With deep vulnerability and humor, Krishna Das answers questions on the benefits of daily spiritual practice, like mantra chanting, for releasing us from the whirling thought-tornadoes of our minds.
Continuing last episode’s Q&A session from a 2018 workshop in Miami, FL, Krishna Das answers audience questions digging into what a ‘typical Monday’ looks for him, the benefits of a daily spiritual practice, creating a spacious gap for buffering intense reactions through using techniques like mantra repetition, and how we can better imbibe surrender and will within our beings. Exploring these questions through vulnerably sharing his deep personal experiences with Maharajji and other respected Babas in India, Krishna Das helps us move past our mind’s whirling thought-tornados, and into the present being of loving awareness.
Krishna Das on a Monday…
Opening the podcast answering an audience question digging into the essence of what his daily life looks and feels like—particularly zooming in on spiritual practice—Krishna Das describes a normal Monday in his life. Speaking to the transformational power of spiritual discipline, of a daily practice, like chanting, mantra, sitting, asana, or breathwork, Krishna Das explores how he was able to slow down, and clean out the dark shadows within his heart, through singing kirtan with people.
“I understood that if I didn’t sing with people, I would never be able to clean out the dark shadows in my own heart. This was the only way that I had. I didn’t like that—I was very happy being unhappy. It was very hard for me to come out of the ‘kirtan closet’ and start singing with people. But it was very much with people, and it’s really what saved my life.” – Krishna Das
Join Krishna Das, Dr. Robert Svoboda, and Paula Crossfield in illumination of mantra, Hanuman, and reality, on Ep. 2 of Living With Reality
Practice, Reaction, & Mantra (5:48)
Elucidating the benefits of consistent practice, Krishna Das explains how our intense reactions begin to soften as we start to open up a space between the stimuli and our response. As this gap opens up, it gives us not just spaciousness, but a legitimate vote on how we will react, thereby changing how we go about our day on both the micro and macro scale. Through this lens, our whole lives become a practice of loosening our tightened version of ‘me,’ in order to contact present moment loving awareness.
“You can keep a mantra going, and that will keep bringing you back. It won’t take you away. At one stage it might seem like it’s taking you away from the moment, but as it deepens, that mantra is more like an anchor into the moment, and it holds you right here. So, you go through the whole day and you’re always here, always in that space of openness.” – Krishna Das
Learn the basics of chanting practice and the silence of being, with expert advice from Krishna Das and Nikki Walton, on Ep. 10 of New Growth
Maharajji, Thought-Tornadoes, Surrender (17:06)
Sharing a personal story of inner turmoil in India exemplifying the constantly lapping thoughts within our minds, Krishna Das helps illuminate what Maharajji shared with him: Worldly people don’t die. Only Jesus died the real death. He never thought of himself. From this perspective, Krishna Das explores how we can use practices like chanting to release us from our own thought-tornadoes, before answering audience questions on surrender and will.
“It was the chanting that released me from the whirling tornado of thinking which we live in all the time. All day long our minds are like tornados, they never stop. But the chanting, along with the blessings of Maharajji, freed me from that. So, I could see that, and then it was okay if I forgot, because I would remember. You forget, you remember. What else? No big deal.” – Krishna Das
Join Krishna Das and Dr. Robert Thurman as they embrace the question: What is surrender? Check out, Ep. 73 of Pilgrim Heart
