[MUSIC PLAYING]
SPEAKER: Good afternoon.
Namaste.
Welcome, yodelers, to kirtan,
rocking it at Googleplex today.
I am delighted and honored
to welcome to the Googleplex
the biggest name in kirtan in
the Western world, Krishna Das,
first time at Google.
[APPLAUSE]
KRISHNA DAS: [INAUDIBLE]
SPEAKER: No, Krishna Das,
as you will soon find out,
was the most unlikely person to
be the biggest name in kirtan,
growing up in Long
Island, and his life
was going lead him on a
different trajectory, which
he'll talk about it a minute.
And he left for India
at the encouragement
of one of his close friends,
former Harvard Professor
Richard Alpert, now known
famously as Ram Das.
And Krishna Das met his
teacher Neem Karoli Baba there
and stayed there.
And in his own words, he
says, in a manner of speaking,
he never came back.
And here we are
in the year 2017,
when he's put kirtan
firmly on the global map.
He's had 16 albums to
his credit, a bestselling
documentary, "One Track Heart."
And a few years ago,
his album "Live Ananda"
was nominated for the Grammy
award in the New Age category.
KRISHNA DAS: Should have
been the old age category.
[LAUGHTER]
SPEAKER: And so here to tell
us the story about his journey
and what led him to
this point in life,
bringing this amazing
music to all of us,
please welcome to the stage once
again, Krishna Das at Google.
[APPLAUSE]
KRISHNA DAS: Thanks.
SPEAKER: So Krishna Das,
I have been pondering
about a great mystery of life.
And I thought you might be the
best person to answer that.
KRISHNA DAS: Good luck.
[LAUGHTER]
SPEAKER: So how does a Jewish
boy growing up in Long Island
end up becoming the
biggest name in kirtan?
How?
KRISHNA DAS: Bad luck.
[LAUGHTER]
You know, it's not
about names or anything.
I lived in India
for a long time.
And I thought I was
never going to come back
to America when I left.
After 2 1/2 years, my
guru looked at me one day,
and he said, go back.
I said, but I'm
just learning Hindi.
Too bad.
Go.
So I had to come back.
He said, you have
attachment there.
You have to go back.
Little did I know
what I was facing.
So he sent me back.
And many years went by.
And I was struggling
a lot with depression.
I went through a lot of--
all the things I
couldn't do before I
went to India
because I was scared,
I did afterwards like
drugs, rock and roll.
Every possible bit of trouble
I could get into, I got into.
But I managed to
survive it mostly.
And 20 years or so
after my guru died,
I was in my room in New York.
And I was very, very
depressed, very, very unhappy.
And I walked out
into the living room,
and I was actually struck
like a lightning bolt.
And I knew immediately that
if I did not start singing
with people, and it was with
people, that I would never
be able to clean out the
dark corners of my own heart
and the shadows in my life.
It's just that the
only thing I had that
would work for me was
the chanting that I
had done in India and was
doing a little bit of kind
of privately.
And that was a big thing
because first of all,
I didn't want to do it.
But when you know something,
you know something.
And you can tell
yourself you don't know.
But you know, and
you know you know.
So it took me a while.
And I called a couple of
yoga studios in New York.
This is in 1994.
And I said blah, blah,
blah, I was in India.
I used to sing.
Could I come chant
at your place?
Well, one place said no.
[LAUGHS]
They regret that now.
They keep saying, can you
come sing at our place?
Nah.
[LAUGHTER]
No, they've become friends too.
But the other place
said, yeah, sure.
Come on Mondays.
We have these little
gatherings on Mondays
where we read from holy
books and take questions.
So I went.
And for a couple of months,
I'd go every Monday.
And I'd sing for
about 20 minutes.
And then the two owners--
this was Jivamukti.
SPEAKER: How big
was your audience?
KRISHNA DAS: Huh?
SPEAKER: How many
people were there?
KRISHNA DAS: Eight.
On a good night, nine maybe.
