldn’t connect. I didn’t feel happy. I didn’t feel anything. Um, uh, I was just looking for something, you know, and I guess it was my friend gave me the first book I probably read about this stuff was the gospel of Veronica.
I just couldn’t believe it, you know, it’s like, wow, I want that. You know? Um, yeah, there was no question about what, what it was like, everything over here is like a small little 10 watt bulb and this other stuff was like the sun. There was like, I want that. And was just, and I guess on one hand you could just say it’s, it was karmic ripening, you know, it was of some little degree, but there was no, and I, when I left for India, I was never coming back to America.
I gave, I left, I sold everything I had, I gave my genes away, but, and of course I didn’t tell my mother that, uh, also in America at the time it was a very wild time. It was a very, uh, There were a lot of changes going on in the culture. People were starting to look for a deeper meaning in life. The fifties had been so gray, you know, so repressed, so, uh, you know, shirt and tie and, and no emotion.
It just, yeah. So by the mid sixties, things were starting to change. People were looking for something deeper, it was like a whole wave, you know? So, uh, I was at, uh, when I was in college, uh, I re there was, they showed a movie, uh, but the punch really, it was such a Dick Ray’s first film as part of the APU trilogy, the first.
And I, I was like, I could not, everything was familiar the way people move the way they talk, the way they spoke, the way that the jungle looked. And I was just like, it was like a memory I’m, everything was so familiar. And then there’s one part in the movie where a very emotional part and the mother and the film raises her head to, to cry out in grief.
And she opens her mouth. But instead of her voice, you hear one note on the sitar, it goes like this, my mind shattered at that. And I said, I’m going to India like that, like that. Yeah. And it turns out that was the rubbish Shankar note on the sitar. He ma he did the soundtrack for that movie. So he just went around, you know, instead of her voice crying out, uh, her daughter had just died and she was raising.
It was just completely cracking. And now I don’t know, I was just pulled totally pulled to India. That’s just the way it is, which is why I can’t speak Hindi because I think I should be able to, so I don’t want to study. Yeah. I don’t blame you. I speak baby talk. You, you speak pretty well. I must say yeah.
For the four words. I know I say them well, thank you. Yeah. Thank you. It’s fun. It’s fun. In a taxi cab in New York, I put my baseball hat down like this, and I started talking to the guy. Hello? God. I knew anything that looks around the corner. Is that? Yeah. All right. Nice talking to you. Nice talking to you.
Thank you. Um, around us, I met you and, um, I came to Maui in 2014, but it’s nice to see you. Thank you. Was it part of India? Are you from no. Oh no. I’m in Georgia. I do have to say that. Um, it was a very transformational experience after I came back from the Maui retreat. You, um, like my life completely changed for the better.
So, um, it was, you know, so it was a great experience. Um, well I went to, uh, since then, um, a couple of weeks, so my mom passed away. Um, it wasn’t sudden it wasn’t from the, um, pan democratic thing. It was just natural cotton note. She was 85. Um, and I’m having a hard time. I’m really struggling with it. And I know when you talk about detachment and all that, it’s difficult with your mom when she, you know, she dies.
So I was just wondering if there’s something general kind of. Advice. I don’t know, like, you know, in the practice of, you know, when I try to do the work of detachment, but it’s just so hard when you feel such powerful feelings that the loss of your mother, you know, we did it. I did play you’re chanting right after she transitioned, by the way, don’t, don’t, don’t even think about detachment.
It’s not something you think about. Think about love and, and stay in that feeling of love with her. The love is always here. The bodies come and go, but the love never dies. So you stay with that connection feeling. And that brings you detachment from the loss of the physical body. You don’t try to stop feeling.
You can’t stop feeling that that’s, that’ll never work, but what you w what you, what you really want is to be remembering that love in a way they, they say, remember in India, in which means. To just keep reimbursing yourself in that, in the fact that the love is still here. And where is it it’s inside of you.
And that’s where she is. That’s where she’s always been inside of you, even though it looked like she was outside for awhile. When you feel like sometimes I’ll still experience like pain of missing her, you know, something will remind me of her and I feel the love, but then I’ll feel love NFL pain. Cause I can’t see her.
Don’t don’t be afraid of the pain. That’s quite normal. You’re a human being, I think so there’s no, you just allow the pain to come and then it allow, it will also go and as time goes on the level overshadow the pain and the pain will just disappear dissipate. Uh, you just have to allow it to be, if you try to squash it down, it just creates tension and you would make yourself sick for no reason.
The pain is actually there’s a. In devotional practice, the pain of separation is the connection. Okay. Because if you have that pain of separation, you’re not really separated. You’re, you’re, you’re thinking you’re fully involved with the being that you’re thinking about, but yes, you know, bodies come and go and, and as human beings, we, we, we hurt a lot, but as time goes on, that, that transforms itself into feeling the presence.
Like my dad died in 80, late, 80, maybe 88 or something like that. No, 88, 98 93. So I don’t know. Yeah. My mother died in 93, in 2003. My father died 2008.
I feel their presence very strongly. Yeah. And I don’t of course I miss the physical even still, but it’s overshadowed by the, by the presence, by the fact that I feel the love and I allow myself to feel the love. That’s another thing you have to do. You have to allow yourself to open to the pain or you won’t let yourself feel the love either.
