This time on the Pilgrim Heart Podcast, Krishna Das shares stories around spiritual practice and chanting the names of God
Show Notes
Succumb or Surrender? (Opening) – What influences our decisions when we walk the thin line between surrendering to grace or succumbing to collapse during moments of difficulty. Krishna Das sheds light on the inner compass that point us in the right direction in these moments.
All Names Pointing to the One (5:50) – How do individuals from different traditions begin to relate to the practice of mantra? KD talks about why he chose to chant the names of God as a practice and looks at the baggage that comes with organized religion.
“I think our hearts have been very hurt by what people call God, what religions call God. I think there is almost no way to go into that with an open-heart. It is almost like you have to shut down and start hating people to join one religion or another. Not everyone is like that, but growing up it seemed like it to me. There is hurt there, so I felt really relieved to feel that Jesus was a saint like these saints I was meeting in India.” – Krishna Das
Chanting From The Heart, Not The Ego (16:35) – What are some of the ways we can check our ego at the door when getting together to chant. We look at the ways that ego can manifest in sacred spaces and how we can recognize our own stuff. Krishna Das shares the moment when he realized his own ego was going to prevent him from practicing.
“I had this experience where I understood that I had to sing with people in order to save my life. I saw very clearly that I was not capable of doing this in a good way, because I had desires for fame and love and power. There were all these things in me and I saw there was no way that I was going to use this whole situation to feed myself. It really freaked me out, because here was the one thing I could do to save my heart and I was going to screw it up – I was not able to do it in the right way.” – Krishna Das
Doing Your Practice (23:50) – Krishna Das shares the story of being forced to chant by Maharaj-ji and really understanding the power of chanting The Name for the first time.
Krishna Das speaks more about the practice of chanting mantra on Ep. 34 of the Pilgrim Heart Podcast
Art via Aiyana Gunjan