Ep. 10 - Raghu Markus

Welcome, welcome, welcome to episode 10 of Synchronicity. My guest today is Raghu Marcus, who some of you may know, he's the director of the Love Serve Executive Director, executive director of the Love Serve Remember Foundation, which is Rambas's foundation. He is also a fellow co-founder of a little thing called MindPod Network, which this podcast is a part of. I am also a co-founder of MindPod Network, so we are business partners. Raghu I will get into in just a second, but I wanted to talk about a couple of things. One is, I had a podcast I recorded with Nina Rao, who is a kirtan artist and Katie's manager, Katie being Krishna Das, and I did this last week, exactly a week ago, and such an amazing podcast.

Nina is a really wonderful and beautiful person, really, like one of the favorite podcasts I've done, then find out as soon as the podcast is over, no audio, no audio on the podcast. So that's what I was planning on putting out this week, Nina unfortunately, well not unfortunately, but she's going to India, so I'm going to re-record that with her when she gets back. I bring this up for a couple of reasons. One, it was really great podcasts, and I'm excited for you guys to hear it when we do redo it, two is I'm doing a little research on podcasts, and unlike, you know, not unlike some of the things in this country, a lot of white guys, a lot of white guys on podcasts.

I love white guys. I'm a white guy, can't complain, but seems to be a major dearth of both minorities on podcasts and women on podcasts, and I know there are, that's, this is not for everything, but I just think it's, there's some voices I would like to be heard out there. So the second thing I want to go into today is based around gratitude. I had a conversation with my good friend Michael Donovan, who some of you may know, check out his walking home podcast, by the way, he's going to be on the show in the coming weeks. And at the end of the show, when I was asking him a question, I said, you know, I've been asking everyone, what's some practical tips that have worked for you that could help some other people in life?

And he reminded me something I told him on his podcast, like a year ago, which is gratitude. That was my, my tip for him. And then he gave me the tip back, which I think is excellent. And it's, it's a little more involved than just gratitude, although that is all it is. What I like to do is set up daily reminders, I actually have two set up. Michael was telling me, he has like four or five, but I have these daily reminders on my phone that just pop up and all they say is gratitude. And it's just a little reminder, because I am too stupid to remember myself, to be appreciative for all of the good things in your life, it's, it's a cheat code for life.

That's all I can say. And one, being grateful, fundamentally, not only changes your perception of the world, it's my belief that the world actually changes because of it. So yeah, gratitude, that's my little tip for this week, express as much gratitude as you can. Doesn't, you don't have to be hokey about it and it'd be so appreciated for this. No, just internally, really take some time each day to, to be appreciative of what's going on in your life, because for as shitty as you may think it is, and I really hope you don't, you have a lot of other good things going on too, there's, there's, there's, there's a lot to be appreciative for no matter who you are.

Okay, back to Raghu Marcus, Raghu's great. We've been working together for three, four years over at Love, Serve, Remember, we just started MindPod about a year and a half ago. I really like Raghu because he is a great example of someone who is on the path, you know, pursuing, had some really crazy experiences with spiritual teachers and gurus, but also is really down to earth, Giants fan, Lakers fan, you know, into all types of music. He's not, he's not going to beat you over the head with New Age stuff, which you would think, you know, he, he runs Rambas's foundation, he's heavily involved with a lot of Eastern cultural things, he has a guru.

So you'd think that maybe he'd be a little heavy handed with the spiritual stuff, but he's not. Again, he, he's just got practical down to earth tips. We go over a little bit of his life, he grew up in Canada, and we, we talk about how he got from there to where he is now. And the other thing we talk about is the guru, the concept of a guru, Raghu gives such an excellent explanation towards the end of the podcast of what the guru is and what it means. And I'm not going to spoil it here, you have to listen to the end, but he does such a great job of explaining the concept, which is truth be told, one of the more difficult concepts for people in the West to kind of latch on to, you know, the concept of giving yourself up to a person or a thing or, you know, oh, we got to rub someone's feet now, like, that is not a very palatable concept to a lot of Westerners.

So yeah, I think you're really going to enjoy this episode. To those of you, by the way, by the way, to those of you who have been rating and reviewing this podcast on iTunes, thank you so much. My offer still stands, by the way, it was at the end of a podcast, so you might not have heard it, if you rate and review this podcast, Synchronicity, on iTunes, and then screenshot that and then send it to me at nlampert@mindpodnetwork.com, I'll send you a donation. That is not a joke. I did not misspeak. I'll send you a donation. So that's all you got to do. Maybe that's cheating. I don't care. But that's the one tangible thing you can do right now to help the show continue.

It's going to continue. Who am I kidding? I really enjoy doing it. It's been great. I hope you guys are enjoying it too. So without further ado, here's episode 10, Raghu Marcus. Well, thank you also for coming on, by the way. Yeah, sure. Yeah, I really appreciate it. Okay. So we'll jump right in. So I wanted to start, this is how I've been starting with most of my guests. I wanted to have you provide kind of a brief bibliography, not bibliography, biography of growing up in Canada as a kid to how did you get from there to here where you are right now? All I can remember is the ice rink where we go to play hockey and you'd have a little shack with a heater, right?

Yeah. I couldn't get out there. I couldn't do it. I had to get away from Montreal, it killed me. It's awful. The cold is unimaginable. So that's all I remember being cold. That's why I ended up in LA. But growing up there was the same as growing up and pretty much in any real of American city except culturally it was different because of the French. Right. It's mostly French, speaking people who come back and certainly in Montreal as well. But other than that, culture, what, television, music, all of that, that was all up there. It was all piped in from over the border, actually, because the Canadian stations were awful.