[LAUGHTER]
And so that the two owners of
Jivamukti, David and Sharon--
two months later, I came there,
and they had gone to India.
I didn't even know
they were leaving.
They had gone.
So I sang for a couple hours.
And they wound up-- they stayed
gone for about three months.
So every Monday that I was in
New York, I would be there,
and had just gotten used
to singing for a long time.
Well, one day, they showed up.
And we all sat
together in the front.
And they said, you start.
I said, OK.
So I started chanting.
And about an hour later,
I realized, oh, shit.
They're here.
And I went like--
and they looked at each
other and said, keep singing.
And so that was it.
Mondays became my night.
And it just started to--
people just started to come.
There was no advertising.
There was nothing.
And the key to it all-- and
still is the reason I sing,
how I started singing, and
every moment that I do sing,
I am singing for
one reason only--
to save my miserable
ass and no other reason.
I'm not trying to
get anybody off.
It's not entertainment.
This is my practice.
This is what I do
to save my life.
Every day, every time I
sit down, it's about that.
And so that intensity
is kind of transmitted,
I think, to some degree.
And besides, I sing what I like,
because when I started singing,
nobody was there.
So what do you sing?
You sing what you like.
And that never changed.
It seems like other people
kind of liked it too.
So I keep doing it.
SPEAKER: So a few
years ago you, were
singing at the Dolores
Church in San Francisco
with Larry Brilliant, who at
the time was CEO of Google.
KRISHNA DAS: Yeah, Larry
and I were in India together
a long time.
SPEAKER: Yeah, you were
on the ashram together.
And I remember
you telling Larry,
where the church
was full, you said,
they're not here
to listen to me.
They are here to help me sing.
I need them more
than they need me.
So what is the
singing experience?
I notice that your eyes
are closed and seem
to be in a meditative,
trance-like state
the entire concert.
KRISHNA DAS: You think so.
Yeah, very deep trance.
SPEAKER: You can fake it well.
KRISHNA DAS: Yeah.
Well, it's very simple.
These chants traditionally,
for many, many years,
have been done as
a way of deepening
your awareness of what's
inside of us, what's
underneath our thoughts, what's
underneath our emotions, what's
always present.
It's a kind of awareness.
Now, most of the time,
we're totally lost.
We're, like, in
dreamland all day long.
We're thinking.
We're imagining.
We're fantasizing.
We're remembering.
But we're never aware
of what we're doing.
So what we do is
we add something
to that daily experience.
So you pick a
chant, or a mantra,
or an object of concentration,
if it's a meditative practice.
And every time you notice that
you're not paying attention
to what you just agreed to do
with yourself, you come back.
You're gone.
You come back.
Like when we chant-- we're going
to chant in a little while--
you will see, if you're
paying attention,
that you might be able to
pay attention for 10 seconds.
I mean, if you
really, really try it.
And then you won't be there,
until you recognize, oh, I've
just been gone for five minutes.
You come back.
So what we're doing,
we're retraining.
And this is not a learning
situation, this is training.
In Tibetan Buddhism, they
call it mind training.
You're training yourself.
You're creating new channels
in the brain actually.
You've read about
neuroplasticity.
This is actually true.
The brain, the
shape of the brain,
changes with these practices.
So we're training ourselves
to keep coming back much
more quickly as time goes on.
And we don't get
lost in thought.
We don't get lost in our
emotions the same way as time
goes on.
It's not about trying to
have any particular kind
of blissful practice
or blissful feeling.
It's dealing with
whatever arises.
People think that if
they try to meditate
and they feel like shit
afterwards, it didn't work.
But if you really
feel like shit,
it probably worked, because
you were paying attention.
SPEAKER: I think it
works for me every day.
KRISHNA DAS: Very good.
That is your true
nature, my friend.
SPEAKER: [LAUGHS] So
one final question.
How do you explain this
very esoteric practice, even
considered like just a folk
music style that originated
in India, suddenly becomes so
popular all over the world,
and kirtan music festivals
in California are full?
