Ep. 65 | The Repetition of the Divine Names

Call and Response Ep. 65 | The Repetition of the Divine Names

“Thoughts are going to come because thoughts come. That’s what they do. What we have to do is train ourselves to release them as soon as we notice that we’re stuck with them.” – Krishna Das

How sweet the sound. So, what are we doing? In India, this is called, “The repetition of the Divine Names.” The Names of God. We don’t like the name, “God” here in the West. It’s such a hard sounding thing. Some guy up in the sky with a big beard throwing down thunderbolts at us. Not my idea of a fun night. That’s what I was doing last night. Getting thunderbolts thrown at me. How sweet the sound… so these Names, these are the, what are these the Names of? Some God floating around up in the sky or maybe by Venus or Mars or something? No. At least probably not. Well, maybe. I don’t know. These are the Names of who we really are underneath who we think we are.  That’s a big thing to say. Because we spend most of our lives in a very narrow bandwidth of who we think we are. We wake up. “What am I going to do today? Ok. I’ll go there. What’ll I wear? Yeah, I’ll wear that. Then I’ll go do this. I’ll do that. Maybe they don’t like me. Maybe I should go somewhere else. Maybe they don’t like me. Maybe I should go somewhere else. If I do this, maybe they’ll like me. I’ll do that, they’ll like me. I do this. Maybe I’m going to get my…” all day long. The movie of “Me.” We write, direct, and act in the movie of “me.” And we play all the parts in our movie. I’m playing all your parts in my movie. I don’t know who you are. But you know, you sit there like this, “Oh, that guy’s grumpy.” Or something else. The way you hold your hair. I’ve got a version of you and me in my life. It has nothing to do with who you really are or even who you think you are, but in my movie, I know who you are because I’m playing your part. And then, you write reviews which you read and get more depressed. And that’s how we go through our life. Stuck in this movie that we’re creating. So, these names, they come from a place within us that’s deeper than the movie and through the repetition of the Name, gradually but inevitably, the presence within us, the love that lives within us as who we really are is uncovered. It’s uncovered. It’s already there or we wouldn’t be here. It’s not something we get in each one of us, in everybody. So, through the repetition of the Name, that place, that presence within us, that living love is uncovered.

But it’s not so easy to… you can’t stop thinking. That doesn’t work. Thoughts are going to come because thoughts come. That’s what they do. What we have to do is train ourselves to release them as soon as we notice that we’re stuck with them. So, you’re chanting, “Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare,” and then you know, you wind up thinking about what you’re going to buy tomorrow when you go shopping, you know, “Maybe I shouldn’t leave too early, there’s a lot of traffic Monday morning, you know,” and then, “that’s ok, I’ve got Sirius Xm. I’ll listen to the Krishna Das channel.” And then you remember, “Oh, wait a second, I’m supposed to be singing and I haven’t been paying attention,” and so you come back. And that happens every millisecond if you’re actually paying attention. You can’t pay attention for more than two breaths before you’re gone. Neither can I. But we keep coming back. That’s the thing. And that’s the amazing thing, if you think about it. Why do we ever come back from Dreamland?  I don’t know. But we do. So, you’re chanting and you know, “Wow, this is so great. This is fantastic. Oh, man. This is great. I can’t wait. You know what, I’m going to lead chanting myself. Yeah, next week I’m going to get people over to come, you know, we’ll vape a little bit, it’ll be great, man, yeah. Yeah, fantastic, you know?” And then you remember, you’re supposed to be chanting, you’re supposed to be paying attention. “Oh shit,” right?