It can hurt you. It just hurts, but it can’t do any, it can’t, won’t destroy you, you cry moan, walk around, bang your head against the wall. So all okay. Because that’s, you’re actually with that person at that time in your mind and your heart. And after awhile, the sting of losing the body, uh, calms down a lot.
Um, I noticed this sounds a little bit weird, but actually a little worried about her, like when we saw it and like, You know, she transitioned. I learned it’s almost like a ridiculous kind of question, but I like worry about her. My brother, the first time I was worried about her being alone. She’s not alone.
She’s with all the other beings who are just around, like all of us. Uh she’s she’s you know, just because you don’t have a physical body don’t mean you don’t have a body at all. She’s still an individual with, uh, with, uh, some type of body. Whether it, whether she’s reincarnated in a physical body where she’s in a subtle body, it’s like a dream world.
And it’s like, this world is like a dream world, but we think we’re in the dream, you know? So don’t think she’s alone. She’s not alone. And she’s not,
she’s not suffering any more than she suffered here and probably a lot less. Yeah.
Thank you very much. Thank you. My pleasure. Really just you have to let yourself feel, or, or you’re you’re you’re, you’re, you’re pushing things away that, that, and your mother wants you to be happy. Of course. So you you’re breaking your connection with her. With that, by pushing the feelings away, allow the pain to come, allow it to go and feel the love all the time.
That’s the practice, that spiritual practice. It’s not a pain. It’s not a waste of time. It’s not a side trip. And another part of the practice. Another life lesson. Yeah. It’s your life. Your life is your path. It’s not something else. Your life is your path.
Okay. Nice to meet you.
In Atlanta, Atlanta. Yeah, we’d go down and we used to go. We used to go down a chant. Lana Landa. Yeah. It’s a big chanting weekend down there. Oh. But I don’t, it won’t be this year for sure, but maybe next year, but I’m really from New York. I just, I actually moved to it cause my mom was sick. So I’m a real new Yorker.
I’m transplanted here. I’ve only been here eight months. Oh, okay. It takes getting used to I’m actually, I think from where you are, I’m from long island originally before. Well, I grew up in Smithtown and quorum, uh, near Stony Brook. I used to go to Stony Brook. I graduated from Stony Brook. Yeah, very good.
We have alumni. Okay. And my, my mother died in the Stony Brook hospital looking out over the campus and I was thinking my mother died from my sins.
No cause Stony Brook was a while in time for me, very depressed, very unhappy time. But that’s where I saw that movie though. There is such a dead Ray movie that I just talked about. That’s only bird. Okay. Take care. Thank you very well. Thanks Rhonda. Next we have, yeah, a bit. So I’d have shut through me now.
Well, uh, actually my whole family is listening to you right now. You’re all crazy for your music. And my question is introduced to Margie through this book and what I felt, reading that book, especially the debt part. Last few chapters of that book were around basically explaining what happened after he died and what happened to the people around him.
I failed. I felt an incredible amount of grace. I cannot deny it. Not neither. My mind was able to ignore or get away from this, that, okay. There’s nothing just old minded. I felt so much of grace. And then I thought, okay, I want to change this. I want this all. So I started visiting Kanji. I would travel 20 hours.
Uh, three times I went there in a matter of one month, nothing happened. I was more disappointed. I was frustrated in a temple. I was disturbed. I was trying to, I was doing hand-wash Alyssa, still focus on my breathing. And I was, I read your book and it’s like, I saw just the week before I saw your documentary.
I’m sorry if I’m giving you the background a little longer. While you’re talking. There’s a big spider about to attack me over here. Exactly. Same kind of feeling. I get exactly the first chapter of my life. I got a hint of it. I got a taste of it and I wanted it all and I’m not getting it. I want to feel his grace.
We loved you. I want to feel that again. I felt it for a moment. I left it. It just added all the books of roundness. I read your books. So how did you manage you starting your documentary? That it took me 21 years to finally be who I am today. I don’t want to wait for 21 years. I, I got a hint of something I wanted, well, too bad.
It’s not up to you. Isn’t it.
It’s not, you’re not running the show. Right? No, you can want this all you want, but when grace comes, it comes and you sound, it sounds like you’ve already tasted that grace, the lights have gone on for a minute and you saw there’s a door and the other side of the room, and then the lights went off again.
Now it’s your job to find the door. You can’t sit in the corner and said, I want to find it. Do I want to find the door? You have to go find the fucking door. So go find it. Which means calm your mind. Open your heart. Think about other people. Love everyone, serve everyone. Remember God, that’s the practice.
Do some jeopardy, do some breath things, relax, take it easy. And don’t think about yourself all the time, boring, but it’s not easy. You can’t, we can’t just stop thinking about ourselves. So you have to do some spiritual practice, some jump, some, some.
You know, uh, you have to cultivate that love in your heart because that’s where that is. That’s where Maharaji is in your own heart. Not as somebody else that he’s there as you, who you are, who you really are right now, you’re stuck in your thoughts. And so, uh, and you want somebody else to, uh, to change that nobody can change it only you can.
So, uh, do some jeopardy repeat the name and things will change at their own rate, according to your own karmas and, and what’s best for you. But, um, you know, read about, do read about Ramana Maharshi you know who he is. under inshallah read some of his teachings. Try to get a feeling for what the path is really about.
