From Mosh Pit to Monk: Raghunath Cappo | Rich Roll Podcast

Hey everybody, Rich Roll here. Welcome to the podcast, my podcast. It's time to buckle up for quite the ride because spiritual warrior Raghunath Cappo is not only in the house. This guy fricking burns it down. Much like my brothers, John Joseph and Toby Morse, Raghunath is a straight edge punk rock icon. But this guy's story really begins when he walks away from his successful musical career and heads to India where he proceeds to become a monk for six years. He ultimately returns to the states. And today he continues to pursue the path of higher consciousness as a Bhakti Yoga devotee, a spiritual teacher, and just an overall beautiful servant to humankind. His story is packed with crazy pearls of timeless wisdom. It's incredible and it's coming right up, but first, most people that I know aspire to eat better but without the proper support, very few are able to stick with it. So we decided to solve this common problem. 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I'm honored to be here truthfully. And the more I find out about your life, the more honored... I've been binge listening to Rich Roll probably for like eight months actually. Oh really? Wow! It was a big help during the pandemic which I would get to ride my bike. We live in Upstate New York so there's a lot of beautiful places to ride a bicycle. So I just listen to Rich Roll. Oh man, I'm honored. You've got great guests, too. It was really inspirational. And for the last two weeks I've been thinking, "Oh, please may I say something substantial and not stupid?" I've had a lotta stupid-- Oh C'mon! I've got a lot of stupid stuff stored up here. You are the wise one not to put pressure on you. But you're doing work. Oh thanks, man. Can I share one other inspiration? Sure. I've always been into the whole idea of transformation, you know, through diet, through lifestyle, through spirituality and stuff. But you get stuck at certain points of your life, in different facets of your life. So I remember when I lived in California, I was 100% raw foodist. Do cleansing on a regular basis. And I was a yoga teacher here. That's where I met my wife. We got married in Laguna Beach at the Krishna Temple down there. And, you know, moving back East, lot colder. It's about 20 degrees right now, black ice everywhere. Got to insulate yourself a little bit. Yeah. And then I wouldn't call... Before I was married, I did nothing but jujitsu and yoga every day, you know, and I was in a band, I'd make some money, store that money and just do jujitsu all day and eat fruits and vegetables. Living in California you can just pick fruits and vegetables. You could do it. Pick avocados literally growing off of people's trees, your neighbor had a fig tree, or an avocado tree. And you just live like that. And then slowly as you, I married a wonderful lady with two kids and I got to play dad immediately. I had to get used to that and I had to start working, I stopped touring, and I had to get used to that. Worked here as a yoga teacher. And I took on a whole new role of sort of growing up quick. And then we moved to the East Coast and I wasn't used to that weather anymore. And I started to change my diet, and change my lifestyle and started to neglect myself. And because I was a yoga teacher and I was always very open and strong in a yoga practice, I sorta could get away with it 'cause I was pretty flexible. But I remember about this year, I went to a doctor and he said, "You know, Raghu, you're about 30 pounds overweight." And this was from a doctor who was very overweight. Oftentimes the doctors are the most out of shape. (laughing) And I was like, "Oh, come on." In my mind I was like, "Come on, you're overweight, dude. "You don't know what I'm talking about." And then I was like, "I am overweight, actually. "I am overweight, and I have been like definitely deviated." You know, you can deviate in small increments. Over a few years it totals up. And I started, and my wife saying, "Okay, we're all getting season passes "for snowboarding this year. "And that's how we're gonna deal with the winter." And I was like, "I don't wanna snowboard this year." I'm at the stage in my life where I feel like I might like have a heart attack shoveling snow. That's how people die. And so you had Dr. Alan Goldhamer on the show. Right. And I love him. He's pretty cool, right. He's very cool. People love that one. I was into his whole thing of like water fasting. I was into that for, you know, years ago. And I was just said, "You know what? "I've been making too excuses for too long." And I've been saying, "Well, I've been going internal. "I've been going, you know, "well, I can still do all these yoga poses. "I'm still very open. I'm still..." And I just realized, "You know what? "You gotta live this stuff too." And so it made me start on December this year, 2020 rather. And plus all the stress of the pandemic and stuff like that. I said, "You know what, it's not a good time "to do a water fast and I'm gonna do a water fast." And I just did a beautiful 21-day water, broth, mainly water but some broth and juice. And I just decided on that day, "I'm gonna reconnect with all the stuff "that I've just neglected that I know about." And it was an incredibly beautiful transformation. So I wanted to give this appreciation because what you're doing on this show has a ripple effect 'cause it's sound vibrations of transformation and that's the whole Bhakti thing-- Right, that's yeah. That's mantra and kirtan. It's a different version of that, I suppose. You know what, it's sound vibration that lifts people up and higher. And I just want you to know, I appreciate it. Oh man, that means a lot. That's very cool to hear. I appreciate that. And that's great. You did a water fast. So how did you feel at the end of that? Well, I'll tell you, I felt that the... You know, the first three days are always sorta like, "Okay, deal with it." It's the worst. It's the worst. And truthfully, by day four, I usually feel pretty good. I didn't this time. I didn't feel good. And on day nine, and it was very cold. It was getting colder and colder. And I was like, "You know what? "I'm gonna do a colonic and I'm gonna feel great." And I went in for my colonic and I felt worse, and I almost felt like I was catching a cold. And I was like, "This is no good, I gotta break this." And by day 11, I was flying so high. I felt so good. But another thing was, I've always hated running. I did jujitsu and I did yoga, but running I hated. Matter of fact, when I was 30 pounds overweight I said, "You know what, I'm gonna run." And I would run to the railroad tracks of (indistinct) road. I ran to the railroad tracks. And the first time I did it, I hurt my knee. And I was like, this sucks, running sucks. (Rich laughing) But that day when I started doing that cleanser I was like, "You know what, I'm gonna run 10 minutes, "10 minutes in the morning and the night." And now I'm just running every day. Oh, wow! And we did this great hike today. And my wife was going to a tour to Montblanc this summer. I said, "I'm gonna go too. "I'm gonna go backpacking with you." And we just started... And you know, it's one thing leads to another and that's the power of like making one good choice. Yeah. Well, a couple of observations on that. First of all, the fact that you did a colonic in the middle of a 21-day water, it's like- (laughing) that's so endemic to your personality of like gravitating towards these extremes, like punk rock's not extreme enough so I'm gonna do straight edge, and then I'm gonna do the whole Krishna. Like the road keeps getting narrower and narrower, right? I'm a fine connoisseur of cults. The second thing being, despite all the work that you've done and your laudable extreme devotion to cultivating higher consciousness, we all have our blind spots. And you're like, you know, you're recounting like these excuses that you're making for yourself. Well, I do this so this is okay. Realizing that no matter where we are on the path, we still are experts at pulling down the blinders on the stuff that we need to look at most. I feel that most of us aren't on jets. We're sort of tacking like a sailboat. Go a little up, a little down, a little, up a little down. And I'm okay with that in my life, and I can see that's happened. The tacking has been sometimes a little bit more extreme, but I feel like if there's a reasonable... If you set your compass, even if you tack too far north or too far south, if you got that compass set you'll end up in a good place. And the compass is helpful to have people of integrity in your life. And I've always sort of kept people like that close. Even when I've gone, feel like I've gotten really off, I've felt like that people have sort of encouraged me back. And so I've had great people in my life, friends, peers some you probably know. Radhanath Swami, who've you've had as a guest whom I love and I spend time with them every year, What a beautiful, Great souls, great people. I'm so lucky to have great people in our life. And what do you do? And what you're creating with this podcast is like you just have great inspiring people on a regular basis visiting you. And it's been such a gift to be able to share space and spend time with people that I respect and look up to. And then these people become my friends and part of my life. And you know, our worlds sort of have intersected in that regard like John Joseph. You probably go way back with that dude, right? Those guys in the Cro-Mags have been a big inspiration to me and to a lot of people, for sure. I mean, John's one of my best friends. I texted him the other day and told him you were coming in. And he said to say hello. Yeah, they're inspirational guys, inspirational guys. And transformed their lives. Transformed people's lives. Transformed my life directly. You know, in debt. People you're always in debt to. Toby Morse? Toby Morse. I'm thinking I'm joining him for dinner tonight. Oh, you are. Oh, cool. I texted him and told him you were coming in as well, too. So he said to say, "What's up." Yeah, he texted me yesterday. Very cool. Well, let's talk about the origin story a little bit. I'm like obsessed and fascinated with New York City in the 1980s. I thought you meant the origin of the universe. I was like, "Yeah, everyone's got a good creation story. How many hours you got, right. I didn't take your 90-day course. Well Lord, get into Rama. You're on a Lotus flower from Lord Vishnu's navel. And many other things, right? That period, I moved to New York in 1989 and lived there on and off for several years. So I was at the tail end of that. You were in New York in '89. Okay, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I grew up in Washington DC. But I grew up kind of in an inside the beltway. My dad's a lawyer. I went to an all boys prep school. And even though-- What school? The Landon School for Boys. Like coat and tie, like the whole thing. So, you know, the 9:30 Club is all happening down the street. And that was another universe. Like, it's interesting to me like this, either the percolation up through culture of punk rock and the hardcore scene was going on, but it didn't intersect with my life at all. And now later in my life, people like John and Toby, some of the hardcore people are like my favorite people. They're just like amazing human beings that have been, you know, sort of sculpted from that movement. And yet that was not part of my growing up experience at all. And I still have to be completely honest. Like I have trouble connecting with the music. It's the people that I love. Colorful personalities. And for me, when I was 14 and 15 visiting my older bro... I'm like a six out of seven kids. New York City parents that moved to Connecticut to raise a family. So my family all eventually started moving back to New York City as they grew up. So I used to visit my brothers in New York and I used to hang out in the Lower East Side. And that's how I'd see all these people. The Lower East Side for those who don't know New York, then it was a whole different world. It was scary but exciting. For a 15-year-old, it was like, it was, everyone was almost like bigger than life. Like cartoon, like comic book characters, villains and heroes. Sometimes they blended into one with is he a villain or hero, things like that. Especially in the punk scene. Everybody had a punk name and their weapons of choice, and it was sort of a scary scene but it was exciting compared to a suburban high school. Right, And you just took the train down from Connecticut and just-- Yeah, Westchester sort of on the border we used to take the Metro-North to New York City. And my parents were, you know, I was, I mean, I get it. I have five kids. So when my, you know, the youngest one... You get