Boring. What do they have on those? I don't know. Documentaries about discovering oil in the tundra, I don't know. It was all about their natural resources, our natural resources. So it was all the same. So it really wasn't much different than you growing up in New York or Maryland. Maryland. Maryland. Yeah. East Coast, same thing. Same thing. How did you, though, because you started working at a radio station, how did that progression happen? Well that all started. Well music was my thing. Okay. And it was really a love and it created some transformations, big time. So that was going on. And then the other thing that was going on was acid.

Those two things were highlights, not two of three, at least. So because of those things, the opportunity came to be part of this kind of weird collective at this FM radio. It was actually AM/FM. The owner was an acid head. That's why I said that it's all. Oh, how old were you when you first tried psychedelics? I was probably 21. Oh, okay. Oh, wow. Yeah. So what, no, I mean, it just didn't appear, I went off, you know, almost was part of the Israeli war with the surrounding countries at that time. You were? Yeah, I almost got in really taking in, but yeah, because if you were there, I just got out before they started lobbing shit from Syria and I was in northern Israel.

So I just got out because other friends that I knew actually got conscripted. Right, right, right. You're Jewish. You got to go fight. Yeah. Wow. So they... So I just got out of that. Wow. So that's what I was doing. There was no acid around that moment in Israel or Africa where I ended up. But this whole thing with the radio station is part of a very far out complex weave that I can look back on, that made me receptive just in the right moment when I was at the radio station to hear rhombos. So the acid, the owner was on acid. He took us in there and said, "Do what you want with this." We got him stoned and we went and he fired everybody and put us in.

That's awesome. So wait. One hour. How did that happen though? So explain, did you start working at the radio station before you tried acid or did you try acid and then he's like, "Okay, come in and work at the radio station." No, no. We were total heads. Okay. I had an eight ash break. Okay. Before this. Okay. And then somebody, friend of mine, found him and we ended up in his hotel room at the Ritz Carlton in Montreal getting him wasted and saying, "Come on, let's just go down there. We'll simulcast the FM and AM because you don't need these idiots." Right, right, right. We've got MOR going on in some bullshit talk show in the other one on the FM.

So he did. And there we were with a 50,000 watt station, new acid. Okay. So you're working at the radio station and then I've heard you tell us before, but can you explain what happened? You, Rumbas, you heard one of his things and then you... No, somebody called the station and said, "We would like you to promote the talk at McGill University." And they said, "Well, okay. I'm going to put you through the program director, which is me." So they said, "Okay. Would you do this?" I never heard of Rumbas. Right, right. So I said, "I don't know who that is." And they said, "You know, Tim Leary, Richard Alpert, oh shit, of course I love that."

And you know, I had been doing acid for at least a couple of years at that point. Right, right. So I said, "But send me a tape, I'm not just saying, you know, I got to listen to something. You must have something recorded from when the kiss said." And they sent one over and I went into, you know, "That was it. That was the moment for me when I heard him talk." Do you remember? It's the same moment. Everybody else is the same moment, whoever heard him talk and got turned on. Do you remember specifically what the talk was about or what caught you or was it just like you hadn't heard someone say or speak about those things before in that picture interest?

All of that. Really? I mean, the tone of voice, the vibration from the voice, the self-honesty, the, of course, the adventure. Pretty much his talks then, if there was a new city or audience for sure, he was telling his conversion story, converting from Richard Alpert to convert it. He was converted. So he told that story. So inimitable is in that story, which he still tells to this day, every retreat he and I fight about it. You can't tell that story again, come on, you can't. So it is the story though of his first realization, A, this being was prescient, knew everything about him and B, he wasn't judging him about it and ultimately there was just this unconditional love that he had never experienced.

And everybody will tell you the same story that went over there. It's in that book, Love Everyone. Absolutely. So that got me right away. I put it on the air, by the way, and the switchboard lit up. People went nuts. They had never heard anything like this before. I mean, it was exotic as well, and he'd tell the story, giving Maharaji acid, which Krishna does told that this past retreat, everybody we were in Maui, in a retreat with Ramdas and Krishna does, he told it really well, actually, because he was there at the same time when Maharaj. Oh, you thought I didn't take it, right? And he stuck his tongue out and put the thing right on his tongue and took three of them whatever, white lightning.

Okay, if you've ever done white lightning out there, no way you're taking three. One is like blow. You know the funny story, my funny story with that story is that I, the first time I ever took any psychedelics, I was at a Berkeley School of Music, my eventual college, a five week program. I was 15 years old. I was in a new city for two weeks. And someone from San Francisco had nine tabs, nine little blotter tabs of sunshine acid. And it was real sunshine, so we're probably talking about like 250 mics each one. And nowadays, I don't know what the acid is like, but it was really strong. And so since that period, I had read extensively about psychedelics before then, and I remember reading one particular story of this guy named Richard Alpert, didn't know his, didn't remember his name, but I remember he went up to the Himalayas, met this guy, gave him acid.

The moral of the story was is this there's no change in his consciousness, you know, none whatsoever. Whatever effect this has on a regular egoic state of consciousness, it didn't happen. So literally, literally every single time I took psychedelics with a group of people. After that, I would tell that story nonstop. And I didn't know why it was just to me, it was like something really cool looking back now, it obviously has much more importance in my life. But yeah, that story in particular always, always gets me. So, okay, so you're at the radio station, you hear the Rambas tape, the switchboard's lighting up.

What happens then? What, because you're slowly, what we're going into is like how you slowly got on this path that leads you now. I ran over to where he was. I said, where is he? I got him. I went over there and got him and brought him next day down to the station in India. And in the process of that, then went to the thing that night at McGill. But then I said, okay, I got to be in touch with you, and next thing, a couple of months later, I was at his father's farm in New Hampshire, where we would all gather and do crazy shit. It's documented in this film. What do you mean by dancing and chanting and yoga?

