Call and Response with Krishna Das

Call and Response Special Edition – Conversations With KD April 23, 2020 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. Q:  Please put some light on how to overpower negative thoughts and anxiet...

Call and Response Ep. 45 | A Meditation With Bob “Why do we want Ram, the Divine Rama, and utter the name, Rama, which comes from a verb that means to play and to enjoy? Actually, Rama does. ‘Ramaniya’ means to enjoy something. And why do we say, ‘Jai Ram’? May Ram triumph. May the Divine triumph. Why do we celebrate that? This is India’s vision, actually, which is the vision of the goodness of th...

Call and Response Special Edition – Conversations With KD April 16, 2020 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. “We don’t know who God is, what God is, but he’s certainly not...

Call and Response Ep. 44 | Share Your Story Q: Could (you) share some of your story about what was going on before you decided to go to India “Everyone has a Guru. Everyone has a lineage that they’ve been involved with, especially if you’re interested in this crazy stuff in the first place, and everybody is, every moment, including this moment, receiving the fruits of their karmas. And the motivat...

Call and Response Ep. 43 | Practice Arising By Itself, Dharmageddon and Does the Curriculum Change With Age Question: I’m just finding it to be that I don’t have to try so hard because it just happens and what I like about that, it seems like it took a long time to get there. It gets better and it seems like it’s just easy. You just fall into it. Why all the struggles? “Let’s say you’re home when...

Call and Response Special Edition – Conversations With KD April 11, 2020 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. “It’s very difficult time. So, it’s a good time to be kind to...

Call and Response Special Edition – Conversations With KD April 09, 2020 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. “One has to set boundaries. They have to be healthy boundaries and we’re n...

Call and Response Special Edition – Conversations With KD April 02, 2020 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. “You know, all this craziness in the world is our doing. Nobody else is do...

Call and Response Ep. 42 Only Jesus Died the Real Death Question: He, so the thing that kind of like I had an epiphany about was He never died, the part about Jesus, you know, “I never died.” I had that experience with Jesus, when He said, “I never died.” Could you say a little bit more about somebody who never died, and that whole idea? “States of mind have their own qualities. Now, heaven is a s...

Call and Response Ep. 41 Karma and Consciousness, Dealing With Negativity Q: I’ve been putting a lot of emphasis on my mind a lot of my life and to turn that around, I find that quite difficult. I’m a recovered Catholic and I’m trying my best to remove all belief systems. They’re inappropriate. Lately, in trying to find, and this is one of my shortcomings, always the quickest way to get somewhere,...

Call and Response Ep. 40 Dark Night of the Soul, Gratitude and the Renaissance of Psychedelics Q: So Ram Das talks a lot about how, as you awaken or you go on this spiritual journey, the passions of life kind of start to fall away, and for me, personally, it can be such a release some days when I look out and I see people that this is it and that car is it and doing this and winning is it and I ki...

Call and Response Ep. 39 Bad Aim and the Importance of Spiritual Practice “The key to doing a spiritual practice is actually doing it. Every day whether you feel like it or not. Because if you only go with your, “You know, I’m tired today, I think I’ll skip it”, then the habits that are already pushing us around just get stronger and stronger. We have to create new habits that turn us within, that...

Call and Response Ep. 37 Maharajji’s Language, Why Is Chanting Important? Why is chanting transformative? Why is the chanting of names transformative? Does it require an understanding of what those names, the stories behind those names, in order for the chanting of those names to be transformative?   “These names are mantras. These are sounds that come from a deeper place inside of us and they wer...

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...

Call and Response Ep. 35 Too Little Too Much, Violence and Compassion I’m searching for understanding of how someone can be on this earth and literally be so unloved that he could walk in and kill people in a yoga studio and take his life. How can we make sure people feel the love that we feel in here?   “Don’t try to make it ok. It’s not ok. Eventually it won’t hurt so much. That doesn’t mean you...

Call and Response Ep. 34 Trust In Your Self. Maharajji and Buddhism   When you talk about this incredible love, is it just the simple presence of consciousness that you can achieve through vipassana or different meditation techniques or is it something else? And if it is something else, how do you connect and experience that? “As you sit and you go more deeply, you know, you shouldn’t think that y...

Call and Response Ep. 33 | The Real Guru Is Within, This Happened Because It Had To  “There’s no Guru outside of yourself. Guru is not that body. Guru might be in a body if we need it, if that’s the best thing for us but Guru, God, Self are the same. Guru, God, and Self are One. And nobody’s going to come along and touch you and make it all perfect. You know? Unless somebody comes along and touche...

Call and Response Ep. 32 Keep Coming Back and Cleaning Out The Dark Corners “You don’t have to know anything. All you have to do is be happy. And think about other people once in a while instead of yourself. That’s all. It’s ridiculous how happy you can be when you don’t think about yourself. Ridiculous. Completely absurd. You wouldn’t think that would be the case but it is the case.“ – Krishna Da...

Call and Response Ep. 31  Find Out Who You Are, Maharajji and Buddha, Starting on the Path Do you have any advice for… I guess for someone who’s starting off or seeking their spiritual practice or spirituality all together. “Relax. Take it easy. Watch some tv. Be good. Listen to music. It’s a ripening process. It’s not a learning process. It’s a ripening process and we ripen our hearts when we tur...

Call and Response Ep. 30 Family Karma, KD’s Mom I feel that my dharma is taking me into different direction, that family karma. Karma related to a lot of suffering, a lot of what I would consider tamasic energy, toxic and so if you or Maharajji would have any advice when you feel your dharma is, you know, upholding you and protecting you and… “We don’t know our parents as people, for the most part...

Call and Response Ep. 29 The Evaluative Mind, Grace, Dada Mukerjee “I said to Siddhi Ma, I said, ‘Ma, Maharajji said He has the keys to the mind, so to me that means that I am where He puts me, where He wants me to be. So, Ma, is it grace? In other words, is it His doing, or is it my effort that’s important? What’s the deal?’ So, She said, ‘Krishna Das, it’s all grace but you have to act like it i...

Call and Response Ep. 28  Suffering, Gratitude and Burning Out So, I can feel this softening thing happening in my personal relationships and my everyday life. I’m having a really hard time with the world stage, how to not either not run away from it or like, bring just furious disgust and I’m not sure how to handle, like, what do you suggest with that? “We don’t know what’s going on… Western cult...

Call and Response Ep. 27 Spiritual Experiences, Auschwitz and Bernie Glassman Recently I’ve been having a draw to learn or feel more of my tradition and the ancestors and who’s come before me, and what moved me that I saw online was when you were in the barracks in Auschwitz, (you) sat down and sang to the children. My parents survived the holocaust. Their people did not. And when you sang and I e...

For my own karma, I would like to resolve those things that I’ve felt that I could have done better. Situations I could have handled better and I just wondered what your thoughts were on that, like, if you’ve hurt people in your past that you want to redress the situation but, I just wondered what your thoughts are, because sometimes people don’t want to be, a situation, you might be in a differen...

KD discusses the importance of practice, particularly the practices of Mantra repetition and the Hanuman Chalisa, and recalls how Maharajji’s Western devotees initially began chanting the Chalisa. “So, Maharajji said a couple of things. He said, “Hanuman Chalisa, every line of Hanuman Chalisa is Mahamantra.” Second, He said, “Hanuman Chalisa has the power to change fate.” Now, don’t, I have no ide...