From postural yoga to devotional yoga, The Monk’s Podcast 137 with Raghunath Prabhu
Hare Krishna Raghunath Prabhu. Thank you very much.
Yes, I'm wonderful and I feel even more wonderful to have your association now. You are probably the most successful second generation teacher, preacher, in the western world. In the western world and I think the way you have reached out to the yoga, in the yoga circle is remarkable.
Every year, scores and scores of devotees here to go to the Nico village as well as the Wisdom of the Sages podcast has become, I think it's going to soon become, join the ranks of ISKCON history. So, You're kind Prabhu. Thank you.
It's an honour to have your association here. Thank you so much. Thanks.
I love going to the Govardhan Eco village or going to Mumbai and seeing you. I always like to sit with you over lunch and ask you questions. I feel like I don't know very much but when I get around you, I feel like a little, get a little bit more insight into my life and into my spirituality.
So, I'm honoured to be here. Oh my God. Thank you.
So Prabhu, I thought we will discuss today on the topic of what has been your life service from say, post physical yoga, postural yoga to devotional yoga. So, can you tell about how you, were you interested in yoga from before or were you interested in how did your spiritual journey begin and how did you come to yoga in general? The answer to that with everyone is by the mercy of the devotees, of course. By the mercy of someone who has bhakti, they can grant you bhakti.
But I was on a spiritual quest from a young age. I grew up Christian and I knew, I understood the concept of good association and bad association and I started going to the university and I didn't want good, I didn't want bad association because American universities are notorious for intoxicants and partying and illicit sex. And so truthfully, I was, I felt drawn to a spiritual life and some spiritual principles and so I was into an alternative type of music at the time, which was sort of underground, which means it's music you couldn't really hear on the radio.
It was by a select group of people. They were all over the world, but it was tiny and so it was like, it was considered punk or hardcore music. That was the genre and it later became very popular.
But at the time, I was talking about right now. Sorry, what's that? Which year are we talking about right now? This is 1990. This was 1981, 82.
Okay. And I was a teenager and for me, well, I grew up in Connecticut in the suburbs. Oh, Connecticut.
Okay. Yeah. And my father was a school teacher and my mother was, worked for the university.
Oh. So for me, it was a type of rebellion as a way to sort of find myself in a culture of, you know, United States is like an assembly line culture. You know, one thing when we go to Vrindavan and they say, oh, you want a quarter? Let me take your measurements.
And I think, oh, they're going to make me according to my measurements. This is, for an American, this is like unheard of unless you're incredibly wealthy. You don't get your clothes made to your measurements.
But in India, that's like a common thing. In a cultured store, you come in, they sit you down, they get you a lossy, they take your measurements. When I first had that done to me in the bazaar, I was thinking, this is incredible.
But America, we've created everything. You want a shirt? You'll see a thousand of those shirts, the same exact shirts on a rack, all different sizes, small to extra large to extra, extra large. Everybody dresses the same.
Everybody wears the same jeans. And you know what's interesting in America? Because we own Hollywood, we've exported our culture to the rest of the world. That's why you can find American culture all over the world.
When I first went to India, Indians look different. Now Indian cities, everyone looks American because of cable television. I remember when it happened.
It was like 1991-ish. I was in India and I remember, I remember that's when satellite television or cable television happened. And I thought, boy, the Mughals couldn't conquer India.
The Afghans couldn't conquer India. The British tried to conquer India. They all took a shot at destroying and rewriting Indian culture.
And they all failed. But this cable television, it's going to take it over quick. And you see, very soon, they set up new standards of what is normal.
This is normal. Dress like this is normal. This is what love is.
Behave like this. This is what romance is. Forget everything in the past.
Forget about your tradition. That's some old thing that has nothing to do with us anymore. We want to be progressive.
We want to move forward. Look how nice America is. That is what is being sold to India.
And it's being sold in an insidious manner. It sneaks right in. You don't even know it because it's not an active sale.
It's a very sneaky, a very, almost like it sneaks in right behind you and it presents, and this is what America is great at, presenting and marketing a culture as this is the way to enjoy the material world. Now, India has opted into it. I know.
You know how many Indians I know that, oh, now I go to school and university in Toronto. I go to university, school in Manhattan. It's easy for Indians to get into these schools in America.
Americans aren't so smart. Indians can be a lot smarter. You get into these American schools and all of a sudden they live the American dream and then one thing happens and that thing is they forget about their culture.
They've lost their culture and all the beauty that went with that culture. There is a beauty to traditional culture of India and sometimes you don't appreciate it until you throw it away and what's going to happen and I'm sure it's already happening is now they're going to, light is being shined on what America really is. We're a culture where we're damaged, we're broken, we're exhausted.
Why? Because we've had no rules. We've never had rules. We make up our own rules and sometimes you think, well, that's good.
That's freedom. That's why I love America. It's freedom.
Yeah, but we also have the freedom to run down a hole. We also have the freedom to drive a car off a cliff, meaning in the West, addiction is overwhelming. Addiction and groups, you know, 12-step groups, AA, NA, Alcoholics Anonymous, that people deal with this addiction.
I'm sure in the last 30 years you've seen the change. I don't know how old you are, but you look very young, but I'm 55 and I know that there's been cultural shifts, especially in the major cities with the consumption of alcohol and just the consumption of Western culture and because that, because it has shifted, you're going to have to pay the price now. Everybody's got to pay the price for that.
Once you want to start dealing with Tamaguna and Rajaguna, that's okay. You can have as much Tamaguna as you want. You're just going to have to pay for it and there's a cost.
You have to pay for Satmaguna too. You have the control. There's work in disciplining yourself, isn't there? There's work in a discipline.
There's work in renunciation. There's work in regulation. But there's so much work in trying to get off of an addiction.