Nothing like that was going on there. I mean, okay, maybe Swami Satchad Ananda was just coming in, and he was doing Vishnu Devananda. So, there were some yogis from India coming and doing stuff in the countryside with some clued yoga in this thing or the other. But this was quite unusual, especially with an American. Exactly. Exactly. That's what I was going to say. This is a Westerner, bringing, having gone to the East, coming back, and you know, he's probably able to integrate it and present it in a fundamentally different way. He was a psychologist. So, he could really explicate the issues that we all have around our minds and being lost and thinking the reality that we've been living has anything to do with reality.

Yeah, he did a great job of that, and that's why two million books later be here now. So including a lot of cultural people. So you're at New Hampshire doing all this crazy stuff. At what point do you make the decision that you've got to go see the source of this, go to India and figure out what this is? As soon as that day, it was over a two-day period hanging out with him in Montreal and going to the lecture. That was it. I was going to India. You went then or you went after later? No, in my mind. Okay, you're like, I got to go. Okay. There's no question about it, but I've got to just spend more time with this person.

And then I got a lot of his lectures right on tape and every week we would put this out. Just like we're doing right now. Do you know? I'd love to remember. Yeah. We're doing, it's exactly what I was doing then. Broadcasting. Yeah. Broadcasting. So it was not long after that he said he was going to India and I said, okay, well, where are you going to be? I got to meet you. You've got to tell me where to go, okay, well, you know, call me another that's right to a American Express office, that was his address. And then he would get, it picked up or sent to him at different times. Okay. That was the means of communication.

That's how you do it. Leave that. You know, smoke signals would have been better. But we managed and he did write me back and he said, I can't find my heart. So I went to India and the other thing that happened to me at the radio station after I met Ramdas and I was playing his tapes and going to his father's farm. I got another call. Somebody wants to talk to you, an Indian woman, but really, she said, yeah, you're playing Indian music. This is in the middle of the week and the morning, you know, you play a raga next to the stones, you know, that's kind of state, great, great, great radio station.

So I said, well, she's happy you're playing Indian music. I said, put her through. She gets on the phone with me. Wow. I'm from India. I just got here. It was in England. It's fabulous that you're doing this. And I said, Oh, great. India. I'd like to go to India. Yeah. This because I was thinking I want to go to India. She says, okay, I'll take you. I go, really? No. If you're serious, come down to the station right now. I don't know why I said that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So about a couple hours later, someone see you, oh shit, she actually came down. I went before I opened the door, I thought this is not a good thing to do.

Who would do something? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's nice. Could be a very unattractive person. It's very into what look things look like then and sure. So I opened the door and there was this like goddess from the golf, you know, it just high cheekbones and the whole. Sure. Sure. Sure. It could have been from a Bollywood movie. Sure. It was an actress. So long and short of it is she took me to India and I was waiting there around where she was with Sri Orban Doa. Yes. Yes. I finally, Ramda said meet me and I met him. And the fun thing about that, so was that I was at Swami Muktananda, you know, who's Swami Muktananda?

I do. I do. I do. Explain. Explain though, who Swami Muktananda was for people. So he's one of the Swami's that came to the west and he was the hippest looking Swami ever. He had a beret. He looked like a really cool jazz music. He had sunglasses, a beret and his orange robes and stuff and he walked around. He was very powerful. Ramda's liked him. He took him around. Everybody knew Ramda's. He introduced him to America. And then he went on a tour with him to Australia and then ended up in India. So there I was at his ashram because Ramda said meet me there. So I go there. And then I see, I've never seen any, the only person, holy person I saw in India up to that time was the mother of the Sri Aurobindo ashram.

Yes. Yes, yes, yes. It was a French woman that was his partner, spiritual partner. And so just, she was very old when I saw her and I think she had Parkinson's or whatever. And I went in there and I was like, definitely, I was, it took months for me to get to have at one darshan. Yeah. She'd be a supper floor in this beautiful town, French colonial town in India. And I went in and I, usually you bring a flower and I don't, I wanted to bring something I like. I like bananas. Okay. Sure. So this guy like meets me at the door, he's like six foot four Indian yogi with flowing white. It looked like I'm okay.

I'm in heaven now. Yeah, yeah. Process me. And they did. They processed me and I thought I was really going, I knew she was not well. So I, I thought I was going to get lost in somebody old person's body. Sure. Sure. And they walked in the room and she contacted me and it was just archetypical. When these people, you're reading books, the room lit up and it was just light. I couldn't see anything but, you know, the vibrations. Right. And she, she was like a Star Wars, you know, with a laser drawing in. And I sat down, I gave her the bananas and she said, Oh, bad man, okay. And then she just gave me mother darshan, basically complete utter, that was it goddess.

In that moment, I had that. I don't even remember though, if I, I don't even think I just, they put me on my knees, a night because I was like so stunned. Yeah. Yeah. I never experienced anything like that before. I mean, Ramdas himself was a very evolved being and full of love obviously, but this was another realm beyond that. And so I don't even know if I did that. Meanwhile, here I am at Swami Muktananda's and everybody's bowing down and touching his feet. And I'm like, yeah, what's that all about? So I did. And it felt shitty. And then Ramdas showed up. So, what is this about? So he said, well, it's just honoring the divine in you, the honors of the divine in him and all of the stuff that just was brain fart, as far as I was, and I went again and same thing happened, didn't matter because, so, but then he sent me up to find what he knew where Maharajee was, and it was up in the foothills of the Himalayas.