exhausted being a parent you know. You slacken up. So by the time I came around, my parents were like, "Yeah you wanna go to New York this week "and have a great time." "I'm gonna see some music, mom." And they were like, "Okay, Philharmonic. "What could he be possibly doing?" Unbelievable. I know. And so what were the clubs that you were going to at that time? CBGB's, ASeven, you know. I've been to The Mudd Club. I've been to you know, the Ritz, which is now Webster Hall. So what was the process of-- They were like gross. You know what I mean? When we talk about them, they sound fantastic. They were grotesque. By normal civilians. Like my wife, I call a civilian. She has no clue what hardcore is. She doesn't know anything about it. You know, didn't even know I was in a band when we were starting dating, but they were great. If you were into that music, that was like the music mecca. And for us, it was so much more than, well we wanna play another band's songs. I wanna play the best of Rush, or the best of Cheap Trick, or the best of Zepplin. We just wanna write our own music. And it was sort of cool. And what was it that you connected with? like when you're 15 and you're going to these clubs for the first time and you're being exposed to this scene? Like, what was it about that that like, excited you? I think it was that originality that like these are just guys, my age. You know the first band I saw was like the Beastie Boys first band. They were in a band called, "The Young and the Useless." And they were 14 or 15 like I was, and they were making their own music on stage. I was like, "I think I could do that. "I think I could do that." And then from there, I went back and me and my three nerdy friends from my big suburban high school, we created a band. We started playing. And the local radio station played our cassette. Oh, wow. From that we got asked to play at a big punk club in... It was funny because you probably know Moby (indistinct). Moby was in a band that also played, we played this big show. The Vatican Command. The Command. We played with Moby's band and, Agnostic Front back in the very old days, all these old classic hardcore bands. This was like 1982. And we played a big show in Bridgeport, Connecticut at a place called Pogo's. And I was 16 years old. It was like the most exciting thing for a 16 year old to... "Dad, we got a gig. Can I drive to Bridgeport, Connecticut?" And there's like, every, you know. Everything's intimidating there. A guy with a mohawk is standing outside with a leather jacket. And there's all these older guys and everyone's getting drunk and smoking and you're sort of like new to this whole thing. And you're in the band and you come in and then all of a sudden the cops raid the place because you weren't supposed to be under age. So the cops raid it. After the gig, we're all hiding underneath the stage until the cops get out of there. And when the whole night's done, I played. I got offered to a gig in New York City. And I'm driving back to my other suburban town of Danbury, Connecticut. And I'm feeling like that was the most exciting thing. That was the most exciting night of my life. I was 16 years old. Yeah, you become like an overnight legend like the stories you're gonna tell when you go back to high school the next day, I mean, are you kidding? You can't even explain it. You can't explain it. So what happens is you start to create your own friends that have nothing to do with your high school friends. Yeah, that's what happened. I created a whole second life that's sort of like where these friends that would go to New York City all the time. And then there was a local little, it was an interesting little art gallery where Keith Haring and a lot of like these New York City street artists and original graffiti writers. There was an art studio in Stanford, Connecticut, and they would have punk shows in the basement. And so that became sort of a hub. And that's where I met Porcell, who later became Paramananda. And he was our guitar player now in Shelter and Youth of Today. And it was a place for sort of like kids in Connecticut to come together and experience. That's how I met Moby. We all used to hang out at this one underground art gallery. It was called the Anthrax. That's wild. Well, it sounds like it all happened pretty quickly. That was high school, you know, it was high school. And then... And then you just moved to the City after high school. Then as soon as high school we moved to New York City and Youth of Today started. And that band became sort of popular. Right. And Cro-Mags must've been around at that time as well. Did they coincide or was that a different-- They were around... You know, I knew Harley from the Cro-Mags better. And they were sort of into Krishna because I think the Krishna got... Part of like all Hindu Dharma is a very interesting thing. In India, every temple gives sacred food out. Like you can walk through a Holy village and they will give you sacred food. That's part of Hindu Dharma is you're supposed to be growing the food with love, preparing the food with love, and then offering the food with love, and then you distribute the food with love. And that's called Prashad or food cooked with the intention of love to God behind the food. And so one of the missions of the Krishna Swami that came to America, Swami Prowlpod was, "This is part of our mission statement is we cook food." Because everyone needs love, ultimately. It's not everybody needs food. We give this to the wealthy or the poor, whoever will take it. So these Krishna devotees would set up giving food out. And I think the guys from the Cro-Mags used to get food from here and they used to read the Bhagavad Gita. And so Harley from the Cro-Mags who was, you know. He was a very interesting like street kid. Grew up on the streets of New York. He was in a band when he was in sixth grade. While most people are in Cub Scouts, he was in a punk band. And he used to like, you know. And he was a leader of a street gang on top of it. And so he used to preach to me. It's such an interesting, weird, like clash of cultures. Like, I only know all of this through John's lens. I've never met Harley, but John talks about. I mean, John, you know, grew up in and out of all kinds of foster homes and his life story's insane. But he falls into this scene and kind of is taken under the Bad Brains' wing. And that's where he learned kind of about Ital and like all of these ideas about treating the body temple. I think the Krishna aspect came a little bit later. But the food aspect of his culture becomes front and center super important. He's working in some vegetarian restaurant or a food market or something like that. And I know like Angelica's Kitchen was like a big kind of focal point. And I was at a place called the Himsa. That's where I worked and Porcell, our guitar player, worked at prAna, and there was a bookstore called Ayurveda. Now we just went to Joy Cafe, incredible cafe. And even yoga, it's just like wasn't in the conversation. Veganism, animal rights, vegetarian. It wasn't in the conversation. But you know the Lower East Side was a weird subculture of freaks basically. And whether you were into punk, or hardcore, death, or goth, or vegetarianism, there was all weird, just peculiar people would gravitate towards the Lower East Side. And we all sort of accepted each other as we're all bunch of outcasts here, you know. So yeah, there was these random Angelica's Kitchens and we all sort of grew up interested in... I mean I remember just eating spirulina in 1985 when no one know what spirulina was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But where does the Hare Krishna thing intersect with that? Was that community just living in the same neighborhood? How does the like straight edge hardcore scene in the Venn diagram, you know what I mean? Like it's one thing to be punk, it's another thing to be straight edge, and then to just gravitate towards the Hare Krishna movement and follow the Bhakti path. It seems like the straight edge community is a little bit of a feeder to that. Like if you telescope out, it's like all right, well these are about, this is about like taking a stand against mainstream society. We're not buying into this paradigm. we're looking for something more meaningful, something that's a little bit more authentic. So perhaps it's just an extension of that learning curve or that kind of spiritual trajectory that would attract somebody to the straight edge scene to begin with. But what did that look like for you? For me, there was not a straight edge scene in New York per se. And I was just sort of like... I was just more into like sports and healthy living. I don't know why. But that made you a freak among the freaks, right? Well, yeah, that became weird-- You can't be into sports and be into punk. Exactly. Especially then in 1982, 'cause it was really dark and there was a lot of heavy drugs, drugs that they didn't even do in high school. I mean, I thought high school partying was sorta lame and I didn't wanna be like that. But when I got started hanging out in New York I was like, "You know, these guys are much worse." These guys are taking (indistinct) putting their face in a brown paper bag and hoffing glue. So what the hell is going on here? And I was just into like positive living, and I just didn't jive with that stuff. And so I never expected it to become as big as it was, but we had a band and I'm very outspoken about what I believe in. And straight edge seemed sort of quickly, a culture of it sort of quickly started forming. And then that year we got into animal rights. It just seemed like a natural progression of, "Okay, I wanna keep my mind under control, "my body under control, my tongue under control "my genitals under control." And I gotta figure out like, why am I killing this cow, but we're not killing this dog? When you start to think like that, you start to realize like, "Oh, I get it. "I'm like a sociopath who can sort of like, "'Hey, children let's play a game.'" Then all of a sudden you murder another child. So what am I doing with my mind? I got that in my mind living with my family. But I didn't know how to cook. So I made this deal. When I turn 18 or when I move out of my house, I'm not gonna eat meat anymore. I'm just not gonna do it. And then I read Peter Singer's book and the Krishna people also put out a book on vegetarianism, so then I was like, "I'm just gonna choose this lifestyle. "I'm just gonna deal with it. "And I'm gonna find support." Cause there's not like real support. You couldn't go online and find support. You just had to figure it out. "Okay. What am I gonna eat?" Spaghetti every day or Coca-Cola. And so it's sort of like a process. And then New York City did have that support with health food stores. I got a job at a health food restaurant. I started getting into yoga then. And that sort of-- What was the yoga scene in New York like at that time? It all was spiritually-based yoga. It wasn't athletic based-- No, of course not. (indistinct) And where it was like, I mean, David Life. (indistinct) They come from the punk movement too, right? Yeah, they were in the neighborhood. David had LifeCafe. He's cool. And Sharon's cool. And they live not far from me. But when you go to Jeeva Mopti now in New York and it's like, it's so swank and like the cafe's amazing. But you're like, these are just punk rockers who were like-- They came out of that movement when yoga was like an act of rebellion. Yeah. And they still have that in them too. And yeah, they're wonderful. I remember practicing next to them at Dharma Mittra's place, Dharma Mittra's probably 85 years old this year, maybe. But he was long-term yoga teacher, but spiritually-based they all had gurus. And it wasn't as secular as yoga has become nowadays. So use it today, get some traction. You guys are playing all the time and you make a name for yourself. You like create this band that tons of people are into you start a record label. Like you got a lot of stuff going on by like, when is this like early 90s at this point? This was 1985, 86, 87. And then in 88, I started getting more serious about my spiritual life which sort of came from a combination of success and feeling like questioning what success is. You know, you had these bands that were sort of like the Beastie Boys, where they were like peers and were like blowing up and getting huge. Did you watch the documentary? I didn't. The Beastie Boys documentary? No I heard it was great. It's great. I mean, you would love it because they have so much footage from the very early days, right? Yeah. I remember being on tour and they were on tour and I saw them when they left New York at Webster Hall. And it was just like, I remember when the record licensed to ill started blowing up and I was like, this