That's a lot of work too. Everybody's got to pay somehow. So Prabhu, if I understand right, you're saying that you were sensing all this in 1980s itself and now you're seeing all this unleashing all over the world.
That was, you said you're a part of a, you started on this by saying that like you were a little rebellious. You wanted to go against the mainstream society. So was all this like inquiet for you or you could at that time also sense the emptiness of the culture around you? Well, I went through different phases.
First, I just wanted to make music and I wanted to sing a very positive, uplifting message to the world. And the message was, it almost sounded like the music was loud and noisy, but the message was very sattvic. It was about your actions, give a result, the law of karma.
It was about, you should control your senses and control your mind, which is the Bhagavad Gita. So we didn't drink, we didn't smoke. We frowned upon illicit sex and we didn't take drugs and we were all vegetarian.
I wasn't a devotee. Really? How did you, these values came naturally or from your Christian upbringing or just by your observing society? I don't know where they came from. Oh my God.
I don't know where they came from, but I felt like it was a good thing. Yeah, it was a good thing. So that didn't affect your popularity in any negative way that you didn't do? Well, I thought it would.
I thought it would because everybody in that punk scene was into lots of drugs, heavy drugs, real crazy drugs. And they were also very violent. But we were very like bold in how we presented it.
And we were a little bit fearless. And what happened was within that scene, another scene developed and it was called the straight edge scene. And straight edge meant we didn't drink, we didn't smoke, we didn't do drugs, and we were vegetarian or vegan.
And that became really popular. It's still a scene right now to this day. And many, many bands started from there.
I didn't coin the phrase in all to be, for full disclosure, I didn't coin the phrase. There was another band that coined that phrase straight edge. I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't F or have sex.
But it wasn't like a movement. My band was called Youth of Today. We sort of turned it into a brand or a movement without even planning on it.
We didn't think that we're going to start a movement. We just felt like we had a good message. Life is short.
Why not spend our time doing what we love, which was, we had Wanderlust. We wanted to travel the world. We wanted to create music.
We were artists and we felt like we had a positive message. So we started that. We dropped out of the university and we just started touring with our band and the band started getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
May I continue? So you were in music for how many years that we, the band went on for, when did it start and how long did it go? It went on only, it only went on for three years and in those three year time, my father became very ill and it made me start to realise the temporality of life and I started to search out spiritual books and the spiritual books would help me write my lyrics of my songs and so some of the books were like of the Buddhists and some was the Bible and some was, and some, I actually knew people who were into bhakti yoga and matter of fact, a lot of the places that we would hang out and play were the same places that Prabhupada went when he first came to New York. So New York is famous for devotees. Devotees from all over come there or devotees have touched the lives of so many people.
So I knew a little bit about devotees but for the most part, and I'm going to share all this stuff in my book, I have a book coming out about my life. When is it expected? August 22nd. I'm sorry, April 22nd, April 22nd, 2022.
Okay. It's put out by the same people who did Radhanath Swamy's book. Oh, okay.
Mandala. Mandala. Yeah.
Wonderful. What are you calling the book or the name is still? I haven't decided yet. My editor said that a name will just appear.
So I'm not sure yet. But it's basically my life story and how I got introduced into bhakti and how I went to India when I was, you know, 22. And what it was like for me, my struggles.
My journey home was different than Radhanath Swamy's. Radhanath Swamy's incredibly focused. And even though it may sound like I'm incredibly focused telling my story, I still had so many doubts and I still was fearful and I still had so much anxiety and I still wasn't sure and I had tonnes of questions and it's sort of me, it's a different type of journey home.
But I kept going on with it. And it's funny and sad and ridiculous and my journey was much different. You know, you hear about Radhanath Swamy's, he came to India, he fasted for 20 days, he ate only acorns and threw everything in the river and mine was I was so attached to everything and I was miserable and blaming God, why am I here? So it was slightly different.
But in the time, you know, it was very interesting. There was a gang and you know, you've heard of gangs, they're like gundas, you know, gangs, but they were a young gang. Young, like my age, I was like 16 and they were a gang and the leader of the gang was a very charismatic guy and this person, heart, was touched by the devotees.
So everybody in their gang was a strict vegetarian. Oh. And everybody, yeah.
Okay. So they were, yeah, they were a violent gang but they were, they were all strict vegetarians and then they, the gang started a band and the band became, were very good and very influential but you couldn't quite tell if you were dealing with angels or devils because they spoke the Bhagavad Gita but sometimes they did things that were really sort of evil and so I was torn because they spoke about Krishna and I knew that Vedic philosophy had some weight but the only people I knew who were into Krishna was a gang. So slowly Krishna started introducing me to more devotees.
I wanted to learn how to eat healthy because I was vegetarian. So I met a Ayurvedic practitioner who was one of Prabhupada's disciples and he started giving me instruction on diet and health. His name was Bhagavad.
He's a sannyasi right now. He's with Prabhupada on his deathbed. And then I met Yogeshwar Prabhu because Which years was this? This was like this was probably 86-87 And so you went to India and came back because after that What's that? You went to India and came back.
No, I haven't been to India yet. I was still, this is time I was just in the band. I was in my band.
I was on a spiritual quest. I liked devotees but I didn't really understand who they were. Then I, you know, one time I needed to I couldn't have a regular job because at a regular job sometimes they want you to work and your band has to go and travel somewhere.
So I had this job working for myself where I would paint people's houses in New York City or I'd clean their house like a house cleaner. And so me and my guitar player who later became a devotee Paramananda Prabhu we would just put up signs on the we'd put up little advertisements on the wall in New York City and people would pull off a phone number and write our phone number down and call us up to clean their house. So one day someone called me up to come a few blocks away from where I was living and normal looking guy nice hair sports jacket and he looked at me and he said are you a devotee? Because I had some Tulsi Kuntimala on my neck.