It’s not all about you, believe it or not.
Uh, and, and try to, uh, get a taste of what kind of work you need to do on yourself. You know, you say you want, uh, you want that grace, uh, Maharaji said purify and wait for grace. So our job is to clean our hearts, which means to calm your mind, calm your thoughts, and start to, uh, think about other people as much as you, if not more, and, uh,
start to get a feel of, of what, you know, what what’s required of you to become a good human. Because that’s what an enlightened being as a perfect human being and not inhuman, there are real human. So that means dealing with everybody in your life in a good way, and treating people well and putting others, if not first, at least on the same level as you, you are, uh, there’s no where to go to get this it’s already within.
So that’s where we have to look for. And, uh, here’s, here’s the line. Here’s from the Bhagavad Gita. I am always with all beings. I abandoned no one and however great. Your inner darkness. You are never separate from me. Let your thoughts flow past Yukon. Keep me near at every moment. Trust me with your life because I am you more than you are yourself.
Okay? Chill out. Thanks.
You’re never away from Maharaji. You’re never away from around. You’re never away from God because God is looking through your eyes right now, but you don’t see, what’s looking, you only see what is seen. You only hear what is heard. You don’t hear the hearing. You don’t see God, you don’t experience that awareness pure being within you.
That’s where it is. That’s what it is.
Find a way to be happy in life, even when we don’t know what we’re doing, because you never really know surrender means surrender. If we ask God to do it, then we haven’t surrender. If we don’t accept where we are and rest at ease within ourselves, then we haven’t surrender. We’re still trying to get somebody to do something for us.
It’s all inside of us already. So just do some, do some meditation, just in a way of calming the mind, do some Japa every day, a few minutes. At least don’t try too hard because you’re only get tense and screw yourself up. The at ease. And if you can’t be at ease, figure out why, definitely your work. That’s what the spiritual path is.
It’s not, it’s not just, it’s not wearing fancy robe, fancy orange clothes and shaving your head and acting like they know something it’s becoming who you are. A good human being.
Good luck. Can I ask you one last question?
Lenny, when Margie said Joe, in, I think 72 or 1973 to you, he said, you’re going to leave now. You must be feeling the same. The way I did that. I want someone to redo something because you, you lose your self-esteem. You said, God is always near you. It’s not only wrong. Then your heart wait for the grease lab post to do your job.
Like if you feel that, no, I don’t think I’m capable enough to do that. I don’t think so. I don’t trust myself. Like everyone things along the way it happened to you. I don’t think so. It will happen to me.
Why are you thinking at all? So something wrong with you.
Got it.
Do some jumper and let go of your thinking. Where did you treat Christian? Say, let your thoughts flow past you calmly. Keep me near that means. Repeat the name. Whatever name you want. Keep me near every moment. Trust me with your life right now. You trust your thoughts. You believe everything you think. And that’s, that’s the definition of insanity, believing everything.
I think. Why would you believe what you think you wake up and you feel like shit, you believe that you’re no different than you were yesterday when you felt good. It’s your thoughts telling you this? And you believe them, but it’s not easy to stop believing them because we’ve been trained to believe those things do some practice and don’t complain.
I’ll beat you up. Thank you.
Those are the words I know in Hindi. You just say, hello, how are you? Okay.
Thank you.
Hello? Um, so, um, just one question, um, the moment, uh, I don’t know, um, like in one of your interviews, you mentioned that, um, when you were forced to do the cutin in Kanji and you didn’t want to, you just wanted to play around with my energy and then, you know, they would just deliver. And then you soon started practicing that, uh, while doing Harambe, uh, you started thinking about your girlfriend and then the ways you touched and all the emotions in that way.
So, uh, I regularly, like not regularly, I would say and pardon me, but around a half, an hour of my time, my headache is not 23 minutes. Um, was, you know, you have like huge spending and you know, all that. But, uh, it just like, I get so pissed off when it ends the moment, it ends all the feelings of void again, you know?
So the person who bit whom you had a chat last night group. So, uh, when he has the word with me or when I listened to your chance at that time, I feel that there is something concrete in existence in my existence though. But, uh, apart from that, you know, all the moments, all the moments of worried and, uh, you know, what is the meaning of everything in my life, it just vanishes like, whatever, what am I doing?
I don’t even understand. So when you do the chant, it’s the experience you had with your group that you are enjoying. Like you keep reliving it again and again, On his grace or what, because they’re very limited, you know, you have very limited, uh, Williams. I really need you to, uh, so that I can change with you.
But that is very, uh, you know, that feeling of what doesn’t go off except for when it’s you or my group. Yeah. Well, you born into this world, you spent your whole life in your emotions and your, your mind, your thoughts, you think just by sitting for 20 minutes a day, that’s all going to go away. No, so, but at least you found something that works for you when you do it.
So you keep planting those seeds and that it, every, every repetition of the name is a seed that we plant within us and those seeds will grow. But if the whole world doesn’t change in two seconds, because you, you saying the part. No, but you just keep doing your practice and you try to live in a good way and you try to treat people well, you try to, uh, become a good human being the rest of the day.
