All language subtitles for One.Track.Heart.The.Story.of.Krishna.Das.2012.1080p.WEBRip.x265-RARBG.ENG

- So there I was
sitting in front of him

at what was to be
my last darshan.

I was, right after
this I was going

to get on a bus or
train and go up to Delhi

and catch the plane
back to the States.

I had been walking
around barefoot

in a red dress for
about a year and a half.

And I had no clue what to do.

Time to go, I had to get up,

I bowed to him,

I walked across the courtyard,

and I looked at him
again, looked back at him,

and I bowed down
and then in my head

I heard the words,
in my own voice,

even though it
wasn't me saying it.

It wasn't like, oh okay.

I heard the words, I'll
sing to you in America.

Right.

And then I left.

[gentle acoustic music]

♪ Oh

♪ Shiva

♪ Oh

♪ Shiva

- In the '70s,

it was inconceivable that
someone like Krishna Das

would become world famous
for singing kirtan.

Just absurd.

- When he was first singing
at Jivamukti in New York,

you know, occasionally I'd go
and there were twenty people,

and then there were
thirty people, and then...

And now for it to be
a thing, you know,

is quite startling.

- He's really like the Rumi

or the Kirtan
Wallah of our time,

he's the spiritual bard,
songster of our time.

[Krishna Das chanting]

- It seems that
music is his vehicle

but I don't know that
I would think of him

as a musician first,

I would think of him as a
teacher and leader first,

and the music is just
his way of doing that.

- I am dispensing divine
grace, thank you very much.

And not earning too much.

Just enough.

[Krishna Das chanting]

It's not really
the music business,

although we put CDs
out and we tour,

it's not a career, it's
just my life, you know,

it's my path, it's my practice.

- People get born to his music,

they die to his music,

they get married to his music.

It stirs a deep place in people.

- The only thing I do is this.

I drag my miserable body around,

sit it down in front
of the harmonium

and squeeze and moan and groan,

and people have a
good time and so do I.

That's it, that's all I do.

And yet, look at this.

Look at this thing going on.

- Most singers are
singing to the audience

or they're just singing.

He wants to sing
only to Maharaj-ji.

And the audience listens in

to this tremendous love affair.

- To tell you the truth,

it took me 21 years to
start singing in America.

When I realized,
if I didn't sing,

I would never, ever
be able to clean out

the dark places in my own heart,

the weight of my
unhappiness and my failure

to find anything in life,

other than Maharaj-ji,

which I thought I had
lost when he died,

I just wasn't gonna make it.

I didn't have it, I
didn't have it in me.

The only chance I had
was to sing with people.

So I think most of
you know how it works.

I sing a line

and then you sing something

that sounds like something
I might have sung sometime.

[laughter]

[Krishna Das chanting]

[audience chanting]

[Krishna Das chanting]

- Krishna Das will be
the first to tell you

that he was kind of your average

neurotic Long Island kid.

- Jeff was driving a school bus

when I first met him.

And he was a pretty
morose character.

He was pretty down
a lot of the time.

- Mostly I sat alone in my
room and played the blues.

I needed that expression,

I needed to release some steam,

because I had no way of

feeling good about myself

or connecting to people.

Because I also discovered
drugs around that time.

When I took the first hit
of acid with my friend,

I had a job,

I was playing basketball,

and I was in school.

I had been up on acid
from Friday night,

and I finally crashed
late Saturday night,

and it was very
early Sunday morning,

and there was banging
on the door downstairs

at the house I
lived in on campus,

and I went down

and the team bus was
parked in my driveway!

There was a game that
afternoon at Queens College,

and I hadn't shown
up at the school

so they came to get me.

And I got dressed and I
sat next to the coach,

he put his arm around me,

and I'm like, blah.

It was so insane, I don't
know how I got through that.

- Did you play that day?

- I did, and I broke
my pinkie, yeah.

- That day?

- Yeah.

- There you go.

- I was doing ballet
and I didn't know
what they were doing.

[laughter]

But the ball was
coming up, aaah.

By the tenth hit
I was living alone

in the mountains
of Pennsylvania,

completely off the map.

Of course it made me
really more depressed

than I had ever been,

because I tasted that
and then I had no way

of getting back there,

until I met Ram Dass.

- Almost every major religion

originated from one or more men

who were able to achieve
higher states of consciousness.

These men, called
visionaries or mystics,

through one means or another

entered into the spirit.

Became one with god.

- Ram Dass had been
known as Richard Alpert,

who had been at Harvard
with Timothy Leary.

