Call and Response with Krishna Das

Ep. 43 | Practice Arising By Itself, Dharmageddon and Does the Curriculum Change With Age

06.15.2021 - By Kirtan Wallah FoundationPlay

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Call and Response Ep. 43 | Practice Arising By Itself, Dharmageddon and Does the Curriculum Change With Age

Question: I’m just finding it to be that I don’t have to try so hard because it just happens and what I like about that, it seems like it took a long time to get there. It gets better and it seems like it’s just easy. You just fall into it. Why all the struggles?

“Let’s say you’re home when that happens, you’re just sitting around and you remember the Name, for instance, or the Name shows up in your head. If you’re home, you could, you could go with it for a few minutes, right? You could allow it to surface, really surface.” – Krishna Das

Q: I’m finding out that the older I get, not old, whatever, that the practice comes by itself a lot of times. You’re thinking about it then all of a sudden.

KD: Sure.

Q: And I’m just finding it to be I don’t have to try so hard because it just happens and what I like about that, it seems like it took a long time to get there. It gets better and it seems like its just easy. You just fall into it. Why all the struggles? Oh, I don’t want to do that, it’s too hard. Now its so easy or easier.

KD: That’s good, but you know, so tell me about your experience. Give him back the mic.

Q: Well…

KD: What are you exactly referring to?

Q: Well, it’s just the whole practice in general, I guess.

KD: Meaning?

Q: Just like that? Oh, god.

KD: Like, for instance, a lot of times, the mantra will come back to me during the day and kind of, I’ll recognize that it’s there when I had forgotten, right? I’ve been just driving around or something and then I’ll hear, in a sense, in my head, the mantra, so that comes back to you. Sure.  But what do you do at that moment?

Q: Seems to me I try to keep going with it. Yeah.

KD: Right. That’s it. Sure. But, that’s all good. No question about it. But there’s so many levels of sleep, so to speak. There’s so much time we spend asleep. The idea is to kind of gradually shorten the amount of time it takes for us to remember the mantra, for instance, right? And the way that happens, the way that is shortened is by willfully, using our personal will to bring ourselves back. But even, that’s an interesting thing, because ok, so you’re chanting, right? And then you notice you haven’t been paying attention and then you come back to the chant. How did you notice? Ha. You just do. It happens by itself. But we know that nothing happens without a cause. There’s no effect without a cause and no cause that doesn’t have an effect that became a cause, so if you, all of a sudden, woke up, so to speak, and recognized that you hadn’t been paying attention, that waking up is a direct result of practice you’ve done in the past. Either this life or another life. Otherwise you would get born, you’d graduate from high school, you’d drink some beer, and then you’d die. And you’re not here for one moment of your life. How many people do we know? Most of them are in the supermarket when you go there. Look around. Nobody’s home. It’s unbelievable. It’s like, yeah, sure, swimming through, like, water and… so, there you are, singing, and you haven’t been paying attention and then you, you go, “Oh, ok.” And you come back. How did that happen? You didn’t do that. You weren’t here, you were in dreamland. How did it happen that you came back and noticed? Consciousness, you became aware and awareness is something that is always here but recognized more through practice, through remembering. That’s what practice is. Remembering. So, you sit down to remember. “I’m remembering. I’m remembering my breath. Breathing in. Breathing out. Breathing in. Breathing out. Oh, I’ve got to go to the store later. What am I supposed to buy? Did I write it down? I don’t think I wrote it down. Oh, ok. My breath.” That moment when we come back, that is, in itself, an effect of the cause of having done practice before.  Already. For instance,

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