So he sent me up there and it's when I met this incredible family of Indian people that beyond the beyond. And as soon as I saw Maharajee, I was flopped right now. I didn't even think about it. It wasn't even like anything in my brain whatsoever. It was the only thing you could do, you know, it was just, and it was just, everyone tells you the same thing. It was home. Yes. Everyone, and for me, I knew this, this wasn't somebody new, I knew, I knew this, whatever it was, long time before and forever. I mean, it was, and oh, that's what Ramdas was all about. That was the thing. So that's why I tell people, basically, you know, if you have met Ramdas in those moments, especially when at these retreats that he does, where he just, where there's nothing going on and it's just big hanging out, he just hangs out or it is in those meditations, especially when you were in the mala ceremony.

Those moments of whatever you, you know, people feel this, I put it the best way I know how to put it, you stop thinking about yourself completely. Absolutely. And, you know, maybe just for a moment or two, even then, but that's enough. And so when I saw that thing, they called Maharajee, weak old Maharajee, it was that, it was absolutely, oh, Jesus, that's where Ramdas was. So it's, because it's all coming from one thing. It's one thing. Absolutely. I mean, and even Maharajee himself, it was apt to point that out, all one sub X. So I, I would like you to talk about, and this is where I'm going to tap into your wisdom on these topics.

So the concept of a guru, yeah, I know about you. So the concept of a guru is something that I think is still to this day, particularly sticky for Westerners, right? It's something that can be met with a lot of skepticism, it can be met with a lot of, you know, further than skepticism, like, you know, like, oh, this person's going to take advantage of you. Why do you need someone else? Tell me what to do. So I'd like you to talk about two concepts, A, the concept of the guru, and then how that relates to the concept of surrender, another sticky thing in the West for a lot of people. Because you just talk about, in your personal experience, what it was like, because you said it yourself, right?

Muktananda, you had the thought that I imagine a lot of people who do not identify as having a guru have, which is, ah, this guy's feet, huh? Like, I don't get this. Like, what is that about? Like, why would I ever do that? So I'd love to hear from your perspective, like, and I, and I get, it was a visceral feeling of like feeling home. I get that. But what else can you say about the concept of a guru and how that's impacted your life and just what it means, really? We can't know what it means. That surrender devotion in the West is not surrender, especially because of being, you know, we take it as, oh, yeah, you give it up, you shit, you know, give all your money to whatever, or do what you're told, or KK Shah, who's one of our mentors in India who does come to the states and so on, and we got him to do a whole thing around surrender.

I said, tell us, you know, you've got to tell us what surrender is, where it comes from, from the Hindu tradition, Bhakti tradition, he said, yeah, you have no idea the way you interpret it has nothing to do with surrender in that word. We can't even make a word that would give you the idea fully of what that is. It's called Sharanagat in Sanskrit. So that's very tough stuff, and I get it then, and it's as far as what the guru is. I truly believe that everybody has a something that you would call it a guru, call it a deep friend, call it an archangel, call it, you could call it a whole bunch of, call it really intuition that's not attached to ego, which is very difficult to get one with, to do a lot of work on yourself.

So everybody's got the thing, whatever, however they may call it, what they may call it. And all I know is we were just extraordinarily lucky because we were no different than anyone who's saying, you know, what is this guru bullshit? But when you have your mind completely stripped down to the point where you cannot believe in the bullshit that you've been believing in, and no longer, as much as you want to, you cannot believe that stuff anymore. And once that happens, then you're open a little bit, there's a crack where you can take in things that are beyond mind, and beyond senses, et cetera, et cetera.

In fact, I told you yesterday, I did a podcast, a mind rolling podcast with Reggie Ray, who's a wonderful Tibetan teacher, actually he's more than Tibetan, he's very, he's another all one guy, he's a Tibetan yoga, he's done, he's worked in shamanism and so on, and he's amazing. And one of the things we talked about was the experience of falling apart where, you know, what gets dissembled is the concepts of me and your world around you. And when he said that, and then that's part of his somatic, what he calls somatic in the body meditation. And when he said that, I thought, or I read that actually in his book, and I thought, geez, that's what happened when we were with, if you think of it in terms of an intellectual thought, we just, as I said, you could, you could not believe in the yourself and the world around you, the, oh, Christenaz calls it best, the movie of me, you can't believe it anymore.

It's shattered, it's shattered, so it's falling apart. So that has to happen, it doesn't, that it happened so radically, dramatically, by being with this particular being, I don't understand that, right, because I just figure we're really hard cases. Yeah, yeah, you need one level and another level, it's crazy, kind of karma, you know, and these people that were there then, go on, get out of here, got to jow them, yeah. These people, us that were, were there at that time, and how many of these people had a very specific kind of mission that was going to be service, in some respect, in the world?

And so that happened too, I mean, there's no doubt about that. And so when this dissembling happens though, and it happens to everybody, absolutely, and it's a matter of being a little bit, get a little bit of mindfulness and awareness, kind of like mindfulness, awareness, going, so that you recognize that, and you encourage that, and then you start to become friendly with some of the whoever you're meeting on the way. It could be just a teacher and not a guru, and the difference is a teacher is an unfinished being, and a guru, by the way, a guru is not the right term, well, it's the term we know.

Yeah, I've heard it described as that a teacher points to the way, and the guru is the way, yeah. But there's many levels of gurus, there's, you know, so hang on a second, I'm gonna close the door. Yeah, there can be gurus and there can be teachers that are absolutely perfect for you, and they're not either of them necessarily fully cooked, that's that, and that happens a lot, and then you move along, and something else happens, and your grab, the ones that are beyond, gone beyond, they grab you, the rest of them you're bumping into, and it's as a result of that true being that you finally connect with it.

If you are aware of that, that's a huge thing, obviously, yeah, I mean, huge thing. But just moving along, whoever is presented to you, and you may not necessarily know the root guru, shall we call it, and so you just are presented with everything you need to keep moving along, that's the key, so if anybody that can understand, I'm on the path, and I know there is something that is much larger than my little thinking mind, then I'm gonna engender everything I can do to be open to allowing that process to happen, that's a guru. That's the guru inside, when you make that just the switch. That is a huge switch, even though it's a little one, it's very interesting because what you describe about the knowing and then the dissolution of personality and kind of all these thoughts and emotions that we kind of feel are...