is unbelievable. This is actually unbelievable. And then we were on tour and we saw them in LA and, you know run DMC or there, and I'm like, this is unbelievable. And it was just like the whole thing was just shocking. And our front that Murphy's Law was a friends of ours and they were on tour with them too. And the whole thing it was like shocking, like, cause no one's expecting-- We're just having fun. Like we're doing DIY stuff, we're printing our own you know, flyers and all that kind of stuff. Like there was no expectation or attachment to any kind of like broader success. Or this is a career. This is a career. No one thought of I, when I grow up, I wanna be in a band. It wasn't like that at all. And never, we just sort of like, I don't know, on a mission. I don't know what it was. So yeah, that was a little shocking when that happened, but what was your question I forgot? Basically like you, I wanna walk you up to this point where you end up walking away from the band and everything. So the band's getting bigger, you're getting more success. You know, that you're starting to... My father got sick and he died. Now it seems like that was the big inflection point. And I think sometimes it takes a tragedy to sort of, to make you reevaluate life. These spiritual epiphany is like-- But you'd been doing yoga? I had been into it and sort of on a spiritual quest in this had really exacerbated or not exacerbated but just Slingshot at my desire to go deeper cause I really felt like there is nothing of this world that will really satisfy my heart. There is no amount of success. There's no soulmate. There's this beautiful statement in Bhakti literature that there's, you know this is how I phrase it anyway there, you know, there's a, God-shaped hole, a God-shaped hole in the heart and we'll shove anything in that hole. And we're looking to shove anything to feel connected but only God will fit in that hole. And we try to the three main things that we would try to put in that hole are we feel like there is a person out there that will make me complete and it's been romanticized. And there are people that we connect with. There people that we love, but they're not our God. They can't be our God. And we shouldn't make them our God or we're setting ourselves up for hell in the future. And or we're gonna become incredibly needy or they're gonna be needy. It's gonna be a real dysfunctional relationship. So the person shouldn't be our God. And the next one is, there's no amount of financial height you can go to that will actually satisfy that yourself too. There's no amount of money can put them at God-shaped hole. And the final one is there's no an amount of validation, material validation. You can find people who sometimes get the most validation and they're sometimes even more screwed up. And I started feeling like, yeah there's nothing of this world. And I remember sitting in a yoga center once and reading this quote from a Swami saying you must become materially exhausted, to start your spiritual life. You have to like be cynical with material success. Give up hope. And that was always a very positive person. Matter of fact, I'd read these books early on my life and think, oh, these yogis they're so negative about life. What's wrong with life. Life is good. I've got so much hope, but you have to be cynical with material hope. You can be very, very you can believe in spiritual fortune. Like you're, there is a spiritual success but material success is a dead end. And so when I saw my father going down so hard, so sad I started to realize, yeah, this material world is an unfair place. Well, that's an amazing, kind of Epiphany to have as a young person. And it's not like you were living in a mansion at the top of the Hill, like you were getting success, but you didn't have to hit some kind of crazy bottom or spend the better part of your entire life chasing some material need in order to have that reckoning. Like, I think it's unbelievably true that you have to have that existential crisis of one form or another to shock you out of your, the Maya of your daily existence that can come in the form of something disastrous or when you've just exhausted as much, chasing of material success as is humanly possible. But at either end of that spectrum is a reckoning that will compel you to confront yourself in a more meaningful way but you were able to do it as a very young person. I think most of us in Western culture who are, in the biggest picture of things, we're halves, we have we we've been to the best beaches. We've been to the coolest places, we've traveled around the world. It always boils down to this whole big deal. I did it. I went to the Eiffel Tower, big deal. But the persistence of the illusion is so woven into the fabric of our culture. Like it's like, yeah, I did that, but, okay. So I felt good for a minute. That faded, well, it must be the next thing or same when it's not that it's the next thing because I got to keep up with this guy and most spend their entire life chasing that. We're trying to get some material bucket list which it really boils down to big deal. Here I am. It's perfect. Big deal. Now what, or this is another great one now what, now what? And I think when you get to that point, you're like, yeah. Now what? Then it makes you realize, okay, life isn't about trying to put your foot on every continent on every like perfectly Caribbean Beach. And it's about what is my offering in this world? That's a great day with Greg today. What is my offering in this world? And when I see people like yourself, people are just connected, like, okay we're here for a short amount of time. What am I here to give? And that's when life, I feel like really become successful and you feel very fortunate and very connected and you enjoy waking up in the morning and there's no, oh, crap it's Monday or a Friday. Thank God it's Friday, we're like, I feel like I could do what I do 24/7. I'm one of these very like hyper, I could do what I do every day and for hours a day. And I love what I do. And I just feel like it's important to shine light on the romance of what Hollywood creates or what even just people's personal Maya creates in their mind. Like, well, if I was in this situation, I'd be better off. If I lived out here, I'd be better off, if I could only find some time away, that getting fame at an early age. And even though it wasn't huge fame, getting that fame it punctured the romance of what a lot of people, it's a long, long, attractive dead end. I'm sure you can relate to that. No, I mean, that's beautifully put but I suspect that most people who, you know have been in some analogous version of that situation might think I need to do something a little bit more meaningful. Maybe I'll, you know, volunteer at a nonprofit or I'll double down on my yoga practice or, you know, figure out some way of, of living more in Seva in my day to day. But what very few do is say, I'm gonna go on a walkabout and end up in India and a monk for six or seven years or however long you were doing that. An extremist. Yeah, it's an extreme thing. I'm not asking everybody to be extremist I'm just a little-- You're talking to an extremist. You're an extremist? I'm vibrating on that wavelength. Like I get it. And I celebrate that. And I've also gone through phases of feeling guilty or feeling like I have to apologize for being an extremist but it's an amazing lever for all things good and bad. You know, it's led me down dark alleyways but it's also been something that has catalyzed tremendous growth and progress in my life. So when I see that kind of hardcore pivot, hardcore put a pun on it. Like, that's awesome. You, most people wouldn't do that. But you took that thing inside of you, that was that's attracted to those kinds of extremes and like put it to this amazing use that completely changed your life. Well, probably people like you and me and John and we're like fast moving trains. And it's just like, there's, you know guy working the switch on the train, pulls the switch and the train is gonna go South or it's going to go North. And we'd just like through the company of like-minded people we've just chose. Let's work really hard to go North here because it's a false sense of determination. And it's a focus that if it's like misdirected it can cause a ripple effect of destruction as well. Like, you know, I'm well aware of that when it's channeled in the wrong way, the problems it can cause. So your dad gets very ill. He doesn't he slide into a coma or something like that? He goes to a coma in three years. Coma is a weird place cause you don't quit. Is he alive? Is he dead? You know, half the family thinks he's dead. Half the family thinks he's alive. And I am like in a state of like teenage denial. Like I can't even deal with it. It's quite humiliating to admit, but I just couldn't deal with it. I just didn't know how to, where to put it in my brain. In the meantime, I have a band that's sort of like asking me to go on tour. And when you're 19 and you've never left New Jersey New York and Connecticut, that's like what you're gonna go on tour. You're gonna go to California where there's palm trees and fruit that grows on trees. Like what, and, you know, my mother just said, "Just go." And then I just went on tour and then I had to like, sort of digest it during the, and I think between the band doing their thing and my father, you know, eventually leaving his body. I got to this point where, and the scene getting created around me, I just realized I need something more in my life or so. So that was sort of, I just at that point at that height of the band I left the band and went to India, not even knowing as much sort of what I was getting into, but I just had a strong, first of all, I had a strong faith in Vedic culture, and the yoga culture, which was which I started really studying cause, you know when you get into spiritual culture can be very confusing. And the Vedic culture is like very very broad, very, very open. Like, I know I went to one year of college, and I didn't know why, cause all I wanted to do was music. And I know I didn't wanna be one of these, like, you know in our generation there was like animal house was the movie ever, like I didn't wanna be like one of these bright boy animal house guys. So I started hanging out with all these Christians. Cause I felt like, you know what? These Christians, they're sort of grounded. They're not those frack guys. I like the New Testament. I think it's a good book. I'm gonna hang out with them. But I also love the teachings of Buddha. So I remember reading the Dhammapada, which is a great book on compassion and mindfulness and introspection. And I remember reading this, I was like, "Oh my God this is so good. Wait till I tell all my Christian friends about this they're gonna love it." That's so funny. And they just didn't love it Rich. Way to read the room. And my argument was, are you kidding? These are the same teachings of Jesus, well they're right here. Don't you understand? And at that time I started to realize like, it's so easy to find differences and it's so easy to find commonalities. And it's one thing that like we're facing off in this country right now, we're looking for differences and we all have so much more like in common. If you read the teachings of Buddha and read the teachings of Christ, you will find so many wonderful commonalities. Well, we identify with the differences and spend most of our time arguing over those. But isn't a big cornerstone of the Bhakti path. The Bhakti path has a set, not ideology but you know, sort of philosophy of living. But part of that is embracing that which is consistent in all religions. Like the idea that you can go to the mosque and you can go to the temple and sit with these people who are all seeking something outside, something greater than themselves. It's an appreciation of how everybody's on a path and everybody is a spiritual being. That's not something I have to convert somebody to. It's just the idea that we are, that we just forgot. And so the path of yoga is a path of remembering what we already are. Not converting me to join one club. Change your costume to this costume. There's a different religious costume, different religious haircut. We wear beards over here. It's remembering what we all already are but we just forgot. And why do we forget? We're programmed. We're programmed. Now you're this guy and you wanna be loved. You wear this. And we've been programmed that I can speak for myself being in, like in junior high school you ever had that ever had that experience from like everything's cool in elementary school. And at least when I was growing up elementary school was like nothing. It's just, everybody's friends, they're all friends. Then all of a sudden, once you get into junior