They were both
psychology professors,

and they discovered acid,

and they started doing
experiments with their students,

but it turned into a wild party,

and they got kicked
out of Harvard.

Ram Dass decided to go to India

and bring some acid with him,

and try to find out
what this really was

and what it was really doing.

And he had given acid to
a few different people,

a yogi and whatever,

but nobody seemed to know.

So then when he met Maharaj-ji

he gave him some acid,

and nothing happened.

He gave him a dose big
enough to kill a horse,

and nothing happened.

And Ram Dass sat
with him all day,

and nothing happened.

Later on when we
were with Maharaj-ji,

he would say to us that,

the yogi medicine,
as he called it,

acid brings you into
the room with Christ.

But you can't stay.

The only way to stay is love.

But he said, it's
good for beginners.

- Ram Dass came to our campus,

on Ram Dass's first trip back,
as I remember, from India,

wearing white clothes and
being like a holy man.

The LSD guru, ex professor
fired from Harvard,

Richard Alpert, Timothy
Leary's boss, actually,

had come back as the
holy man Ram Dass.

- I saw this bulletin for
Richard Alpert giving a talk,

and you know,

I was expecting
the better living

through modern
chemistry lecture,

and instead I got this
guy in a white dress

who had just gotten off
the plane from India.

- I walked into the room
where Ram Dass was sitting

and immediately I knew

that whatever it was
that I was looking for

existed in the world.

It existed, it was real.

It wasn't just some fantasy.

It existed.

And it wasn't just from
the drug experience,

you know, from peyote.

It existed.

- I liked Krishna Das very
much from when I met him.

He was a sort of a hippie,

guitar and pop songs
and things like that.

Good songs,

I mean, good songs.

- It was more than
entertainment for me even then,

at that time it was energy,

release,

and kind of

really entering into it,

into the song.

Pretty much in the
same way I chant now.

But with the chants,

instead of it kind of
ending with the song,

it goes through
the song into a big

deeper, more open space.

Different, completely different.

The band that I had been with,

the guys in the band came to me

and they said that they
had cut all the tracks

for a record.

But the singer who
had replaced me

couldn't sing in the studio,

so they wanted me to come
back and cut their tracks.

And they had a whole tour
lined up and everything.

And this was like, what?

This was my dream, you know.

I couldn't believe it.

But what I was
feeling from Ram Dass

was so extraordinary

and so life affirming

and love affirming

and opening

that there wasn't
any possibility I
was going to do that.

Later on they became known
as the Blue Oyster Cult.

[rock guitar music]

After meeting Ram Dass,

of course all I wanted to
do was spend time with him,

because he seemed to have it,

and I wanted it.

I made myself a real
pain in the ass.

And I got invited to work for
his father the next summer,

up on his father's estate
up in New Hampshire.

So I spent the summer up there,

and over the course
of the summer

hundreds of people showed up,

and people were camping,

and we built a big room where
everybody could hang out.

Thirty or forty hippies
living in the woods,

doing Sufi dancing on his
three hole golf course.

Ram Dass was teaching
yoga and meditation

and chanting,

and it was pretty
magical back then,

these ideas were very
new in the culture.

Well as time went on,

I began to realize
that everything

was coming through him,

and what was coming
through him was Maharaj-ji.

He was a vehicle for Maharaj-ji,

and so then I wanted
to go to India,

I decided to go to India.

- So the three of us,

Ramesh and KD, as we
call Krishna Dass now,

and I got on a plane in 1970

in the fall, early fall,

and flew to Bombay,

and then from Bombay
made our way to Kainchi.

[Indian flute music]

- We didn't know much
about where Maharaj-ji was,

all we had was K.K.'s address.

- And then they
found me outside,

they said, are you K.K.?

I said yes, so he
introduced himself.

And I said, oh
good, you have come.

- I couldn't believe
that everything was
so familiar to me.

Everything, just the
hills were so beautiful,

I could just gaze at them all
day long and never get tired.

It just felt like I
was coming home again.

- I believe we could see
Maharaj-ji as we came in,

because I think he was sitting
up on the tukut outside.

It was just this kind of
complete rush of seeing him.

- So they fed us this meal
of porridge and potatoes,

our first of many,

and then we went in
to see him, you know.

And uh,

it was extraordinary
in its naturalness too.

It wasn't,

I'd been looking at a
black and white picture

for two and a half
years at this point.

And now there he was, you know,

in color, moving and
talking and looking at us,

and he was so sweet, you know.