Personality doesn't dissolve. Well, I'm saying with, I'm gonna compare it to psychedelics, because that's what you're, but it sounds like there's a similar thing that happened to me, at least, when I first started doing psychedelics, I describe it as such. Until the first time I took LSD, I was walking around acting as though the world revolved around me, and I believe that, I was like, "Oh, this is for me, this is what's going on." I also described it as I had my head squarely, firmly planted up my ass. I didn't really understand how my actions affected other people, the thought of interconnectedness would have seemed like some hokey thing that didn't make sense.

I was only 15, so I mean, it's not like I was... These are hard and grand things, but as soon as I took psychedelics, that all shattered. It just completely opened up another realm that seemed very real, in some ways more real, than what I had been experiencing before that. But like we all know, when you take psychedelics, you gotta come back down. You go back, you slowly sit back into your normal state of consciousness, regardless of what you take away from the experience and how that kind of shifts your course of life. That's kind of what happens. I wouldn't say that psychedelics themselves made me a spiritual quote unquote "person,"

but they bumped me in a path that started lining up things, and then what you're describing too is the mindfulness or awareness that comes with that type of experience allows you when you bump into other teachers or other things. You can then say, "Okay, well, this is something. This is something like I don't know what this is, but I'm going to explore it and I'm interested in it because this is something." So that's... The parallels to me are always striking in how that works. It doesn't end. I told you again, doing this podcast with Reggie Ray yesterday, I'd never met him before. I didn't know at all, except I knew his relationship with Trump.

It was... there was things that he gave me that were terrific that I probably... And I'm just taking it as, "Oh, great, Maharaj is giving me something else that I need right now to grow." And so that kind of... that openness is the guru. That receptivity, that surrender, that's everything you're talking about, and that's the guru, and then you start to... it gets revealed more and more and more. I think... And intention is there. What you're saying is so incredibly important because one of the things that I've noticed, I personally... I've had experiences in my life where I don't have anything outside of like, "Oh, it would have been nice to meet my Maharajian person."

I don't feel like I need that to happen, but I notice a lot of people, whether it's named Carly Baba or any guru, that they feel like, "I needed to meet him for me to really believe this. I needed to do that." So why I think it's really important what you're saying is, is you're basically saying, "Not really, because as long as you're kind of aware and open to this, you may find these type of knowing situations and guru-like situations in any aspect of your life." And that's important because I think that's something that trips a lot of people up. They're like, "Okay, well, it's great you met Maharaji.

That's awesome." But I'm never going to meet him, so I'm never going to have that experience, so I can't believe it in the same way. But that's not really the takeaway from this. It's that this could happen in any number of ways. It's the receptivity and openness to that happening that could lead to that. But it is with... It's concomital to one thing, so you're nurturing this, yes, and that's all correct, and the more you nurture it, the more open you get, and the right thing comes in your way. You're not always pleasant. I'm aware of that. Right. But the other thing is that ineffable place that you've experienced, if it's on acid, if it's a piece of music, if it's a meditation, if it's making love with some, whatever it is, that ineffable place where you're not thinking about yourself for a couple of minutes, and you are feeling that at one moment, peace, joy, all of it, which we all have experience at one time or another, that is also part of the whole equation of being open and receptive.

It's nurturing that. So once you say nurturing that, meaning there are things that we need to do to nurture that practice. Yes. I was going to, you're keying in into my next question, you're psychically, you're moving ahead. Yes. So, okay, so I have question related to practice, of course, but also, so I want you to talk a little bit about your regular practice and practices, and then also what has come out of those practices and from a practical standpoint, practice, practical, but from a practical standpoint, how that has impacted your relationships, extending personal intimate relationships, work relationships, friend, just how, what is the relationship first, delve into your specific practices that you do, and how have you seen that kind of blossom into other aspects of your life?

Well, one of the big things, of course, we brought back from India, you know, all about most of the many of the listeners on MindPod Network is Krishna Das exemplifies that practice and does it in public, which is amazing, really, and that is a core gift, shall we say, that we brought back from not to say that Hare Krishna is also a major thing that they brought back. But the way that, I mean, this is my subjectivity, Krishna Das is doing it right as a practice period. Yes. We're talking about chanting and yeah, sorry, Kirtan's called chanting the name. And so that's always been there, always, ever since we came back from India.

I mean, Krishna Das started doing this in the mid 90s, reality is when we got back from India, we were doing it in our home, yeah, yeah, just not publicly, right, and I would we're doing this for many, many, many years, right, what he did in the mid 90s. So that's one thing. And the other thing has been, particularly, depression and meditation for me, that has been certainly a grounding practice with also infinite potential to work on oneself. Is this like a daily routine that you have, so you give us a little taste of what your daily routine is like, in regards to the practice? Sitting up and sitting, doing also, and Chilisa's, which everybody, 101 Chilisa, that's a core thing that came back, yes, India, and some other Sanskrit prayers and Puja kind of thing.

So yeah, however, and you, you know, maybe out to anywhere 45 minutes to an hour. Okay, wow. I need you at right when you wake up, typically. Uh-huh. I might take the dogs out for a little walk. Okay, well, that's a nice practice too. That's a practice in and of itself. Yeah, right. So yeah, do that. And then we, as much a cure ton, which we can do, we get people over this weekend holiday, we can wear them. You know, doing that, and of course, so that's a daily kind of thing. That also includes, for me, one of the things I love is Tibetan Buddhist thought. Yes, yes, yes. So I read a lot of Tibetan Buddhist material, there's so much of it, and some of it's really interesting.