high school it's like, you're wearing the wrong jeans. What's wrong with these jeans? They're the wrong jeans, man. You're wearing the wrong sneakers. You're gotta wear right red shirt. You got the right the belt buckle. And I was like, oh my God, mom, I got the wrong jeans on. What do you mean? My mom grew up in the depression. You know, like, I mean, those are great jeans. No, they're not. They're the wrong jeans. And you realize if you wanna be loved, if you wanna be accepted, you have to wear the right outfit. And slowly we'd start becoming conditioned to how to be loved, how to be accepted, how to be validated and valuable. And it's so painful. And identity is formed in opposition to others or as a definition of how you're, sort of fitting into your particular tribe as opposed to any kind of self-reflection right? Like our educational system isn't set up for that. It's exactly it. And we're creating others all the time. And it took me about three years, probably from seventh to ninth grade to be like, and I worked my way up. I was at the bottom. I worked my way up because I literally had to like. I got the right jeans. I got the right shirts. I had my hair parted the appropriate way. I learned all that. And I started to fight because at least where I was going to school, it was you get picked on. And so when you get picked on and bullied and extorted from, you either have to become a wallflower and like literally hide and make yourself unknown or you get picked on or you fight back. And so I said, okay, I'm just gonna start fighting back. I'm gonna, I was the bully. Now I'm gonna bully and I just switched roles. And then I realized, I don't wanna win these people over. And that's sort of like my entrance into punk. So in a lot of ways punk rock saved me from being that high school (indistinct). Were just opting out of the paradigm. Exactly. And then you're part of that paradigm. And you're like, I gotta opt out of this now. So what is it about, what was it about India the Vedic tradition, maybe like we can talk a little bit about what that means and why you were drawn to that and how you ended up in India. I think the inclusivity of it, like we were saying, like the way we say in English, we say the sun and in France they say Solei and in India they say Soria. I can't argue with the French guy and say, no, no, no. It's sun. And argue with the Indian? I no, no, no. So fundamentalism in any spiritual path is ugly. We dig our heels into some nuance and we find those differences. Whereas woven right into the teachings of the Vedic paradigm is that no, no, no, no. Don't you understand there's one truth and truth is for everyone. And no, one's got a monopoly on truth. You know, not your skin color, not your gender not where you were born, your country. It's not Indians don't own truth. It's for everyone because actually we're not Indian and we're not white and we're not black. We're actually spiritual beings. And if you think you're white or black or Asian, I got news for you. It's like a rental car. You got it for a few years only. Don't get too proud of it. Don't feel so privileged with it. It's not even you, your real identity is your spiritual being. And you're pain in this world is gonna come from identifying with your body as yourself. And so I love that as the threshold to, even as myself as like straight edge or in the leader in the straight edge community, I started thinking, I'm not straight edge. I'm a spirit soul. I'm a spiritual being. And I like that identity. And I was like, that is the identity I want to, that's the suit of clothes I wanna try on. Let's see how that feels. And I don't even wanna be considered a Hare Krishna, or a, when people ask, what are you, what's your story? What are you into? I just say, I'm a spirit soul. You know why? Because that's what it ultimately is. And just shuts down the conversation. It shuts down the conversation cause they already have a preconceived, "Oh, you're that guy." But you have to decouple, or you had to decouple the identity that you had created around being this punk rocker or the successful punk rocker, sort of an entrepreneur also within that space and your attachment to the success and the validation and developing and understanding that if you continue to pursue that path, you'll continue to be seeking that validation. It will never be enough. The God hole can never be filled. And the more you try to fill it, the greater it will expand in lockstep with that drive. And that's it I mean, I already said it but like to have that kind of epiphany as a young person and say, I'm gonna completely walk away from this and pursue this other path that is even more extreme than what I've been doing is, that's the story of the modern day yogi, there aren't that many people that have done that. You're not the only, but-- Some people get it at a younger age. Some people get it at an old age and some people never get that epiphany at all. Who's the one who was like eight years old and in the (indistinct). There's a lot of people, historically there's a lot of people in India. You hear about these people at age eight. At age four, you know, broaden our swamis guru is guru, at age four was a master of the Bhagavad Gita. You know, four, I was like pulling the head off my GI Joe. I know it's hard to even believe this but there's people like that. There's Sanskrit scholar children who can give discourses on the Bhagavad Gita. And it's just-- And when you read the book autobiography of a Yogi, the Yogananda's book, he talks extensively about having that awareness as a very young person and walking away from his family to basically be this, you know... You run away to Vrindaban. He tried to go to bring the Hobbit. And the way we understand that is that everything that we do in this life is a practice. Like you're really good at interviewing. I just want you to know that, you are a great interviewer. Thank you. We're only a part, a way into it. I can still screw it up. Go ahead. No, even if you blow this one all the interviews I've heard you do. I was like, man, he really knows how to interview. He's really systematic going through these questions are good, but you get that way. You probably didn't come out of the womb, doing that. You practice it and you refine it. And you, you sharpen your skill, your hone your skill. I can do handstands, and I didn't come out of the womb doing handstands. I practice it. So everything that we do in this life is a practice. Well, material things, good things, bad things. Drinking alcohol is a practice, being unforgiving is a practice. If you're not good at forgiving people means you've been practicing not forgiving people. And if you forgive people generally that you got to practice to forgive people. Some people say, well, I'm not good at forgiving. You gotta practice it. You gotta work it. So whatever we do both good and bad in this lifetime the Yogi accepts, you know what? This is all a practice. If you have some spiritual epiphany or some depth in your spiritual life or your material life it's coming from your childhood, or it's coming from your previous life. I mean, you're picking up where you last, left off. Have you seen that? I've been talking about this on the podcast, Surviving Death. It's on Netflix. Oh no. My daughter was telling me I gotta watch it. Episode six is so good. About all these children who are just speaking. I'm a card carrying believer in reincarnation. I speak about it. I philosophically understand it. But when you hear these children speaking about it, after you watch it, you're like, "Oh my God I totally get this now. The kid is like recalling their previous life. And it's not every kid, it's a handful of kids and they documented them all. And they're saying things about their names and their parents and how they died. And they're four years old. And the mother's like, what are you talking about? And their mother googles the name. Can you go find the (indistinct). I was gonna ask that. They find the people. No way. It's episode six, watch it. It's so good. And there's thousands of them. That's nuts. That's a close cousin to, the stories that we all hear of the prodigy who, you know, at age, super young is able to just master a musical instrument or do something that it just seems impossible that they would know how to do that. Well, here there's a young four year old Indian kid who's playing Tablas and they couldn't believe how good he was. And they brought this master in from India. And they said, how did, and the master was like "There's no way this child can know these beats at this age." And the idea is whether it's a, a musical practice and intellectual, they're carrying something from a previous life, even bad habits. Even our addictive habits, they're coming from somewhere else. And then when the gross body dies, they stay with the subtle body and that's the mind and the intelligence and we pick them up. So who knows, maybe both of us are on a spiritual path. Maybe it's from a previous life. Maybe we've just met great people in this life. I don't like to take credit like, oh, I must have been spiritualists. Everybody in their past life was some noteworthy person. I think I was Cleopatra. Exactly. Well, I know, I like to think that all the people that come on the podcast are people that over my many past lives I've encountered in different forms. Could be. And we're having a convention, a reconvening. A reunion. I dunno. It's a family reunion. All right, man. So I'm still trying to get to this thing about you going to India. So did you know where you were going? Did you, like-- Not really, I didn't really know much about anything but I knew that I wanted to become a monk. So you had that. And I had that and I believed in the Bhagavad Gita. I thought that was right, but I didn't really know all the nuances of everything. So I did go in very green and sort of like even though I accepted it, I was like really sort of not two feet in until I started applying all this stuff to my life immediately. Did you go on like a walkabout, like Ram Dass or Bhagavan Das. Or did you have a ashram that you were traveling to where you knew you were gonna have a bed and a place to sleep. I had no commitments, but I knew there was a Krishna temple in Vrindaban, India, Holy place in India. And I met some monks who were visiting America and they invited me. They say, if you wanna stop by in our ashram, while you go through India, I knew I was going to India after my tour. And it happened when I got back from tour my father left his body and I was booked a ticket. And I just left and realized like, all right this is my path now. And you got to the ashram and then-- I got to the ashram and you know-- That was your home for a while? Yeah. I had some money saved from touring, not tons of money but I had like 25,000 bucks and I was real, you know, I'm a New Yorker. So I'm cynical of everything. And I'm figuring like the monks are gonna try to take my money probably. It's all a scam. It's all a scam guys. But when you see how they live, and India is a tough place to live, especially back then there was no hot water. It was like a jail house showers. And it was cold in the winter. It was cold and in the summer it was hot. And there was no nothing was comfortable. And there was no comfort. Anything. There was no Netflix or there was no like, you know, what did we do for comfort? We shop, we have sex. We, you know, we go out to dinner we watch movies that you couldn't do any of that. You're a monk, there's nothing to buy. There's no shopping. But I started being shocked about how happy the monks were. I started thinking, man, what makes these guys tick? Like, how can they be so happy with nothing? They've given up everything, but you've probably experienced that when you've like cleaned out your garage and you're like, you feel free from the clutter of life. And that's it. I felt like God, if I can just learn what these guys have my life could be successful. How can you be joyful with nothing? So it's not the things that are giving me joy. I'm not going out there for my joy. The joy has to come from something inside of me. And that was like a beautiful thing to observe when you, cause it's not a happy, it's not a fun. They're not having fun. They're just experiencing a joy from living. And it's not based on their watch or their outfit or what they're driving. It's based on like an integrity of existence and the way they treat each other and the way and also the thoughts that are in your mind what you're thinking on a regular basis. Cause I realize a lot of my pain is from my mind or my anguish or my envy for someone else or some hate we might have for somebody for no good reason. You know, you see somebody who's that idiot, who's that idiot? But why is my mind thinking like that? Like the guy's an