Who are The Kirtaniyas?

A neo-bhakti revolution, The Kirtaniyas are sacred singers. A group of young Hare Krishna devotees whose members; Vijay, Rasika, Nitai and Sarasvati travel the planet chanting the names of God, or Kirtan.

Kirtan (to repeat in Sanskrit) is an Indian devotional tradition that involves call and response chanting. The chants are usually mantras that include the names of God. Probably the most famous is the Hare Krishna or Maha Mantra.

Loosely based in Los Angeles, California, the Kirtaniyas marked their ascension appearing at this year’s Bhakti Fest near Joshua Tree, California. Bhakti Fest is a 4-day festival. Bhakti is the yoga of devotion. One who practices bhakti is called a bhakta. This years Bhakti fest features performers including Krishna Das, Jai Uttal, and Deva Premal and Miten.

The Kirtaniyas philosophy

“Kirtan is nectar for your ears. You open your ears and your heart and let it in. it’s simple. It works with repetition, any time of the day any times of the night… anywhere.” Nitai says in a recent interview in LA Yoga and Ayurveda Magazine. “We’ve both been chanting all out lives. Even in the wombs of our mothers, because they were chanting.” He says of himself and Vijay.

Broken down the word Man…tra has a very specific meaning; Man- means mind; -tra means to free,

Also recently quoted in Los Angeles Yoga and Ayurveda Magazine Vijay says, “To call out and have someone open their heart and call back. It’s an expression of love.”

The emergence of The Kirtaniyas

The Kirtaniyas are a part of an existing viable Kirtan scene in Los Angeles. Every week in Los Angeles’s west side there are a number of weekly Kirtans. Some in homes, some in yoga studio and performance spaces some in temples. What distinguishes the Kirtaniyas from the others their youth: decidedly ecstatic, shamelessly sensual, discernibly devotional the auspiciously funky four are based out of the Radha Govinda Mandir on Rose Avenue in Venice (aka the Rose Temple).

The Kirtaniyas have performed with a lot of big kirtan performers including; Shyamdas, Wah!, MC Yogi, Dave Stringer, Saul David Ray, Srila Bhaktivedanta Narayana Goswami Maharaja and Arjuna Baba, to name a few.

The Kirtaniyas bring a western-groove-accessibility to the traditional Vedic practice. Still adhering to the form, they infuse the ancient call-and-response prayer with an ecstatic energy.

The Kirtaniyas are skilled performers. Classically trained violinist Sarasvati, husband Vija, native Angelino Rasika and Hawaii-born Nitai have accrued a decidedly loyal following. Their appearance at Bhakti Fest will bring them to a larger audience.

“It’s a Kirtan emersion,” Vijay says. “Bhakti Fest is one of the most amazing conscious gatherings I’ve ever been to or know about on the planet. It’s a four-day, non-stop 24/7 kirtan. It’s like being in another world for a weekend.” He describes the music festival celebrating devotion through chanting, Yoga, meditation and community on 450 acres near Joshua tree in Joshua Tree Retreat Center.

The Kirtaniyas are riding the crest of the latest wave of Krishna Consciousness. Like others before it’s infused with a youthful enthusiasm that fuel the forward momentum.

“[A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami] Prabhupada came and did his thing with the hippies in the ‘60s. That’s what’s going on with the Kirtanyiers. I’m asking how can we be most effective in sharing this amazing process?” Vijay says

http://www.kirtaniyas.com

What is Vaastu?

Vaastu Shastra (aka Vastu Shastra) is a form of holistic healing that teaches individuals how to live in harmony with nature and how to influence nature for their benefit.  The holistic healing practice is based on the ancient Vedic science of construction and architecture and is a pre-Feng Shui traditional Indian practice dating back some 5,000 years. In Sanskrit, Vaastu means dwelling, Shastra means scientific treatise.  The principals of Vaastu inform an individual on the best places to live and on the best way to live where a person dwells.

The fundamentals of Vaastu

There are four fundamentals in Vaastu; height, weight, direction and open space. In the context of the direction are the influences of placement; where you place your home, where you place your rooms inside your home, where you sleep. Also influenced is where you place your entrances and exits on your property and in your home: your doorways, windows, driveways and garage.  All of these are very important to maintain a positive auspicious flow of energy.

For example, the energy in the southwest is commanding energy. If you’re in a room, in a house or on a property, the southwest has the strongest commanding energy.  To that end, if a person is sitting and having a meeting or a conversation, the southwest is where one should sit. The most receptive energy comes from the northeast where “beautiful divine energy” comes from; the wisdom and the light and the abundance.  In the northeast, a person wants as much clear and open space as possible.

Another important Vaastu consideration is with clutter.  The more clutter the less flow of energy.  If you are trying to achieve peace in your life, to maintain an infinite flow of energy, you want to have as little clutter as possible.

It is useful to point out that anyone can make these adjustments to their space.  The only thing required is to learn some Vaastu. And by learning these practices and principals you can make some amazing adjustments that will not only affect your life experience, but will also help to change and transform your karma.

Vaastu in practice

Raymond Prohs, a prominent Vaastu practitioner and author of “Mystic Living: The Principals of Vaastu for the 21st Century”, practices a Vaastu tradition called Kaleshwara Vaastu.  This form is named after the knowledge and wisdom brought through Sri Kaleshwara, a saint who refers to knowledge from ancient palm leaf books that are two to three thousand years old.  According to Prohs, in a world of duality the material and the spiritual work in synchronicity. You can improve your spiritually at the same time you are improving your material life. They are not separate.  Rather they enhance each other.  For Raymond and many other Vaastu practitioners, Vaastu is a sacred science; a form of spiritual healing and energy healing.

For more information on the holistic healing practice of Vaastu and on Raymond Prohs visit www.mysticliving.org.  Also checkout the LA Yoga Magazine interview with Raymond by journalist Sam Slovick, Vaastu: The Science of Sacred Space and The Cure Stream video above.

Ayahuasca – Curandero

Orlando Chujandama Huazanga is a curandero, a traditional indigenous healer or shaman, who provides physical and spiritual healing by means of vegetalismo, an alternative therapy readily practiced in South America.