KRISHNA DAS: People
ask me all the time.
They say, I want to share
my music with the world.
How do I do it?
And I say, I don't know.
I just started singing,
and everything happened.
I had no plan.
I wasn't trying to--
I wasn't trying to do
anything except save myself.
And this is what I
had to do to do that.
And so far, it's worked.
I mean, you never know.
Tomorrow's another day.
But as far as the
music goes, when
I first came back and
started singing with people,
I sang the melodies that I had
learned singing with people
in India, Indian melodies.
But the longer I
was away from India,
my true nature
kind of took over,
which is basically
rock and roll.
I grew up in the
late '50s and '60s.
And rock and roll was
very important to me,
very important.
And all those emotional
feelings that I
had with that kind
of music had been
transmitted and transformed
with this practice.
But it comes out sounding
like rock and roll
with this little
squeezebox here.
It doesn't sound the
same when I play guitar.
I can't chant with a guitar.
But when I sit down
with this, it's weird.
I don't know what it is.
So there was no plan.
I don't know.
The chord changes have a
kind of emotional power.
And they push buttons in us.
But the real gist
of this practice
is what we are chanting.
You know, if a baby is sick
and has to take medicine,
the medicine, you usually
hide it in a sweet syrup
so it's easier to take.
So in this case, the
syrup is the music.
But the medicine is what we're
chanting, which in India, they
call the names of God,
or the divine names.
We're not required to
believe there's a God.
We're not required
to believe anything.
But if we do want our
lives to be transformed,
and if we do want to become good
human beings on this planet,
at this time, in
this world right now,
some practice has to be done.
Otherwise, we're at the mercy
of all our negative emotions
at any time.
We have no vote how
we go through the day.
If we want to get a vote,
some practice has to be done.
There's no two ways about it.
I'm sorry.
I mean, I wish it could just be
better, like you push a button.
But it isn't.
We have to train
ourselves to let
go of our negative emotions,
the negative stories we
tell ourselves about ourselves
all day long, which we believe.
We believe everything we think.
This is the definition
of insanity, really.
And so through
these practices, we
get a vote as to how we
respond to our own thoughts,
to our own emotions.
And we don't necessarily
continue to be ruled by them.
But you have to do a practice.
Otherwise, you
have to find a way
of changing the
way the direction
that that river of
thought is going.
Anyway, enough of that.
SPEAKER: Yeah.
Thank you for the
profound wisdom.
KRISHNA DAS: Yes, very profound.
SPEAKER: Googlers will be happy
to know that Krishna Das has
actually taken
this ancient wisdom
and brought it to modern times
using digital technology.
He is a YouTube creator.
His channel is
Krishna Das Music.
And periodically, he's at the
YouTube studios in New York
to record a series called chai--
KRISHNA DAS: "Chai and Chats."
People come.
And they have a little
set there at the studios
of a diner, a '50s diner
with a little jukebox thing.
So people come.
And we make chai.
And we sit and talk.
It's great.
SPEAKER: But we didn't come
here to hear Krishna Das talk,
did we?
We want to hear him sing.
So we will move on to kirtan.
And joining him on stage will be
his group, Arjun on the tabla,
general walker on the violin,
and Nina Rao, his manager,
on khartals and backup vocals.
Please welcome Krishna
Das and his band.
[APPLAUSE]
KRISHNA DAS: So once again, the
instructions are very simple.
You repeat.
I sing a line.
And then you all
sing something that
sounds something like something
I might've sung sometime.
[LAUGHTER]
And then we keep
going back and forth.
And when you notice that
you're not paying attention--
don't try too hard.
But when you notice you're
not paying attention,
just simply come
back to the chanting.
And you might sit here for
10 minutes just thinking
about other stuff
until you notice
that that's what you're doing.
It's an amazing
moment, that moment
when you notice that you've
been gone for x amount of time.
It's a miracle that we
ever come back actually.
