Call and Response Podcast Special Edition with Krishna Das | April 1, 2021

Taking time to look back and move forward. Conversations With KD episodes are derived from the recordings of KD’s online events from his home during the 2020/ 2021 days of social distancing and quarantine from the onset of COVID and beyond.

“Empathy is not exactly compassion, but it’s a good beginning when you start to be aware of what other people are feeling and how they might be hurting and how their pain is causing them to act in certain ways, even ways that might be difficult for you to deal with. So, the development of compassion is to see all that and wish them well and really feel for them, and see clearly that their own issues are causing them to act this way, which is causing them tremendous suffering.” – Krishna Das

I lost it there for a minute. it reminded me of what something that happened when we were on tour. I was in Australia many years ago. Ty was still playing with me then. We had started in Melbourne and gone all through Australia, many places, but so many people came in Melbourne that we agreed to come back and do another kirtan at the end of the tour, and by that point, it was really hot. I don’t know. We went in the summer. That was the last time we ever went in the summer to Australia because everybody’s on the beach usually. But it was so hot. We got to the hall and there was no time to do a sound check, and I mean, it was a really fast sound check and I was sweating and there was no air conditioning. I was really cranky. Very cranky. So, I was just really pissed off and just in a bad mood and we started playing, everybody’s singing along, and at some point, in my mind, I just said to Maharajji, I said, “What would it be like if I could really sing to you?”

And immediately this wave came over me and I just started going…  And Ty was sitting, playing tabla and he was looking over at me like…Trying to follow me. I didn’t know. I was just like, “Ah, Sita Ram…” It was too funny. And finally, I came back to earth and it was just hilarious. I can still remember, the look on his face was like…

All right. Let’s do some questions and stuff.

Okay. So the question is, “I am in a very weird point. It’s so hard to choose if I want to surrender to Krishna, or if I want to choose the way of the Buddha. Please help me.”

Well, ultimately, all ways lead to the same place: our true being; our true nature. I certainly don’t have any answers for you. I do whatever makes me, whatever I feel like doing, and I don’t even know why you think you have to choose right now. Just do something. Maybe it’s just a way of your mind keeping you from doing anything. just do something. And ultimately, little by little, maybe you’ll feel more comfortable in something and that’s what it is. That’s what it’ll be. It’s not such a big deal. Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t. Just go with it.

Actually the whole idea of trying to work through this situation is part of your path anyway. So no one can tell you what to do.

I do it all. I don’t care what it is. If it makes me feel good or helps me when I feel bad, that’s what I do. Singing to Krishna, singing to Tara, chanting “Om Mani Padme Hum,” which is to Avalokiteshvara Chenrezig, they’re all the same, ultimately. The paths may be taught differently.

Of course, if you’ve taken or if you’re going to decide to take a transmission or lineage and join a particular group, well then go for it. Once you join a group, you should stay with it as best you can, unless you find that it’s just, after years, it’s just not working for you. Then I would talk to your teacher and tell him your problems or your situation, but this whole egoistic nonsense of thinking you have… First of all, you can’t surrender to Krishna,anyway. Who do you think you are? Krishna surrenders you when he wants you, not before, and same with the Buddha. You think you’re doing something in Buddhist teaching, supposedly. You think it’s up to you to do the practice. The way of surrender is a very different way of thinking about things, but the path is actually not any different. I mean, the actual results of the path.

Yes. Some teachers would say, some teachers of this, Krishna, would say, “Oh no, this is the way.” And some teachers of the Buddhist path would say, “No, they’re not all the same. You have to do it this way.” Maybe they know. I certainly don’t, but I could see that you’re stuck in this point and this is all egoistic nonsense and just, relax. Take it easy. Enjoy life and do what you feel like. You don’t have to make a decision.