And don’t think it doesn’t change like this. You know, if it was that easy to change it, there wouldn’t be any problems in this world. But all there is in this world is problems. So just do your practice with sincerity and, uh,
don’t worry about what’s happening in your head. The rest of the day. Yes. It’s going to be a mess cause it’s been a mess all these years. No problem. That’s the way it is. But when you chant, it makes you aware of that mess in a different way. And that’s different than the way it used to be, which is, it just was always like that.
And you never know. But now that you’re doing some practice, you notice, so that can help you make your practice deeper. And also you’ll notice during the day you’ll remember the mantra, the mantra will come back to you and that’s that’s so give it a couple of spins and then just get back to your work.
But when it comes to you, unbidden, that’s a very good thing because there is a place within us that that mantra is going on all the time. And eventually, eventually we become more aware of that. So there’s nothing to worry about. Uh, and don’t judge yourself for, for having thoughts and emotions and being a jerk half the time.
That’s okay. You’re allowed. So this, this is before, uh, the China. Uh, I had a deal. Do you have a long drive from my place to my group space? The one that you had a chat right before my chat. So, uh, in the, in the moment, the entire moment I was listening to your change and I actually stopped my car, uh, to, to enjoy that part
So that shows you have some intelligence to stop your car before you hit somebody. Yeah. I have experienced by doing , uh, after completing the Mundra, I realized they were, you know, honking, like, so I just close my eyes and then I get most, so I guess you’re not, you should pull off the road first, right before you start.
So it’s the moments of grace. I find it very hard to retain then it’s like, I know it doesn’t make sense. Definitely. You know, definitely it has to be a process. Uh, so just the two books I have read in my entire life was a by his grace and medical afloat. So in that, you know, the various descriptions of what Mara G used to teach people, or, you know, to like tell him to, uh, follow or do like, you know, so people feed people.
So I’ve been like, you know, trying to align myself in that, but apart from your, uh, Janks, I don’t find grace in the outside world. So yeah. Well
you’re it’s okay. Yeah. Take it easy. Relax it. This does not happen overnight. Don’t be so demanding. Uh, go with the flow a little bit. Relax. It’s not bad. You’re not, it’s not a bad thing. That’s happened. It’s just life. When you remember, you remember when we forget, we forget and we remember that’s the one it’s okay.
What take it easy? You know, uh, they call it grace because it’s grace, which means we don’t do it when it’s there. It’s there. When it’s not there, it’s not there. It’s not up to us. When my hierarchy wanted to run away, he ran away and we couldn’t find him when he let us find him, we found him, but it was up to him, not us.
So it’s up to your true nature, your Optima to pull you in when you’re ready in the meantime, just be who you are. It’s okay. You are who you are for a reason. This is what your karma is created. No problem, nothing wrong with that. Add the practice, add the Japan to your life and allow that to ripen. It’s a ripening process.
It’s not a learning process. It’s not a doing prep. It’s not up to you to do it. It’s up to you to remember the name, what happens after that is up to the name, not you. So don’t worry, just be more at ease with the, with the practice and then in your life. And then it won’t feel so, so, uh, out of control when, when you’re at the rest of the day, you know, it’s okay, this is just life unfolding.
You’re still here. You’re here when you’re doing Jhumpa and you’re here when you’re not doing Java. So the only thing differences where your attention is. So, but because you’re the Boston is of the mind, right. So deep and so ingrained. It takes time to change that for that to change. That’s okay. Just take it easy.
Do your Japa take it easy. Drive on the right side of the road, pull over off the road when you want to bliss out and then get back on the road when you finish being selfish in India.
But thank you. Thanks a lot. So just one phrase of mine, if you could gel.
Thank you. Thanks a lot. I wish to see you in India soon. Ah, yeah, I hope so. Please visit after that I’ll join your group. I’ll be moving in. So make sure there’s a room for me. Sure. So you can have all the places. Okay. Thanks Todd. So hello. He saw you in 2014 when we got married and now we have a young daughter.
And she was super excited to see you. It’s almost past a bedtime. We have a chance of it being played. So she’s familiar with that. Very nice. We didn’t have a question, but we really wanted to thank you for doing this. And, uh, and uh, we would love to have invite you to India. We are in Bangalore, uh, if that’s okay.
Yeah. Yeah. I was supposed to be coming to Bangalore to sing, but with all this stuff going on, hopefully later when it comes down.
Good morning, Katie. Good morning. I had a page full of questions, but I think you already answered all of them for me. Answering questions about it. And I think Jay, can, I got all my answers. My question was about the grease and I think I was trying to demand you all to the journey that I’ve had. And I discovered you a chance and your music two months ago.
And it’s been, uh, it’s been a very significant funds for me. He probably for the lack of a better word, if I had a bit later, I would use that. And, um, yeah, so, so I, I guess I’m just left with, um, with a thank you and with the hope that I’ll keep listening to your chance and I’ll probably get an opportunity to meet you when you’re in India.
I’m in Boston, but I, I I’m based in Delhi. That’s very good. I’m looking for this quote here. I think I found it and I’m going to read it too. Surrender to him and abide by his will, whether he appears or vanishes await his pleasure. If you ask him to do as you, please, it is not surrender, but a command to him, you cannot have him obey you.
And yet think that you have surrender. He knows what is best. And when to do it, leave everything to him, his, the burden, you no longer have any cares. All your cares are his such as surrender. This is poppy that’s from Ramana. Maharshi so. Surrender is up to him. Not us. It comes by grace. So we clean our hearts.
