Call and Response Special Edition Conversations With KD May 16, 2020

Call and Response Special Edition – Conversations With KD May 16, 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.

“It would be good to try to find a way to relax. I know that sounds very prosaic, but it’s a very big thing. And that means releasing thoughts, feelings, imaginations about the future. It means releasing a lot of the negativity and betrayals and viciousness of our growing up from the past and allowing yourself to be here just a little bit, you know,… you’re not going anywhere. And certainly, in this this particular situation with the virus, we’re not going anywhere anyway. So… it’s a good time to recognize how clearly you see the things that are floating around in your awareness. “ – Krishna Das

Good morning. It’s getting hot out here in New York. I don’t know where you all are, but it’s hot here.

Oh, something…

Nina: So, Krishna Das, actually I have one question. I’ll just get it in here while people raise their hands. Last night, on talk with David Nichtern, KD spoke about what a real guru is. Is it possible to go deeper into this topic, especially how to cultivate ability to have a knowing that comes from the heart rather than thinking that comes from the mind? Or as Carl Jung, as per the Carl Jung quote, “Where wisdom reigns, there is no conflict between thinking and feeling.” *******

Well, you know, we have to deal with reality, which means we have to deal with where we are at and these ideas if of perfect this or perfect that, that’s not what we’re dealing with. We’re dealing with a big mess of stuff inside of ourselves. We’re dealing with, we can’t find the ground, we don’t know who we are, we don’t know where we’re going. Our feelings are, are at odds with each other, with, with each all the time.

You know, one has to begin to quiet the mind a little bit, or at least begin to pay attention to all the nonsense in our heads. If you don’t pay attention to it, we can never release it. We’re not going anywhere. You know, there’s nowhere to go. There’s nothing to achieve. We shouldn’t see this as an ambitious enterprise, you know? We’re trying to find out who we are. We’re trying to experience a deeper reality within us. And it’s all within us. The guru is within our true nature. The self is within. In fact, they say guru, God and self are not different. They are the same.

So, the real guru is not outside of us, even though he or she might appear in a body at some point if we need that and if we’re ready for that, and if that is what’s going to be best for us. You know, you’ve got to understand, a real guru has no personal agenda whatsoever. They’re only here because we don’t know anything about anything. And they’re here out of compassion for us. And also, they’re here out of the recognition that we are one, we are all parts of one being, little fragments of light that haven’t found their way back home. So, a real guru is available to us to help us find our way home.

You can’t make that happen. You can’t make yourself come home. You can only allow yourself to come home. And that’s, to do that is to learn to trust your heart, and little by little, yyou do experience the difference between thinking, thinking and knowing. Knowing usually comes as a, as a, just a very simple knowing.

Sometimes it’s like an epiphany where we’re like, you know, it’s like a thunderbolt, but other times it’s just all of a sudden, you’d be going through your day and you’ll recognize some reality.