idiot. I don't even know that person. So what is the process of rewiring that like when you go to the ashram and you start living as a monk, what is the teaching like? And what is the day-to-day existence where you start to you know, intuit these teachings and put them into practice? Well, there's a lot to share. I'm working on a book right now that extracted six very powerful principles that I taught from the teachings. And the first one is, and these are based on the teachings of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu who is a great, considered by some as a child prodigy, cause he was a child prodigy in Sanskrit. Some other people that knew more intimately thought of he was a mystic cause he did, he performed so many mystical things, Christ-like mysticism. And then, but his intimate followers who are great gurus in their own, right. They considered him an avatar. So his teachings were very simple and one of them is very basic. And it's a great takeaway. If you wanna take away anything from today, you can take this way. Stop criticizing other people Like the sound coming out of your mouth can be toxic. And that was a powerful thing. Stop criticizing. I realized I'm living with so much criticism in my mind. That doesn't mean we should throw discernment out. We need discernment. But the condemning language that happens on a regular basis from finding fault with other people and how you would do things so much better. If you were doing them, cut it out. Stop letting that pour out of your mouth. That's a big one. If you want, I'll just run through these-- Yeah let's do it. No, this is great. And first of all, when did this guy live? 1400, the same time Columbus was showing up here. This person Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was in Bengal and traveled throughout India and Korea. And basically it was a Renaissance of Bhakti. Bhakti means. Bhakti Yoga means connecting to source through love. That's all the word really means. And so a lot of the practices, our singing, our cooking our meditation, but everything is an action, right? You're acting in a loving way and dealing with other people. And so yeah, this is one of the teachings I call it. The book is called the Six Pillars of Bhakti. And so one is not criticizing. The second one is being tolerant. Whereas criticism deals with other people and other one is just dealing with life situation and stop blaming the world for your own happiness. And this is very powerful. It's transformational. Even if you're a materialist, this main teaching can transform your life. But if you wanna really experience like the higher echelons of meditation it's gotta be there, criticism, tolerance. And this is a huge one. That number three. If you can add this one to your life, it's a such a game changer. It's I take no offense, meaning I will not be offended on a regular basis. And that's a very common thing. Sometimes we could see somebody talking over there and I get offended. I think they're talking about me. So without provocation, I think someone's got something against me. And sometimes we'll walk around holding some resentment for a person who didn't even mean anything. And that gets split in two things, cause sometimes people don't mean anything, but due to my some proclivity that I have, that I don't trust the world that I take an offense and I carry that resentment around with me and it becomes a burden but sometimes people have hurt me. They've actually deliberately hurt me, but still that desire or that need to forgive has to be there, because in the Bhakti culture is nothing's actually happening to me it's happening for me. That there is a benevolent energy lifting us higher and higher and higher. And we have to see that everything is for my edification for my purification and sometimes even tragic things. And so there's a firm faith that everything's happening for me and that we shouldn't be heartless when it comes to someone else's suffering, I should see, he's having a hard time. We should feel like I have to reach out to that person. They're having a hard time. But for my own situation, I should feel like, I'm going through a hard time and this must be for my benefit. What is that benefit? And I can look at life like that. So we don't hold any resentment. We don't criticize, we're tolerant. Next one, we see the good in others and we let them know it. Find good and this is where we're talking about instead of finding what this person is doing so wrong. What are they doing right? Why are they good? This is such a powerful practice in this day and age, because otherwise we're gonna lock in and we're just gonna foster hate with others. And we're gonna have no commonality whatsoever. What do we have in common? What is right about this person? And it's such a great thing, truthfully, it's a marriage saver. It's a relationship saver. You know, what is good about this person? And then sharing it with them, tell him why I appreciate you. And that lack of appreciation can really kill. It can kill love quick. I mean, isn't that what romance is full 100% appreciation for that person And the second piece about letting that person know is crazy, powerful. And it's something that most of us don't do nearly enough of. I mean we might have a person that would do anything for us. They would come anywhere at any time at any moment, "Hey, I need your help. Can you come here? That person I never let them know how much I appreciate them. Sometimes the people that are the closest to us we never share with them how we appreciate them. And then you recounting these lessons. I'm thinking this should be the terms and conditions on Twitter. Like what if you, before you could log on to Twitter you had to read through these sort of guidelines, sort of guideposts for how to behave or acquit yourself. Because everything that you just shared is so anathema to the way that we conduct ourselves in the kind of public conversations that are happening on social media. And we're all seeing, the fractures, the fissures that are starting to expand in the fabric of our society. Like we're no longer able to productively communicate in a healthy way. And it's because we've lost sight of these very things that allow us to remember that we are truly one. And no one's happy. They're all sad. Even if they're righteous, they're just like sad in their righteousness or their rightness. So anyway, that's see the good in others, let them know it. The appreciation is such a powerful, it's powerful in this world and it's powerful in the spiritual realm as well. That's why I love this stuff because it's relevant. It's real. It's not just like when I die, I'll go to heaven. Who cares? I don't know about heaven. I don't know anything about heaven. I don't even know if it's real, but I do know these are very, very practical in this life for my own personal joy, my own personal integrity. My relationships. You were saying like, yeah people in Twitter should learn this. The reason why I sort of like extracted these from the teachings, because I was taking groups every year. I take a group on pilgrimage, this year I'm going to Naipaul, it's sort of like, you would like it. It's various like spiritual sites all over the world. Spiritual sites all over the world. So this year we're going tracking through Naipaul in April. And so half the time is tracking. And then Holy places. Naipaul is like an old part of Indian kingdom. One of the Indian kingdoms, they preserved a lot of the ancient Hindu text, the Buddhist texts. And it's got whatever, 1300 Himalayan peaks. So, we would be day hiking half the time. When are you doing that? April come, it'd be great. That's tempting, but keep going. And we do an India every year which is also great Holy places. But you know, you're bringing a bunch of people to India. Who've never been to a third world country, and we're traveling together and they're not used to it. And it's a little shocking sometimes. So I've really set up these six pillars as sort of behavior sort of guardrails. This is what we do. We don't criticize, and it's sort of a contract. We like mentally sign. I read them over every day. This is what we're doing. We're not gonna criticize, not gonna find fault. We're not gonna be resentful. And we're gonna find the good in others and we're gonna let them know it. The next one was quick to apologize. If you feel like you hurt, someone's feeling if you're a little obtuse and you apologize first, you say, hey, I'm sorry. I don't know if that offended you but please forgive me if it did. A big game changer. And another one is we keep a tally of how we are blessed. We keep a list of how fortunate we are. A gratitude practice basically. What's that? A gratitude practice. A gratitude practice. And sometimes people don't have a gratitude practice. They have a, this is unfair practice. This is an entitlement practice. And the problem with that is it's simple math, entitlement makes you sad. Gratitude makes you happy. If you feel like the world owes you everything, you're always gonna be miserable. There's never enough the world can owe you. This architecture is not that different from 12 step. And I know you've got this, like Bhakti 12 step recovery program. I wanna spend a little bit of time talking about this because you know, there's a lot of similarities. Like, you know, do a personal inventory, hold yourself accountable, like take the next right action. You know, make your amends, practice gratitude. You know, all of these things are endemic to recovery and are applicable to humanity at large. This is not like just something that, you know, alcoholics and drug addicts need to figure out a way to master Because truth is for everyone. And no one owns it. And no, one's got a monopoly on it. And there's people, Bill Wilson, they're like inspired. There's somehow inspired. And they've got the receiver on, just like right now there's like radio waves in this room but we don't have our receivers on. We can't pick up the the ham radio receivers or the channels from France or the channels from the country Western station. But when you have that receiver, you can start picking above all, when you start to fine tune your radar, into spiritual truth, not for your ego. If you tune in with your ego and spiritual truth, you'll find your little group that hates that finds others, but you won't find commonality and connection. It'll be just another way for your ego to live out in the name of I'm better than, and we find that in any type of, I mean, come on. I'm like I said, I'm a cult aficionado. I found it when I was a raw foodist. I found a local farmer growing straight edge Krishna. You can always find people who are into things, you find in politics. You definitely find it in religion that if I'm doing something for myself betterment, I shouldn't become more hateful. If I'm becoming more hateful, I think I'm doing something wrong. Well, what happens is as human beings, there's something hardwired into us that wants to find a tribe of like-minded people. And we craft our identity around that. So whether it's raw food or Ayurveda or yoga or whatever it is, the more you gravitate towards a certain practice and everything being a practice you're gonna be surrounding yourself with more of the people that do that. And before, you know it you're attaching a label to that. And that is now working at cross-purposes with the expanded awareness that you're trying to cultivate like it's like this weird whack-a-mole thing that never ends, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so I think you have to go into it with a little bit of a broad mind. And I look at that as red flags. If I am finding like I'm creating an that person's an enemy. Then I thought, well, if I'm on track, all these six pillars, if I finding I'm holding a resentment towards someone, that's a red flag, it means I'm off my path. If I'm finding myself being intolerant or criticizing someone, bing bing bing, red flag has just gone up. That means if you accepted that you're a spiritual being, and you're doing these things now you're off your path, sir. And so that's a good way for accountability for myself as well. And I'm definitely far from perfect. But I use these things to hold me accountable and I find it's great. And I find it's great. And I try to like, and I'm okay with going to other sources. I'm okay. I'm great. With going to the ritual podcast and hearing from like I said, I heard from Dr. Goldhammer and I felt like that guy helped put me back on my path. I'm in debt grateful, and we need spiritual influence on a regular basis. So yeah, we'll go hand in hand with body recovery. I feel that, I mean, with recovery, we have a back to recover. So tell me about what that's all about? Well we have our podcast Wisdom of the Sage is where we study sacred literature of