Vegetalismo is a refined and elegant sacred science that uses master plants with sentient spirits. Orlando carries the knowledge of a powerful family linage; his practice includes the psychoactive ayahuasca and tobacco.

Ayahuasca – Icaros

Far below the cloud forests of the Peruvian Andes, downriver from the place where the Ucayali and Marañón converge to form the headwaters of the Amazon, Orlando operates a healing center called The New Rising Sun.  A humble compound in a small village called Llucayanacu on banks of the Huallaga River where he was born, Orlando uses medicinal plants (including ayahuasca) to help heal people.  Employing leaves and roots and barks and different types of medicine that grow in the jungle, he applies them to his patient’s pathology.

Paramount to this alternative therapy practice are the songs, which are called icaros.  According to Orlando, they help people connect with nature. During evening ceremonies, Orlando uses these songs to call not only on the spirit of the plant, but also on the spirit of the Earth, of Mother Nature, and all the elements needed for the patient’s well-being.

Ayahuasca for diagnosis and treatment

According to Orlando, ayahuasca, the primary plant used in vegetalismo is used for both diagnosis and treatment. Unfortunately, in most Western cultures, people consider ayahuasca a drug.  As such, use of it is considered substance abuse.  For those in the Amazon, however, ayahuasca, is a sacred medicine, a spiritual medicine deeply ingrained into the culture.

Far from abuse, Orlando uses his knowledge to help people with their medicinal problems.  He and many others hold that ayahuasca and the other master plants represent and alternative therapy practice that can help with many different kinds of diseases.

For more information on the alternative therapy practice of vegetalismo and on Orlando Chujandama Huazanga visit thenewrisingsun.wordpress.com.  Also checkout the LA Yoga Magazine interview with Orlando by journalist Sam Slovick, New Rising Son: A Perseverance Of Lineage and The Cure Stream video above for a more in-depth look at ayahuasca.

Written by Sam Slovick (from LA Yoga Magazine)

Vegetalismo is the indigenous Amazonian tradition of spiritual herbalism practiced in the Peruvian Amazon.  It’s an elegant and refind sacred science.  This LA Yoga Magazine story, “Welcome to the Jungle” and accompanying video was shot at a center called Espiritu De Anaconda near Iquitos, Peru.  The compound was founded by Shipibo shaman, Guillermo Arévalo (aka Kesenbetsa), whose objective is the protection, organization and diffusion of traditional Amazonian medicine.  The center offers traditional cures at the healing center site as well as training with traditional shamanic preparation in the isolated jungle.

Arévalo’s medicine name, ‘Echo of the Universe’ is a decidedly prophetic moniker.  His global vision of the ancient practice is rooted in the jungle and developed by his people, the Shipibo-Conibo, and has woven it’s way into the Western world and beyond.

Guillermo is recognized worldwide in the field of Amazonian indigenous medicine, from both western academic and indigenous organizations, and especially by his own people. Vegetalismo is conceivably the most evolved and sophisticated tradition of Amazonian Master Plant healing.

Arévalo is the subject of a documentary film (Other Worlds) by French film director Jan Kounen.

Ayahuasca, Shamanism And The Diets Of Healing

I’ll open your thoughts. By doing so I’ll fill you with joy. By doing so I’ll straighten your thoughts. By doing so I’ll straighten your body. now I’ll heal you to the depths of your heart. By doing so I’ll fill you with immense joy. By doing so I’ll return life to your body and to your thoughts. I’ll heal your being, your body, with the powerful essence of the tree and the universe. so you are joyous, remember my words. so you remember them, I will chant them. Though I’m small, I made your thoughts shine. The universe is in harmony.The word is and ever will be.

–– Shamanic Chants of Kestenbetsa (Echo of the Universe) From Jan Kounen’s Documentary About Ayahuasca, Other Worlds.

Welcome to the Jungle. It is a sonic sculpture rendered by unseen insects, birds and animals who announce the day as the morning sun breaks through the clouds.

Ulysses, a twenty-three-year-old indigenous man sits on the side of a rutty sand road, deep in the jungle outside Iquitos, Peru. He considers a butterfly lingering on his fingertip.

Another mile down the road, loosely configured convictions begin to erode like rocks under the influence of weathering and abrasion as the jungle thoroughfare gives way to a path that few will endeavor to walk.

It is a narrow white sand trail that winds its way to other worlds, where master Vegatalista, Guillermo Arévalo (aka Kestenbetsa -Shipibo for Echo of the Universe), has manifested a center called Espiritu De Anaconda. It’s a sprawling forty-plus acre sanctuary of master plant healing where people come to be treated by him and his students and study the sacred science of spiritual herbalism as interpreted in the Vegatalismo tradition. This is the Club Med of Amazonian shamanism.

Large thatched roof structures dominate the expansive, meticulously maintained grounds that include a large dining facility, community room, bungalows, dormitories and deeper into the jungle, tombos – small huts without walls.

The jungle wants to heal you, to wrap you in the warm folds of its massive green matter and cultivate your transformation. But if you dare enter the terrain without a trusted guide, it may consume you alive and use your perishing flesh to fuel its next generation of growth.

Daniel Sipes has been here before. He knows the terrain, the underlying science and the necessity of a skilled guide. A Chinese herbalist from the US West Coast, he sits quietly on the front porch of a large house at the center of the compound drawing deeply on a mapacho (black jungle tobacco cigarette). He is decidedly articulate on the subject of shamanism. “Vegatalismo is the science of spiritual herbalism practiced in the Amazonian shamanic tradition. It’s a complex highly evolved, elegant system of spiritual herbalism that allows the biochemistry and the energy behind the plants to get in and untie the knots inside the complexity of any modern illness.”

“In Vegatalismo, ayahuasca is used to gain insight into the deeper pathologies in your system,” Sipes says. “It’s a tool to diagnose the physical, psycho-spiritual and psycho-emotional disorders that we carry…and even the lineage histories…misaims as they call them…When the Vegatalista diagnoses, he or she gives you a master plant to work with to help work to help clear it all out; you do a dieta. A dieta is a series of disciplines during which you restrain from anything in the extraneous world that may undermine the effects of those plant masters helping with healing: sexual activity and certain dietary activities that interfere with the infusion of the sentience of that plant spirit into your system.”

