Ep. 36 | There’s No Maharajji Outside of You, Committing To A Practice

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Call and Response Ep. 36 There’s No Maharajji Outside of You, Committing To A Practice

So, when I try to tap into the energy or the meaning of Neem Karoli Baba, I feel like I’m grasping at clouds because I wasn’t there. He hasn’t written anything that I can read to understand.

“You’re looking to feel something from outside in a sense. You think He’s out there and you want to connect with Him. It’s not like that. He’s not out there, in fact, there is no “out there” there’s only here. But we’re not here, so we’re lost. We’re in dreamland. Sleepy-poo. So, when we wake up, you’ll remember everything.” – Krishna Das

Q: I have my real question, but I have to follow up with one of the questions, one of the topics before. There was actually research done after World War 2 here in the US to see whether or not Americans would also do what the Germans did, this was the Milgram studies.

KD: They said, “wait 50 years, you’ll find out?”

Q: And they found that Americans, you know, for the most part, 80% or so, were willing to kill people in these shocking experiments that they did up at Yale University. So, this was Yale University students. The reason is interesting, I think, because it does tap into our humanity, as you say is you know, to be Beings who are also impacted by our surroundings and I think if I was in Germany I’d be the guard next to you and you know, because our environment, while we have our sense of self and our self we also, through osmosis, take in culture and everything around us. I think it’s part of tapping into our humanity to be open to that angle. So that’s my back question, but now I have my real question.

KD: OK. Now I’ll give you the unreal answer.

Q: So, this is about Neem Karoli Baba, because I’ve thought about it a lot. You clearly respect and admire Him and I respect and admire you and I have many other people who I respect and admire who also respect and admire Neem Karoli Baba and I’ve thought about it myself that, well, I therefore need to respect and admire Neem Karoli Baba and try to tap into that. A lot of people are pointing me and say, “I came from there, that’s a good place. I came from there.”

KD: What do you mean? I came from there?

Q: I came from Neem Karoli Baba. He’s like a lineage of sorts. But when I, He didn’t say anything. So, when I try to tap into the energy or the meaning of Neem Karoli Baba, I feel like I’m grasping at clouds because I wasn’t there. He hasn’t written anything that I can read to understand.

KD: There’s a lot of stories about Him that have been written.

Q: There are the stories and the stories, the stories are of Beingness.

KD: Stories of?

Q: Of being around Him. Of like, He was sort of a Being, but there’s not meaning that is easy for the next generation to hold onto.  Like the written word, that’s how knowledge is typically passed down.

KD: Wait a minute. That’s bullshit. First of all, the written word, like the Bible? So, they’ve proven that less than three percent of what’s in the Bible can actually be traced linguistically to the time of Jesus. Three percent. So, what about those people who believe every word that’s in the Bible and if God said it, that’s the truth, and the world was made in, what, a day and a half? Seven days? Whatever. So, you can’t believe anything you read either.

Q: I was thinking books and academics.

KD: The bible’s a book more or less.

Q: That’s true.

KD: So, go ahead.

Q: So, I find myself not able to hold onto what He is.

KD: Your idea of Neem Karoli Baba, which is something outside of you.

Q: yeah.

KD: Someone who was outside of you some years ago and is no longer here.

Q: What wisdom to bring into me from Him? It’s hard to hold.

KD: Yeah. Look in the mirror sometime. That’s the best thing to do. There’s no Maharajji outside of you. There never was. The person next to you is in a body, but their soul is no different than yours. What’s looking out of their eyes is no different than what’s looking out of your eyes. That’s consciousness, awareness. Pure Being. That’s who He is. That seemed to inhabit a body at one point, but that’s not the reality. He’s just as much here as He was then, as He was here then. Because He didn’t go anywhere. The body dropped off but who He is was never identified with the body, so anytime you think about Him, He’s actually thinking about you. Which is why you were thinking about Him. How do you like that?

Q: I have to think about that.

KD: That’s a good one. Two points for you.