India. And a lot of people get into yoga and they wanna get deeper into yoga. They'll get more into the body into their health and to their breathing. And then they'll get a section of that yoga training, which is whatever a certain amount of hours of yoga philosophy and what we do. And even if you like it, that's all you sort of get. But to really change yourself, you really gotta do it. You gotta hear every day, to really change your habits. You've gotta hear this philosophy on a regular basis. So we're talking about philosophy of truthful living of integrity. Just like if you wanna get good and you wanna go through recovery, you don't check in once a month. People who are going through recovery, they need to go to recovery sometimes couple times a day checking in with their sponsor or you go many times a week because they need to hear it cause the Maya or the illusion is such a strong pole in the other direction. So we have created a podcast where we can hear this yoga philosophy on a regular basis. We do it every morning at 5:00 a.m. And the more we do it, the more we realize a lot of people have very, very strong attachments and some attachments have dismantled their life. They're coming from recovery programs. But the philosophy of Bhakti, it accepts that there's different ways to perceive your higher power. And in Bhakti, the higher power has personal form. Now, sometimes people can't stand the idea of a personal duty because the persons in my life have driven me crazy. Maybe I had an ex wife or ex-husband or I had a bad relationship with a parent or a teacher or a priest, what to speak of a priest. And so we hate any concept of organized spiritual, anything but there are sort of two forms of ideas. Basically, you'll hear this idea of we are God. And then their God is a separate identity. You'll hear both of those being taught in Eastern thought. Although that is also in Western thought, you'll hear about that as well. And sometimes Christians will argue about this as well is God a being, or is God an energy or a force? And in India, they're very clear about it. They say, it's both. Why not? Just like the sun is a globe and it's also an energy it's both. And so the people who have such a bad taste in their mouth, I always say things like, hey you might've gotten dealt many counterfeit $20 bills. And every time you spend a 20, you get busted. That doesn't mean there's not real $20 bills out there. So just because everything's spiritual, has been maybe a fraud. That doesn't mean there's not something genuine. So for people, that's for people who are doubting spiritual anything spiritual. So anyway, with our recovery group which we have like six days a week, six meetings a week, it's based on higher power but the higher power is the name Krishna. And Krishna just means it's just a name of God and God can have unlimited names but we put a name and a form on God. And that's just one of the names and forms of a multitude of forms God can have cause God is unlimited and God can have form and have no form at the same time. So people in the Bhakti tradition, the deity actually has form. Some people worship that form the form of Krishna or of Ram, of (indistinct). But it's the idea of we are one with God. We're also different in the same way, a drop of water from the ocean is in one sense, the ocean but in another sense, you can't float a boat on it. So it's finite or it's minute rather. And it can also be, it can be covered by illusion. So in one sense, we're spiritual beings but we're sort of marginal and we can get covered by illusion. I can vouch for that. I've been covered by allusion many times repeatedly, sometimes even willingly choosing. And just when you break through you realize there's another layer of illusion. There's another layer of illusion. But in my purest form, I'm a spiritual being. And I love that theory that there's a pure soul theory, that we are actually spiritual beings that have just forgotten. And we're sort of covered by a plaque that is that we're in a scrubbing process. A removing as opposed to adding on. Yeah are born sinful or born I don't like that. Even the concept. The people that are gravitating towards you and dialing up the podcast at least from a recovery point of view are gonna be people that are already spiritually inclined. And what you find in traditional 12 step is people whose lives are broken and are desperate and in a lot of pain. But as you mentioned, a lot of them have, scars that come from various religious and spiritual traditions that calcify them from being open to the spiritual component that I think is required in order to get in maintain sobriety. And a lot of people can't, they just can't grok it, you know, and they just, they walk out the door because the minute the word God is uttered, or the phrase that this is a spiritual program the lights just go out because of their life experience or whatever trauma they've weathered. Is horrible. That's baked into the very problem that they're trying to transcend and overcome. It's sad. And I get it, and I never had a traumatic experience with spirituality, but I can understand that. And all I can say is that just because there's counterfeit doesn't mean there's not something substantial as well. When people use the argument philosophically. Well, you know, I don't believe in a higher power. I think that's just nonsense. I always say, well, come on that guy can kick my ass. He's a higher power. Or how about the son? The son is a higher power. The wind is a higher power. There's many, many higher powers. I always say that the collective consciousness of the group, like if you walk into a room and there's 30 people who've all been able to maintain sobriety for some set period of time. Then that is a power greater than yourself. There you go. That's another way to be nicely put it too. So yeah I don't think that is so farfetched, a higher power. And I think people just have to break these things down but yeah, if there's trauma behind it, it's tough. All right so you're in India and you're doing the monk thing. How long did you do it? Six or seven years I did monk I think for about six and a half years. Six and a half years. Celibate monk in your 20s. It's a tough, it's a tall order. But I did it. Did you travel during that period of time? Or were you in India all that time? Oh, you did. Yeah. Traveled all over the world. Renunciant like sort of reliance upon the kindness of strangers. I had nothing, three years in after studying the Gita. The Gita is not about renouncing the world. It's about taking the gifts that you have and using them in a spiritual way. And the more the Gita-- Juna going to war against his will, right. Like having to fulfill his blueprint or his destiny. Yeah, exactly. And I realized, wow, this is the Gita. This is the Gita. My job isn't to give up music or truthfully, I'm not a great musician myself. I mean, I've written songs and printed out tons of CDs, have traveled, you know, I've been on MTV or whatever, but I don't consider myself a musician. I'm more of a speaker. I like to speak. I like to tell stories. I like to explain things, I like people. And I like to, I found that I'm meant to do music again. So I sort of re-put myself together with a bunch of monks that were sort of musically inclined. And we started a second band after I'd given up that band. And that's how Shelter started, probably historically was the first celibate rock band in the history of the world. Well, it's gotta be the only band comprised of monks except for some kind of Keaton situations-- It was (indistinct) punk hardcore band. But of all monks, it was actually very matter of fact, we had no clothing. We didn't even know what to wear. Like we can't wear robes cause we felt that would be a little-- These dudes like all in your ashram? They were all guys like living in ashram or an ashram near me. And yeah, it was almost like comical in one sense. And so I remember when we first started like, well what are we gonna wear? I was like, well, maybe we should just go to salvation army buy a bunch of white clothes and dye them all orange and we'll wear. But that whole tour, like we looked like Divo circa 1983 or something, but we did. That's how we rolled for a while. And you would open these concerts by doing chanting. Like with incense and stuff like that. That must be freaked people out. I think cause the punk scene was anything goes. And so we're a bunch of Hindu monks and it was almost like, why not? Why not? Like it's either you loved us or you hated us. But it was sort of in the conversation. And a lot of our fans who were already straight as they didn't smoke, they didn't believe in consumer culture so much. And they believed in higher purpose. So it's sort of like fit right in. I mean, everybody was selling their wear so to speak, they were selling anarchy or they were selling a DIY or some other facet of punk culture. And there were definitely people in the scene that were saying, "Oh you can't bring God into punk. This is bullshit! You can't do that." And that my answer was, "Why not?" That's even more punk than to do it, right? Who are you to tell me? What are you like some conservative you can't, you're not allowed to, I'm not allowed to do, what's the punk rule book I have to follow by, and be like, isn't all music started as like a spiritual celebration. Isn't that the origins of music anyway, who are you to say I can't do this. And as far as punk scene goes, I was like a big player in that scene. Who are you? I can do it cause I'm me. If you're gonna make the rules, I can make the rules too then. And if you don't like it don't listen to it. And so that's how we sort of rolled. And it was interesting because we still kept, we maintained a strict two hour meditation every morning, even on tour, we would not eat food that was not cooked because a big thing of the diet is we try to eat food that's been cooked with a proper consciousness, right. Especially when you're a monk and you know this that food affects your consciousness. Love is the super food. It really is. And that's why if you go to some diner where you got some guy, you couldn't care less, you're eating that consciousness and it really affects you. And that's not gonna show up under some, you know when you're breaking down food and just made up this vitamins is not gonna show up on the list of ingredients. Love is not gonna show. I'm the nutrition facts panel. How much love was infused into the preparation of this food on a scale of one to a 100. It makes a difference. It's why people love, you know, home cooked meals. So we did-- So you're making your own doll and like-- We brought our own candy stove on tour with us. And we not only cook for ourselves, we cook for, people would come around with feed other people. Cause it's just part of the culture is you cook with love and you offer it with love. Matter of fact, some tours we'd even do. We would go to kids' houses, you know, some teenager or a 22 year old kid has a house they're renting and we'd go in there and we'd stay at their house. Cause you know, we never stayed at hotels. Generally we cleaned their entire house, unlike any other punk band coming to their house, clean their entire house, clean their entire kitchen and then invite the entire concert to their backyard the next day. Where I would give a class on the Bhagavad Gita, we'd have Keaton and I we'd serve out a meal to everyone. And just blow the mind of that kid. Blow the minds of all the kids. What's more punk rock than like cleaning somebody's house? Punk guy come in here, especially here like your punk here as a cool thing-- You're supposed to trash the house. I know, we clean their houses. Oh my God. So you just were on tour. When did you end up? But you ended up in LA at some point? Then afterwards I moved to LA in 99 and sort of like LA was sort of a, that was like out of the ashram. I was already out of the ashram then. And I was just sort of going through it, like a re almost like a rebranding of my identity, then it's very difficult. I will say it's very difficult to refine yourself in the material world after you've given up becoming a monk. Like it's like a tightrope because as a monk the answer is no, do you do this? No, I don't. Do you do this? No, I don't. Do you do this? No, I don't. And it's sort of a safe parameter whereas the material world it's yes, yes, yes, yes. I'll do anything. I'll try anything. But to be really regulated in what you put in your eyes and your ears and your mouth it's probably, the equivalent would probably be an alcoholic who goes to a bar, but doesn't drink. It takes a lot of sobriety, probably for an alcoholic to go to a bar and be like, I'm good with this. And so I found a very slippery slope dealing with the material world again and trying to find my footing