You're going into this, what is, this is something I've noticed before we even met and started working and becoming friends, what is it right before I reached out to love so remember, I was as into Tibetan Buddhism as I've ever been in my entire life. And I'd always had some relationship to it, but I was, you still see it on my Skype thing. I got old money, pay me hung there. So it's still, I have a bull, I, what is going on? And we know that everything is all one, but what is the specific, what is going on there? Why is there such a seemingly strong connection between Tibetan Buddhism or Buddhism?

And bhakta bhakti path, the devotional path, what? There isn't. I know, but why? Only with Maharaj. What is the weirdest thing? I don't. I don't, I don't know. We were looking through a book one day with Krishna, so we went to have Darshana with him. Yeah. I took him over there. He tells the story. His knee was really in bad shape and he really wanted some help somehow. Nobody else was supposed to go, nobody was supposed to go. So we went over there and he, you know, I was his crutch. Maharaj said, "You're a really nice friend. You brought him all the way over here." I was like, yeah, I'm so sick.

And anyhow, so he got up and he walked around and Krishna said to me, see, and he started limping. He said, "See, he's just taking this from me." And he came back and Maharaj is jiving him and saying, "You think I was helping you?" You know, something like that. So then Krishna has his book, a diary there and in the diary he wrote, it was pictures of Maharaj. But one of the things he wrote was Song of the Mahamudra, famous Buddhist canon, some part of it. So Maharaj asked the translator to translate it to him. And then when he was done he went, "Bohotacha, I'll never forget." And then he turned the page, and there was his picture of Krishna as it taped onto the page.

He said, "Who's that?" And we went, "Yeah, very funny here." He said, "Nai Buddha." So I'll never forget that moment that was obvious. I don't know if we weren't with the southern Buddhist Hinayana, doing meditation courses of the Pashna, then the rest of us, we're talking that, listen, there's 200 people maybe, mostly. Not much more. Not that many. That's not a lot of people over the three and a half years, four years. So maybe 80% either were doing Vipashna courses, or they were seeing Tibetans, or things were happening, like my story of him telling me I was going to meet a Tibetan mom. Not telling me he didn't do it like that.

He wasn't rational. He said, "Did you meet one of these?" "No, I don't know any Tibetans." You're sure you're not? They gave you teachings. What's wrong with you? I know, next day, I was at a Canadian Embassy and got my passport and there it was a cholerempache. So somehow the Tibetans really, and others, I mean, Christian Das today, the things that he does for himself, for instance, is go to, he's got a couple of different sodas Sharon for instance. I mean, I don't think I've missed his holiness in a long time, except this past year. I didn't see him. It seemed like Karmapa. And I saw Karmapa.

So it seems to be, I just accept it, it makes sense to me in the world. Their view seems so right on in terms of reality, and the way to get there, and how to deal with all of your personality shit, it just seems really great. If you want to, I'd rather be thinking about that than the nicks actually, even though I'm still watching the nicks. But I'd rather be thinking about that. If you're going to think about anything, I think that's a good thing to think about. And Cholium Trumpa Rinpache was incredible llama. And I, again, with Reggie yesterday talking about him, I was thrilled to hear about him.

It was a thrill just to hear the inside stuff that he was, and what Trumpa did with him, it was very similar to Maharaj and what he did, just destroying of, they were just relentless destruction of the bullshit, and it can happen without the physical thing when you're open to it and you're nurturing that place you know that it's beyond reality. You mentioned something about the Buddhist connection, and you said at a certain point that you're just like, okay, this is happening. There have been various points in my life where synchronicities seem overabundant for lack of a better word, where the point is where I could either be consumed by how weird everything is or just be like, okay, this is what's going on, and I'm going to just accept that this is happening and move with it.

And that's kind of been my perception of with the Buddhist and the Bhakti stuff too, because you look at something like Buddhism, my Yana Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism, and it's not that there's a lack of heart, there's certainly not, I mean there's incredible compassion and kindness, but the way that it's dealt with is so fundamentally different it seems in approach than like a Bhakti path, devotional, singing, love over a full gence of it, but yet somehow it's like you know the Dalai Lama concept, the Tibetan Buddhist concept of the union of emptiness and bliss, that's to me what is kind of the microcosm of what the merging of Tibetan of Buddhism and the Bhakti stuff is, is that the emptiness in the bliss, yeah.

That's the description of what that human that we call Maharaji, that's what that is. That was our experience. When Roshi Joan, I say, "What does Maharaji mean to you, you keep hanging out with Rambas," but you know you're not Bhakti. She goes, "When I look at the picture and I look in his eyes, all I see is I see emptiness." And she, so it's, it is as Rambas, that's Zen, Roshi, Roshi is not nothing, let me tell you now. So, but at the same time, when Rambas, at one time during something that we film, a great thing, by the way, mortality. The blessing of mortality. Yes, yes, yes. Great workshop.

He just talked about Maharaji, that love, that bliss of being with Maharaji was just saying, "I had never before experienced that unconditional love," which he does a lot. But then he stopped and he just was silent for a minute and he said, "He was just empty. He was just empty." And I got it at that moment. Yeah. That's exactly what was going on. They're empty of self. There was nothing, it was just doing, it was completely at one with whatever you want to call the universe. Sure, sure. It was completely at one with, and just did what was necessary to do. And that is, and so, yeah, the Tibetan thing, the Buddhist thing, emptiness, is the core thing.

And with the love, I think that, and Krishna also said, that's not that summer treat, I was working on some material, it says on the, it used to, they changed, they changed the pole, but outside, Kanchi, Sri Advait Hanuman Ashram, non-dual. Yeah, yeah, that's, so, I never, yeah, that's nuts, man. So I never told you this, but before, I've always had a very odd, weird, kind of semi-psychedelic, but also just like a very natural proclivity to Eastern concepts. And there was actually a podcast I listened to about 10 years ago when I was in college. It was a Advaita Vedanta, something located in Boston.