No this is kind of like a Catholic School thing. Believe it or die. It’s not like that. But my experience of Him is presence, Being. It’s not limited by time. It wasn’t then and it’s not now, you know? It’s not like that. He’s the living presence within. There’ s a word called Antaarayami, which means the indwelling presence. What’s looking out of your eyes, your true nature, your pure consciousness. Not self-consciousness. Pure being. Not ego consciousness. Not separate awareness but pure awareness, which is what’s hearing through your ears, seeing through your eyes, tasting on your tongue, feeling in the skin. And there’s another one. So, that’s presence. That’s being. That’s the true nature of a saint. And that’s our true nature, we just don’t know it. So, there’s no… Read the stories and see if you get any feeling or any kind of feeling of, if it touches you in anyway. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter. I mean, you can’t, there’s no sense trying something that’s not happening. Maybe it’s not your path. Just because other idiots respect him doesn’t mean you’re supposed to. What if they’re wrong? Why would you want to be wrong? Listen to yourself. The problem is you’re not listening deeply enough to yourself. That’s the real issue. You’re not feeling. You’re not, you’re looking to feel something from outside in a sense. You think He’s out there and you want to connect with Him. It’s not like that. He’s not out there, in fact, there is no “out there” there’s only here. But we’re not here, so we’re lost. We’re in dreamland. Sleepy-poo. So, when we wake up, you’ll remember everything. That’s what the Band said. So, just be you and the longing that you have, that’s what you need to get in touch with. It’s not longing to find out who He is. It’s longing to know yourself. And to feel something real inside yourself. So, pursue that. Don’t worry about where it comes from, what it looks like, who has it, who doesn’t have it. Find out who you are. Find out what’s important to you and why. Find out what that longing is and where it’s taking you, where it wants to take you and follow it. Don’t, you can’t write the end of the story before you start living it. You have to kind of, it’s a story that unfolds as time goes on. That’s the beauty of the path. We don’t know where it’s leading. We just know we’re on it and we want to be on it and we’re working to get more present and more full hearted, whole hearted about life. You know? And He said that, He said, “When you think of me, I’m there.” He said that. So, either that means something to you, or you go, well, let me see. Prove it. So maybe He will, maybe He won’t. Maybe it’ll come to you, maybe it won’t.

This one time, we were living in the nearby town and going every day to the temple to hang out with Him, so I’d spend all day inside the temple with Him then I’d go back to my room and I’d go to sleep and I’d dream about Him all night long and I’d go the temple the next day, then I’d go back and I’d dream about Him all night long. So, one day I said, “Maharajji, when I, at night, when I’m sleeping and I dream about You and I see You in the dream, do you see me?”  He said, “Yes.” I said, “No, I mean, at night, in the dream, at that time, when I’m seeing you in the dream, do You see me?”  He said, “Yes.” “No no no. I mean, in the dream when I’m seeing You then, are You seeing me?” “YES.”

So, how He put up with us, you know, He was always going… “these westerners, oh my God. What am I going to do with them?” but on the other hand, He said, He would say to the Indians, “You miserable bastards come here, all you want is stuff from me. You want kids, you want jobs, you want healing, you want all this stuff. Look at these people, they don’t want anything, all they want is God.” We looked at each other. “Really?” Hm. “Let’s see, I was trying to get laid last night. What is He talking about?”  But in retrospect, it was true. We didn’t know anything. I was 23, I didn’t have a life. I hadn’t done anything. And all I wanted to do was sit there and stare at Him for the rest of my life. That was all I wanted. I didn’t want to move. I didn’t want to do anything. And even if I wanted to do it, I wouldn’t have done it, because I wanted that more than anything else. I didn’t think of it as God. Because God is like, up in the sky up there and only crazy people believe in that. I thought of it as Love. I had finally found real love. And I had found somebody who loved me more than I could love myself, but somebody who accepted my love, too.

It’s astounding. Who knew? Nobody on Long Island, that’s for sure. But it was another way of living. It was, these people lived a different kind of life. I remember one family I knew used to come once a year, or maybe twice a year, to do puja to the Guru, worship the Guru, and they’d bring their fruit and the special stuff and everything. They came twice a year. The rest of the time they were in this little town like 20 minutes away, 40 minutes away, and I would look at them and I’d think, “What’s wrong with these people? They don’t come for month after month after month? They just stay in their house and they stay home? What’s wrong?” There was nothing wrong. The point was that they were with Him no matter where they were and I couldn’t get 10 feet away from Him without having a nervous breakdown. There was nothing wrong, my head was on crooked.  So, you know, it’s all about finding that connection inside and feeling it, really feeling it and tasting it and making it, recognizing it and seeing that it’s more real than anything else in your life.  And without that connection, nothing, everything is kind of grey. But when you feel that connection, when you’re with it, everything is colorful and lit up. So, you call it what you want to call it and don’t call it anything until you feel it. It doesn’t have to be, look like that, you know? That’s not required. He doesn’t look like that. That’s just one phantasmagorical shape that He took for our sake. So, and for the people who had the karmas with that manifestation. And you can’t understand who He is anyway. He’s not a human being. Even when He was in a human body. It didn’t work like ours worked.