And I said and I didn't know what to say because I wasn't really a Hare Krishna but I liked the devotees but I like Buddhism I like Christianity but I would sometimes go to the Sunday feast and he said are you a devotee? And I just said yes! I just said yes because I felt like I'm a devotee of God. And so he said okay come on in. So we walked up the stairs and I saw this picture of Lord Krishna and I thought well that's weird and I walked up the stairs more and I saw a picture of Lord Chaitanya and I walked up the stairs more and I saw a picture of Prabhupada and I said where am I? And he said well my name is Yogeshwar and we print children's books on Krishna.
This is called Bala Books. And I said are you a Hare Krishna? And he said yeah. I said what's up with the Hare Krishnas? Are they all gang members? He said no.
He said no. He said Prabhupada was a pure devotee. I travelled with Prabhupada all through Europe.
I met him in Paris. I met George Harrison and I sang on a record with George Harrison and we gave that record to Prabhupada. And so Krishna started introducing me to other devotees and then some of my friends became devotees.
So after a while my journey gets a little more and more confusing but after a while I fell in love with Krishna and after a tour I did one more tour and I decided to go to India after that and that was 1988. Okay. So I have so many people to thank on the way including that first leader of a gang.
First member of a gang. Matter of fact I went and had dinner with him the other day. Oh.
So the word gang I haven't really talked to him in many years. The word gang is it always used in negative sense or is it just a group of people or a group of people engaged in illegal activities or disruptive activities? Generally it's got negative connotations. You can say a gang of people but generally it means negative.
Generally it means a little criminal. Notorious. Okay.
So that's amazing. So when you went to India you were still on a spiritual journey. You were introduced to the Hare Krishnas but you're not really you didn't count yourself as one of them.
Not really but at this point I had a little bit more faith. I was chanting the Maha Mantra one round a day and I was I was interested in Vedic culture. I wanted to live in an ashram but I still was not quite sure.
I didn't read all the books but I went and took a course called the Vrindavan Institute for Higher Education and it was quite wonderful and I had everybody from Dhanadhar Swami to Tamal Krishnamaraj to Bhorijan Prabhu to who else gave those classes? Giriraj Swami was also there I think in the earlier years. Was he there? Who's that? Giriraj Swami. Giriraj Swami yeah.
It was wonderful. We took all these courses with these great souls and for a new devotee it really helped me learn the philosophy. I fell in love with the Bhagavad Gita but I was still very untrusting truthfully.
I still didn't quite understand it all. I still you got to understand for someone like myself to move into an ashram is a huge step down of comfort level. You know sometimes in India which is sort of a developing country some people move into an ashram it's like it's like a step up even economically if they're very poor now they have meals now they have a place to live.
If you're from a wealthy family in India I'm sure it's a step down from America who's used to lots of comfort we're used to air conditioning we're used to you know hot water cold water. You know I first went to India there's no hot water and the winter was cold and the summer is hot and everybody's walking around barefoot and we've never squatted on a toilet before and we've never put on our dhoti before we never have to wear Indian underwear before the whole thing is completely new it's like rebirthing yourself so I found it sort of like extra shocking I had to become really tolerant you know and then plus there's diseases that you get that we don't get in America I wasn't used to that getting sick. So how long were you in India totally? Well I only went the first time for a little over three months and then I ended up going back and I wanted to so I felt like I had unfinished business with my music career and I went back to my mother's house still practising brahmachari life and my mother lived alone in a big house and I wanted to write one final goodbye to all my fans and I wrote I wrote a record called Shelter and it was about my change of heart into Krishna consciousness and it sort of became popular within the music scene and then I became a brahmachari and I moved into the ashram and I stayed in an ashram going back and forth to India for six and a half years and now I come to India twice a year at least oh okay so you could say the 80s were the times when the 80s were the decade when you started searching actively and through music and your journey in India you found your path more or less and in 1988 they started chanting 16 rounds oh okay then so when you said you settled in the ashram which ashram was this where was this when I got back from India it was Gita Nagri oh okay then how did you or since when did you start exploring the yoga universe or are there any other stages in your you know I actually you know I was doing yoga in New York that was part of my path as well I started practising yoga back in New York in the 80s all yoga studios were pretty spiritual oh okay yeah my teacher my yoga teacher was a Shaivite and but he loved the Bhagavad Gita and Krishna matter of fact he had one of Prabhupada's Gitas in his yoga studio and I asked him if he thought this was a good Gita and he said yes it's very very good and I asked him what he thought about the Hare Krishnas he thought oh yes they're very very good and so he's still alive this yoga teacher he's a very popular yoga teacher in New York and he's probably 80 80 something years old so was his opinion of positive opinion about the Hare Krishna is reflective of the opinion of general yoga teachers or was yoga not that big in the 80s yoga was not big at all so those who were there were spiritual seekers and they could see the earnestness of the Hare Krishna also was it like that the only even reason the only reason why I started doing yoga was not for health and not for wellness it was for God I wanted to know God and so Ayurveda brought me gave me more faith in Vedic culture and then from Ayurveda I got into yoga I also worked in a vegetarian restaurant called Ahimsa and so there were some yogis that would come into the restaurant and they would tell me ask questions and then I would go there and do yoga but really I wanted to just learn how to meditate and I wanted to learn how to understand God and truthfully no one explains it better than the devotees of Krishna that's just I mean we say it's all the same and there's God in all spiritual truths you know in spiritual traditions God is there you can become very evolved but no one explains it like the devotees can explain it I'm pretty broad minded I'm pretty like wide gated understanding of spirituality I'm very accepting I'm not narrow minded or exclusive but man we really have some great explanations out there it's unbelievable it's amazing this is one thing which you could say that the there's a difference between the 70s 80s and maybe that 2000 2010 2020 now that there is there is a lot of you could say judgmentality about non judgmentality that means if you are not non-judgemental by my terms if I see you judging someone then I'll judge you very severely so a lot so in that sense at that time in today's world I think the spiritual substance of devotees sometimes gets becomes a little too inaccessible because of the cultural trappings or the positions on social justice issues or something like that but maybe at that time the spiritual