We purify and we await his grace with a calm mind and an open heart. If we’re too cranky, he’s not going to come. So it’s grace. That makes it all. Okay. But it comes at his, his time, not ours. He knows what’s best. We can’t think that we’re running the show. So Becca, thank you, baby. Thank you. Uh, thank you for this, Katie.
Great to see you. Thank you for doing this. Um, Katie, I just had one question. Um, you’ve been talking about this already quite a bit. So this is, this is something which has come up a couple of times and I’ve heard somebody talk about it as well. So, so the, so the part is, uh, so while we talk about grace and, uh, Gracism is an unconditional sort of something which comes your way because of the guru or the God.
Um, but there is also karma on the other side. And is there, how, how does one understand grace in the light of karma? Because if there’s grace and it’s coming to you unconditionally, does it mean that it is, is it unfair to a lot of people who may not be getting the grace? How do you balance karma and grace?
How do they vote? Or do we understand maybe race better? So, you know, Maharaji used to say he used to look at us and he said, I have the keys to the mind. You said, I have the key, I could turn your minds against me and we will don’t do that. And he would laugh.
I said to Cindy mom, once I said, ma Maharaji said he has the keys to the mind, which means to me that I am where he wants me to be. Right. So I said, ma, if I am where he wants me to be, then it’s, is it all grace? Or is my effort required? She said, Christian does. It’s all grace, but you have to act like it.
Isn’t
it’s all grace. That’s the reality. That’s ultimate reality, but we don’t live in ultimate reality. We live in the relative world. This world Samsara in this world. We have rules. There’s things. You can do this things you can’t do. And there’s your karmic situation that you have to deal with. But if, if we recognize that ultimately it’s all grace, that takes a little bit of distinguished way of when we’re going through our tough stuff, our difficult stuff, we just do the best we can.
We deal with things the best we can. We make our effort the best we can, but ultimately the results of our actions, even our sadhana, not up to us. So then the state of the universe is a state of grace, a balance, pure sativa, but we don’t live in that world. We’re not aware of that. So we can’t pretend that we do.
You can’t think about this stuff up here and try to make it all right. Work in your head. It’s a reality. That’s beyond the thoughts in the mind. That’s just the way it is. You know, you can’t make sense of this world world on the level of the thoughts. It’s because we don’t see, we don’t know, see who we’ve been in the past life.
We don’t see who we’re going to be. We don’t see who other people are. Even now we only see the outer shell. So what we might think is, is, uh, that people are victims of this and victims of that and that they don’t have grace. We can’t know that we can imagine that we do, but that’s just imagination. Let’s deal with finding out who we are and let’s deal with trying to calm down our, our insane minds.
And not try to figure this out with, uh, with our mind. It will never help us. You have to suspend that kind of thinking. And because you Jew every thought is the prison. You can’t think yourself out of a prison. That’s made of thought the prison is our thoughts. And we think we are who we think we are.
Well, I know who I am. I was born there. I did this, I did this. This happened. That happened. Yeah. That’s very small part of the story. So one has to recognize that one is not in control of the results of our actions. All we can do in this moment is do the best we can. What happens as a result of our actions?
It’s not up to us. And really, if you really think about that, if you really start to feel that it frees you to give yourself fully to this moment, because what happens later is beyond us and what’s already happened is done. So now how we live our lives, this moment is the most important thing. Are we going to let our thoughts destroy us every second of every fucking day?
That’s what we do. And if we just going to let that happen, what do we expect? What do we expect if we allow ourselves to, to destroy ourselves every, every minute of every day, you know, it’s up to us to say enough of this. I’m going to calm my ass down because it’s up to me to live this in this moment in the best way I can, but it’s not easy.
We, we, the Vossen has the tendencies of our mind just keep going. They’re like, you know, it just like a thousand miles an hour. It’s not easy to slow down and we get angry. Why is it like this? I don’t want it to be like this, that anger is creating it. Right. They’re making more problems. So one has to develop the strength to release thoughts, to release the emotions, not push them away, not deny them.
It’s releasing, letting go and coming back, letting go, coming back, letting them go coming back. And that’s pretty much all we can do, but that purifies our hearts and the hunter munch Elisa. It says
I take. The pollen like dust from the feet of the group, the clean, the mirror of our hearts, my heart. What is that dust? It’s pure love, real love, real being it’s truth, reality consciousness, awareness, real love. That’s what cleans our hearts cleans the mirror of our hearts so that when we look outwardly, we’re actually looking into a mirror and what we see is reflect is the reflection.
So if there’s dust all over the mirror, what do we see dust? And it looks like we see individuals, we see suffering. We see all kinds of things when the heart, when the mirror of the hardest cleaner, when we. Into the mirror. We see a clear reflection of, of reality. So the dust on the mirror is our shame, our guilt, our fear, our anger, our selfishness, all our great stuff that we love so much that we can never let go of all our ideas of right and wrong.
All our righteousness, which is based really on self Patriot, because we don’t love ourselves as we are. We overcompensate and we get angry at things the way things develop and we keep spinning around and around and around some practices required to calm down. That’s all. If you don’t do it, you don’t do it fine.