One time I was at Dada’s house. Dada was one of Maharajji’s great devotees. There’s a book called “By His Grace,” which is so incredible. You should read it. You can actually get it on kindle now, because it’s hard to find a hard copy. Dada was so great. He was a communist economics professor in Allahabad and he was living in the house of his aunt with his wife. A small little house with his aunt and his mother and it was another relative’s house. So, one day, Dada sees his wife going out and he says, “Where are you going?” And she said, “Well, we heard that there’s this Baba who comes to the little house across the street and we’ve been waiting to hear when He comes so we can go see Him. And we found out He’s there today so we’re going to see Him.” “Oh good, you go” Dada didn’t give a shit about anything spiritual. He didn’t care about Babas, yogis, saints, nothing. He didn’t care about any of that. He was a communist economics professor. So, his wife goes out, her name was Kamala. She went out with his mother; they went across the street and they came back in like two minutes. And Dada said, “What’s wrong, why did you come back?” She said, “Well, we walked into the little house. It was dark in this little hut. And the Baba was sitting on a little cot and I walked in and He says, ‘Go home, go home.’ And I didn’t know what to do. So, I sat down. Then He looked at me again, He said ‘Kamala, go home. Your husband’s friends are waiting for their tea.’ “He called her by her first name. He’d never met her before. “Kamala go home. Come tomorrow.” So, they had to leave. So, she told this to Dada, her husband and so that peaked his curiosity. So, the next day, he went over with her and they go into this, they kind of had to get into this, it was a mud house, a mud hut. They kind of get in there, and the minute they walk in, this Baba stands up, grabs a hold of Dada’s hand and starts walking out of the house, crossing the street to Dada’s house. And as He’s walking, He looks at Dada and He said, “From now on, I’ll be staying with you.” Can you imagine? You just came out of the stop and shop and some homeless gets in your car and says, “From now on, I’ll be staying with you.” I don’t think so.

But Dada being who he is and having the karmas that he had, he just went along with it and Maharajji, they went into the house, Maharajji sits down, in a few minutes the people from across the street came over and then the word spread and people started coming from everywhere and the house filled up with people and then the ladies started preparing food and everything and bhajans started going on and, from then on, He went to Dada’s house. And it’s a great book. There’s all these amazing amazing wonderful stories in it. Now why was I telling you that, that’s what I can’t remember. Let me drink some more coffee. I might remember.

Worship. We were talking about worship. I wanted to share and talk a little bit about the prayer, the arati prayer, which I will do when there’s no more questions.  When nobody has anything more to say. We’ll do it before we leave.

 

Q: I’m trying to, I’ll just say it the way it comes out, pretend that I have a practice.

KD: Me, too.

Q: For some reason, I live in Florida and when I went to Florida, I understand that part of a practice is a community. So, I found a Tergar community.

KD: Oh. Mingyur Rinpoche

Q: Yes. Yes. And I love the community.

KD: The best.

Q: They say… thank you, is if you don’t meditate, you don’t make the commitment, 20 minutes a day for three months and I’m not going to skip it, you’re not doing the practice.

KD: Ok. That’s what they… every lineage has their requirements, you know? Go ahead, sorry.

Q: It doesn’t work for me. Sometimes I’m tired.

KD: Twenty fucking minutes doesn’t work for you? Give me a break.

Q: You’ve got it. Well that’s because I’m so fucked up.

KD: Just sit there. Pretend you’re meditating and tell them you did. What the fuck’s wrong with you?

Q: Anyway, I want to negotiate, right?

KD: No, you don’t negotiate with Rinpoche. You sit.

Q: yeah. But I want to say, I chanted today for an hour.

KD: That doesn’t count.

Q: Yeah. I’m looking for help.

KD: I’m giving it to you. Sit your ass down for 20 minutes and shut up.

Q: Why does? Ok, so you meditate, you’ve got a monkey mind. You come out with…

KD: You just sit with it. You’re not supposed to, what can you do with the monkey, nothing, give it a banana and calm it down, but you just sit there. 20 minutes.

Q: If you chant, right, you don’t have enough space for that monkey. So why isn’t that as good.

KD: The problem is, it’s probably the monkey chanting. You just don’t realize it.

Q: Even if I’m doing it alone in my bedroom.

KD: That’s the monkey, yeah. I can tell you right off. It’s the monkey. You think it’s you but it’s the monkey.