substance was a little more evident for people who were seeking was it like that well truthfully I think now is the best time to spread bhakti yoga it's more more people are interested there's like a harry kushen explosion going on in America right now it's bigger than it's ever been since the time Prabhupada was here really you know Radhanath Maharaj mentioned for sure who said that Radhanath Maharaj said America is riper now than what it was even in the counterculture time it really is it really is because people aren't as the gross sinful habits are not there as much and people are open you know back in the 60s and 70s and even 80s because there was no media therefore if you see some guy in a robe it's almost intimidating but now we have YouTube videos and you can you know you can go to Vrindavan on a YouTube video you couldn't do that Vrindavan was tucked away there was no phone there was one phone in Vrindavan when I went there there was hardly electricity in Vrindavan when I went there so this is what we have now is with the internet is you can look up bad things or you can look up transcendental things and so I think the people are really ripe they're really open minded the information age gives you the back story about everything before you purchase so to speak and yeah I think it's much better than ever in the 80s in the 60s and 70s people who were like um monastics monks they seemed like weirdos to Americans it was too weird unless you had unless you knew what a monastic was when I was 22 I saw Sanyasi I was like who the hell is that? who's that guy carrying a giant stick around what the hell is that for? to me it was just too weird it's not weird anymore it's normal not only that is we have these second generation devotees third generation devotees from Prabhupada's time that grew up in the culture you gotta understand the first Americans that got into Bhakti they were just totally focused on Guru Seva they didn't know anything about Indian culture all they knew was what Prabhupada said they didn't know how to play the mridanga they didn't know how to play the harmonium sometimes or how to play the cartels if you listen to these old kirtan records they barely knew anything they didn't have the culture of the culture nowadays these kids that grow up devotees they've been doing kirtan since they were children from their janma it's not their karma it's their janma they're from birth they're becoming expert at kirtans expert at dancing expert at bhagavatam and shlokas and Sanskrit it's unbelievable so now we have so much more to offer the world because we've sort of excavated a culture that would've been forgotten in a lot of ways in the same way there's languages that are almost dead there's Native American languages there's Gaelic language they're not used in popular culture and after a few hundred years no one will speak them any longer they just become dead almost like Greek Greek religions right but but I will say Srila Prabhupada and some other gurus they went there and they excavated that which could've been lost easily it's quite impressive and it's quite impressive how the devotees took it and just ran with it and it's so interesting to see how this flower will blossom it's amazing you know I feel so much positive energy I've talked I've had podcasts with many other devotees and of course everybody is concerned about sharing Krishna consciousness at the same time there are some concerns about what we are doing and which direction we should be going right it's such so refreshing and energising to see your positivity and of course as I said you have also been able to be successful it's not just it's not we could say Pollyannish optimism it's actually of you've done that so how did you so this this openness to spirituality or openness to exploring anything and having the resources to explore yeah that's true maybe the internet a lot depends on one's choice you mentioned one thing that the gross sinful activities are not there so much now what did you mean by that exactly or it's like people see consequences of those or what do you mean by that well when I was young to be a vegetarian was peculiar to not eat meat that was very peculiar now veganism and vegetarian are in the conversation people speak about it it's a thing even if you go to Burger King you can find a vegan burger this was unheard of in America the dairy industry is crumbling because of the use of oat milk almond milk cashew milk all different types of nut milks because everyone knows the danger of this homogenised pasteurised milk where you feed the cow you're not even feeding the cow's grass any longer so there's been a little bit of an awakening with diet and lifestyle that's much different than when I was a teenager people didn't even speak about diet it was a very narrow idea of people who thought yes organic vegetables we shouldn't spray chemicals and herbicides and fungicides on our vegetable leaves that was a breakthrough and there was only a handful of us that did it or the idea that problems with refined oils etc anyway all this stuff was tiny in the 80s and now it's a very common thing you can find smoothies or fresh squeezed juices or organic salads organic food everywhere it's huge so these things are not weird if you say I'm going out to dinner with a friend but I'm a vegetarian they'll be like oh great we have a whole vegetarian menu cooked on a separate grill and so that is just part of American culture amazing yes a lot of Americans are getting over meat because they realise they get to this point unless they're really in their ego like well I'm an American I deserve to eat meat but everybody comes to terms with what am I doing to my body is it actually good for me and that you know I postulate is the thing that we can really stand behind and wave the banner for better quality of life better health and better consciousness and the devotees have been doing it since the beginning but now sometimes fashion catches up to reality sometimes it's not cool to be a devotee but it's cool to be a devotee right now bhakti is the new black everybody wants to do bhakti bhakti is cool kirtan is cool cruelty-free plant-based diet is cool simple living is cool tiny homes reduce the size of your consumption that's cool organic gardening is cool living out of the city is cool living in the countryside is cool raising animals is cool it's it's times are changed since the 70s and 80s it's a whole new world and now in Indians I'm going to give a message to Indians right now if you think you're going to America looking for that old school America America's rapidly changing and becoming what India was maybe 100 years ago there's an Ayurvedic medicine when I first went to that Ayurvedic doctor I met there was one book in America on Ayurveda by Dr. Vasant Lad there was one book in America now Ayurveda is huge you can find Chavanprash and you know Tridosha and formulas and so many different ashwagandha so many different these Ayurvedic herbs everywhere everywhere why? because times are changing and it's a beautiful time to practise bhakti it's cool they have this saying in America make make America great again that's the MAGA hat for all the followers of Trump make America great we say make Krishna Consciousness cool again it's cool it's the coolest thing out there and now I think people are actually realising like these guys aren't weird they actually have a very viable alternative a very powerful way to live matter of fact we dropped the ball years ago with our farm projects now we're like running behind trying to catch up with these people who are not who are atheists but starting communities conscious communities conscious you know shared gardens or farm projects or natural building building houses out of