You don’t do it. What can happen? Nothing Maharaji said, he said constant repetition of God’s name. Even without feelings of devotion and anger and lethargy brings out his grace. Once this is understood things change. So you don’t have to feel anything special. You don’t have to manipulate your emotions.
There’s no right and wrong in practice. You simply do the practice and you live your life and gradually, but inevitably that practice changes us from the inside. It changes the way we see things. It changes the way we react to things, not here in here, and eventually things that we, uh, were scary. They don’t look so scary.
Things that were desirable. Don’t look so good. Things that look ugly. Don’t look so ugly. Things change for us. The way we go through our day starts to change. But you don’t get the pat yourself on the back about that and go like, wow, I’m really doing good. Now things are changing because it’s the evaluator.
That’s getting thinned out the judger, the one that’s judging us ourselves, which is getting dissolved. So life changes, but you don’t necessarily notice it. That’s the weird part, because if you notice it, you just get a bigger ego about it, which makes it worse. Again, you can see these people with big spiritual egos.
They shine so brightly because they’re spending all their time, polishing their selves up. You know, that’s not what it’s about. No one of my heart is grid old devote these data Mukherjee. Uh, it was in, we were long after my heart had left the body. 89. We were in the LA spot for the Maha Kuhn. It was the 12th, the 140 fourth year, 12th, 12th.
So we were going to be staying at, uh, at the Khumbu site with this old Baba that we knew this great old Baba. But before we went to Dada’s house in a lot of bod to spend some time with him. So on the day we were supposed to leave that Baba sent one of his disciples to guide us to his camp at the mailer.
And this guy, this disciple was a real jerk and he walks into the house like this, like he’s God on earth, you know? And he’s disrespectful to data who was his elder. And he was just so full of himself. Like it was horrible. Thought it took one look at this guy and he grabbed me by the ear. And he dragged me into Maharaji’s room and it closes the door and he reaches down under this Elmira and he pulls out this old rest of the key and it opens, unlocks the door, opens the door, reaches down in the bottom shelf and he pulls out something wrapped up in old newspaper and he unwraps it.
And it’s this funky, dirty, old aluminum, cheap aluminum lota, you know, and he holds it up in front of my face. It says, Christian doubt. Do you see, do you see it? And I’m going like that. Okay. That I know. I don’t see. Did you see no, that I don’t see. You said this is what Maharaji left for me the last time he was here, when he left, he left his load at the beach.
Do you see, and I’m looking at this piece of crap is that’s the old piece of crap. And I said, no, dad, I don’t see. He just looked at me. He says, you don’t have to shine. And he takes it, wraps it up, puts it back, closes the thing, locks, it HIEs the key and leaves me standing out there. You don’t have to shine.
Don’t have to shine. It’s not about shining. How much of do we do in our lives that we’re shining ourselves up to make ourselves more attractive to other people, to ourselves and on and on and on. It’s not about that. It’s about becoming a good human being. And how do we do that? You find a way
don’t have to shine.
Everybody wants to shine, what to do.
Good to see you shining so nicely. Thank you, Katie. Thank you. They will love you. Okay.
Hello. I’m joining in from Connecticut, but my family is also joining it from Mumbai. Okay. You’re allowed then. Yes. Um, so, you know, we had a chance to visit, uh, kenchi last year and we saw this section of the temple, um, uh, which was, had many pictures of Sistema. It was really beautiful. And I know very little about her.
Um, you mentioned, you know, the story, but I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about who said DEMA was? Um, I wish I knew. No. My her ID said that she was actually a manifestation of Durga and he had to come to the Hills because she was there. And when people bless them, like, who is, she said, if I can’t find out who she is, how can I tell them?
You know, uh, she was the perfect devote issue was completely surrendered. She was merged in Maharaji. Um, and she hid herself even better than he had himself. She just seemed to disappear. Uh, and whenever anyone asked her to bless them, she said, no, you’re just asking. Maharaji I don’t know. You know, you have to ask him, she very rarely, uh,
she never thought of herself as the doers. She knew that everything was Maharaj, but he was doing everything, but she was, uh,
Incredible being. And she, she took care of all the devote for many years, until two, two years ago, I guess. Right. Is it too when she left the body since 1973, huh? 20 17, 20 17. December 17. Wow. Three years. Three plus. Yeah. So she was there. Uh, he had said to her that when a Saint leaves his body, the temples become his body.
So she used to treat the temple kenchi as if it was my Raji zoned body. And when she was there, it was spotless. Everything was kept so clean. So spotless, everything worked well. It was, uh, She, she, she cheated everything with that kind of love and passionate respect and, um, yeah, and she never promoted herself one time.
Uh, some Westerners invited her to come through a, a conference of, uh, women, women, teachers, spiritual teachers. And she said, I’m not a spiritual teacher. I’m just the devote the of Maharaji, you know, and she meant it. There was a lot of people who say those things who, you know, are secretly fishing for, for, uh, for respect.
And, but she was not like that. It was, uh, yeah, she really, she saved my life twice. Absolutely completely. And she never. Barely let on that she knew what was happening, but she, she did it all. She and my Harajuku, many times she would like when we’re going to budget enough, when she, she was saying to us, it’s a very dangerous ride.
You should do hunter munch, Elise. And she kind of like, okay, nevermind. You’re covered. It’s like, I could just see my hair. I just think they’re okay, don’t leave them alone. They don’t have to do anything.