Q: That’s for not helping.

KD: No, let’s put it this way, have you met Mingyur Rinpoche yet?

Q: No, I went to a mini-meditation weekend

KD: Have you seen any of His videos and stuff?

Q: yes.

KD: If you feel drawn to Him and His teaching, your requirement is to sit for 20 minutes a day. It’s just that simple. Because what He is transmitting, and the lineage He’s transmitting, that’s the way that lineage works. Now, our lineage is very unusual. You know, there’s Ashtanga yoga, the eight limbed yoga. Maharajji used to say, the Westerners were only qualified for the Five limbed yoga, which is gossiping, wandering around, eating, drinking and sleeping.

Q: I do all of those things.

KD: Very good. So, what are you looking for then? Forget about meditation. You’re right where you should be. You’re in the right lineage

Q: No because the yearning is still there.

KD: Well, then do something and shut up. The yearning might be there but if you want to be in, even I, the great Krishna Das, I can no longer go to His retreats. I can go to the first retreat, the joy of living retreat. One. I can’t even go to two. Because I haven’t finished one. And I know the people. The people, his teachers, I’ve known them for 30 years, so I called them and I said, “You know, I’d like to go to the, you know, higher teaching retreat” and she said, “Well, have you completed the course?”

Q: I’m on One as well.

KD: And they hung up on me, you know? basically. My 30-year friend won’t even let me go to the fucking retreat. So, what chance do you have? That’s my point. You don’t even know his teachers. I’ve known them forever. I remember when they went to their first mindfulness retreats and now, they, people, won’t even let me go to this thing. But it’s not my lineage. I love Rinpoche. I really love him. He’s fantastic. He’s really extraordinary. One of the really great Beings that we have access to in the West. But once again, if you’re not, this is the requirement, you know? There’s a lot of requirements for different things in life and that’s one of them. If you want to receive His teachings, you need to complete, you need to develop a receptacle that will hold them. And in that lineage, it’s the meditation practice that does that. So, you sit the way He asks you to sit for 20 minutes, or you don’t. And if you don’t, you’re just, that’s it. You’re just not part of their lineage. You can appreciate Him. You can read His books, which are fantastic. You can watch His videos online. But you won’t, you won’t progress, you know, with the teachings, but that’s ok if that’s not what you want. There are other teachings with other requirements, but every teaching has a requirement of some time. You can’t catch raindrops unless you cup your hands. So those are the requirements. And it’s just the way it is, you know? Maharajji knew we were incapable of doing anything, so He’s doing it all for us. But that’s just the way it goes. But on the other hand, He said, “Love everyone.” Which I can’t do. “Serve everyone.” Which I can’t do. And “remember God,” which I hardly do. So, what good am I, right? If you really look at it that way. So, I’m doing the best I can. And it’s His problem. But that’s His lineage. That’s that lineage. It’s different.

Q: So, I take a long weekend here and I didn’t spend my 20 minutes yesterday. No go.

KD: 10 minutes. What did you say?

Q: 20.

KD: When you say, “no help,” what do you mean?

Q: No, I said, “No go.” It doesn’t count. I didn’t sit down.

KD: Oh, you didn’t sit down for 20 minutes. Yeah.

Q: I didn’t do tush on the cush for 20 minutes. Well, we did other things.

KD: Have you learned to sleep sitting up? It’s really great. You just pretend you’re meditating, you set your alarm and you just… And then you say, “Oh I sat there 20 minutes.” A little lying is good, you know, don’t worry.

Anyway, the point is, if you really had the longing to connect with Rinpoche, you would do this. It would be a blessing. You would think it was a blessing. “I have a way in.” But you don’t see it that way so obviously you’re not called to that.

Q: I see it that way when I do it. Then I leave it til the end of the day, I’m tired