earth and cob and you know straw bale and super adobes this is all coming in vogue right now permaculture water harvesting all the stuff that you know everybody from Bandhanashiva has been talking about and trying to like breaking her back trying to explain it to everybody in India this stuff is all in fashion now amazing yeah it is broadly what I noticed is you're putting more specifics I thought of these four things veganism yoga environmentalism and mindfulness all these are becoming they're quite strong indicators of the rise of sattva in the west and with yoga is massive yoga is massive compared to 35 years ago you can find yoga studios in every tiny town and in a lot of those studios they do chanting as well yes so how did you how did you choose to focus on yoga as your means for outreach and also you said you were in the ashram for a few years and what changed after that why did I leave the ashram not exactly how did I change well I was always a musician I was always made a living playing music and when I moved into the ashram I started another band and we were all brahmacharis and that band was called shelter and it was krishna conscious punk rock it was the same type of thing I did but it became really popular and we started travelling all over the whole world and we put out you know many cds we had a hit record in brazil we were on mtv and um in that time I went through some dark night of the soul some struggle in my spiritual life so instead of diving deeper into it I backed away from the association of devotees I felt like you know what I'm just going to practise physical yoga and I'm going to practise martial arts and I got really serious about martial arts and physical yoga and the more I got into physical yoga and studying the teachers of the asanas the more I was trying to understand what they were teaching and to see if it was different than what Prabhupada taught and what I realised was they just explained things worse than Prabhupada did Prabhupada was very articulate and sometimes they were downright racist like they didn't believe that americans could even practise yoga because we were not born in a vegetarian culture they were smart caste conscious brahmanas or swamis or gurus they think well if you're good in your next life you'll be born into a hindu family Prabhupada crushed all that he dismantled all of that stuff and the more I practised physical yoga first of all it was really good for my body and I really started to appreciate it more and more and I started working on it hand in hand with my martial arts and my martial arts did a lot of boxing kickboxing and mainly wrestling brazilian jujitsu and that's how I got in the joe rogan podcast because me and joe used to fight together oh okay so were you into martial arts in your earlier youth also no I got into it I got into it when I was moved out of the ashram but yoga I was into since I was a teenager oh okay but then I started getting really interested in very strong yoga I started studying with the students of patabhi joyce they call it a stanga yoga by patabhi joyce it's a very rajasic yoga yeah so this was roughly 1995 or something or which year was this all this yeah it was exactly okay amazing and then and so then then I then as I was stopping doing music I was thinking what else can I do with my life all I like to do is martial arts and yoga and I'm not really qualified to do anything else I don't really have any qualification and then one day in my and I did yoga every day six days a week for two hours a day and then one day one of the yoga teachers said hey I'm leaving town can you substitute teach all my classes I said well I'm not really a yoga teacher she goes oh you know all this stuff you know you've lived in an ashram you know so much more than me just you know just sub my classes for me and I said okay I can figure it out I said but if I go if I teach a yoga class I'm going to play the harmonium because I chant before I well I'll teach and she said well I don't know if that's going to work really good in Los Angeles because I was in Los Angeles and I said well that's what I'm going to do I'm going to teach yoga and she said well I only chant that's the only way I'll do it and she said okay you can do it so I taught at these very big popular places in Los Angeles and every place I subbed for her I got hired I got hired and literally overnight or within two days I had a full time yoga schedule teaching yoga um and so that's sort of how I started teaching yoga and then I started working about because I'm a natural you know preacher I'll call it a preacher because I like to explain the Bhagavad Gita and I really try to think deeply about the Bhagavad Gita and so for me it's really easy easy to put the Bhagavad Gita and asana class together and oftentimes people want to hear some type words of wisdom in America they call it a dharma talk where you talk about right rightful living people like chanting they like call and response chanting and so I've just arranged a class that because I was very strong in my physical practise I would draw them in with strong physical asanas I can do handstands I can take handstand to a bhakasana I can do handstand and come all the way to sitting I can go from sitting back to handstand you know so my physical practise was really strong and that's attractive to people who want some power but what they get was bhakti because I'm into bhakti so the more I got into teaching yoga it started putting me back on my on my spiritual path which I sort of stepped a little bit away from now in retrospect you can see that everything Krishna everything you go through in your life it's Krishna's way of moving things for your benefit he uses your karma he uses your choices he uses your free will he uses your intensity in devotion he uses your fall down in devotion for your benefit and it's quite like for example if I didn't go through that whole period I would have never met Joe Rogan me being on the Joe Rogan podcast has so many people listening to the Srimad Bhagavatam every day every day they say yeah I just heard you on Joe Rogan I really like the way you explained it I'm sort of into spirituality now I listen to the Bhagavatam with your podcast wisdom of the sages that's our podcast wisdom of the sages they listen to it every day and so I realise that even me pulling away from Krishna Krishna would use that for your benefit and for the benefit of other people and that is the beauty of bhakti it's above our karma it's above our good karma our bad karma our malefic planets our our goods our strong house you know in astrology it's above astrology there is no bad day there is no bad karma there is no malefic planet there is no gem that's going to fix your malefic planet there only is Krishna who's given you exactly what you need and it's going to be different than your plan because you might have some other agenda that is not Krishna's agenda Krishna has an agenda exactly for you and it may not be exactly what you're planning but it's perfect because Krishna's perfect and your life is perfect and if you don't accept Krishna's plan you're just in the throes of your karma I'm having a good day I'm having a bad day I'm going to a problem period in my life or a problem a I mean a planet isn't a bad house or a there's no yoga in this chart or something like that you're you're at the hands of your ups and downs our bhakti is transcendental to the ups and downs of our karma Krishna is Yogeshwar he's above these laws of karma hope that wasn't too long-winded no it's beautiful no actually we always talk about how we can bring a negative to positive and how we can talk about what do you say transforming our pains or learning from our pains but this point of how sometimes are going away