The protocol goes like this. The shaman, or Vegatalista, diagnoses and gives you a specific master plant, or plants, to address your affliction. The plant(s) prescribed as part of a dieta are usually consumed when in isolation in the jungle. You drink the plant medicine during the day and sit in ayahuasca ceremonies at night where the shaman sings icaros (medicine songs) to you as part of your treatment.

Ceremonies open and close a dieta. When you open a dieta you are energetically connecting to the shaman and the plant. When the dieta is over the spirit of your plant has been eternally woven into the fabric of your energy. It is your teacher, friend and ally. Part of the process is to learn the language of the plant to understand how the plant is communicating with you. It’s not the kind of treatment you would want to undergo with anyone whose skills and abilities are anything short of masterful.

There is also the option of a social diet, a modification of the traditional discipline to accommodate a person who is maintaining their lifestyle with limited isolation. It’s a contemporary variation on the modality that has enabled people to engage with plants who would be otherwise unable to spend time in the jungle.

Sipes draws parallels between Amazonian shamanism and other interconnected indigenous systems, such as Chinese herbology or Ayurveda. “Many herbalists working within complex systems that understand differential patterning are masters of differential diagnosis. For example, many patterns can manifest to create this sensation in your head that you call a headache. Instead of giving you a headache herb, healers using this type of approach take advantage of the synergistic effects of blended herbs. If you have ten people with the same illness, you may write ten different formulas because you’re taking into account all the different variables the person brings into that illness or manifestation.

Analogous to this, instead of saying, “here’s the icaro that brings light into your body,” the Shipibo use an entire intricate vocabulary and grammar in their songs. Each song is different every time because you’re addressing something entirely different every time. When you sit in front of a Shipibo healer the icaros are specific and current to that moment. The language of the icaro changes so the singer can get deeper and deeper and weave the appropriate pattern.”

“The Vegatalistas, especially in the Shipibo tradition, have done extensive dietas, infusing that plant energy into the knowledge base within themselves,” Sipes says. “Subsequently, they can recognize the patterning in peoples’ bodies indicative of different disorders. They access the arsenal of sentient plant spirits accumulated in their power source, utilizing these plant allies and the icaros to reconfigure these imbalanced patterns recalibrating the person and restoring balance.” In the ceremony, ayahuasca is the catalyst. Purging is common: through the bowels, the urinary tract, by vomiting, through emotions and other ways.

Sitting in ceremony in the Amazon with an indigenous healer ingesting master plants also indigenous to the place is a very different experience from working with the plants outside of the jungle where there is no social context for the experience.

Ricardo Amaringo, aka Ronin Sanin, a Shipibo Vegatalista, speaks from the heart while sitting on a log near his house at the far reaches of the compound. Miguel, a Chilean shamanic practitioner and student of Vegatalismo with a lose grasp on English, translates. “I’m working here to help the people,” Ricardo says. “Vegatalismo is the medicine to open the knowledge for the peace. Open the mind. Open the love.”

The reasoning behind the isolation and restriction of a dieta is simple: remove any elements that would circumvent your communication with the plant. “You need to stay in your place in isolation to make the connection with the plant because the plant teaches you…. and opens your vision and with that knowledge… you see the sickness that the person has,” he says.

The icaros are the tool that he uses to treat people in, and sometimes out, of ceremony. Each plant has an individual energy; each plant has its own song.

“The master plants are singing because the ayahuasca is present. Different plants have different kinds of energy and a different kind of song. We’re learning the icaros from the plants. When you’re singing, you call the energy and you put the energy inside of the person… with that energy you heal.”

On arriving at Espertu de Anaconda everyone sits on a big log in front of the medicine hut and is handed a bowl of azuscena by Ricardo. It’s a purgative that causes almost immediate vomiting. An initial cleansing. It’s the first part of the healing.

There are of course many, many plants in his arsenal, including ajosacha, boahuasca, pinon colorado, matico, copaiba oil, sangre de grado, oje, coca, toa, chia, chiric sanango. “Ajo sacha is a master plant, cleaning your body,” he says, “Cleaning the toxins and your arteries…more easy the blood to flowing. Oje is working in the mind, healing psychological trauma.” But ayahuasca is always prominent in the conversation. “The ayahuasca is now a popular plant. A lot of people want to have the beautiful visions. But ayahuasca is only one plant. There are a lot of plants to heal you.”

Ricardo is enthusiastic about potential students finding the path to Peru. “Some people are only coming to take the experience. That’s good that people are coming to take the experience. I I If it’s possible, it’s good to want to be a shaman to help the people, but it is a long way, a lot of discipline… a lot of dietas. Only one plant makes a strong dieta in isolation in the jungle.”

Ricardo disappears down the path with his young wife as Miguel heads for the nearby botanical garden. He pauses in front a tangle of Banisteriopsis caapi (ayahuasca) vine.

Vine of the Dead
“Ayahuasca come to killing you,” Miguel says. “Killing your ego. We build our personality. And we happy with that personality, but it’s an illusion. So when we see the illusion, it kills that construction. Ayahausca coming to you to die you.”

Miguel understands Vegatalismo as a healing art that connects him to nature; plants, animals and their spirits that has opened his vision about disease and healing.

“When you’re healing you have more clarity. People have a connection with their own sickness. Sometimes they don’t want to let it go. It’s part of your life. You don’t know what to do once you don’t have sickness. So you coming here, first to understand what happened to you… after that the healing is coming. But you need to open your mind to see yourself… the truth. It’s like you blind all your life, so you live for the people who put money in your hand. When you no more blind… no more money in your hand. You need to change your life. Here you’re coming to that.”

Miguel started his ayahuasca path twelve years ago, when he was in his forties. He initially thought it was the next substance in his psychoactive journey.