We'll sing a chant, Shri
Ram Jay Ram Jay Jay Ram.
It's in your hymnals, yeah.
Shri Ram Jay Ram Jay Jay
Ram, and Sita Ram Sita Ram.
So I'll sing a line.
And then if you
like, you can answer.
We'll go back and
forth for a while.
[PLAYS HARMONIUM]
Let's do some Oms together, OK?
Because you just got
to do that every time.
[SINGS OM]
[AUDIENCE JOINS SINGING OM]
[SINGS OM]
[AUDIENCE JOINS SINGING OM]
[SINGS OM, AUDIENCE JOINS]
[CHANGES CHORDS]
So this prayer is to that place
within us that true love lives.
[CHANTS]
So I'll repeat Shri Ram Jay Ram
two times and then you answer.
[PLAYING HARMONIUM]
[CHANTS SHRI RAM JAY RAM]
[AUDIENCE JOINTS]
[DRUM PLAYS]
[VIOLIN PLAYS]
[AUDIENCE JOINS]
[KRISHNA DAS AND AUDIENCE
 CONTINUE CALL AND RESPONSE]
[CHANTS SITA RAM SITA RAM JAY
 JAY SITA RAM]
[AUDIENCE SINGS]
[KRISHNA DAS AND AUDIENCE
 CONTINUE CALL AND RESPONSE]
[CHANTS SHRI RAM JAY RAM JAY JAY
 RAM]
[AUDIENCE SINGS]
[KRISHNA DAS AND AUDIENCE
 CONTINUE CALL AND RESPONSE]
[CHANTS SITA RAM SITA RAM JAY
 JAY SITA RAM]
[AUDIENCE SINGS]
[KRISHNA DAS AND AUDIENCE
 CONTINUE CALL AND RESPONSE]
[CHANTS SHRI RAM JAY RAM JAY JAY
 RAM]
[AUDIENCE SINGS]
[KRISHNA DAS AND AUDIENCE
 CONTINUE CALL AND RESPONSE]
[KRISHNA DAS SINGS ALONE WITH
 HARMONIUM]
[AUDIENCE SINGS ALONE]
So shri ram jay.
So do that for a few
days and see what's left.
That's how I learned.
My guru said start singing.
He didn't say anything
about stopping.
[LAUGHTER]
After a few weeks,
it's like, hello.
We can't think our way out of a
prison that's made of thought.
We have to find some
other way of getting out
of jail, the jail of
our obsessive thinking
and our self-judgment
evaluation, constant, ongoing.
It's what humans do.
But it's very hard to
change that pattern.
So you have to add
some other dimension.
And that is simply paying
attention, coming back.
And then you start to
recognize things from inside.
And nobody has to tell you.
Nobody can give this to you.
Nobody has to turn you on.
We're already turned on.
We just to have to
uncover what's in there.
And that's what
these practices do.
All of them do the same thing.
Slightly different angle,
they come at the same thing.
But it's all the same.
My guru used to go--
no matter what.
He knew everything.
Right?
Past, present, and future?
So he'd look at
you and he'd go--
what am I getting busted for?
Something I did, something I'm
going to do, or something I'm
thinking about doing?
[LAUGHTER]
So we said, Baba, what does
it mean when you do that?
And he went-- like that.
What does that mean?
He said, many names, many
forms, all one, all one.
So that's where he
lived, in that oneness.
And these names are the names
of that place inside of us
that is that.
And as we chant these names,
or do these practices,
what that inner essence
is covered with starts
to dissolve.
And that light, or that love, or
that truth, or that being that
is who we really are, it starts
to become more available to us.
So--
[PLAYS HARMONIUM]
I guess we're stick
here, because I can't
think of anything to sing.
What should we sing?
[BAND DISCUSSING]
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] OK, so
I think this is on the sheet,
radhe radhe govinda
bhaja govinda.
"Bhaja" means to remember,
or to sing, or to praise.
Don't eat that.
[LAUGHTER]
You can't eat that.