from Krishna can not only draws back to Krishna but can also give us some experiences that can further draw I can help us draw others to Krishna that's remarkable in one remarkable in one sense if you consider in our tradition also I've been studying a little bit of our tradition and contemporary traditions history also that it seems many of the most significant developments happened at the fridge not in the centre now Bhaktivinoda Thakur was not in the central power structure of the Gaudiya Vaishnavism and even in this is the ISKCON Chowpatty temple which has there the consular system and so many other things that was not exactly the means that was not in the mainstream of ISKCON at that time now the Bhaktivedanta Maharaj's projects so in one sense you are exploring yoga and martial arts so I was thinking how Prabhupada when he came to India India had many temples but Prabhupada's temple even Indians by having at that time a full marble temple in Juhu so in one sense what Prabhupada did culturally with temples you did physically through your yoga that people were interested in power you could excel in their definition of success sure that is amazing so were you always physically very strong and resilient now I was never really athletic yoga yoga saved me yoga gave me strength it gave me flexibility it taught me how to breathe it taught I corrected my diet yeah it was never never amazing and overall so when you said that you said you decided to do singing before the yoga so was that also common or that was also not very common at that time mixing Kirtan in the 80s in the 90s in America it was it's a mix it was mixed truthfully some people hate it and they try to make yoga secular okay and some people think it's cool and my feeling was I'm just going to do whatever I want to do because I think it's cool and sometimes when you just do what you believe is cool they'll be people will be like yeah that is cool I want to be like you that's how we started our band youth of today we didn't care people didn't like us we just wanted to do what we did and we were good at what we did and people listened to us so I could do the physical poses I could do them I could come so it wasn't a competition but in that sense I could do whatever they could do I can do even stronger things than they can do but I'm also into bhakti and guess what if you sign up for yoga class this is yoga you signed up for it it's not like I'm a on the street I say hey you want to buy a bhagavad gita guys like I didn't sign up for this I didn't I'm not asking to buy a bhagavad gita you're approaching me but you came to a yoga class this is the culture of yoga and I'm here to give you the culture of yoga if you don't like it don't come to a yoga class or come to a class where the guy doesn't know anything about yoga you know just teach you how to do gymnastics I'm not a gymnastic teacher I'm not a coach I'm not a personal trainer I teach yoga it's my job to disseminate yoga truth so you know this is one thing which struck me that you can be upfront earlier use you use the word what like wide-gated in your spiritual approach so in one sense you can be broad-minded at the same time you can be quite upfront about who you are so we don't have to conceal who we are it's just that we don't have to conceal what others have something so it's like imagine if you have this beautiful painting and when people come over you put a blanket over it why keep Krishna in the closet like he's like he's like he's deformed Krishna's not deformed he's very beautiful he's charming why not put him at the main seat why not treat him like the guest of honour that he is Krishna and Bhakti is incredibly cool he's the coolest thing ever our culture is so cool it's not like we're boring or closed-minded or racist or rude or cruel we got something very cool going on we've got great stories we've got great food we love cooking we love you know we love a physical practise we love the idea of pranayama we love the idea of ayurvedic medicine we like Indian dancing we love the mrdanga the drums the music we love singing we love getting our ego out of the way we love community we love farming we love simple living we love festivals come on what more do they want this is the best place to be you know the proof the way you are presenting it it seems so simple so maybe I'll just be like a wet towel a little bit and where do you think we went wrong or at one time in America we were quite big in the Western world at large but then what do you and your understanding what went wrong why did we lose out so much and now you're saying that we already have it and in one sense you are not doing anything radically new you're only presenting because I have attended as well as participated in your classes in wisdom of the sages you're quite as I said upfront you're not you're candid you know you can be candid about your own practises but you don't condemn anyone else for where they're coming from so but where did we where did we go wrong then in your understanding well I feel like as a movement of bhakti there were some things that became became popular now Radha Swami has taught me differently so if I have anything that was good I got it from Radha Swami we shouldn't lead with ego because it's it becomes very obvious to people when we lead with ego it's not the way devotees lead we lead with a type of humility a deep woven humility that we are marginal that we could fall at any minute even great souls like Brahma falls down gets covered falls into illusion so with that humility embracing that humility that weaves really well in with bhakti yoga if I'm thinking like you should give up this and you should give up that we're like this and our movement is so powerful and you know it's almost like posturing and then when the person has some internal struggle who's the leader they have to hide them because they're leaders and they've been blowing themselves up as this very powerful leader but they realise they have some internal struggle and then they have to hide it and then they hide it for another year and another year and now all of a sudden things come out like this person was never serious they were never practising and it almost ruins everything because the person did have sincerity but sometimes when it's woven in with our ego and it's a very difficult thing to become popular but do it without an ego.
Radhanaswamy is expert at this. He has so much power in his little finger but that power doesn't control him. He controls that power.
He doesn't lead with the ego. He leads just by example and we all want to be like him. We all want to be like him and he never asked us hey I want you to surrender to Krishna now.
He just leads by example and we all want to please him. It's very very powerful and I think when devotees get in an arrogant way it works against them and this other idea of the means the ends justifies the means. I think devotees got a little crooked and pushy.
They said well Prabhupada wants books out so we're going to get people to buy books no matter what even if they have to cheat them or they do it in a wrong way or be very pushy and people especially Americans are like I don't like pushy people. I personally I don't like pushy people. I don't like people approaching me on the street that are pushy.
So unless they had either a refined way to distribute books or you get into bhakti a different way I don't personally a lot of Americans don't like to be bothered on the street like that and and why why even go there when we have an entire beautiful culture that can be used to spreading the holy name. I like what we're doing with wisdom of the sages is because we don't tell anybody to buy any books. They just listen to something that's relevant in their life.