Just so sweet.

- I mean I already felt him.

I had been feeling
him for years.

And being in the room
with him was no different.

But now there was
this body there,

which I immediately became
totally attached to.

It was a gift, you know.

- Krishna Das was really,

the Indians loved him.

He so quickly mastered
Indian kirtan.

And when we were in
Kainchi every morning,

every evening he would do Aarti,

and he became one of
the leaders of the band.

- One thing Maharaj-ji often did

was to ask the western
devotees to sing.

And Krishna Das, who
had been in a rock band,

and was already a musician,

just naturally took the lead.

So it was, often it was
Krishna Das who would start,

it was Krishna Das who
knew all the words,

it was Krishna Das
who knew the melody

for this chant or that chant.

- It was very difficult for us,

because you don't quite
pronounce the Hindi right,

if it's Sanskrit you don't
quite know what its meaning is,

it becomes,

it becomes ceremony and ritual.

But not for K.D.

He really wanted
to learn the words,

he would play with
different rhythms,

he would experiment
with new ways

of portraying the much
more honest meaning

at the base, at the
beginning of the kirtan.

- At some point, we realized

that Maharaj-ji liked
to hear chanting.

He used to have the
kirtan wallahs come up

to the temple in the mountains,

and they would sing Hare Krishna

almost all day and all night.

[crowd chanting]

- When I went to India,

my dream was to be a sadhu,

to be a wandering monk.

It was more like an
archetype that I had,

that I knew karmically from
some other life, I guess.

The reality is that I had
all these western karmas

that had to be dealt with,

and Maharaj-ji sent me back
here to deal with them.

So being born here I had all
this stuff I wanted to be,

I wanted to be a singer,

I wanted to be a
rock and roller,

I wanted to travel,

and now all that's happened.

But it's, I don't even
know how it happened.

This is the home I've
always dreamed of!

[laughs]

- You can lock it also,
there's a lock feature.

- I got to look
out or these people

will attack me in the
middle of the night.

- Who attacks who, we'll see.

- Lights are on
round switches here.

- This is great!

Can we, before we have
any outsiders come in,

Butch come here,

can we have the big discussion,

the most important?

We've discussed drugs,
we've discussed sex,

we've discussed rock and roll...

- I missed part of that!

- Oh did you really?

- I missed the sex part!

- Oh that's too bad.

One thing we can't miss is,

what is the rules about
pooping on the bus?

- You cannot poop on this bus.

- Cannot poop on this bus?

There's no pooping?

- No pooping and no
paper in the toilet.

- No pooping, and no
paper in the toilet.

- You can put paper
in the trash can.

- Can we use one of the
bunks maybe to poop in?

[laughs]

So we're gonna keep a
record of everything,

and the person who
stops the bus the least

gets something very special
at the end of the tour.

- So if Krishna
gets constipated...

[laughter]

- Y'all are a bunch
of vegetarians,

you ain't gonna be constipated!

[laughter]

[Krishna Das chanting]

[audience chanting]

- I think Maharaj-ji is taking
him through that fantasy,

but because it's a practice,

he can't fully buy into it.

- [Krishna Das]
It's kind of like,

I had this possibility of this
musical career in my karma,

and what was it gonna be for?

Was it gonna kill me,

because I was so
self destructive,

or was that possibility
gonna be used to be helpful?

For me and others?

So it just feels like
Maharaj-ji took that role

and moved it into another realm.

- K.D. is a unique hybrid.

In the west we really
need people like this,

who are willing to uphold
some level of discipline,

of the eastern
spiritual disciplines,

but really recognize the
culture that we live in

and really try to address it

and be honest and genuine
about who they are,

and not just imitating
an eastern culture.

- Reminds me of the
time I was in Denmark,

and I was singing,

and a friend of mine ran
into a friend of hers

in the street and said,

oh, are you coming to
sing with Krishna Das?

And he said, ah,

he's just an American
burger with Indian ketchup.

[laughter]

- You feel him diving
in, in his voice.

So it's less about the
technicality of his voice,

I don't think of
him as Pavarotti,

but I think of him as
someone who can convey

emotion and belief

and spirit with his voice,

and that makes it very powerful.

- So we're traveling
around and we got

one of those big tour buses,

and we started in Seattle
and went down the coast

and then to Arizona
and New Mexico,

Colorado up to
Minneapolis to Chicago

and then to the east coast.

- Wow, can we go?

That sounds like fun!

S U C... such.

B I... a big.

Fan?