Considerably younger, James is a twenty-one-year-old Austrian who has been in the jungle for months. Laughing, smiling, chain-smoking and constantly plugged into his iPod, the jungle is James’ playground. Fresh-faced, vibrant and saturated with master plants, it’s hard to imagine him as anything other than healthy.

“I came here because I had a skin problem called neurodermatitis. I had it my whole life.” James’s mother in Austria was the conduit to meet Guillermo. “In three-and-a-half months, Guillermo fixed me up completely. I I was really weak when I I arrived, detoxifying from my excessive lifestyle of drugs. For two years before I came here, I had no skin problems. Two days after I I arrived, my skin broke out completely; even some sort of liquid would come out. Crust would build and it would go black. This stage stayed for three months,” he recalled.

During the course of his physical healing, the plants provided James an insight to his condition’s origin, ascertaining it came from something he calls a spirit of trauma when he was a baby. “The skin problem for me was a sort of protection from other people,” he said.

Guillermo gave his a diagnosis and a dieta as soon as James showed up. “They gave me all kinds of plant medicine, flower baths… and the cleaning… the singing in the ceremonies. In the beginning I didn’t drink ayahuasca. I just drank other plants… one week ajo sacha. One-and-a-half months oahuasca, one month pinon colorado and matico. Then I I had to drink copaiba oil and sangre de grado… what I would not recommend to anybody to drink,” he laughs.

Metsa arrived from Europe several decades unknowingly seeking a cure for addiction.After years of study involving extended periods of isolation and many dietas, he is a Vegatalismo master. Trans-continental and multi-lingual, he speaks to a W Western sensibility with a decidedly expansive multicultural awareness.

“The Western mind is curious about spiritually and there is a desire and need for those connections. Modern society has been cutting us off from that. People are looking for techniques, products… whatever. Ayahuasca is an amazing tool to get access to too that journey, to that connection. Today it’s offered in many different contexts; you have the Brazilian Church that offers a space to experience a certain way of using ayahuasca. You have people using ayahuasca in a more musical context… putting people in a certain space guided by music… and you have traditional Vegetalistas who are trained from Peruvian shaman, or Amazonian shamans and following very strict disciplines and diets and offer more healing approach with traditional songs”

Today people in the US mostly focus on the use of ayahuasca as a tool to journey to other worlds of consciousness. The American attraction to shamanism parallels our expanding attitudes about alternative healing modalities.

“From my perspective… which is very personal, other techniques are a more modern integration of different streams and spiritual practices mixed,” Metsa offers. “You need to find integrity in the person leading the ceremony. Are they going to be able to lead you in that journey with safety and take care of your emotions and physical body? Ayahuasca is a strong substance and it demands physiological preparation and certain diet restrictions to integrate the plant and have the most beneficial impact. It could be dangerous if it’s not done properly. It’s important to have respect for the substances and get information and get informed about who is leading the ceremony. Where are they coming from? What is the substance about? What are you looking for? I It is not a recreational drug that you can do and trip out. There is a history and stories around shamanism in Peru… around sorcerers witchcraft and brujo… but I prefer not to talk about it.”

On my way back to the world I left behind in Los Angeles I ran into Miguel on the loose sand road that leads to Iquitos. He told me about a vision he had in an ayahuasca ceremony.

His words resonated as I drift off to sleep on my flight to Lima, the vine winding its way through my consciousness on the vibration of his voice, reminding me of what I I already know: There many roads leading to the same end: the beginning of the journey…the one that starts when we finally understand that it’s us who are responsibility for our own healing. Vegatalismo is a decidedly profound cosmic healing path. Like all paths that lead to all journeys, there are things to surrender for things to gain.

“One day I have a vision,” Miguel says, “I’m singing for the people in the ceremony; it’s a complicated moment, so I call the spirit of the condor; condor manta, from South America. When I called the spirit, in my left side started to grow a massive mountain. And the mountain is an incredible God. On the other side grow a little mountain. It’s the evil inside. It’s all darkness and the evil is laughing. And at that moment I make the question, ‘Hey God, if you so big and powerful why you don’t take away the darkness forever? You have the power for that.’ And the God say, ‘Because I can’t see the darkness.’ I say, ‘What is this, man? I see it… look I can see it. The darkness is here.’ “

“He say, ‘When I created you I created beautiful people in the light. I don’t create the darkness. I create only light, only love. You create the darkness. I I don’t see that. I It don’t exist for me. So it’s your problem. You give life and power for the darkness. Now the darkness is strong guy on top of your head. It’s your job to disappear the darkness. You create the world, pain, torture, sickness, it’s your problem.’ In that moment I see we have a strong mind, we create everything… everything bad too. After that, everything disappeared; I I’m standing alone in the cosmos with another knowledge. We created everything. We created God too. The more purity state of the spirit… there’s no God, no darkness, no nothing… only you in the love.”

The Rain is pouring down, like all the souls you send here. Coming to this Earth to find healing. The earth takes in the rain, like your heart takes my voice. Let us free each other with our prayers… with our voice. And I’m coming home…

-from Ong Namo, by Snatam Kaur, from the album Live in Concert (Spirit Voyage)

See the video Welcome to the Jungle at layogamagazine.com; a foray into ayahuasca through the lens of Peruvian shamanism by filmmakers Sam Slovick and Ryan Wylie. innermissionproducts.com

Sam Slovick is a journalist and documentary filmmaker living in Los Angeles. He is a regular contributor to LA YOGA Magazine, the LA Weekly and others: samslovick.com – espiritudeanaconda.org

Written by Sam Slovick (from LA Yoga Magazine May 2010)

“Chanting is called a practice for one reason: It only works if we do it. Chanting has been my main practice for years, but it took me a long time to realize that it’s only by doing it regularly that we begin to experience ourselves changing. If we want to get wet we have to jump into the water. If we want to stay wet we have to learn to swim, or at least float!” ––KD from Chants of a Lifetime

Krishna Das (KD) is drenched. He’s standing under a cloudburst of grace with his feet in a puddle of love. If you stand anywhere near him you’re going to get wet.