Surrender happens. It’s not something you do. Your mind, your ego will never surrender. Never. When the grace is there, surrender happens. So, prepare for grace. Purify your heart. Prepare for grace. That’s that path. The other path is a little different, but it depends which type of Buddhism you’re talking about. In Theravada Buddhism, it’s very cut and dry. You do this, you concentrate. This is what you do. This is what you do. In Mahayana Buddhism, you cultivate compassion and the goal is to develop what they call Bodhi Chitta, which is well, there are two types of Bodhi Chitta, but simply, feeling of one with all beings, kindness and compassion and caring for all. And in Vajrayana, it’s also again different. The first basic step in Vajrayana is to unite your mind with the mind of your guru. That’s devotion. So then from there you get, you get the sense of direction and then teachings can be given to you, different types of teachings.

So, yada, yada, yada. Just enjoy the fact that you’re totally fucked up and what are you gonna do?

A lot of these questions are about, “What should I do if this is happening in my life?”

Chant. That’s my answer. I’m not Dr. Ruth. I can’t give you advice, what to do in your life. You have to figure that out. What I can offer you is my practice, which helps me figure out what to do. So, if you do your practice, that’ll help you figure out what to do, hopefully.

So, we all have problems in life, and we have to deal with them. And it’s very hard to see them clearly, sometimes, and it’s very hard to know what the best thing is to do, but we don’t have to know what the best thing is to do. We just have to do the best we can and try to work through these issues. That’s the whole path. It’s not like, “Okay, I’m gonna fix my life. Then I can get spiritual.” Whatever that means.

No. This is the karmic situation. Find a way to deal with it in the best way you can, and by not hurting others and not hurting yourself. It’s not easy. It’s not easy to distinguish the difference between those two sometimes. And it’s very hard to know what to do, but there’s no playbook here. There’s no book that gives all the answers. There is, but that’s inside your own heart. So, calm yourself down. Chant. Do some practice. Try to become a good human being. And what does that mean to you? Okay?

Oh boy, this is a good one. Do we really want to go there?

“Why is sexuality such a challenge on the path?”

Hare Ram.

Well, it’s interesting. A few years ago, I was on tour in Southeast Asia and we were in Hong Kong and I took this shuttle train way up, that goes straight up this big mountain, and then you walk around the mountain, and from the top of the mountain, I looked down on Hong Kong and all these huge skyscrapers were squeezed together, and there were ships in the Harbor and there was more construction going on and it was, you could feel the energy of this place, and I thought, “This is so weird. This, how did this happen?”

All we have to do is eat, sleep shit, fuck. And that’s the deal. Where did this come from? How did this happen? That everybody gathers together and business is done and money… I mean, it just looks like… I was astounded by it. It was amazing.

So, you know, we’re in human bodies and the body itself has different hungers, not just for food, but it has hungers for sex, for procreation of the race, of the human race, and pleasure, and anything can be a, what’s the word you use? a “challenge,” so to speak, or you can embrace it and try to see what it is.

My guru was married and had three children. We didn’t know that when we met him, actually. We only learned that after he left the body, which was very far out, but we’ve, since then we’ve met his children, and so obviously for him, sex was not a challenge. It didn’t seem to interfere with his becoming enlightened.

So, we each have karmas to work through. We each have hungers, and it’s, I think, from my experience in my life and the people that I know, you have to eat. You don’t have to overeat, but you do have to feed certain things.

And once again, Hanuman, the path of Rama, this type of devotion is not a path of renunciation. I’ve read that sloka many times, that Hanuman not only bestows liberation upon people, but he makes it possible for them to satisfy the desires that will be helpful for them to have to satisfy.

So, a lot of times sexuality can be very painful and unsatisfying and scary, and the energy of that can also be very difficult to understand and feel at ease with, but that’s mostly psychological stuff. Animals don’t seem to have a problem jumping on each other at the right times, but human beings have confused pleasure with happiness. And that’s the real crux of the problem. It’s not just sex. It’s food. It’s listening to things. It’s craving pleasure from the outside world. And then of course it changes. It doesn’t last.

So that’s one of the real issues. Anyway, good luck.

Someone was asking me, the whole time that I knew Ram Dass, “Were there any teachings of his you can think of that didn’t age well or you disagreed with?”

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