Krishna Das – Ep. 97 – Longing, Letting Go & The Lineage of Hanuman

Krishna Das explores longing, letting go, being here now, and the uniqueness of the Hanuman lineage for liberating us while satisfying our beneficial desires and fulfilling our karmas.

In this fun and directed question and answer session, Krishna Das illuminates longing as the base for devotional practice, and describes how releasing our thoughts and fears to surrender into the present moment during meditation is a microcosm of the ultimate goal of the spiritual journey. Sharing from the spacious present, Krishna Das expresses how the Hanuman lineage is not a renunciate path, offering juicy descriptions of Hanuman from India, and sharing stories of miracles and unconditional love of his Guru, Maharajji.

Longing, Devotion, & Practice

Prompted by an audience question, Krishna Das explores the nature of devotion, chanting, and spiritual practice. Stating that love is not something one can manufacture, he explains how the longing to live in the presence of unconditional love—which he experienced in India with his Guru, Neem Karoli Baba—is actually the key that opens us to that space of loving presence. Through this lens, Krishna Das elucidates longing as the base agent of his bhakti yoga practice.

“Longing is the key. Longing, on one hand, it will save your life; on the other hand, it’s gonna ruin your life, because nothing will ever be enough, except when it is. And the only thing that will ever be enough is you, your true being, your heart.” – Krishna Das

Take a dive into the deep gravity-well of the heart with Krishna Das, as he explores the longing for the Divine, on Ep. 71 of Pilgrim Heart

Letting Go, Being Here Now, & Surrender (6:24)

Tackling questions about letting go and surrendering into the now, Krishna Das lays out a methodology for working with overwhelming experiences during our spiritual practices: Focus our attention on the breath, release our fears, and become aware of what draws us away from being here now in this continual process of letting go into the present moment. From this perspective of practice and letting go, Krishna Das explores surrender as the shared ultimate goal for both the jnana yogi and bhakti devotee.

“Relax and be with your breath. What happens tomorrow happens tomorrow, what happened yesterday already happened. This is the moment when you can just be here. To do that you have to release your fears, you have to become aware of the things that pull you out of this moment… Let it go. The inability to let it go is this fear and all the reactions that come about it. Just breath. Breath in, breath out, and tomorrow will be here tomorrow.” – Krishna Das

Join Ram Dass and Alan Watts in a conversation-style podcast about the journey from seperation to surrender, on Ep. 175 of Here & Now

Hanuman Lineage, Non-Renunciate Trip, & Guru (17:20)

Asked to speak about Hanuman and devotion, Krishna Das shares bhav-filled descriptions of Hanuman-ji, along with his Guru, Maharajji, who is said to be an incarnation of the radiant Hanuman. He describes that in India, Hanuman is considered to be the destroyer of suffering and calamities and remover of any obstacle in our way. The uniqueness of the Hanuman lineage, Krishna Das explains, is that it is not a renunciate path. Hanuman will lift us to satisfy our beneficial desires and fulfill our karmas.

“They talk about Hanuman in a very unusual way—they say, ‘Not only does Hanuman bestow liberation, letting you enter into this liberated state of freedom, but he makes it possible for us to satisfy the desires that we have that will be beneficial for us to get. This is not a renunciate trip.” – Krishna Das

Join Krishna Das and Dr. Robert Svoboda as they explore Hanuman and the grace of the Guru, on, Ep. 2 of Living With Reality

Source image via Manju Mandavya