It's not good for you.
So I'm going to start with a
couple of verses in English.
There was a great hymn written
many years ago by a great saint
called Shankaracharya.
He was walking down
the street one day.
And he saw an old man
on the side of the road
teaching rules of Sanskrit
grammar to some students.
And being a great
saint, he could
see that this old guy was
going to die very soon,
and he'd never
done any practice,
anything to help himself.
So out of compassion,
he went up to him
and he said, oh, my
friend, bhaja govinda.
So "govinda" means
"Krishna," the name of God.
And "bhaja" means "to sing
or praise or remember."
So he's telling this guy, do
something before it's too late.
And that night, he went home.
And he wrote a long hymn that
he called "Bhaja Govinda."
And each verse
describes the ways
that we go through our lives
complete asleep, totally lost
in whatever we're doing.
And we never wake up.
And we never do what's really
in our own best interests.
And we don't get
the things we want.
We don't get the
happiness we want.
We don't find the love.
And then the chorus at the
end of each verse went, "Oh,
my foolish mind
or foolish heart."
Bhaja govinda, do something.
So I always wanted to read--
it's a beautiful poem.
And I always wanted to
rewrite it with modern images
because they didn't have
binge watching in 900,
whenever Shankaracharya lived.
That's how I waste
most of my time.
But I'm too lazy,
and it's too long.
And so that never happened.
So I wrote a couple
of new verses--
[PLAYS HARMONIUM]
--in English.
And then we'll sing radhe
radhe govinda bhaja govinda.
[SINGS IN ENGLISH]
[VIOLIN PLAYS]
[DRUM PLAYS]
[PLAYS INTERLUDE]
[CHANTS RADHE RADHE GOVINDA
 BHAJA GOVINDA]
[AUDIENCE SINGS]
[KRISHNA DAS AND AUDIENCE
 CONTINUE CALL AND RESPONSE]
[CHANGES RHYTHM]
[CHANGES RHYTHM]
[CHANGES RHYTHM]
[AUDIENCE CLAPS ALONG]
[SINGS QUIETLY]
[AUDIENCE SINGS CALL AND
 RESPONSE WITH KRISHNA DAS]
So we'll end with
one short chant.
Jay Bhagavan Jay Bhagavan.
"Jay" means "victory,"
"hail" or "hallelujah."
And "Bhagavan" is the
living presence within us,
the love that lives within us.
It's who we truly are.
When we sing Jay Bhagavan, we
sing victory to our own hearts.
May that love conquer
all the darkness.
We'll sing this together
for a few minutes.
[CHANTS JAY BHAGAVAN]
[AUDIENCE JOINS IN]
[KRISHNA DAS SINGS ALONE]
[AUDIENCE JOINS IN]
[DRUM PLAYS]
[VIOLIN PLAYS]
[KRISHNA DAS SINGS ALONE]
If we know anything
about a path at all,
if we know that
there might be a way
to live in this world in a
good way, with an open heart,
and without fear, it's only
because of the great beings
that have gone before us.
And out of their love,
out of their kindness,
they left some footprints
for us to follow.
So In the same way
that they wish for us,
we wish that all beings
everywhere, all of us,
be safe, be happy,
that all of us
have good health
and enough to eat.
And may we all live
in peace and at
ease of heart, at ease
of heart, with whatever
comes to us in life.
[CHANTS OM]
[AUDIENCE JOINS IN]
[CHANTS SHANTI THREE TIMES]
KRISHNA DAS: Thanks for coming.
Thanks to Goepi for inviting me.
And as we say in
India, take it easy.
[LAUGHTER]
Namaste.
AUDIENCE: Namaste.
SPEAKER: OK, one more time,
big round of applause.
[APPLAUSE]
That's Genevieve Walker on the
violin, Arjun on the tabla,
Nina Rao, his manager, was
the khartal player and back-up
musician.
Thank you, Krishna Das.
We were delighted
to have you here.
[APPLAUSE]