If you can make the Bhagavatam relevant in their life and there's a million ways it's relevant then eventually everybody wants to buy full sets of the Bhagavatam. You don't have to say hey you want to buy a book you like yoga you want to buy a book they'll buy it. I don't want people to buy Prabhupada's books.
I want them to buy it and read it or even just read it. I want to read it online. Who cares if they bought a book and they throw it in the garbage or they bought a book and it goes on their shelf and your temple wins all the scores and it becomes this weird competition for points.
How about a person purchased a book and they're really interested in reading that book. That's a win for me. That's a home run, you know that a person wants the book and they're really eager to read the book because I set such a good example for them to want to read it.
It's amazing. So true in one sense. I appreciate all the three points that you made that first is that coming off as arrogant as holier than thou, in one sense, I mean whatever interactions I have with Maharaj, he told me that the thing that puts people off the most is sectarianism in the West.
If you think that you belong to a group which is superior to other groups, which puts on other groups then that just doesn't work and somehow even if we are not, some of the things which we do can easily come off as arrogant to people. The very way we conduct ourselves or sometimes it is so true and the second point which you mentioned also about this, I've been noting down some of the points you mentioned that when you focus on and justify the means, how much damage it can cause, especially I think overall what you are saying is we need to move from more, we are talking about shuddha sattva, but we are functioning in rajas to some extent, the attitude of dominating, totally rajas. We want the short-term benefit for long-term disaster and we ruined our reputation.
Matter of fact, a lot of the times you have to like recreate or rebrand a reputation because there's so much damage to it in the past. So it's ironic. They'll say, oh, I know the Hare Krishnas, you guys are like this.
You're not even starting on a fair playing ground. You have to start almost, you're starting in negative numbers almost to try to dig your way out of a hole. So that being said, it's a new age, it's a new time, the devotees are newly organised and things are much better now.
Yeah, definitely. But we have to think about these new ways to spread the culture. And I think there's tonnes of new ways.
Sometimes we get lost in the way, Prabhupada did it like this, so it's got to be done like this. And I think that's short-sighted and I think Prabhupada also exhibited a lot of flexibilities. Sometimes we do things like we have a Sunday love feast.
Why are we calling it a Sunday love feast? I mean, for most part, that was like a term in the 60s that made sense. Now it sounds like a peculiar orgy, you know, that makes no sense. But Prabhupada called it that.
So we think like this is like this sacred cow, we have to keep going and perpetuate the Sunday love feast. But fortunately, there's so many devotees who get this and are very progressive in the way they do it, in the way they spread the Holy Name. And they do it from a genuine way.
They really genuinely care about people. And that's why I think things are changing rapidly. And I truly believe and Radhanath Swami predicted it and it's happening.
There is a Hare Krishna explosion in New York right now and spreading all over America and Western Europe. And I'm just happy to be a little minion, a part of his vision. I don't know what a minion, you're probably the lead commander in his vision, if not more than that.
Kind of like a little tiny gear. So I would love to continue discussion. I also want to respect your time.
How much time do we have? Or maybe we can continue the future podcast. What do you prefer? Let's do five more minutes and then we can do again another time. Sure.
So you're based in America, but I see whenever in podcast, you have a lot of people from Europe also. So how did that happen? Do you travel extensively in Europe? I travel, we have three. I find we have about three demographics.
One is I'm a yoga teacher and I travel internationally when I teach. So whenever I teach, I mentioned the podcast and then people who are sort of dedicated students, they listen online or they listen via podcasts. The second is when we were musicians, we have fans that are still that got into Bhakti from our music and they're still out there.
Some took initiation, some took initiation, other institutions, but they're all Krishna bhaktas and they're out there and they're sort of floating around. And so part of the podcast mission was to corral all these people together and assist them on their path. And then another mission was for just plain devotees who want a sangha when they're driving to work and they can find some value there, but maybe they can't get to a temple or there's no temple near them.
And then this other demographic arose and that was people that just heard me on Joe Rogan or people that have heard me on another popular podcast called The Rich Roll Podcast that was on, which was a pretty popular podcast in America also. So what I find is this is the main demographic of our travelling. My band travelled internationally.
So we have people all over and my teaching and also these two podcasts. So anybody else who just listens. So the wisdom of the sages podcast before that also where you regularly teaching the Bhagavatam is you said that you're you call yourself a preacher earlier.
So even in your yoga classes, you would be did you have some systematic structure of teaching the bhakti also? Yeah, I did. Well, I always taught it whenever I would teach a bigger class than I always teach it even in my regular yoga classes. You're going to hear some Vedic truth and wisdom and chanting but then when I do bigger like tomorrow night, I'm doing a two and a half hour class and so an hour of it will be all chanting and philosophy and then an hour and a half of asana.
And that's a class that someone spends $45 to do, you know what I mean? They're, you know, and so then I'll do a training sometimes and I'll teach the teach Bhagavad Gita, Krishna Leela, Mahabharata and then I will do a forgetting your question. But yeah, yeah, always been teaching bhakti yoga bhakti and philosophy always been teaching throughout. So in my sense, the wisdom of the sages podcast systematised and spread your out spread the what you are already doing before it was a podcast.
I was doing it online just for those demographics the students and the old music people and also by the way, the main person the main demographic. I'm really working on is myself. It gives me accountability to hear the Bhagavatam every day and that's powerful.
This is the humility you're referring to earlier. This is what appeals. It's not humility.
I have a tendency. I'm very lazy. I have a tendency to be distracted.
I have a tendency to keep a set of books on my bookshelf but never read the books. So this forced me to read every day. So for about two years before we started the podcast, we were having some regular reading with me and some students.
But now I take it a little more seriously because there's accountability and that's the beauty of a community is that accountability. So in one sense you could say that what you have built in the western world might be might be the bhakti traditions first virtual community. We talk about virtual outreach.
