RockOm July 2008 Featured Article
In yoga centers and practitioners' MP3 players worldwide stream the melodies and voice of artist Krishna Das. Krishna Das' legendary history began with befriending spiritual teacher Ram Dass and soon thereafter becoming a disciple of Maharaj-ji (Neem Karoli Baba). Today he records albums and tours the world leading kirtan (devotional music) and has sung for and with many of the world's foremost spiritual teachers and musical artists. KD recently shared with RockOm's Trevor Harden about his rock'n' roll past and the influence of his guru.
RockOm - In the yogic tradition, there are several pathways to connecting with or serving God. You've chosen the devotional path, which is carried out through song. From Krishna Das kirtan sessions to Sunday morning church services, why do you believe music is such a powerful agent in connecting us with the divine?
Krishna Das - That's a good question. Music is a way people can get out of their minds, get out of their thoughts. It's something they can do themselves with their body and with their voice. It's something they can give themselves to without any artificiality; it just moves you. The rhythms of music and the sound and all those things helps people get out of their heads. I saw the new Rolling Stones movie at the IMAX that Martin Scorsese directed and they played some stuff from way back, stuff from their early albums from when I was in college listening. I broke out crying because those songs were so important to me at that time. They helped me so much to get through hard periods. It was so powerful for me. Our emotions are able to move into the flow of music in a way that's very beautiful. With chanting, there's music involved but also something else which is called the Divine Names in the East - the names of God or the names of that place in us that's ok, the place that we forget a lot. By melting the music in with these sounds, we not only get that ability to move out of our minds, but we also move into something that's more lasting in our own hearts - in our own self. No matter how much that music of the Stones helped me when I was young, it didn't give me something lasting. I'm not trying to put music down in any way, but the spiritual aspect of music doesn't necessarily come from the music itself. It can come from the person who's doing the music. It can come from what's in the music, what's put into the music by that person. The intention of the musician is very important.
RO - You mentioned the Stones; were there other artists or albums when you were a young man or teenager that also spoke to you?
KD - The blues. Mississippi Delta blues, country blues. When I heard that music, I fell over. I grew up on Long Island in the '50s and '60s. The '50s were a very superficial time - Eisenhower was the president; it was a weird time. Everybody was repressed, nobody talked about anything. And then I ran into the blues and I could not believe it - the power, the presence, the wisdom and the intensity of the experience of these musicians like Mississippi John Hurt, Rev. Gary Davis, Skip James, and Robert Johnson. I couldn't believe how real this stuff was and how it cut through the nonsense of what I was living with every day. That music really changed my life, absolutely. And in some ways, what I do - I'm really still just a blues singer. It's big blues, but it's blues.
RO - It is well noted that your time in India brought you to the feet of Neem Karoli Baba. What, if anything, did your guru have to say about music?
KD - Not much other than, "Sing!" He wasn't a teacher. He didn't do a lot of intellectual talking. He didn't explain a lot of stuff but he guided each of us to finding our own way to help ourselves. He always asked me to sing - he asked all of us to sing - and the chanting became very important to me so I just kept up with it. Once again, he talked about the Name, the repetition of the Name. It is like calling out when you're in love with somebody, your heart is always calling them - calling their name and bringing their face and their presence to your mind. It's the same thing. Through this music, we're calling that Love - the essence of all that Love - to bring into ourselves, to bring it into our moment, into our lives. That's what the practice is about.
RO - You're currently on tour throughout the Eastern U.S., including June 28th at Charleston's Jivamukti Yoga and June 30th at Atlanta's Variety Playhouse. What have you learned over your years of touring and leading different kinds of people in different parts of the world in devotional singing?
KD - Get enough sleep! [laughs] For me, it's like being with family. No matter how many people are there, no matter where I am, no matter what language they talk it always feels like family to me. It's a wonderful feeling. I've found that everybody's the same, everybody wants the same thing. Everybody wants some relief from the intensity of the stuff that happens every day to us. We want to find a way to live with that. Everybody wants that love, everybody wants to find that place no matter where they are on this earth. You can see that a lot of us don't know how to go about doing that and that, instead of helping us find a way to deal with it, our very actions make more stuff to deal with. That's the same across the board everywhere. I've learned that everybody's the same.
RO - And you feel that through your sessions with these people it's helping them through this process a little?
KD - It's certainly helping me. I don't know about them. I would hope so, but I know it's helping me.
Krishna Das is currently on tour in Georgia, South and North Carolina and a few states in the Midwest, among others. Check out his tour schedule as well as much more information at www.krishnadas.com.
www.krishnadas.com
Top photo by Carla Cummings.
Second photo by Meg Carlough.
Article edited by Andrew Hoogheem.
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