So maybe, uh, maybe someday a book will come out about her. I don’t know. There’s only one person who could write that, but I don’t know if she’s even thinking about it. We’ll see.
Yeah.
This garden, we are so fond of you. We are so blessed to even be here. We have been chanting to your chance for almost five years. We met you earlier, this fab in the Garrison Institute, New York, uh, it was a very blissful evening. I said a lot of the questions that we had. Uh, the one thing that I do want to ask is with the current climate so much is going on.
Um, there’s a lot of ups and downs that everybody goes through in a day, in a week. We, you listen to the news, the friend, whatever. Um, so when we do the chant, like personally, when I do the chant, you feel so immersed, nothing seems to bother you at all. That’s your version of it? Yes. At least that’s how, you know, it definitely chanting has been the kind of decompressing, uh, thing.
So how, what do you think would like, has Maharaji ever talked to you about how do you deal with this rollercoaster called life? There’s never a straight line there. So many uncertainties, which, you know, we had in the thick of it, we were seeing a lot of uncertainty. So how do you get the grasp with so, so much being so transient?
What was the last thing I said, how do you, how do you deal with everything being so transient or uncertain?
You just do the best. You can, you keep doing your practice and you do it with sincerity and wholeheartedly, and then you go out and then you just, you take that with you. As you go through your day, you know, you can’t help, but have reactions to things and be upset by things. And, but if you understand that your job is to let go of that, you still have to act in the world and do things, but, uh, you just tried to do them the best way you can.
That’s all. Uh, and the strength to do that comes from. You’re the depth of whatever connection you have. If you’re trying to
you, can’t calm the waves of the ocean down, you know, with your hands. Yeah. Yeah. But you have to really stand there strong and let them come up against you. And then they gradually calm down because if you push back, they, it just makes more waves. Oh, you go with what you can, you do the best you can. And when you, you go crazy for a while, you recognize it and venue your back.
So everybody forgets, everybody remembers that’s the point, you know? So, uh, you can’t, we can’t protect ourselves from daily life. We’re in it. And if we do try to protect ourselves, we, we, we will recognize that that’s because we’re afraid. What are we afraid? We’re afraid we’re going to get lost. We’re going, they’re afraid that blah, blah, blah, a million things.
So it’s the fear. That’s the problem, not the stuff itself. So the more that the more faith one has in one’s own ability to calm down and reconnect, then there’s less fear, but it’s not even if you think, okay, I’m connecting to this guru or to that DT or to God, where’s the connection happening here. Right?
So you develop confidence that you can go through the day. And even if you get totally wiped out, you come back. It’s inevitable. We’re going to get wiped out a meal every day we lose it, but we come back because as Krishna says, let your thoughts flow past you calmly keep me near at every moment we, we need to remember.
He’s always inside. It he’s always within us. He’s our true nature. He is the Atma. So, but we don’t, we don’t know. We don’t know that in a deep enough way through practice and Japan and treating people well, we will get to, to know that in a deeper way. So in the meantime, we just do the best we can and you don’t worry about it.
What’s the problem. So it’d be Pago head Kayla. Um, I just want to, um, say something that I happened to me as similar to a person and saying that year I used to drive three hours. Then when dad actually quit my job, I used to sing and that you are against, um, no, most of the times, uh, they’ll start crying for some reason and he’d be really blissful.
Sometimes I’ll stop. We finished that. Um, so really have, um, um,
thanks. We hold on to your chance as our guide lighteners. Yeah. Hold on. Gently. If you hold on to tidy, squeeze it to death, you know the template. Yeah.
Thank you, Katie. Frank, thank you for this wonderful opportunity you gave us to listen to you. Uh, it’s my pleasure to give you an opportunity to look at me. I’ll
say that the Reynolds loving push their stance Graham’s life in front of him in the end, they said that they were really lucky that they got it. The thing is like in front of him, we got this opportunity today. We are so lucky to say rom, rom around sitting in front of us because we know you and Mara are not different.
So please, you know, we are so lucky today to actually be an opportunity to sit in front overall and do the knowledge around here. Thank you. Thank you so much, Katie. Thank you for Everett. She will live in recent years months. Thank you. Thank you for telling me something that I didn’t know.
well, at least you know that I know that’s the best thing you keep knowing that. And I’ll just relax then. Thank you, sir. Thank you for everything.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you.
Hello, how are you? I’m very well, thank you. Thank you. It’s a pleasure and honor to listen to your beautiful and wise words. And, um, I truly want to express my gratitude for this opportunity. And maybe if you shed some more light on surrender, you mentioned surrender several times. And at times when control is something we strive to have and achieve, um, may, maybe control seems to be the opposite of surrender, but maybe it is not.
So maybe kind of control. What do you mean when you say control? You know, for example, letting go of your thoughts or controlling not to have the mind controlling you. Um, committing and having the discipline. So it’s all mind games in a way. And so, uh, surrenders stood out and it will be great to hear more from you on, uh, on that.
The situation is that we are not in control of the fruits of our actions. We were barely have much say in terms of how we even go through the day. Mostly we go through the day, just reacting about this, reacting about that. So surrender is the recognition, you know, many years ago when I was in Ben Belvin with Maharaji, I was walking in the street and I stepped in a hole and I snapped my leg.