He's such a big fan,

it's such an honor for
him that you are here.

- [Krishna Das] I've heard
some his playing too,

it's unbelievable.

- Yeah, it is.

[Krishna Das chanting]

- I think he has a gift.

He's got an ability to...

I mean I've had so many
people tell me, you know,

like a friend of mine told me

when she got her
cancer diagnosis,

the only thing she could
really do was listen

to Krishna Das's chanting,

or somebody told me,

who was widowed
after like 40 years,

a very very long marriage,

the only thing she could do

was listen to Krishna
Das's chanting.

So clearly when people
are suffering and
they're frightened,

you know, there's a lot
of difficulty going on,

there's something
that allows them

to reconnect to
something bigger,

or maybe even something
quite immense,

and it's very beautiful.

- Every day, every time I
sit down at the harmonium,

what do you think,
you think I'm just

floating around in ecstasy?

And I drop a little
raindrop on the harmonium

and I make beautiful sounds

and then go home
and go to sleep?

Bull... No!

That ain't the way it is!

Every time I sit
down it's practice.

I sit down,

I'm doing my practice.

The fact that I do it so often

has developed this ability

to when I'm doing it,

I don't know what else
is happening anywhere.

You know?

The ability to do
something completely,

that's what I'm working on.

And so because I do it so often,

and with such
intensity, you know,

that when I do sit down
to do it, it's just like,

the button gets pushed,

boom, practice is happening.

I have my days.

My knee hurts, my
shoulder hurts,

I got a headache, heartburn,

everything else,

but I gotta sing.

When I'm singing, that stuff

moves towards the background,

as I move into the chant.

[gentle harmonium music]

[Krishna Das chanting]

[crowd joins chanting]

- He didn't encourage us to
think about ourselves at all.

When we asked him,
how do you find god?

He said, serve people.

Right.

How do you raise kundalini?

Feed people.

- He wasn't an organization,

he wasn't a method,

he wasn't a school,

he was a being.

And I think mostly what you got

was a taste of that being.

- Guru loves you
from the inside out,

inside of you, out.

They're inside of you.

When you're exposed to that,

it's transformative, because,

we're used to affection being

handed out to us when we're
good little boys and girls.

When we smile and laugh

and do the right things.

But this is very
different than that.

- I think what happens,

now that I know a
little neuroscience,

is that, you know,

there are these unconscious
brain systems that link us,

brain to brain,

something called mirror
neurons, for example,

that hook up with the state
of the person we're with

and activate in us
that same state.

It was something like that,

it was, when you
were in his presence,

you felt that you were out
of your ordinary orbit,

you were in another
time, in another space.

- The one thing I've always
seen that has struck me

is that I'd say for virtually
all of those people,

being with Maharaj-ji

was the single most
important thing

that had happened to
them in their lives.

I don't really know too
many of that community

who look back and
say, eh, you know?

It was nice enough,
but I was young,

it was foolish or inane.

It's just totally essential
to the core of their being,

it's quite remarkable.

- He knew a path

that was right for you.

And some people like Danny,

he set forth on a path
of meditation, dhyana.

And Ram Dass he set forth
on a path of teaching.

And he sent me on a path of,

whatever the hell it is I do.

And Krishna Das he sent
on a path of bhakti,

of devotion.

And using his
voice and his heart

to sing of love to
the gods and goddesses

and to the inner spirit
that we all have.

- He was always
wearing this red shmata

that had short
sleeves and a long hem

and no belt or no
pockets or anything,

I mean it was like he
was in the oneness,

it was a one piece.

- He became one of the most
senior of the westerners

to still be there,

because after a while
everyone got kicked out.

He sort of became like
an elder brother in a way

to the rest of the satsang.

- He changed from being a hippie

that was interested in music

and spiritual things

to a spiritual person.

After that you
could see his soul.

You could see his soul.

We came back from India.

Krishna Das and I
found our niche.

I talk about Maharaj-ji,

and he'd sing to Maharaj-ji.

And there were great evenings.

- When we sing together,

you are invited to sing.

If you don't sing, please
do not feel guilty.

Okay?

Because that vibration is
a total drag, all right?

So if you don't sing,
just smile, it's okay.

All right, or just sit
quietly and enjoy the singing.

Krishna Das and Blind Willie
Johnson's "Lighthouse."

[guitar chords]

- I'll sing the chorus
first so you can learn it.

And sing along, if you'd like.