His karmic trajectory is well documented. He put out the call for transcendence in the summer of love and the response materialized as the living embodiment of the Simian God, Hanuman, in the form of his guru, Neem Karoli Baba. KD crawled out of a bottomless pit of despair in New York all the way to the subcontinent and…well…you can read the rest in his new book, Chants of a Lifetime.

Four decades later, the street-certified kirtan road dog who opened the door for generations of western seekers has transcended the role of portal keeper to the East. The lotus has blossomed; a career crescendo manifested in the release of his new CD, Heart As Wide As The World has certified his bhakti adhikara.

Krishna Das brings a lot of light. Presumably, he also casts a commensurate shadow, but all I can see is the reflected glare from his gleaming king-sized tour bus in the parking lot just outside the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles. The show he is sharing with Deva Premal, Miten and Manose is, of course, sold out.

“Krishna Das is my name. My guru gave me that name in India in 1972. It means servant of God,” he says. “It’s something to grow up into, I think. When you first start doing spiritual practice, it’s very much you’re trying to pull that splinter out, that nail you stepped on. You’re trying to get it out of your foot.

My practice, of course, you would say is chanting. Obviously that’s my main practice. But that’s really just a part of the practice. The context that all the chanting is done within is trying to be in the presence of that love all the time.

The practice and the path seem to be about your own pain and removing your own pain and suffering. But the more you do this stuff, the older you get, you begin to see that your own pain is no better or less or more than anyone else’s pain. You kind of lose the ability to cut off and keep people at a distance. Then your practice begins to get…how to deal with…” He pauses, “How do you keep your heart open with the huge, humungous amount of suffering in the world?”

“Getting to the place inside us that knows that we are One requires practice. My main formal practice is chanting the names of God. The practice of the repetition of the Name invokes a place or space inside us, a presence that’s always here. It isn’t subject to vagaries of our thoughts and emotions – the ups and downs, the ins and outs. Chanting the Divine Names invokes the inner heart, which is the presence that lives in us.

This heart is not an emotional state; emotions come and go. It is also not referring to the physical pump that resides in the chest. The heart is an abode, our home, the place in each of us where we know who we actually are. This abode is deeper than thoughts and deeper than emotions. And that presence, of course, is our own presence; who we actually are underneath who and what we think we are, underneath the inner dialogue that’s always going on about everything. This “heart” is called chidakasha. It’s the sky of the mind, of consciousness, of true Being, not located at any one place. Embracing and encompassing everything, nothing is outside of it. It is home.” ––KD from Chants of a Lifetime

“I first tasted that presence being with my guru in India. Living in India with him and meeting other great beings; great saints, great yogis. Every time I come into the presence of that love, I go, oh right…that’s what it’s about. And immediately it puts everything into perspective for me. You know we get lost in our own stuff all the time, but the minute I move into that love, into that presence… whatever you want to call it, it immediately makes everything okay. Even if it’s painful. Even if it’s difficult. It gives a context for what you’re going through. You’re not alone. You’re not a victim. You’re not a mistake.”

SS: What’s your highest aspiration?

KD: To be in that love all the time. That’s what I want to do. I want to, no matter what’s happening in my life, no matter who’s there, who’s not there, where I am, where I’m going….I want to be in the presence of that love all the time. I want to be aware of that and I don’t ever want it to turn off. I don’t want anything to be able to turn that off. I want to have the strength of heart to stay open no matter what.

SS: What’s your biggest challenge?
[Following KD’s stream of consciousness can sometimes require a less linear thought process. It’s a follow-the-bouncing-ball scenario. Presumably, he knows where he’s going.]

KD: I think it’s inevitable, actually, for everybody, I think that’s where we’re going. Maybe not this life; maybe not this Yuga. Maybe the world’s going to go to shit before we get that. I think it goes in cycles. That’s what I’ve heard. Any bit of work that you do in this direction, any movement you make towards the love is never lost. Even if you don’t experience it the way you’d like to right away. Still it’s never lost. That’s what they say.

SS: What’s your saving grace?

KD: Saving grace for me was having met my guru in India, and also…what led me to India was having met Ram Dass when he came back from India to America. When I walked into the room with Ram Dass I immediately knew intuitively, without a word being spoken, that what I was looking for was actually real. It existed in the world and it could be found.

SS: Do you think your current career crescendo – the traction from your book and new CD is a sort of meaningful place on your karmic arc?

KD: To tell you the truth I don’t think about it very much. And because I don’t think about it very much, because I’m more inwardly directed, I think that’s what allows all that stuff to happen.

Back in the old days when I wanted all that stuff, I wasn’t getting it. And if I’d have gotten it – if I’d been in the band and I hadn’t left that band I was in and I’d have gotten certain things I would have been long dead. That stuff would have destroyed me. So now I’m more inwardly directed and I’m not dependant on external things to make me feel good about myself. They can come or go and I can enjoy them – or not. It’s okay.

SS: That’s a lovely place to be. It took a minute, huh? And a lot of work?

KD: The way that I see it, and this is totally pathological from most people’s point of view, this is my guru filling my karmas now that they won’t destroy me. He’s giving me all the things that I wanted now that I want love more than those things. It’s called grace. That’s the saving grace, that I didn’t get those things when I was young and now they’re coming when I can actually enjoy them.

SS: It’s kind of obvious that you’re having fun.

KD: It’s not like I don’t enjoy chanting to a thousand or twelve thousand people; I enjoy that. I enjoy watching and feeling that beautiful thing developing, but I’m not doing it to feel good about myself. I’m not doing it to be a star or become famous. I’m doing it because this is my practice; this is what brings me into the love. As far as I’m concerned this is as good as it gets. The really great thing about it is sitting there in front of all these people and feeling like its family.

Everybody’s there for the same reason and we’re all in this together and that’s the great feeling. It’s not the fact that I’m doing it.

That’s saving grace; saving me from pride, saving me from all that ego stuff that goes on. That’s grace. I can’t take credit for that. I’m being saved from burning in my own pride and self-importance by my own guru.

SS: How do you keep the road rust off? I’ve seen your tour schedule. It’s brutal. And let’s face it, you’re not a teenager, you feel me?