And when I woke up in the morning, my knee was out to here. It was all swollen. I could barely walk. So I thought I had to go to Madeira to the hospital or something because it was really bad. Now in those days we were, uh, we were not supposed to come to the temple until four in the afternoon. Maharaj had told us not to come until then, but it was early in the morning and my leg was really bad.
And I thought I’m going to have to go to the doctor, but I’ll stop at the tempo. And I’ll just tell my Raji that I’m, I won’t be there later because I’m going to the doctor. So got to the temple. And we walked in and my friend helped me walk. I couldn’t walk. So I was leaning on my friend and there I am. I limp into the courtyard and he’s all alone sitting on the, tuck it in the middle of the courtyard.
One, one devote. He was with him. I printed them and I sit down and I had to keep my leg out in front of me underneath the tuck it, cause I couldn’t bend it. He didn’t say anything, right? Nothing. It just sat there. He didn’t even say, why did you come so early? Nothing. After a few minutes, he gets up and he takes the devote his hand and he walks towards the back of the temple.
And the further away he got from where we were sitting, he started like this leaning on the guy. Like he could barely walk, you know? And it was like, like this. And I thought, oh, he’s taking on the karma of my knee. Right? The minute I had that thought, he turned around and he ran back to the ticket and he sits down and he goes, you thought I was in pain.
You wanted to help me. And he patted me on the head, you know? So later that day we’re sitting around and some other Westerners had come. So he reached down into this woman’s joy. And he pulls out a Bible, a Bible because he used to talk to us about Jesus all the time. So we thought, well, we better read about this guy.
So some of us had some Bibles and he pulls out this woman’s Bible and he opens it like this and he said, read this. He didn’t even look at the book. He just opened it, read this. So I took the book and I read it and it was, uh, in order to, uh, protect me from the abundance from pride for because of the abundance of revelation.
There was given to me a thorn in the side, and I asked the Lord three times to take, take it from me. But the Lord replied, my grace is sufficient for thee. My strength is made perfect in your weakness. My strength is made. Perfect. And the fact that you can’t do shit to help yourself so that, you know, and he wasn’t, first of all, he was supposed to read it and be able to read English or even speak English.
And he certainly didn’t even look at the book. So Ron Vesta and I have talked about this a lot over the years. What, what does this mean? It means that
we think we are doing it. That’s just what we think. Actually, we’re not able to do anything except offer ourselves to some degree, surrender to some degree. It’s the Lord, that’s doing everything. And the, and when we recognize that our egos are incapable of selfless service, because we as a self yeah. The small.
So when we recognize that we’re not capable of really even surrendering that’s when God’s strength is made perfect in our inability to do anything really, to help ourselves. The recognition of that is surrender. We still do what we do, but we don’t expect that we’re running the show. It’s not something you have to convince yourself up.
It’s actually reality, which we can experience directly and we’ll experience directly within ourselves. As we ripen as souls surrender happens by grace, we don’t surrender Ramana. Maharshi used to say asking the mind to kill the mind is like asking the thief to be the police. There’ll be a lot of investigation, no arrest will ever be made.
So it’s like that the illusion that we’re the doers, that’s an illusion, but, and we believe that. So inside of that delusion, like Sydney mindset, it’s all grace, but you have to act like it. Isn’t, that’s all you have to do. You’re still, you have to develop your muscles. If you want to sit up, if you want to walk you forward to do anything, you need some muscle power.
And the muscle that we have to develop is the letting go muscle. It’s not the pushing away muscle. It’s not that they’re denying muscle. It’s simply letting go again. And again, of our beliefs about thoughts of the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. Again, and again, let go, come back to the name, let go, come back to the name, but go, come back to that name again.
And again, every time every repetition of the name is a seed that is planted within us. And those seeds will grow at their own speed. Not they don’t listen to us, grow faster, grow faster. They don’t do that. They grow at their own rate. All we can do is plant the seeds
and how you plant the seed is very important. Is it you’re planted deep enough, the water at you. Make sure nobody steps on it. This is our motivation. Are we doing these practices with sincerity, with wholeheartedness? Oh, do we understand that this is about becoming a good human being, not being some kind of God.
Let us find out who we are first and then we’ll know everything. So it’s like that. He said,
thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.
No, everything I say is kind of my opinion. So don’t take it as the gospel truth is just it’s. It’s my experience so far, this life that’s all. If it’s helpful, that’s good. I’m happy if it’s not, don’t worry about it. You, you still have to find your own way. We all have to find our own way. We’re just trying to help each other.
Get down the road. That’s all. If it’s helpful, that’s good. But don’t think if you don’t agree with me, there’s something wrong with you. It’s just your thing. You don’t need to agree with me. Okay. But that is just my experience. My friend, Bernie Glassman was a great Zen master. You know, they’re always talking about Buddha’s four noble truths, the four truths of existence, you know, Bernie used to call them the four noble opinions, because if it’s a truth, you said you can’t even talk about it.
But if it’s an opinion yeah. We can discuss. So, so, uh, yeah. Well, it’s been great hanging out with you. I hope. Uh, it’s been wonderful to see you all and be with you. Uh, please, uh, keep chanting, keep remembering the name. Become good. Be good. Human beings. Treat people well, treat yourself. And, uh, hopefully we, uh, we meet again down the road somewhere.
Okay.
Take good care.