there. And I truthfully went through a very tough time and I got very focused on my physical yoga practice, pranayama and martial arts, with jujitsu. And that's when I got into jujitsu. And that's how I know Joe Rogan. I know. I remember. I listen to your podcast with him right when it came out. And I just remember, first of all, I remember like, wow this monk is talking about MMA, if you have any MMA knowledge whatsoever and you go on Rogan, it's gonna be a lot about that. So it was interesting that you had that background and that's how you knew Joe. But I just remember that that conversation stuck with me. When that was done, three hours later, I was like I was really impacted by the conversation that you had with him. And it's stayed with me and what was that, like two years ago or something like a couple of years ago? One year ago today, maybe like practically a year ago. Yeah. I loved it. And I was like, I remember thinking like I need to meet this guy. You know, it took a year later, but yeah it was interesting. You sharing about how devoted you were to your martial arts practice. And I remember thinking like, how does that gel with the monk consciousness? And that led me to think about my own relationship to yoga and how the difference between the way that the typical Western person interfaces with yoga versus the ancient tradition and purpose of yoga which is to yoke mind and spirit, right? It's like the Austin is our preparation for, getting you into a state of still mindedness so that you can connect with something greater than yourself. It's not about how good you can, you know, do a handstand or, you know, a warrior pose. It's a condiment of a much greater meal and we've made it the meal, we've made the salt, the meal, which is very awkward. If I said, hey, come on over. We're having some sea salt tonight. And yet having a strong body is an important thing as well. And there's something empowering about that. Like I don't see that as being anathema to a spiritual practice, but I guess it's about calibrating that like, what is the balance? In truth it was a little bit of my falling into a questioning of my faith and questioning to this nebulous idea of what an advanced spiritualist is. And I was at this point and stepping away from being a monk and like getting into the material world and trying to find my footing there and getting back into physical yoga practice, very strong physical yoga practice of doing a stung a yoga every day and start saying, well, in martial arts you know who the advanced master is, the guy that kicks your butt is the advanced master and you're not, and it's nothing like, it's nothing metaphysical. It's like, you're tapping out. And this was sort of like at the beginning of jujitsu was also at the beginning but there was not a lot of jujitsu in America back then in 1999. And you were studying with, at a high level with some of those top people. These great guys, now the guys they're all legends. Jean-Jacques Machado, and like 10th Planet. Is that? Yeah. It was before 10th Planet started. So when they opened Eddie Bravo, who's like credible there. You know, we watched them open, and we started going there immediately. And now it's huge. It's international. But it's not that different than punk rock. Like that was the early days of, that was a new way of finding a certain kind of expression, right. That was new and different and kind of counter-culture. And I will say that when you added my background of yoga to that, it helped me fight without rage, that comes with fighting. You can lose your cool, you can lose your breath, you can lose your mind. And it helped me apply all those yoga principles to fighting and how does it, and of course there is a time to fight. It's not a time to be a thug. It's a time to protect. And I think there's always, whenever you have a society you have a group of people that wants, that's it's important to protect the vulnerables. And there's always vulnerables in culture. And so fighting is not a bad thing. It's just depends on how it's used, being spiritual doesn't mean necessarily you don't fight. Now, if you find that it's gonna trigger a part of you that is a very dark place you might consider maybe fighting's not for you. I've had people that have given up, one of my mentors told me that they were a guitar player and he gave up guitar. I was like, why did you give up a guitar? He's like, he's like, ah, for me, it was Maya. And I said, what are you talking about? At the Bhagavad Gita. You told me the Bhagavad Gita, you shouldn't give up what you're good at? He said, yeah, yeah, for me, it was Maya. I was like, that makes no sense, man. You're the one telling me I should not give up what I born to do. And he said, all right, "Next time, you're on stage. See if you're doing it to be God or to serve God." And I was like, "Oh man I'm trying to be God with all this stuff." And so sometimes people recognize even something they're good at. They cannot do in spiritual consciousness. And therefore they just choose to walk away from it. Or for most of us will say, you know what? I can do this, but it's gonna be different now. And that statement he said to me, mentor of mine, that really changed my life. It really made me perform on stage in a different way, relate to my loved ones in a different way. Relate to friends in a different way, that am I doing this to be the cool guy or to be like of service. And that's the big part of again come right back full circle to the recovery community. Because the big thing of recovery from what I understand is of service. Can I be of service? Can I be a contributor of this world? And it actually satisfies the heart. What can I contribute? I mean, that's something that I wrestle with all the time, every podcast or whether I get up on stage to give a talk, like I've done almost 600 of these. I get nervous every time because my ego is wrapped up in how am I gonna come across? Am I going to ask good questions? Is the guests gonna like me? How is the audience gonna respond to that? All that noise. I walk up on stage to give a talk that I've given many times. And I start sweating and I have to remind myself that's just, it's my ego. It's my ego that wants to be approved of, that wants the validation, that wants to, you know look cool or whatever it is. And it's only by when I catch myself and think like, how can I just be of service here? Like, what is the greater good that can be achieved by me showing up in this role and all the nervousness dissipates. If you can flip that switch and it's not my default, like, and I don't always do it very well. I get caught up in my own bullshit constantly. But when I am able to do that, like, then it always goes better. Because you take yourself out of the equation. You you're like, just allow me to be a channel for what is, you know, sort of the highest purpose here. And it's your practice? You know, I think both of us are blessed with great wives. And I asked my wife to come also because, last year she came when I did Joe Rogan and you know, I've been talking on stages since I was like, 15 and 16. So I'm genuinely don't get nervous and I've played big concerts too. I don't get nervous. I'm very comfortable in front of people. A lot of people aren't so confident like that. I am, I was so nervous for Joe Rogan and it wasn't because it was a big podcast. I truthfully, I didn't even know that much about podcasts back then at all. I just knew that his audience was very different. There was not, it's not like the yoga community where everybody's into yoga and they are into Ayurveda and they're into, and they wanna see me do a handstand. It was like, you have right wing, you have left wing. You have, you know people believe in UFO's, you have scientists. And I was like, I don't know anything. What am I gonna say? I'm gonna say something stupid. And I know John for years and he's a sharp guy. And if he wanted to turn on me, he could easily turn on me. And just like, and I was thinking, and I told my wife, I was like, I am nervous. Like I'm gonna vomit. And she just looked at me and she said, "Well what would Radhanath Swami do?" Radhanath Swami's one big lighthouse in my life. And I said, well, he'd appreciate the person. Start the conversation with an appreciation. And so even today, coming in here to like, even my mind, I was like, okay, what should I do? How do I prepare for things? You don't prepare, let's give a talk. How do I prepare for this? And I was just like, you know, I'm gonna prepare I'm gonna pull out my malas and I'm gonna chant and I'm gonna go for a hike today in the mountains. And I'm not gonna think about it whatsoever. And then I'm going to appreciate, you know, from what the Rich Roll podcast is effective I wanna appreciate him and share how I appreciate him. And say a prayer in my mind, which I did before the show that everything I do is an offering. So please accept this offer. And that's how I prepare. And that way-- It's a beautiful practice. It is, and it protects you from trying to, "Oh, I've got to impress somebody." Is that the world of impressing and being overly concerned about what people think about me? It's like, it's exhausting, exhausting world. It was good to know we both in the same. Oh, trust me. You know, I'm my own worst enemy with all of this stuff. And I create ridiculous amounts of suffering and anger and anxiety. You know, I'm far from a master at any of this but I did notice that you did give Joe that appreciation. And I thought it was an amazing conversation. The one thing that I thought was that was super interesting though, was that Joe got really hung up on this idea that you have a very, your relationship to the Bhagavad Gita is one of reality, right? Like he really wanted to pin you down on like do you think all these, like there's an elephant faced man, like, right. He wanted, he was really and you told this incredible story which I would actually like you to tell again here of being on tour and being playing the show in Buffalo and having this experience. And you tell us unbelievable story. He was impressed by that story. As soon as it ended, he just pivoted right back to this thing about like, do you actually think about? And I was like, no reaction to this story. I was like, oh, come on. Did you just hear what I heard? I couldn't believe that. I was like I can't spend three hours talking about this story. This story in and of itself is like a movie. That story was a transformational in my life, actually more than any Saint or Swami or pilgrimage I ever went to that getting beat up so bad was such a deep faith builder in my life. I was shocked that he wasn't. So walk us through it cause people here probably haven't heard, many of them haven't heard it. Well, you know, it was, we were all monks and we are on tour. This is Shelter. This is Shelter. When we were on tour. By material standards, it was successful. Again, we weren't, you know, we'd sold we had our own record label in the ashram by the way, we started a record label in the ashram, which you know now Steve Ready, friend of yours, (indistinct) with you. Steve, you envision records. And metrology was friends with John Joseph but I always saw on Instagram. I don't know if I know him, maybe I've met him. I'm not sure. Anyway he's an old friend of ours. And so anyway, we run tour, we had a record label. Nevermind, go ahead. Anyway, we run tour and by material standards, it was a great show. We were headlining the show. It was a, we like to do Keaton before the performance like outside, we just set up and we cook. And that's how we did. That's how we did monk life. We cooked, we gave out food, sacred food, and then we just sang like outside, like in the parking lot. And then the show is like a big warehouse in Buffalo New York turned out to be a ghetto, which we didn't really realize how dangerous the neighborhood was. And after the performance, I was getting interviewed outside and the van, our band's van had driven in the club and we were loading in the gear and I was getting interviewed and all of a sudden a car pulled up and our fans, their ages are between like 15 years old and 26 years old maybe I was probably 26 or 27, maybe at the time. And all of a sudden huge guys got out of this car. And they grab one young kid, 16 year old and just beat the crap out of him. Like it was like, and I was witnessing this while I was getting interviewed. And you know, the show was over. People were leaving and there's violence. Sometimes it happens at a show. So I didn't like get really worked up but it was awkward for my peripheral vision. And then the gang moved to another person and beat that person up really bad. And then by the third person everybody started running scattering. So I was like, okay this is what happens when you stay up late at night, crazy