It was just these talks, the snake and the rope, all of these non-dual concepts. And for some reason, I mean, anyone else I would put this on for would be like, this is the most boring thing I've ever heard. Like this could not be less interesting. This is, you're listening to some old Indian guy talk about stuff that makes no sense, but I was transfixed and that non-dual aspect of reality, like that's really funny to me that that was on a pole at the ashram because it's just something that's stuck in my mind for a very long time and, you know, I've had experiences where I've been very tapped into that non-dual reality while being in this reality.

And that's not always a very comfortable place to be because as you know, we have to live in the world and do things in the world. And if you're from a completely non-dual standpoint and don't really have it figured out, that's a very tricky situation. But the concept itself, I think fundamentally is exactly what we're experiencing. We're experiencing a non-dual reality as duality, which is a weird concept, but I fundamentally believe it's true. Okay. Wait. Yeah. Yes. I have to tell you. Okay. I'm not saying non-duality at any point, any point at which any of us starts to experience that. Yes. We won't be here doing this podcast.

Well, we're going to put you and me on a, on a throne. No. No, what I'm talking about, what I'm talking about this being, yes, that who is in that thing. Oh, I'm not saying I ever experienced that. I'm saying. The concept of non-duality can never represent the reality of non-dual. That's why, that's why the, the people who are in India go, it's the Kali Yuga. And the only way through is through chanting the name. That's, you know, that, that's a common thing that, that is common knowledge there. And of course, the Hare Krishna's are a big proponent of that. I've recently come to agree with them.

Yes. No matter what, or meditate or do anything, it's the name I'm convinced. So I'm just saying, you know what I mean. I know exactly what you mean. I, I was mainly referring to that. I think the genesis of what we experience as reality, the source of it is ultimately non-dual and having a realization to that extent, not that you're living in non-duality, that I, with, by definition, impossible in our world. Okay. So. So. Well, well, no, no, no, no, I, I mean, for me, that's what I mean. I don't mean for impossible, I mean for me, for most people I think. Yeah. Um, okay. So I wanted to touch on a couple more things because this is flying by as usual.

Um, I know it's fun. It's fun when this thing's happening. So two things. It's Christmas Eve right now. Um, I, as someone who grew up Jewish, I knew you grew up Jewish too. I very, very, very strongly identify with Jesus Christ and Christ consciousness. Um, and it's, I was just got to the part in love everyone, um, by poverty Marcus. Um, and I was just getting to the part where it's the Hanuman Christ thing and it, it literally lined up so perfectly for a realization I had one time when I took a, about eight grams of mushrooms, still a psilocybin. So it was, it was a pretty big dose. And where I truly felt, uh, Christ consciousness and some of the things I was going around and telling people during this period of time was that Christ never died, that he already has been reborn.

He lives in everyone's heart. Um, this is, you just have to be able to be open to it. It's around us at all the time. He's like a beacon that we can follow. So when I found out all this stuff, you know, that through these stories that you've told and Christian us have told, and then I found out, um, Hanuman and Christ are one. I want you to explain that and what that means. We're right about Christmas or right about, uh, you know, the birthday of Jesus supposedly. So can you talk about, um, just Hanuman, how would that, how we release to Jesus and your personal relationship with Jesus? Two Jews talking about Jesus.

I just thought of the song, Jesus is just all right, um, which he is, uh, you can blame all that on Maharaj II. Okay. The Tibetan Buddhist stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Issue the bhakti of course. And now Christ. He, that's all him too. Yeah. I mean, I went there and the first thing, one of the first things he said, where's your cross? Yeah. Like I'm Jewish. What do you mean? So, well, look, the intellectual thing is Christ. What is he, but service, caring about everyone in front of himself, love, charity, right? What is Hanuman service? Caring about everybody above himself, love, compassion, charity, whatever.

It's the same. The reflection, yeah, there's so many different religions and gods and goddesses and everybody gets a chance to get a reflection that suits them of the, of the one. And in this case, that's the reflection of these two particular ones. And so they are seemingly pretty one as far as the reality. I had no idea. I was Jewish too. Yeah. I was told Christ was bad by my teachers, okay, that's how I went to a full-on Hebrew school. Right, right. Not just Sunday, half a day English, half a day Hebrew, so, you know, it was pretty height. And so at this point, I get there and get introduced to Christ by virtue of asking for a mantra, okay, not because I was, I had no idea about Christ, nothing.

And then he said, the mantra, meditate like Christ. He was lost in love with every sentient being. He was one with everyone and he never died. He did not, he was, when he was nailed to the cross, he felt love, not pain, right? Which was blew my mind was way beyond everything and then we, the next day, so the famous story that Christian us never knows, right? Right. I got rammed us to say, well, okay, Maharaj, how did he meditate? And he went in and basically is so well-known now and he closed his eyes and tears came down and he said he never died over and over and over and he never died. As he said, he was lost in love with every, as he said that.

The vibration was that thing, okay, whatever you want to call that thing, Christ, Hanuman, in Kurali Bala, whatever, was full on absolute love for everything and you're in that pool and that's all you, you have nothing going, you're not, again, there's no thinking about yourself and we were at one completely connected with absolutely every molecule around us in that moment, that's Christ and he gave us that three times maybe, actually, two or three times he manifested that because he just, just, and that's just him going into that space. Yeah, whatever it is. Yeah. Or not even going into he just, I guess, I don't know.

