Ep. 44 | Share Your Story

Call and Response Ep. 44 | Share Your Story

Q: Could (you) share some of your story about what was going on before you decided to go to India

“Everyone has a Guru. Everyone has a lineage that they’ve been involved with, especially if you’re interested in this crazy stuff in the first place, and everybody is, every moment, including this moment, receiving the fruits of their karmas. And the motivation for a great saint, they only have one motivation, they only have one agenda, which is compassion for us, because we don’t know what’s going on. So, they’re here for one reason only. For our sake. So, that means that everyone is getting exactly what they need at every moment. There’s no slippage in the system. If you’ve seen, if you’ve met a guru, a real guru, not a wannabe guru, not a “hope it’s a guru” not a fake guru… don’t let me continue, because it gets worse… if you’ve met a real guru then that was the best thing, that was what you needed. If you haven’t, that’s what you need.” – Krishna Das

Q: I guess mine was just asking about if you could share some of your story about what was going on before you decided to go to India that may be whatever it was for you, and also, how did you find your Guru? You land in India and then also, from there, I like those moments, the transition moments of all the things, you know, playing music, you know, doing what you’re doing now, of all the things you could do, how did that, just…

KD: It was either this or pump gas. Those were the two options. Well, I went to India in August 1970. I had already been pretty involved in spiritual stuff for quite a few years. I read all three books on the stuff that were here in America at the time, Autobiography of a Yogi, Gospel of Ramakrishna and Zen and Japanese Culture. Oh, wait, and there was Yoga for Health. Something like that. Unbelievable. Thank you.

So, but you know, I was really, I was very unhappy. I wasn’t really a happy camper. A lot of, a lot of self hatred, a lot of self loathing, a lot of not being able to be happy and get what I wanted in life. It was really not a lot of fun to be me. And then, oh, I moved upstate New York to live on a farm that the brother of a friend of mine had bought. They were Jungian acid head mountain climbers. These people would take 1000 mics of acid and climb mountains like this, straight vertical, they were unbelievable. Very wild. And they had a group, they had a family they called the Vulgarians. Anyway they were great folks and they, one guy, a friend of theirs, had seen Ram Das when he first came back from India in late 1968, yeah. And then they, he gave a talk in New York in early 1969, I think, and this guy met, went there, and then he came up and told his friends about it and then they were going to go drive up to New Hampshire where Ram Das was living on his father’s estate. He was living above the garage. It was a huge beautiful house, but he was living above the garage in like a little… he had come back from India and had camped out there. So, I had just come, so, they said they were going to meet this guy and I, you know, I said, “I’m not interested in any white yogis” you know? Once an asshole, always an asshole. What can I tell you? So, they went off. They were supposed to come back the next day. But they didn’t come back for like, three days, right? And I had just come out of the goat shed. We had two goats, Alice Bailey and Madam Blavatsky, our two goats, and I was holding a pale of milk, right? And they came back and I saw the car cut through the field, it comes around, and he parked it and he gets out of the car and he looks at me, like, and there was light shooting out of his head. I had never seen anything like that. I said, “Write down the directions. I’m leaving now.” I ran out to my cabin and I got my stuff together and I got my stuff together and took off and drove all night. So, I got, I got there around,