[guitar chords]

♪ Shine on me

♪ Let it shine on me

♪ Let your light
from the lighthouse

♪ Shine on me

♪ Let it shine on me

♪ Let it shine on me

♪ Let your light
from the lighthouse

♪ Shine on me

♪ Let it shine on me

♪ Let it shine on me

♪ Let your light
from the lighthouse

♪ Shine on me

♪ Let it shine on me

♪ Let it shine on me

♪ Let your light
from the lighthouse

♪ Shine on me

♪ Let your light
from the lighthouse

♪ Shine on

♪ Me

[cheering and clapping]

- At one point, you know,

just before he left the body,

he had already sent me home,

but he was sending a lot of
the other westerners away,

and they said, oh Baba,
we don't want to go,

we want to stay with you.

And he said, no, you have to go,

your lives are waiting
there in America.

And besides I gave you
more than the Indians.

He said, I let you love
me unconditionally.

You know.

Who does that?

Who can do that?

Who's talking?

I let you love me
unconditionally.

[sighs]

- I was in India
when Maharaj-ji died,

and we were there
when Maharaj-ji's body

was laying on ice.

It was the hardest thing.

[gentle harmonium music]

- I was so used to having

Maharaj-ji as an astral being,

it didn't make a
dent in my mind.

- Krishna Das was crying.

Because he held onto his body.

He held onto Maharaj-ji's body.

- I was getting ready to go
back to India when he died.

He had asked me to come back.

But I didn't get it
together fast enough.

When I heard that
he left the body,

that was it.

My life was over.

Being with him
was the only thing

that ever made me
happy that way.

Nothing ever came close to that.

- I had blown the only
chance I had to be happy.

There was no possibility

of finding that again.

And that's the way I
lived for a long time.

Feeling bad, feeling that way.

A long time.

- Krishna Das at that time

was really depressed.

- I think sometimes he felt

sort of like a lost
child in a way,

without Maharaj-ji
around every day.

In a way,

the more that you were
physically with him,

the more dependent you
became on Maharaj-ji

for so many different parts

of your spiritual
and practical life,

and when that tie
was abruptly severed,

everybody went through
different stages

of mourning and grief.

- I didn't have any, you know,

no direction.

Nothing, there was nothing
I wanted to do especially,

and I didn't need any money,

so I was just wandering around,

staying with friends
and taking it easy

and painting houses,

drove a truck for a while,

stuff like that, you know.

And feeling very lost.

I was living in
despair, quiet despair,

because I believed
that I would never

be happy again.

That Maharaj-ji
being gone physically

was something I
would never get over,

and I would never
find that anywhere,

so what did it
matter what I did?

It didn't.

And I just basically gave up.

- What is it you
want this lifetime?

What is it you want?

You try to optimize pleasure

and minimize pain.

You try to get high
and avoid the low.

- I'd started messing
around with cocaine,

got involved with some coke,

and then somebody turned
me on to freebase,

which is like crack,

but a much purer
form even than that,

and I got addicted to freebase.

And for about a year and a half,

I was very involved with

smoking, you smoke it, you know,

in a pipe.

And,

it was the only thing
that ever really,

really fooled me.

I really,

I really couldn't do
anything about it.

I was,

I was fucked up,

and there was no way out of it,

I was really strung out.

I was in New York on my
way to see Mr. Tewari,

my Indian father who
was coming to visit

some people in Canada,

and then he was gonna
come to the States,

so I was on my way up
to Canada to see him.

I stopped at my
father's apartment,

and after he went to sleep,

I stayed up all night smoking
freebase in the bedroom,

the other bedroom,

and late at night,
early in the morning,

I had run out,

and I was scrounging
around on the floor

to see if I had dropped
a piece of this white,

kind of,

whatever it is,

and I was smoking like
the lint from socks

and stuff like that.

So the next day I got
off the plane in Canada

and I went to see Mr. Tewari.

And when I walked in the room,

he was sitting on the
other side of the room

with his back towards me,

talking to somebody.

And I walked in the
room and I stopped,

because usually I would
just go running to see him.

And I stopped and I felt

like this, I just stopped,

like a force field,

and I just started to
back out of the room.

And he turned and without even,

he pointed at me and he said,

Promise me now you
will give up cocaine.

Promise me now!

And this guy, you have
no idea about this guy,

he was an incredible
yogi and meditator

and an amazing being,

and he just had more power,

and he was just looking at me,

and he didn't give
me any choice.

So I said, okay.

From that moment on,

I never smoked.

Totally stopped, instantly.

It was all his shakti, his
power and his blessing.