I don't know whether anybody has actually built a community where the way I saw you actually individually connect with people greet everyone who is there by name speak a few words about them. So I think those small things make people feel valued get a sense of belonging. And so it's actually a community.
It's not just a discourse. It's a community or building. Well, we just had a picnic in Central Park a wisdom of the sages picnic.
Then we did a wisdom of the sages weekend in New York City and then one in Los Angeles and we're about to do a wisdom of the sages week-long retreat in Italy. And I tell you some of these people I see them in person. I was like have we ever met in person because I see you every day for like a year, but I can't remember if we've ever met or not.
So yeah, it really is a real peculiar virtual community that I'm not even sure to have I met them many times have I met them once am I related to them. I see them every day sometimes twice a day because I do evening classes sometimes as well. Oh, that's amazing.
So in one sense what you said earlier about technology can be used for good or bad. I think you're fully using the internet to its potential to not just give people Krishna, but actually give them pathways to keep moving toward Krishna because in one sense there are a lot of classes and lot of lectures available, but I don't know whether structured pathway in a community setting is available. This is remarkable and thanks Prabhu.
You're kind. I hope I'm not here boasting. Forgive me if I'm boasting.
Oh, not at all. I tend to be a little bit arrogant. So forgive me.
Oh, you what you have achieved is extraordinary and I mean it's it's it's inspiring for all of us because I have also been trying to do some little Western outreach in my own way, but it's inspiring to see those who are beacons of success. So Prabhu all of our people love you. They all talk about the spiritual scientist.
You're like a guru to them. I'm just like a fly. Probably because you have shaped them so that they appreciate whatever little good is there in me.
I'm grateful that for that opportunity to be of some sense of some assistance. I'm like I'm like the first step of a ladder. You can step on my head and I lift them up towards you.
You're on the top of the ladder, you know, but you first time that we got to step on somebody first. I'm good at getting stepped on and they can when they step on me and they get higher and they grab onto your feet and then they're saved. I will take that metaphor.
Yes, your service attitude. I have seen is they step on you. But when you get up Krishna is expanding your size size all the way that as you rise, you will take them toward Krishna and we can just give them a pat along the way.
You're making me sound like Hanuman and the only thing I have in common with Hanuman is I'm very hairy. Otherwise, there's not much comparison. Hanuman was physically powerful.
You are physically powerful. Hanuman did extraordinary service for Lord Ram. You're also doing that.
Hanuman is also a yogi in some sense, isn't it? So you are also a yogi. So it's a beautiful metaphor. Prabhu, generally at the end of a podcast, I try to quickly summarise in two three minutes what we discussed.
Can I do that and then we will end? Please, please. So today we discussed this topic from physical yoga to devotional yoga and then you started your journey of how being born in a Christian family, you already had some inclination for something higher. So it was mainly through music.
It was, it was in a sense rebellious music that was sattvic. So generally rebellion means rajas and tamas, but in the atmosphere rajas and tamas, sattva was rebellious and so you talked about meaningful themes there and then from there you came to know about the Hare Krishna's, then you came to, to some extent it is amazing that you had a musical band which already followed the four regulative principles and is created, what is the word you used, created a stream within the stream or created a, what is the word? Scene, scene within the scene. Straight, straight people, a straight edge.
Yeah, scene within the scene. Yeah, and then you met the devotees there itself, but then you came to India on your journey and the radical difference between Indian culture, personalised Indian culture, what is it, assembly line of western culture, it's very personalised Indian culture and then, so then there you came back to from India to America, joined the Ashram and were there for some time, then the, I think two, three themes stood out to me was the first thing was just how you already had a very spiritually evolved, spiritually inclined and evolved background. Second was how even through our going away from Krishna, not only will Krishna draw us back, but Krishna will teach us things by which we can draw others towards him also.
So your expertise in your yoga, martial arts, all that, you started using that and you did kirtans and that was beautiful and you became, immediately you said in two days you sold out. That was remarkable and then we had this discussion about how America is riper now for Krishna, for bhakti, bhakti is cool, vegetarian food is cool and so many things, community is cool, sattva guna in general is cool in many different ways. So bhakti is very ripe and there is a Hare Krishna explosion in the New York area, spreading elsewhere also.
So where we could say where we went wrong or what we can learn from the past is that we were very potentially big at one time in the western world also, but three things like leading with ego instead of humility, like appearing to be superior to others and then trying to use the means, justify, then justify the means, that kind of attitude and within that going along with predefined definitions of success like say seeking book reception points rather than getting people to read books. So because of that now sometimes we have to start with a negative score where we have to overcome the negative conceptions that people have about us and move forward. But this combination also where you are, you said you are very broad gated approach at the same time upfront about what you are doing.
So that is also, you don't hide that you are a bhakta. If you are going to learn yoga from me, you are going to get bhakti with it. And still, so if you, the point you made is that if you are authentic, if we, if we have a passion for something, we care for something, then people also start caring for it.
We will find Krishna will send us to people who will care for that. And overall there is, there is such an energy of optimism and positivity along with humility that is there in just hearing from you and the wisdom of the sages podcast is amazing that you got. I used to think that you are getting to yoga audiences, but yoga audiences, then musical audiences and the podcast audiences, it's quite a diverse group and you have digital community, virtual community builder in our moment.
And then you can actually have physical community also whenever you have some programmes. So it's, you'll be one of the shining success stories of our moment in the 21st century. And you're very kind to have your association today and to hear your story and look forward to your book in future.
Thank you, my friend. Thank you very much. Wisdom of the sages is the name of the podcast.
Listen to it wherever you get podcasts and you have a beautiful, beautiful quality Prabhu in seeing the good in people and I really appreciate that about you. Thank you. Thank you very much for your kind words.
Jai Shri Krishna.