Yeah, you don't know. I know. I know. I'd see you trying to figure it out. I know. I see. I'm still trying to figure it out. I didn't give a shit in that. Right. I mean, thinking back, I can, if I get quiet enough, I can just go back into that moment. So, you know, that's always great. But so it's just, and we call it unconditional love. Right. And the more we say that, the less I can relate with it, I wish we had words, what we don't have words. No. Well, you know what we have? No. It's like getting together when we get together in groups and sharing, however, yoga, meditation, chanting, talking, doing this, you know, or two or more in my name, it says in the Bible, there I am.

Yeah. And so that's once you would start experiencing that, then you have a handle on that ineffable experience. Yes. And trust. And you start trusting that. That's the guru. That is perfectly well said because one of my first questions that I ever had when I felt what you're describing alone is how the hell do I communicate this other people? Words are failing me every turn. I cannot communicate what I'm feeling. But what I've noticed since those experiences of 10, 15 years ago is that when you're just by talking about this stuff, just by mentioning it, just by exposing people to it and not with a agenda with just the intention to talk about it, you can promote those experiences.

It happens to me very often when I'm talking about this stuff, I get deep chills through my spine, up through my body, my hands, and my head, and it's happened my entire life. But I noticed at a certain point that it was related to the external circumstances. And yeah, I think that's great. So okay. On that note, I want to ask you my last question. So let's say someone's been listening to this and it's resonating with them on some level, maybe a little bit, maybe a lot. What are some practical tips that you could give, tip or tips to get people to not get people, but allow people, give someone some way to extend this experience for anything from a practice to just a mindset to a specific thing or general?

I mean, in my mind, obviously reading about stuff you're interested, that's a good thing. Gravitating to some of the stuff that makes more like for you was Tibetan Buddhist stuff. Somebody else is going down to the yoga studio and they talk about nyamas and yamas and all about the Raja yoga. Other people, it's chanting, other people, it's Sufi dance. I mean, whatever it is, get interested in something. Obviously it's only prompted by the fact that you understand now there's a way to be happy and a way to make friends, to deal with suffering, not to use big salute. To deal with the discomfort, discomfort, stop running from stuff.

You see there's a way that that could happen. So you have to then, your reading and then it is really excellent to be able to spend minimum, five minutes a day by yourself without distractions, no phones, no nothing. In some place that you always do that with a couple of pictures of beings or whatever that you could be a mountain and just sit there and just use, we're going to have this on the new Heart Mind Network, by the way, everybody from MindPod Network and there'll be a simple meditation using your natural breath. And I'll just leave it at that because I'm not going to do it right now. And with that, you give yourself a chance to get very, very redundant, it's the word I use in practice, that you go there every day, you stop going, I don't feel like going that.

Yeah. I was thinking of this, I'm thinking that, I don't feel good, but you stop doing that. You actually just go there. Do it. Yeah. You have it that's fundamental. And once that fundamental habit, I mean, if you don't do it, it's not like you're going to get a black mark, and you can't force you, you get unhappy and then you go, okay, what can I do? It needs to be prompted by some, well, it can be... That's what happens with many people. Yeah. So, it's been my experience, two things, either you're sufficiently unhappy that you want to promote change or something so profound happens to you that you get a glimpse or taste of something that you want to keep experiencing it.

Yeah. That's one of those two things. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, and it also, it also applies, you ask day to day before day to day, what's the result of this? Yes. Well, when the result is, and you're not doing anything, and your day to day is conflicted and full of conflict or unconsciousness, time passes, you don't even know what happened. You've just been completely lost when those things happen. You want to change that. So that's another thing. And what's the biggest thing that's happened for me, I'd say, after all these years is just not giving whatever phenomenon and thoughts and whatever comes in to my universe.

Yeah. I'm not chasing it anywhere like I use it. Yeah. I am not. I am not believing in my personality ego structure the way I used to be more invested in it. It all loosens its grip and that does continue to happen. Yeah, and more space is created, more awareness, more mindfulness. And those are things you think of during the day too. It's great to have reminders that stop, there's little breath meditations you can do that don't take, that are minute that I'm going to do some of those two, for the thing. So the things you can do, and they're also get with people, definitely see if there isn't a group, a meditation group, a chant group, a yoga, whatever it is, it is great to have satsang is extraordinarily community important.

Everybody knows that and some of it can be happening online. That's right. But basically you really, the physical engagement with people is a much different thing. It's totally different. I can tell you and I am part of a lot of spiritual communities online and not the least of which is the rhombus one and have met amazing people and interact with on a daily basis, I will say this. Where I live, I just started going to tar-brox weekly meditation class. The difference in, there's a real difference in physically getting in a space with a lot of other people or some other people who are there with similar intentions.

There is something to be said for that. I don't know, molecularly or physically why that's the case, but there's a lot to that. And I'm a big digital person, but it is true. Okay. All right. We're at the end. >> There you go. >> All right. Thank you so much for doing this. >> Okay. Thanks for having me on. [ Music ] >> Yulu. >> Thank you for listening to Bold Kiss. Next week, many guests you will enjoy. Thank you again. Do not forget to rate and review on iTunes. I don't know what happened in that accent. Started out rushing, then it got Vayger and Vayger. Yeah. Thank you again for listening. Yes, and as a reminder, please rate and review this podcast on iTunes or however you can zoom podcast, rate and review it there.

Thanks a lot. Oh, and if you want to send me an email, talk about something. Send Lampert at minepodnetwork.com. There you go. See you next week. >> Hey there. It's Wayfair here, where delivery and setup are as easy as a few taps on your phone. You're relaxing in an old hammock, scrolling Wayfair's app when you spot it, a brand new patio set. Next thing you know, Wayfair delivers it right to your patio and sets it up. Oh, you need a new grill too? All right. Wayfair's got you covered. With Wayfair's room of choice delivery and fast expert setup on qualifying orders, life gets a little easier. Get Wayfair.com or the Wayfair app.

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