Ep. 57 | Where Do Thoughts Come From, Suffering, Favorite Chants

Call and Response Ep. 57 Where Do Thoughts Come From, Suffering, Favorite Chants

Q: I’ve been coming to see you for many years and the last time I came after I left, there were just these uncontrollable tears for days, for weeks, like someone a sponge and tears were coming out and it felt like grief. And sometimes, when we’re together, when we come here I feel like, collectively there’s that energy of grief and I don’t know if it relates to suffering, you know, it seems like all humans are trying to avoid bad feelings and suffering, and like that’s the thing we push away.

“We’re already being called and when we, when we call out, we’re actually just calling back. When we chant here, we think we’re doing it. We think we made the decision to come here. We made the decision to sit in here instead of going for a walk on the beach. We made the decision to do this, do that. That’s our reality. There might be another reality which is that we were brought here and we were forced to sit down by our own hearts and made to chant because that’s what’s going to connect us. And that’s what we really want inside is to be connected to that love. “ – Krishna Das

Q: Hi. When you chant the song, “Saraswati,” I get that feeling, this like, incredible feeling like you fall in love and then I can’t listen to the chant because I spend the whole time saying, “Oh, I love this chant. I love this chant. I want to hear it, I want to hear it. Then I miss it, and then they have to play it over and over and over again.

KD: Could be worse.

Q: But it’s like insatiable. Like it’s a desire that like something pumps and I don’t know what it is and I’ve tried to listen to that chant with all the same words in a different chant and it doesn’t create the same feeling. It’s only that chant, that time. And so, it’s interesting to me why, like it’s not the words, it’s not the vibration, what it, it’s a crazy desire… and I hardly ever hear the chant because I spend so much time in my head saying, “Oh I love this so much, I love this chant, I want to hear it again and again,” and then I miss the chant. Do you know what I mean?

KD: Luckily we have a tape loop. Just put “repeat”

Q: Over and over again. But how is it that some of the… it’s the same words, you’re the same singer, you’ve sang it different ways, different times, it doesn’t have the same effect but that one, it’s like, “Just take me now.” You know? It’s that kind of feeling, you know? So, how… what are the differences… what’s happening there?

KD: How am I supposed to know?

Q: You sang it.

KD: So, I sang it. That’s all I did. That’s all I did. I sang it. That’s all I know. The rest of it’s your stuff.

Q: But when I hear it, like when you explained that you saw your guru, it’s the same feeling. If that song was, I would be there.

KD: Lock yourself in a room for three weeks with just that chant and see what happens. You might just levitate right out the window. If you do, come see me though. I’d like to know. That’s a good thing. Don’t worry about why, so much. Don’t worry about why. Why’s not necessary. That’s just actually resistance to going into it more. Just keep letting go and hearing it, letting go again and hearing it. Letting go… ok, eventually you’ll be through with that and you’ll be hearing it again. That’s all you do. That’s the practice. That’s great. You’ve found something that really pulls you, that your heart really responds to. That’s a wonderful thing. Don’t spend all of your time thinking about why or how or what is this and how did this work and why is it this way and it doesn’t work that way…

Q: That’s what I do, yeah.

KD: Those are what you call “the things you let go of.” Again and again and again and again. And little by little, you’ll just, you’ll be there. We’re so used to not being here. You don’t understand. From the moment we wake up til the moment we like, crash at night, we’re just gone. Gone,