KD: Part of my practice is to learn how to take care of myself. Since I’m a person of extremes, and have always been a person of extremes, I’m trying to learn how to pace myself.

Chanting is not my job. Chanting is my practice. This is what I love doing. My job is taking care of my physical health so that I can continue to do this. I’m learning how to do that. Every once in a while I get pretty fried and I just fall over. Sometimes I just go to India
and sleep for a month and recharge.

I got really tired last year: writing the book, doing the CD and touring. It really was hard, but now I’m just taking it easy singing and chanting, traveling and trying to take care of myself.

SS: Is it service that you’re doing? Is that your intention? Is that how you see it?

KD: I don’t see this as if I’m doing something for anyone else. This is not the Salvation Army here. I’m not on a mission. This is my practice. This is what I need to do for me.

SS: How does it work, your practice of mantra? What is the mechanism of your modality?

KD: I don’t know. I just sing. I don’t think about it. People seem to enjoy it so they come back. It’s that simple. Some people, who are drawn to it, they’re getting something from it. I’m drawn to it so I keep doing it.

SS: And?

KD: If you want to know the way I see it, I’ll tell you; it’s all my guru’s business. I have nothing to do with it. He could pick up a rusty pipe and play beautiful music as if it was the most expensive flute you could buy. He could do anything. I’m just the rusty pipe. He picks me up, he plays it, he puts me down. What does a pipe know about music? What does a flute know about music? It’s the musician who plays it. God, my guru, he’s the musician. I’m just the instrument. And the less I think about it, the easier it is.

Drawn by the power of his love, like a moth to the flame, the other devotees and I were purified by that fire. There was nowhere to get away from it. And we didn’t want to get away. We wanted to be in that love, but in order to be in that love, our stuff had to burn away. The process still continues in a different way. –– KD from Chants of a Lifetime

SS: Oddly, you haven’t said his name.

KD: Neem Karoli Baba, he’s my guru. People know him as the little old guy with the blanket. Ram Dass’ guru. Everybody knows him for that. Thing is, he’s no longer in the body. He died in 1973, so when I talk about him it’s almost as if he’s around physically because he’s that around for me. He’s that much a part of my life.

(The sound of a toilet flushing from the next room interrupts his flow. He looks over his shoulder, addressing an unseen observer.)

“All right, I’m getting a little corny,” he says, directing his remarks to the door. “You don’t have to flush the toilet in my face.”

SS: What else is on your mind? If I handed you my pen what would you write?

KD: If you asked me the one thing that I’d like to see: I’d like everybody to realize what’s really possible and what you really can find in life. What’s available. We’re programmed with so much bullshit and so much unhappiness.

We’re programmed with it from the cultures we grow up in to what our parents have gone through, what’s transmitted to us through them and our families and the worlds around us.

All that is just covering what’s really there. What’s covered is something really special that everybody has, and the sad thing is that people don’t realize that. They continually create more pain and more suffering for themselves because they don’t know what’s possible.

Everybody wants to be happy. Everybody. They may not call it that, but they’re looking for something. But because we don’t really believe it exists, our own actions just wind up covering it up even more. That’s hard to see. I’ve just been so lucky I’ve had so much grace. That just makes me see what’s possible, not that I’m special, just what is possible in the world.

SS: Presumably, there was a dark hour of the soul before you had the transcendence that has provided you this enlightened perspective, this openhearted detached indifference?

KD: I’d be dead. My mother was an alcoholic; I had substance abuse problems myself. I was strung out on coke for two years. Freebase. And I’m only alive because of my Indian family, these people I lived with in India. My Indian father came to America and took one look at me and he went, “Promise me now, you’ll quit cocaine. Promise me now.” He didn’t give me any f****** option. He loved me so much I knew I had to. I knew it was killing me and so I said okay.

From that day I never did it again. Totally clean. Stopped. Never wanted it again due to his spiritual power and my agreeing to go with the program at that point, he gave me the strength to avoid that.

I was going down the tubes, and it wasn’t the first time. I had all those inclinations to destroy myself. If things hadn’t gone the way they’d gone, I’d be long gone. Long dead. No question about it. Because I hated myself so goddamn much. Because I was so angry – so angry at my life and myself and so frustrated not being able to get what I wanted out of life. I was torturing myself and I would have continued that until there was nothing left to torture.

SS: That’s a lovely story. Really. By the way, on a related subject, do you ever find yourself practicing for the moment of your death? I know I do.

KD: You know I don’t think about death too much because, [the] way I understand it, we don’t know what life is. How are we going to find out what death is? We don’t know who we are. We don’t know where we are right now so my job is to get here right now as close to 100 percent as I can and when death happens, when that moment arrives, if I’m really present now, I’ll be really present with that too.

It’s not something you can prepare for in your head. You have to be there. It has to be real.

You have to know what’s going on now, because there is only now. There isn’t later. Every moment – it’s as if time moves through us, we don’t move through time. We’re here and time moves through us.

When that moment comes when the next breath is not gonna come in, how you greet that moment, it’s not going to be very different
from how you greet these moments. So if you don’t take the knots out of your heart now, if you don’t remove fear, shame, guilt, anger, selfishness, what do you think you’re going to do when you’re actually leaving the body and you have no control? When you don’t have a body you don’t have the kind of control you have now.

You can come back from a thought and okay, now what? But when you don’t have a body it’s like a dream. You’re in a dream. Can you control you dreams? No. You’re not going to control your death. You’re not going to control your life after the body without knowing how to be here now. The same stuff that’s pushing you is going to keep pushing. You’re just going to lose your anchor.

SS: Any last word? Something else on your mind?

KD: I don’t have much on my mind. I just want to keep chanting; keep singing. Like I say, that’s what keeps me straight. Boom.

I really don’t think. [He pauses to reflect, then says] I’d like UCONN to go undefeated in women’s basketball and win the NCAA championships. Other than that I don’t have many desires, I mean, that I think about that much.

