Call and Response Special Edition Conversations With KD August 1 2020

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.

Call and Response Special Edition Conversations With KD August 1 2020

“One must try to get what one needs in life. One can not refuse to enter the fight because by doing that, you’ve given up. And if you think you can find God or find real love or be liberated without going through the battle, you’re dreaming. It’s only through getting into the fight, getting into the battle, the battle to be real and be present regardless of what’s going on in the emotional or outside world. That’s the battle, and if we don’t get involved in the battle, we will not be able to ever find any peace of mind or find any real love. We have to get in there and fight so we can see what our issues are.” – Krishna Das

Q: My question is, I was doing one of your courses from your website, and I saw a story where Maharajji asked you to perform puja of your mother when she was at the airport going back home.

Yeah.

I have a mother and an elder sister. I have a hard time connecting to them. Whatever you did, whatever Maharajji asked you to do with your mom at the airport, how did at affect your relationship with your mother?

Whatever it was, it wasn’t instant, really. My mother and I had a, we had a difficult relationship, mostly, until towards the end of her life. Then we got much closer.

He brought her to India in order to purify the karmas between us and to help her, of course, but to also help me. And the puja in the airport was interesting, because many years later there, it was in the middle of the airport… in those days, It was just like an airport hangar in Delhi. At the airport in Delhi in ‘72 was like a cow shed. There’s nothing wrong with that. Sometimes there are flying cows also.

So, there I was. She gave the camera, her camera to somebody and I, he told me I had to get down on my knees. He told me I had to get down on my knees. So, I did the arati with the lamp and I said a couple of mantras, and when I look at the picture that was taken at that moment, the look on her face was so extraordinary. I tell you, she looked like the goddess Durga. The love that was coming from her at that moment, when she was looking at me there, she never looked like that. That was the only moment in her life that she looked like that. It was amazing. He had really done a lot for her, really helped her a lot. Although, she had been, she was an alcoholic and she had, at that particular time I don’t think, yeah, she had been through a round or two already of rehab at that point. And then even after she went back, once again, she still had a hard time, went through another rehab, and then finally the last 20 years of her life or more, she was not drinking. So, he really, I believe that was by his grace because there was some kind of karmic black hole in her soul, which I have had, the same thing, have the same thing. And he saved her and then he saved me also from addiction.

But as far as my relationship, it was very difficult. So, what can you do? You don’t have to sit down in front of your mother, kneel down and do puja, but you do have to look inside of yourself and start to release all the negativity around your relationship with her.

You know, in Buddhism, they make a really big point of recognizing that your mother is the most important being in your life, because our mothers carried us for nine months in their own bodies. We’re made up mostly of her body and a little bit of our father’s one night stand or whatever, but the father has very little role after just at that first moment. The mother supports us. We live off of her. She feeds us inside of herself, and if we’re here today,