KD: Yeah, I understand. I’m tired, too. I’m always tired. People say, “How are you doing?” “I’m tired.” I’m always tired. It’s ok. Yeah. See Maharajji used to say to the Indian people, “Look at these people, they left everything behind to come to India. They came from the country of everything to come to the country of nothing.” Which on one level is true. But it didn’t seem like that to us. We were going. We were going to be let in the temple. This is amazing. I can’t believe it. So, I left everything behind. I wasn’t, I didn’t feel like renunciation but I gave everything away I had. I sold whatever I had and I was going. And I was happy to go with nothing. With a backpack. You know? And on the other hand, it doesn’t, Rinpoche’s lineage doesn’t mean that much to you at this point. Let’s face it. It’s just the way it is. Or you would feel, 20 minutes? You know that story about these two yogis? Narada comes to, He’s flying around the universe, He’s this great being that causes trouble wherever He goes. A great devotee but He likes to make shit happen. So, He goes to this one yogi and this yogi says, “Oh Narada, I’m so happy to meet you. Next time you see Brahma, the creator, would you ask him how many more, I’ve been meditating for so many lifetimes, ask him how many more lifetimes I have?” He says, “ok.” Then He goes and meets this other yogi who says, “Oh hey Narada, great to meet you, when you get to see Brahma, would you ask him how much longer I have?” So, he goes to see Brahma and he asks and he comes back and he sees the first yogi and the yogi says, “Did you ask the Lord how many more incarnations I have?” “I did I did.” He said, “What did He say?” He said, “You have three more.” “Three more? I’ve been meditating for thousands of years. What is this? I can’t believe it.” And he flips out. And Narada leaves and He goes to this other yogi and the yogi says, “Did you ask Brahma how much longer?” He said, “Oh yeah.” He said, “What did he say? What did he say?” He said, “You see that tree there?”  “Yeah” he said. “As many leaves as there are on that tree. That’s how many lifetimes you have.” “Really? Fantastic! I can’t believe I’m finally going to be enlightened after all. This is great!” And He’s dancing around and of course, he’s enlightened immediately. So that’s the situation, you know? You’re seeing it from your point of view because you’re you. But when you do hear the message, you go for it. It’s just not the message for you right now. Tomorrow it could be. Tonight, it could be. Or maybe ten years from now. But whatever it is, it doesn’t seem that you’re pulled to that so I wouldn’t worry about it, it’s just the way it is. But, let’s talk about meditation for a second. Chanting is meditation. It’s a meditative practice. There are many different types of meditation. Chanting has many different aspects to it. You can chant and not pay any attention at all and dance around the room, “oh this is so great, hare Krishna hare Krishna” and then go kick the dog. You know? There’s many, but it’s how you do what you do that’s important. And most people think that meditation means sitting down and fighting with your thoughts and trying not to think. This is absolutely ridiculous and impossible, by the way. All you’re asked to do is sit there. You’re not asked to solve the problems of the universe in 20 minutes. You’re asked to be present with whatever is going on. And what’s usually going on is all our mental bull stuff. It’s too late now but my grandson is here. Bull stuff. You’ve heard of bull stuff right, Bodhi?

