Special Edition Conversations With KD April 23, 2020

Call and Response Special Edition – Conversations With KD April 23, 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.

Q:  Please put some light on how to overpower negative thoughts and anxiety, especially during meditation.

“If you’re meditating, you’re not supposed to be trying to overpower anything. You notice what’s going on and you come back to your mantra or your focus of attention. Where does it say you’re supposed to fight with your thoughts? That’s a misconception. That’s a struggle. Meditation is not a struggle. You just keep coming back again and again, again and again. And you’re training yourself to release those thoughts once you notice.” – Krishna Das

So, that was a half an hour, a half an hour that we didn’t spend as the target of our own obsessive thinking, of our own negative emotions, of our fears, our anxieties, and in the situation that we’re in now, that stuff is bouncing off the walls all day long. So, when we add a practice to our lives, it gives us something to focus on and without recognizing it even, we’ve released so much of those clouds of stuff that are surrounding us in our day.

It’s not necessary to try to manipulate yourself, to have one particular type of experience while you’re chanting. The main idea is to remember to pay attention, to listen, to hear, to allow the chant to flow over you and to allow yourself to flow into it.

This is not a philosophical situation. We don’t have to learn about the name. We don’t have to know all the incredible things that they say about the name, that yogis and saints have been talking about for thousands of years. Not necessary. What’s necessary is to repeat it, to remember, to bring the name to mind, to use the breath, to sing it, to use the breath to say it, to use the awareness to pay attention. Add that to our lives. That’s what we need to do.

And it becomes so obvious in this kind of a situation. This is forced retreat for us. So, we’re faced with all our stuff. So, the need to do practice becomes very strong. So, take this time to cultivate this practice. Do it, do it a few times a day, just for five minutes or whatever, 10 minutes, whatever. Keep coming back to it during the day. When you notice the chat going on in your head, spend a minute with it.

They say that there’s a place within us that these names are always being repeated, are always flowing. And the more you pay attention to the chant and the name, the more you hear that in your mind as the day goes on. You’ll be busy doing something and all of a sudden, there it is. You might actually just notice it, and not even notice that you notice it and then you’re busy with something else. It’s very… the reason it’s such a subtle practice, because even though we think we are doing this, you and me, we think we’re sitting down to sing or do Japa or mantra meditation. We think that we’re doing that, but in reality, it’s the name that’s repeating us. The name goes on repeating us from the inside, moving out, outward, outward, and purifying our hearts as it moves through us.

So, at least that’s what they say.

Q: Are there any religions that teach God is one with you with one or do they all teach God is separate and above?

No, none of the Eastern, so-called Eastern religions teach the God is separate and above us. They, there are some, some religious philosophies that, even in India, that say that you don’t want to merge with God. You want to stay separate to enjoy the bliss of union. If you merge, they say, then you, you don’t have that.