And that saved me from that.

I was going down.

From that moment on,

a pile of freebase
and pile of shit

were pretty much the same.

The shit might have
been better. [laughs]

- You say everything in my life,

the highs and the lows,

are all grist for the
mill of going home.

I will eat it all.

And it's even
farther out than that

because at that point,

your suffering becomes
functional for your awakening.

Your suffering
literally becomes grace.

That's a heavy one.

- My girlfriend got pregnant.

And, just when I was ready
to go back to India for good,

I was really gonna leave,

go back for the duration.

So then there was this little,

beautiful little baby girl.

And there was this mouth to feed

that was going to
be hungry every day,

many times a day.

It really forced me to
grow up really fast,

and it was very hard.

- I don't think I
was really aware

of necessarily what
he was going through,

as a child,

other than definitely
knowing he was away a lot,

and traveling a lot,

and not necessarily
there when he was there.

- Even after Maharaj-ji
left the body,

I was still looking for him,

still waiting for him
to come back physically,

in a way.

Looking for him on the outside.

I was in pretty bad shape.

I was really disconnected.

And I hadn't sung in
many years, many years.

And I was just standing
in my room in the city

and I was just struck with that:

if I did not sing with people,

I would never clean out those
dark corners of my heart.

So I was forced to
start doing that.

Because it was the
only thing I had,

I was going down.

I was not gonna make it.

[gentle harmonium music]

[chanting]

- [Krishna Das] I had
nothing in my head about

ever doing anything
on this scale at all.

I was just gonna,

you know, I just
wanted to chant.

There were no rules,

there was no network
to plug into,

because nobody was doing it.

So I was just,

I just started singing.

- But in the beginning,

there were no yoga studios,

and there weren't really
any places to play.

- It made you kind of crazy,

like, driving
someplace really far,

renting a sound
system, setting it up,

doing a kirtan and
having a blissful kirtan,

and then getting paid
like twenty bucks

and going back
home and thinking,

hmm, is this the
right thing? [laughs]

- Krishna Das and I
were chanting in Tucson,

at a hotel.

We were doing a retreat
with Patricia Walden,

and in between our
Hare Krishna chants,

you know, there's a wall divider

between the two ballrooms,

and on the other side
there was a wedding.

So it was like,

♪ Hare krishna

♪ Cuz she's a brick house

In the silence, you know!

- And then it just very
slowly started spreading.

K.D. started doing
it, and Jivamukti,

and we were just persistent.

- I'd go down to
Jivamukti on a Monday,

when I was in New York,

and we'd sing.

And it was great.

The first time I had
really been chanting much

in years and years.

- The deal was,

we had to do our
usual meditation and
spiritual teaching,

and then he could add
some kirtan to it.

I think this was
way before he had

all of his routines worked
out on the keyboard.

I believe he started
out with an ektar.

- In walks Krishna Das,

and to my horror it was
a big tall Jewish guy

with a black T shirt
and black sweatpants,

and behind him was
his drummer, Bob,

who was wearing
jeans and looked like

he'd walked off a construction
site in Pennsylvania,

you know, carrying a plastic
drum on his shoulder,

and I said, oh my
god, this is worse,

this is totally worse,

this is worse than a
failed Indian musician.

I'm definitely sitting
at the back of the room.

And all I remember was
him starting with om,

and hearing the
first [mumbling],

and all I know is that
three hours later,

I was in the front of the room
sitting right in front of him

and I don't know where
the three hours went.

- We didn't have a huge group

for a satsang at that time.

It went from maybe
two people to,

at the most, twenty.

But actually over a relatively
short period of time,

Krishna Das started to
get his own little group

of devotees there,

and he started to want
to take our time over.

- Before we knew it,

at Jivamukti the rooms got
full every Monday night,

and anyway Jivamukti had to
move to a larger location,

and every Monday night it
just got fuller and fuller,

and there were lines
of people outside,

and then they had to
take out the dividers,

and suddenly it seemed we needed

a sound system for
Krishna Das to be heard.

[chanting]

- As far as I knew,

there might have been
two or three other people

who were singing at the time,

Jai maybe, Wah was
singing at the time.

That I knew of,

I'm sure there were others,

but you know, people didn't
make recordings so much.

- And that's why I
made the very first CD,

simply so that people
would know what I do,

and would know that
it was possible,

and I wanted to
sing with people.

So I put out that
CD, the first one,

One Track Heart,

and people started
listening to it.

And then from that
the demand came.