So, in most meditation practices, you are given or you take one, an object of concentration. An object to pay attention to. Whether it’s your breath coming and out. Because that’s always going on while you’re here. Or you start a mantra going or something like that. And all you’re asked to do is pay a little bit of attention to it. You’re gone. You come back. You’re gone. You come back. That’s all you have to do. You can’t kill your thoughts. How are you going to do that? Where do they come from? You don’t know. So, all you know is that you’re sitting there and then you realize you’ve been thinking and then you remember your breath so you come back to your breath and then you realize that you’ve been thinking so you come back to your breath. The coming back is the important thing. It’s not what you were thinking, it doesn’t matter. It’s not how you were feeling. It doesn’t matter. It’s just to keep coming back. Keep coming back. The thing about the path of devotion and loving devotion is that there’s a lot of juice in it and you know when you’re in love with somebody, you don’t even want to watch tv, you just want to stare at that person and do other things, like go out to dinner. So, when you have that kind of juicy feeling for someone, you’re permeated by that feeling, so that helps you pay attention. That keeps you more present. In other words, say you’re in love with Frank, right? You’re totally madly in love with Frank, so Frank, you can’t even say it without your heart melting and other parts of your body going through all kinds of things. Frank… ahhhhh. Frank. So that’s called devotional meditation. But the problem is, Frank doesn’t know he’s God so when you invoke Frank’s presence, you get Frank. But when you take one of the certified Names of God, so to speak, that have come to this world through Beings that have had the direct experience of Ram, of Krishna, of Kali, of Shiva, of Ma, all these things, these Names have come to us through Beings that realized what they are and brought them here for us so we can follow that path into our own hearts.  But it’s difficult, because we don’t know Ram, you know? Ok, Ram Ram Ram Ram, I’d much rather think about Frank. Because Frank, I’ve got something going with Frank, right? But I’ve got nothing going with Ram. But I’ve gotta Ram Ram Ram. So, what you do is you keep on coming back to that. You started going and there’s the sound of the Name. You don’t have to know what it means because it doesn’t mean anything especially, or it means a lot of things but it’s irrelevant what it means, it’s just a question of something that brings you back home again and again and little by little, as you settle in over years or months or days, into that Ram, things start to open up from the inside and things come to you from the inside, intuitions about things that, it’s not coming from the outside. And things open up and awarenesses open up inside about different feelings coming to you and eventually, we hope, we will experience Ram directly, God directly. But you can’t have a concept about it because it’s, the first thing they say about God is, like in the Ramayana, “Ram is beyond the ordinary means of cognition.” I love that line. Indian English. Beyond the ordinary means of cognition. What does that mean? Beyond the ordinary means of cognition. Well, cognition is seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, touching. Those are ordinary means of cognition, of knowing. And God is beyond the ordinary means so we have to develop an extraordinary means of awareness and that comes through practice. If we keep letting go of the thoughts, for instance, when Maharajji forced us to sing, back in the temple, He made us sing, we had to sing all day and we couldn’t see Him and all day long it was Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare. It was horrible, boring, painful. It was really tough. And you know, there were a few moments where it was ok, but mostly it was really hard work and we didn’t want to do it. We wanted to go sit with Him. But no. So, we had to sing. So, we kept singing. So, my mind tried everything to get away but there was nowhere it could go because I was singing. I had to keep coming back to that. Right? Because that was the deal. I was singing. So, I mean I went through everything. I relived my life 20 times. I did all these things. I thought about every girlfriend I ever had. But I kept coming back. The Hare Krishna kept going on. And little by little, that, I just kind of slowly, because it was such intense practice for so many days, I just kind of sunk into the mantra and it was no longer me doing the mantra. There was just this flow of the mantra going on and thoughts would come and they’d go and I wasn’t thinking them. It was an extraordinary experience and without that experience, which He forced me to do, in order to have that experience, I wouldn’t have understood, you know, how chanting works and how meditation works. You just keep letting go until there’s no one to let go anymore and you’re just present. There’s just being and whatever you want to call it, bliss, you can call it bliss, because it is, it’s no longer that obsessive flow of thought and judging and wanting and denying and pushing away  and holding onto all the crap we do all day long. But it takes practice.  So, what?
Frank?
the problem is, Frank doesn’t get anything, you know? Especially when you forget him, you know? He didn’t even know you were thinking about him. But Ram knows you’re thinking about him. Maharajji said, “When you think about me, when you remember me, I am there.” So, is that some guy? Is it that guy wrapped up in a blanket saying, “I’m there when you think about me.”? No because that’s not who He is. He is that indwelling presence. The consciousness within and when you remember that, of course he’s there. He’s there anyway but if you don’t remember, you don’t remember. You’re just in dreamland. So, don’t try to make things happen. Let life come to you. You know, if you’re not, with that lineage, unless you’re madly in love with Mingyur Rinpoche and you want what He has to give, then it’s ok, just love Him from a distance. Don’t torture yourself that you can’t sit. When it’s time for you to sit, you’ll sit.

I still can’t go to the retreats.

He came to hear me sing once in Boulder.

I was standing outside in the back of the auditorium, just hanging out before we were going to start and two cars pull up and He gets out of this car with like, 8 or 9 other people, and I said, “Rinpoche what are you doing?” “I’ve come to hear you sing.” So, He went, they sat in like the third row. Somebody had saved seats for them. So, when I was singing, He was just like this. And when I was telling jokes, He was laughing, you know?  So I used to tell one, before I sang Jesus on the Mainline, I used to tell this long, fantasy story about, you know, walking up in the hills and finding this ancient temple, you know, and all this whole story and then I saw the temple and it was this incredibly beautiful murti holding a phone, and that I learned the ancient chants that they did to that murti and I’m going to sing it with you now and I would sing Jesus on the Mainline. So, I did that that day with Rinpoche there. Ten years later, I’m at one of His retreats, this is before they changed the structuring, and He invited, every day He would invite a few people that He knew to have dinner with Him. So, we were having dinner, and in the middle of the dinner, the tornado warnings go off. So we had to take our plates and walk down to the basement where the tornado shelter was and there was a big pool table, so we put our plates on the pool table, and we’re standing around the table, eating, and I’m standing next Rinpoche and He looks at me and He said, “You know that story you tell about the temple in the mountains? Is that true?” Ten years later. I said, “Rinpoche, no. It’s just something I do to kind of make people a little open to the Jesus song.” And He said, “oh, I see.” He’s incredible. He’s just incredible. He lives, although He travels all around the world, His main center is in Minneapolis but He teaches everywhere. Tergar is the name of His group.