“The Sanskrit chants that we sing – recognized for millennia as the Names of God – come from a deep place within each of us, so they have the power to draw us back within. If we go deep enough, we will arrive at the same place, our deepest being.”
–– KD from Chants of a Lifetime

Krishna Das will be speaking and chanting at Hay House’s ‘I Can Do It’ in San Diego in May:icandoit.net; hayhouse.com.

For more information on Krishna Das’ tour schedule, recordings and books, visit:krishnadas.com.

Sam Slovick is writer and filmmaker living in Los Angeles. He is a regular contributor to LA Yoga Ayurveda and Health magazine and the LA Weekly. samslovick.com

Written by Sam Slovick (from LA Yoga Magazine April 2010)

The Kyoto Hotel in downtown Los Angeles is a portal today. Braced against the streets of chaos, the Little Toyko-5 star is pressed tightly against the homeless vortex of Skid Row. In a few hours, Reluctant Healer, David Elliott will incite another kind vortex here. A whirling mass of self inflicted healing in a pranayamic workshop.

Neatly dressed in a sweater and jeans, he’s breathing easy in the pristine sanctuary of the rooftop garden. Elliott listens with the detached indifference of a spiritual clinician. He speaks with the calm reserve of a Southerner.

A practiced wordsmith, he has just released his second book, Healing. His first work, The Reluctant Healer, was decidedly well received and remains a valuable resource for anyone considering the path of healer.

“I teach people how to heal themselves by getting in touch with their energy, and teaching them how energy can melt through any block or illness, and ultimately the energy I’m talking about is love…self-love.”

Pranayama is a healing modality. From the Sanskrit; prana or breath is the life-force; yama, means to suspend or restrain. The breathwork is an aspect of what David Elliott does in totality. It’s one element in a larger toolbox that makes up his practice.

“It’s a tool to help people to get out of their heads… to help people to open up. Open their heart up and stop thinking or being focused outside themselves. So with the breathing meditation we’re teaching people to focus inside. To still themselves and ultimately to open up and let the universe come through as love…as self-love,” he says.

Tracing our collective trajectory to this place in time when we are vastly more complicated than our predecessors, Elliott articulates the challenges his work confronts and the people it serves.

“We are complex by the nature of technology and information. We’re totally occupied. The modality of breathwork brings you to a still place where you get into the moment. Ultimately I’m creating an experience for people to feel their spirit. To feel their spirit coming into their body as a vibration. When people feel that they heal. They unblock. They let go of the past…of the stuff that they’re holding onto to that’s keeping them stuck and out of the moment.”

Sam Slovick: What happens in your workshops?

David Elliott: We’re creating a vortex. We’re creating a big amount of energy that’s moving in the room. And as people tap into that it takes them into experiences where they feel very deeply their emotions. We’re getting people to disengage with all the shit that they’re coming in with. And in that moment we’re…expanding that moment, expanding their awareness. Literally what we’re doing is we’re stimulating the hypothalamus; related to the crown chakra. When that happens the endorphins that are released start to trigger [a cascade effect in] the other ductless glands [which are associated with] the chakras and that’s what creates the big influx of energy.

David’s evolution as a healer has imbued him with the ability to reduce the essence of his work to a seemingly simple assertion: “We all have the power to heal any affliction right inside ourselves. The biggest problem that people bring to me is that they’re not connected to themselves. Through that disconnection, there is this focus outside oneself to find all the answers.”

SS: What’s your highest aspiration?

DE: My highest aspiration is to help as many people as I can to find their way to their truth and to find their way to healing, to their purpose and then through that to help a culture and a society become a little more peaceful and have a little more fun and be a little less stressed out.

SS: What’s your biggest challenge?

DE: To slow down and to connect to each moment in its fullest way, in its greatest potential to express and be connected to love; to be having fun in everything I’m doing. And, of course, dealing with people with chips on their shoulders.

SS: What’s your saving grace?

DE: That I’m having a lot of fun doing what I’m doing and I try not to take most things too seriously. Through that I’m finding that it’s helping me to become a better teacher, healer, father, artist and writer. So my saving grace is the moment-to-moment application to what I’m preaching.

David Elliott is breathing easy. Sitting still on the roof, the skyline looming in the background he considers everything and leaves me with this: “I would really like for people to know that they can heal themselves. If they take the information from this book, Healing, they don’t even have to buy it, they can go to my website and download it for free…if they apply the information they will heal. I believe that the work I do absolutely connects people to their genetic imprint, to what they already know and that’s why this work tends to happen so fast for people.”

To learn more about David Elliott’s work, or to download a free copy of Healing, visit: thereluctanthealer.com.

Participate in ongoing breathwork workshops with Elliott’s students based on his work or find out more about training programs at The Hub in Los Angeles: thehub-la.com.

Sam Slovick is writer and filmmaker living in Los Angeles. He is a regular contributor to LA Yoga Ayurveda and Health magazine and the LA Weekly. samslovick.com

Checkout The Daily Heal for more information on meditation.

Written by Sam Slovick (from LA Yoga Magazine March 2010)

It’s early afternoon; the sun sparkles on waves crashing on the beach below the bluffs. Deva Premal and Miten are in repose in Malibu sitting in the expanse of a large tastefully appointed living room bathed in a reflected glow.

They’re light-hearted. They’re laughing a lot. Not a counterfeit smile or moment of manufactured bliss in the space between the words. In soundless relief, no remnant of stress lingers from the relentless grind of their perpetual trans-continental touring schedule… because it’s effortless for them. They move in a sannyasic bliss fueled by devotion. The mystery of how the globe-trotting mantra singers maintain their collective bliss on tour is about to reveal itself without words.

Deva and Miten lean into our conversation over a glass of coconut water. I ask the two of them questions and they answer as one.

How did you get so lucky?

“That’s what I keep asking myself,” Deva says. “We were galley slaves in our last lives,” Miten adds.

How do you do what you do? That is…how does the mechanism of your modality, your practice of healing by mantra work?

“Deva’s a translucent channel for the mantras to move through,” Miten says, “She was born to her father chanting the Gayatri [mantra]. People don’t understand the difference between a language that is energetic and a language that is created by the mind.”

