Raghu Markus – Mindrolling – Ep. 479 – Dust & Tears with Jai Uttal

Devotional Musician Jai Uttal joins Raghu to chat about his new album which explores the deepest spiritual longings of the human psyche.

Listen to Jai’s new album, Dust & Tears, HERE

“The Bhakti’s of the past, their songs are so deeply personal and intimate in their relationship to God; it’s stepping into that stream, as gracefully as possible.” – Jai Uttal

In this episode Jai Uttal and Raghu weave together:

  • Devotional Music
  • The art of translation
  • Inherited sentiments and emotions
  • The beauty of expressing our deepest experiences
  • Intimacy with God
  • The Yoga of Devotion
  • Following the path of the heart 
About Jai Uttal:

Jai Uttal is a grammy-nominated sacred music composer, recording artist, multi-instrumentalist, and ecstatic vocalist. Having traveled extensively in India, he met many great saints and singers and Bhakti Yoga became his personal path. Jai has been leading, teaching, and performing kirtan around the world for nearly 50 years. He creates a safe environment for people to open their hearts and voices.

Online Kirtan Camp with Jai Uttal – Level 2 – The Ocean of Bhakti

 Journey into the heart of devotion with Jai Uttal. 

Do you ever wish you could learn to chant? Do you have an existing mantra or kirtan practice and want to go deeper? Have you been wanting to connect with other people who love yoga, mantra and kirtan?

Begin slowly, at your own pace, and make a small and very easy commitment to chant three to five minutes a day, watering that tender shoot of devotion in the deepest recesses of your soul. Before you can even say 108 RAMs, the seed of bhakti within your heart will blossom into a beautiful tree of spiritual connection and love, and become a shelter of peace and compassion for others.

‘Dust & Tears’ Jai Uttal’s New Album. 

The nine compositions on this album continue this ancient steam of devotion. These mystical songs, though veined with heart-wrenching sorrow, express the deepest spiritual longings of the human psyche. Yet, when sung with beauty, heartfelt intensity, and vulnerability, these primordial emotions give birth to an unspoken well of sublime joy. The lyrics, composed by Nubia and I, rest on the very breath of our mystical ancestors. The inspiration is from their passionate hearts and ardent poetry.  These songwriters of Bhakti were untamed revolutionaries, proclaiming the triumph of love over hate. May we, in our small way, sing like they sang, fearlessly and with abandon, longing for darshan, praying for all beings to be free. 

Each of these songs grew from a seed found in an ancient text – sometimes it was a line, sometimes just a word, and sometimes simply the sentiment – which was planted in the soil of our souls to sprout into the music you hear today. 

“Kirtan is the calling, the crying, the reaching across infinite space — digging into the heart’s deepest well to touch and be touched  by the Divine Presence.” – Jai Uttal

About Raghu Markus: 

Raghu Markus spent 18 months in India with Neem Karoli Baba and Ram Dass. He has been involved in music and transformational media since the early 1970s, when he was program director of CKGM-FM in Montreal.

In 1974, he collaborated with Ram Dass on the box set Love Serve Remember. In 1990, he launched Triloka Records, which established itself as a critical leader in the development of world music. For 17 years, Triloka was home to such artists as Krishna Das, Hugh Masekela, Walela, Jai Uttal and transformational media projects that featured Ram Dass, Deepak Chopra, and Les Nubians.

Raghu lives in Ojai, California, and is the Executive Director of the Love Serve Remember Foundation. In 2016, he co-founded the Be Here Now Network, where he hosts the Ram Dass Here & Now podcast, as well as his own Mindrolling podcast. He is the producer of Becoming Nobody, a Ram Dass documentary feature film that was released in 2019.

Check Out More From The Mindrolling Podcast:
Tune into Ep. 295 of Mindrolling: An Honest Journey with Anne Lamott, Duncan Trussell and Pete Holmes
Check out Ep. 335 of Mindrolling: Courage, Trust, and Love with Ram Dass and Duncan Trussell
Listen to Ep. 289 of Mindrolling featuring lessons from Tibetan teacher Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
Tune into Ep. 321 of Mindrolling: Rewriting Our Scripts with Duncan Trussell and Dr. Robert Svoboda to learn about karma and changing false narratives.
For an episode on the inner journey, check out Ep. 216 of Mindrolling: Duncan Trussell, Sharon Salzberg and David Nichtern Live

Photo via Jai Uttal