- Taking the most intimate
part of our spirits,

our heart, our prayer,

and saying, hey we
can put this out,

and make records.

It's a little scary.

- It remained so intimate
even through that time,

it was never like,

all of a sudden it's
something different,

it's some show, it's
some concert, some thing,

it was still just a kirtan,

and more and more
people were coming,

and maybe now he's
sitting on a stage,

but it still felt,

still like that same
intimate practice

that he and my family
had always done.

- After he started
singing at Jivamukti

and made his
chanting accessible,

you know, singing for free,

he received invitations
from other yoga studios

around the country.

- Everyone recognized
quite quickly

that it's a spiritual
tradition of music

that organizes your
mind in the same way

that all the other
yoga practices do.

That directs your
energy in a way

that is toward god realization,

or toward enlightenment.

- You know, you can't
go to a yoga studio,

and there are five thousand,
probably, in this country,

without hearing the chants of
Krishna Das in the background.

- Kirtan, I think, will
become more and more popular,

purely based on
the fact that yoga

is becoming more
and more popular.

The way that yoga
is done these days

is less hippie dippy,

less New Age-y.

I think people are just
beginning to open up to this

in a very different way
than what they might have

twenty, thirty years ago.

- I remember the
first time I went,

I was shy about chanting.

To make the leap of chanting,
I felt self conscious,

and uncomfortable
doing it at first.

And then by the end of it,

all that went away,

and it felt very natural,

and felt like it
opened doors in me,

and I liked that feeling.

- Working with Rick Rubin was
a great honor for Krishna Das,

simply because he's one of
the most brilliant producers,

and what he created
was stunning,

you know, from what
Krishna Das already did,

and he made it musically
very beautiful,

and accessible to people.

- Musically he's so
extraordinary, you know,

and I was really touched
that he liked the chanting.

And I think it
probably reached people

who hadn't heard it before

because of his name
being associated with it.

[chanting]

When I first started singing
with people it was great,

I was enjoying it a lot,

but after a while,

people started to come,

it started to become a
little bit of a scene,

and I saw that I was gonna
get more and more popular,

more and more attention,

and that,

because of my own
hungry desires,

my desires for fame,

power, sex, money,

all this stuff,

that there was no possibility

of me doing this
chanting the right way.

That I was gonna
misuse all this power

that was coming to me,

to feed those desires.

There was no possibility
that I wasn't gonna do that.

I was incapable
of not doing that.

[Krishna Das chanting]

I couldn't take it any more.

I was horrified.

Finally I was
doing the one thing

that I felt could bring me
back to Maharaj-ji's presence,

bring me back into that
love I felt I had lost,

and I was being
prevented from doing it

by my own stuff.

It was such a horrible feeling.

So I quit.

I quit.

And I went to India.

I knew that Maharaj-ji

was the only one who could
change what was in my heart,

and that if I was gonna
continue to sing at all again,

he was gonna have
to do something,

even though he had left
his body, you know,

twenty years ago at this point.

We went to Kainchi,

to see Sitti Ma,

and Ma said to me,

what are your plans?

And I said, well,

I have to be back in New
York by the end of May.

And she just stopped.

And then she said, no,

you have to stay until June 15.

Until the bandara at Kainchi,

the celebration of the
opening of the temple.

You have to see
Maharaj-ji's big form.

I thought,
Maharaj-ji's big form?

What is she talking about?

But she asked me
to stay, I'll stay.

And every day I was singing

with the kirtan
wallahs for many hours,

and it was good,

but still I knew nothing
had changed in my heart.

And so the night
before the bandara,

that night I looked
up at the stars

and I started talking to him,

and I said, you know, you
haven't changed anything,

I don't understand why not.

And then I said, well,

I can't make you do it
if you don't want to.

What am I gonna do?

I'll go back, I'll sing.

How bad could it be?

So the next day was
the day of the bandara.

This is a day where 50, 60,
70 thousand people come,

from all over India,

they come to be fed,

to take this meal
of blessed food,

and they line up on
the street for miles.

The roads close,
no buses, no cars.

Amazing.

[gentle Indian music]

- What is the secret of your
devotedness towards Baba?

- Baba was a great man,

he knew the past,
present, and the future,

and he knew how to
awaken people's hearts

and show them what real love is.

- Thanks so much.

- You're welcome.

- They traveled
for days and days,

and very difficult traveling,

just to get this blessed food,

this food which is a
representative manifestation

of Maharaj-ji's grace.

They believe that,

so they come here for that.