“The meaning is secondary. The word table is not the table,” Deva cuts to the heart of the matter. “With Sanskrit, the word anon is the sound vibration of bliss. In sound the energy of bliss. We have to say bliss; we have to make it smaller by putting it into an English word. Just the sound; anon, If we were sensitive enough we’d just feel the entire scope of that energy that’s contained in this sound.”

Miten sits motionless in a comfortable silence as she continues.

“The ancient seers, they help us give the meaning that they perceived when they used these sounds,” Deva tenders. “They kind of made these dialectic formulas where they put these Sanskrit words to go to very specific areas of your life; for a physical healing or to go into healing relationships. We have almost medicinal formulas of a collection of sounds that are also a collection of words. And there are the names of Gods and Deities that all go together. When we sing Ganesha, the sound of Ganesha is the sound of removing of obstacles or the sound of unity, but it also helps us to see the form that was created to reflect that energy of removing of obstacles, of unity or of harmony. It’s working on a cellular level. It’s much deeper than the mind. It’s not a language that you need to understand the meaning of before you use it. It’s a deep universal sound code that connects us all.”

“The mantras are mainly Sanskrit,” Miten interjects, “Sometimes Sufi, sometimes Hopi, sometimes Uruba, sometimes Tibetan, sometimes Nepali. It depends…what speaks to us. People bring them. Lately Deva has taken to chanting them in the traditional way…how ironic is that?

Her latest project is with Tibetan monks who have a small monastery in Byron Bay [New South Wales, Australia]. They have recorded together – the monks chanting, and Deva…amazing male/female energy connection.”

“How do you use the mantras personally in your life?” Deva jumps in with a question to Miten.

“It’s not theoretical,” Miten responds. “Two nights ago I woke up and wasn’t feeling good. Just chanting the Ganesh mantra…it just lifted any feeling of fear or depression in that moment. I internally chanted the mantra 54 times then the “Om Shanti” mantra 54 times and I was back. I was home. That’s how I use it in my life. Even though it’s not a classical way of chanting when we play, we must have chanted them all 108 times. They’ve absolutely changed my life. The mantras are an expression of my life with Osho and how it’s unfolded into so much grace.”

Deva and Miten embody the result of the practice they preach. They languish in extended effortless introspective silences. They consider and internally reflect…then, they lapse into a lighthearted laughter that bounces back and forth between them. Laughter feeds itself on laughter until we all abandon ourselves to the moment and laugh some more, and then more again.

Deva and Miten affect a biochemical soul-balancing act grounded in a life of devotional service that carries them through the rigors of the road.

“We’re really good at just letting it go,” Miten confesses. “Really letting it go,” Deva complies. When the rigors of the road present… say, at a ticket counter at an international airport around 4 A.M. on two hours sleep, it barely registers as a bump in the road.

“There’s sometimes when we blow but it doesn’t resonate for long. It almost seems like it’s part of the thing,” Miten says.

Where do the songs and mantras you’re working with come from? Where do you find them?

“The mantras,” Miten offers, “they come…the songs appear…sometimes you grab them. Sometimes they slip from your grasp…the best ones disappear before you catch them. As for the mantras, Deva knows lots and lots. The question is, how do you put them to music without diminishing their power?”

Are you sacred singers? Is that what you call yourselves?

“Sacred sounds a bit pretentious doesn’t it? Miten asks, “And yet, hmmm… isn’t all music sacred?”

What is your highest aspiration?

“To be free,” Miten says.

“Enlightenment,” Deva says, “To experience oneness inside of me and with everything around me all the time and hopefully inspire others to realize the same…a bright awareness of Devine in every form.”

“To serve,” Miten offers, “On a technical level, the more beautiful the music is, the more we aspire to more and more beautiful expression through music…which is, in a way is part of our responsibility. Music is the medium you know?”

What’s your saving grace?

“Osho,” Miten says without reservation. “Osho,” Deva says. “I still feel like…because he was this person…I just want to expand it for those who still see the person when they hear the word. It’s the feeling of Osho, which is celebration, being in the moment, being in the flow, surrendering to what is, and being as aware as you can of all of that.”

What’s your biggest challenge?

“Music,” Deva says.

“Music is God,” Miten adds, “Music is a very obvious doorway into God. So music is a fierce teacher. It shows you your irritations and it shows you everything about yourself. When you play music with somebody you’re naked with them. You can’t hide. Music is a guru of sorts. It’s a guru, and a guru can lead you into the light. That’s music’s gift.” “That’s very well said, Deva concurs, “And exactly what I meant.”

What’s your favorite thing about your life?

“Being together actually, for me,” Miten confesses, “Because being together, its 24 /7. That includes everything from going to Whole Foods to playing a sacred concert. It’s no different. Just being together.”

“I just love everything about this life,” Deva reflects. “It’s twenty years now,” Miten says. “Nineteen,” Deva corrects him, then starts to laugh until Miten joins in. Laughter feeds laughter again and we all laugh for a long time.

“Nineteen,” Miten gathers himself, “I always had the idea that after a few years, things settle down between you as a couple. I was wrong; it just keeps getting deeper and friendlier and the more friendliness the better.” He says and a very long silence hovers then dissipates when I ask them to sing something.

“Take me from illusion to truth, from darkness to light, from death to immortality,” Deva translates Om asatomo satgamaya, a mantra she recorded on her first CD, The Essence; a collection of mantras that includes the Gayatri, her signature and the mantra that her father sang to her in the womb.

The air in the room stills as Miten picks up a road worn six-string Taylor guitar and invokes a transcendental vibration like a snake charmer luring a sleeping cobra from a basket.

Deva closes her eyes and disappears into the world between words, then intonates a refined and elegant mediumship in sustained vibrato as Miten delicately weaves his voice into the prayer. It is a precision ballet. A synergistic resonance that illuminates the source of the gift of their melodious passage.

Om asatomo satgamaya
Tamasoma jyotir gamaya
Mrityorma amritamgamaya

Sam Slovick is a writer and filmmaker living in Los Angeles. He is a regular contributor to LA Yoga Ayurveda and Health Magazine and the LA Weekly (www.samslovick.com)