Experience virtual kirtan and community as Krishna Das transmits the wisdom of unconditional love, grace, and presence.
Relationships, Love, and Attachment
Krishna Das recalls a memory from India where he told Maharaj-ji he wanted to marry him. He did not long for this marriage because of romantic love, but for the attachment to real love that Maharaj-ji represented to him. If we are open to it, relationships are a learning experience. We can see the parts of ourselves that are both ugly and beautiful. We can feel emotions that are both magnificent and horrible. This duality is the product of attachment. If we get what we think we need out of someone, we are happy. If we don’t, we are not happy. Real love, however, is different and without condition. Relationships point us to where work is needed within ourselves so that someday we can fully embody love and recognize our oneness.
“Real love is what lasts 24 hours a day 365 days a year. You don’t get it from someone, you can’t give it to anybody, you can’t fall in it, you can’t fall out of it. It’s who we are.” – Krishna Das
Check out Ep. 17 of Here and Now for a Ram Dass lecture on the The Yoga of Relationships
Reflected vs. Divine Reality (38:35)
Our karmic situation and all that we experience in this reality color our perception. Does this mean that we are only able to perceive a reflection of what actual, divine reality truly is? Krishna Das explains that spiritual life frees us from our subjective perceptions and allows us to eventually experience the direct reality. This divine reality is always accessible to us, we just get distracted by our own opinions and encounters. Once we are practiced enough to simply be without subjective perception, we will see the truth.
For a deep dive into this subject, tune into Ep. 101 of Insight Hour with Joseph Goldstein: Hallucinations of Perception
Stress and Insecurity // Present-Moment Awareness (50:30)
How can we live in the moment when we are clouded by stress and insecurity? Krishna Das says that everything is happening in the moment, even stress and insecurity. Our present-moment awareness is like the sky, and our fears are the clouds. If we stay with our breath or chant, we pay attention to the fact that there is still a sky behind those clouds. Each time we come back into our heart space we reinforce a positive habit. Noticing that we are stressed is the first step, then, we can decide how long we will let ourselves be caught.
“Grace is raining down, but we haven’t cupped our hands to catch the drops so we get nothing to drink. Cupping our hands is practice. Cupping our hands is becoming familiar with ourselves. It takes time and it takes commitment, but what else are you going to do? – Krishna Das