Sitti Ma had come out
and was greeting people

after they had eaten

and as they were
leaving the temple.

As I was standing there,

I began to notice something
was happening to me,

something very quiet

and subtle.

And that I was actually
feeling peaceful.

This was a feeling that I didn't
have much familiarity with.

And it was kind of just
spreading through me quietly.

I was just watching
these people come and go,

and it reminded me of this
part of the Bhagavad Gita,

where Krishna shows
Arjuna his divine form,

and Arjuna looks and
he sees all beings

entering into Krishna,

and all beings leaving Krishna,

in this cycle of incarnation
and birth and death.

And Krishna says, I come as
time, the great destroyer.

But at the same time, nothing
is moving in the universe.

There is perfect stillness.

It was like another
level opening up

on top of this regular
level of seeing things.

I went to sit behind the temple,

where Maharaj-ji had
made me the pujari there,

back in the old days,

and I leaned up
against the temple,

and I just closed my eyes,

and next thing I knew
I was coming back.

And I had no idea how long
I had been sitting there.

No idea.

But I was now fully,

deeply and completely

in this state of
peaceful presence.

This vast space,

outside of which there
could not be anything,

like the clouds and the sky,

like the earth and everything,

was held in space.

And I wasn't there.

Who I knew myself as
was not there anymore,

and I was just present.

And I felt as if I was
like a wave in the ocean.

The ocean and the wave
are not different.

They appear different
at certain times,

because certain forces
cause a wave to be formed.

The wave must think it's
really great, right?

And then it dissolves.

Why bother to be all
puffed up, you know,

with all that shit?

You're gonna dissolve
sooner or later.

It makes no difference.

It's temporary, don't
get so caught up in it.

There's just water here.

A big wet ocean.

So for a minute you're
like this, then you're not.

That's a life.

And even when I
think I'm a wave,

I'm just ocean.

And that moment, this freed me,

to go back to America

and really to be able to
sing a hundred percent.

Because it wasn't about me.

Which is what I had
been longing for.

To be free to sing.

To not be in my own way.

And now for the first
time in my life,

I was out of my own way.

There was nobody
there to turn it off,

to push it away,

to turn the volume down,

to protect myself from.

There was just this
love everywhere.

[chanting]

I was freed from thinking
that I was doing this,

that I was the one chanting,

that it was my responsibility.

It wasn't about me at all.

And the people
who were attracted

to me and to the chanting,

and coming towards that,

they might think they
were attracted to me,

but what they were
really attracted to

was the connection and
connecting to Maharaj-ji.

Connecting to that love.

And it wasn't until
later that I remembered

what Sitti Ma said,

that you have to stay,

you have to see
Maharaj-ji's big form,

and this is what I was seeing.

Maharaj-ji was no longer that
little guy in the blanket.

This was who he is.

I really began to see
what chanting was about,

and experience it personally,

how it would allow me

to keep letting go of the stuff
that pulled me out of myself

and bring me back to
that place I had been in.

Back and out and back and out,

over and over and over.

But the chanting was
a way to come back.

All that shit they write
in the books is true.

Can you imagine that?

I should have read those books.

[chanting]

- The room becomes him,
that's what happens.

The outer edges of who we
think we are just dissolve,

and for a moment we
touch that place,

which is the real place,

the place of truth,

where there's only one
of us in the world,

in the whole universe.

[chanting]

- [K.K.] This is
my way of thinking.

- Now I hear him,
he'll sing prayers,

and it's so deep.

And he does it with
a western audience,

I mean how he can
do it, I don't know.

[chanting]

- Sitti Ma told me when
Maharaj-ji made me the priest,

the pujari of the Durga temple,

and asked me to
give out the water

that was used in the
worship of the goddess,

you know, to give it out
to people when they come,

he said when he did that, then,

he created this.

And I'm still giving
it out in worship.

That's all I'm doing.

It's very simple.

And now it's in the form
of the name, the chant.

[chanting]

- That's it, I mean,

I could probably say
the whole thing again,

and make it sound
really mystical,

but who gives a shit?

This is the way it is, you know?

[gentle harmonium music]

♪ Closer than breath

♪ You are the air

♪ Sweeter than life itself

♪ You are here

♪ I am a wanderer

♪ You are my peace

♪ I am a prisoner

♪ You are release

[chanting]

♪ I am a pilgrim

♪ The road's so long

♪ I am the singer

♪ You are the song

♪ Held in the open sky

♪ So far above

♪ I am the lover

♪ You are the love

[chanting]