stuff starts selling-- Were there like dudes that worked at the venue there also, or just-- I didn't know anybody was, I don't know. It wasn't like a venue. It's so probably some kids to DIY thing they rented out a giant warehouse. It's not like there's a security team. So I ran inside. Our van is like, all the windows and doors are open and our roadies are loading it in, the roadies are also monks. And so I was like, you guys there's some crazy guys out there. We got to get out, let's get in the van and let's get the hell out of here. And the Brody's are looking at me. Like we can't go anywhere. It's like, we're not even loaded in yet. Like everything's out of the van, everything's open. And then something incredibly eerie happened which is the bad guys. Their car drove into the club and parked like a T right in front of our van. So we couldn't get out and sort of sealing up the exit. And the only people left in the club was the bands who are shutting things down. The PA guy, a few, you know, not many people left in the venue and this guy gets out of the car. The whole gang gets out of the car. And this one guy who is massive, like just like a massive Hulk of a man, horse of a man, puts his hand in his back pocket and grabs a gun and just says in a very commanding yet just sober voice. He just says, I got a gun And I'm gonna kill everyone tonight. It was like one of these moments in your life where like okay, tonight's the night we're gonna die tonight. It wasn't like run for your life. Let's fight back. Let's it's like, tonight's, we're gonna die. And I was sort of like the older one. And I had, you know, all the other monks that were with me were a little younger than me. So everybody gathered around me, like rocking off what are we gonna do? And to me, it was just like, we're gonna die. What do you mean? What are we gonna do? We're gonna die. So you know what we're gonna do we're gonna chant. I don't know where that came from. I'm not a spiritually evolved being, if you get to hang out with me long enough, you'll realize that. But for some reason. There's nothing else to do. Was this before or during your MMA? Before, much before. This was me-- Maybe this motivated you. Eating lots of Indian sweets. (indistinct) MMA made my way out of this one though. It was one of those things, massive man with a gang of other massive people with weapons I wasn't gonna get out of this one. So I just, I just thought we're gonna die right now. And it was one of those you ever had one of those experiences where you gonna die? That felt like they were gonna die right now. So I went in and I got a clay Indian drum, which I play. And I started chanting these mantras. These (indistinct) mantras these prayers to Lord Vishnu as the protector. And we all gathered a circle. It was incredibly surreal rich, we're in a circle chanting these mantras while these guys are going around the club just demolishing people. I don't know what people say. Well, why didn't you run? I don't know. I don't know what was going on but we all started chanting. And then they all started coming towards us. And all my guys ran, some guys ran under the van, in the van, over the van. It was just like, everybody's scattered. And I was surrounded by these people, holding the drum. And I didn't even know what to say. So I just put my hands like in a namaste, still holding this drum. And I said, oh, the guy pulled out a gun. And he said, "You want some. I thought to myself, "Oh my God how am I supposed to answer this?" Do I want some, I said, Hare Krishna, I'm a Krishna monk. I have no idea why you guys are so angry. And then I felt a barrage of fists coming to my face and I've never, ever felt helpless in my life. But at that time I felt like incredibly helpless. And as I'm getting punched, I was just chanting, chanting like different names of God. Krishna, Rum, Govinda, Chaitanya, like this just like running through my mind. And as I'm getting pounded, I'm starting to think of all these great stories. I've studied the Maha-Bharata, the Ramayana, (speaking in foreign language) they're stories of sort of people in destitute positions in their life and the how they leave their bodies. And they generally the auspicious way, the wonderful way to leave their body is they focus their mind on the supreme being on God, on your higher power. They've had their focus and they're just chanting these mantras. And I'm thinking about these great personalities in these great epics of India thinking, wow all these people died like this, and now I'm gonna die. And I'm also dying in the same way they are dying. I am so fortunate and I can honestly say there was not fear and there was not anger. There was just a type of like great appreciation for the way I'm gonna leave my body. And it got worse because as I started getting beat up I saw these women coming at me with baseball bats and I thought they were coming to save me but they were the girlfriends of these guys. And they started pounding me with baseball bats but the same thing too, I was like chanting and chanting and chanting. And it just all stopped. And I didn't know what happened. And I was covered in blood. And what actually happened was the rest of the band had jumped in our van and just started the van and plowed through their car and escaped. And when they did a head count they didn't realize I wasn't in the van with them. So I didn't know what was happening. And I guess I was experiencing some type of, you know Altered. Altered state. I was looking for the band basically. And I was out in the streets looking through-- The attackers dispersed. Yeah, I guess they dispersed. And I went into the streets and I was trying to flag down cars because I thought my band was getting beat up or killed or something. And every time a car would see me they'd slow down and they'd look at me. And I was ever see that movie, Carrie when you were a teenager, like covered in blood and I'm still holding this clay drum covered in blood. I'm thinking like a Yogi John wick. It must've been so creepy to see me. And I wouldn't have stopped for me either if I was driving through a ghetto, but everyone just kept on stopping. And I was like, oh my God my whole band is about to get killed. And I'm walking into, I saw some light on, it must have been two in the morning, somewhere in Buffalo. And I saw some man in a booth, like in a bus station. And I said, hey, you've got to call police. My friends are in trouble. And the guy looked at me and just said, "I'm busy." And I was so like, shocked about how little this guy cared about human tragedy. And I said, you gotta call the police or I'm gonna go in there and call the police. Now, get away from your phone or give me the phone. And I think this was before cell phones maybe or maybe I'm not sure, I didn't have a cell phone. So anyway, he said, "All right, I'll call the police. And I said, "If you don't mind, I'm just gonna stay here. Cause these guys might come back and kill me. And so I realized at that point like, oh my God my head's probably split open. And this is how people die. Their head cracks open, their brain swells. And they fall asleep and die. And I was like, oh crap. I wasn't expecting to die tonight. I have a whole tour plans. I have like, I have so many plans and I'm gonna die tonight. This wasn't the day. But I guess this is what I always teach. This is what the books always teach. This is what the wisdom literature teaches that you don't expect death to happen tonight. It happens what appears to be randomly. And for some reason, Raghu I'm talking to myself for some reason, Raghu you got blessed tonight to experience what it's like to die in a wonderful way. But now you're in sad shape because you've lived. And if you've got this head trauma, I don't know much. I'm not a doctor or anything. But what I understand is your brain swells, you fall asleep and then you die. You get a concussion and you die. So I was like, oh my God, my mom doesn't know I am here. My friends don't know where I am. I'm gonna die in this disgusting, mechanic shop or bus terminal or wherever I am. And I started praying, sincerely. I said, Krishna God, you've been so kind to me. You gave me this glimpse into what it's like to be evolved even though I'm not evolved. And now I'm gonna just die with a concussion, please. If you want to take me, take me now. And I started chanting these beautiful prayers I had memorized, which we do. Sometimes we're on tour. We have, there's all these beautiful Sanskrit, stowed the rooms, (indistinct), or like beautiful Sanskrit prayers glorifying, Vishnu, or Krishna. And so I had a bunch memorized that I would just do for fun. And I just started pictured a picture of Krishna in my mind and chanting these mantras. And then I lived it was a good time to die, but I lived. And when you reflect back on that experience now, like what is the, not necessarily the lesson, but like, where is the wisdom right? Like the ability to maintain your acronymity under such life-threatening duress. And to have this relationship with death that is, either neutral or appreciative is unbelievable to me like and that your return to your human frailty only occurs in the aftermath of the most intense aspect of that experience. The very strong realization Rich was not that, I'm some great yoga master. There are yoga paths that require you to master your senses, require for you to master your tongue, your belly, your genitals, your mind, that require you to move your prana certain ways through different almost like technical things with your body to experience some type of high or spiritual oneness. Bhakti is not like that. Bhakti is you're connected through your almost like a child. The child can either go out, get a job, make a living and or make some money so they can make themselves some dinner. Or the child can just cry. The Bhakti path is sort of like, it's a path of sort of crying and it's a path of crying in love. And then what happens is there becomes like a bond, where your higher power. They become your best friend and you become their best friend. And they're always in the same way you're thinking about them, your higher power, your higher power is thinking about you, like and is eager and is happy to serve. And even if that service might mean like, the miracle isn't that I live, the miracle was that in my time of great distress, not due to some great yoga power of raising my Kundalini that I was protected. It was the fact that Bhagawan or higher power. My source entered into my mind at the most tragic time. That was the magic of that. Nothing of the material world is a safe place. And if you think you're safe, or an illusion, there's danger at every moment in the material world and safety. It's almost understandable that the world is suffering with anxiety because it's normal. It's a temporary world. And we're eternal beings. Of course there's anxiety there. But the fact that we can feel connected in times of great distress that shows that there's actually a benevolent, merciful, loving energy or force. That's got your best interest in mind. Just like I was a parent in New York city for awhile when my children were little. And you know, you're playing with your kids at the park and you always got your one eye on the kids. They're playing, you're talking to another mom or something but you always have one eye watching the kids because you're a benevolent force and you're not gonna let anybody, someone's talking to my kid. I'm like, hey, what's up? So in the same way, you're always being the theory in Bhakti is that you're always looked after. You're always loved. You're always cared for, wherever you're at. And so that was my big tip. And if you're true, but if you're truly embodying that then there should be no fear. Exactly. And that in Sanskrit, that's called a boya. A boya means fearlessness doesn't come from like, yeah, I'm just gonna do it. I'm gonna jump off the cliff and go dive into the quarry or jump out of the airplane. That's not no fear necessarily. That means you're a little courageous, you're risking your life. But there is actually a tangible yoga, (indistinct) that you get to where actually, you understand you can't die. And that's something, it's something real. It becomes when you fully understand that I'm not a body, the body will die, but I can't die. It's one of those, like, you know, Socrates. Say you can catch me, but you can't find me. But isn't it also like on some level, there's a bit of surrender in that as well. And baked into that surrender is this relationship with fate, right? Like isn't part of Bhakti understanding that there are aspects of your life that are kind of pre-written. And within that there's free will, but there is a story for you. And that story has already been told. I'm I mischaracterizing that? A little bit there definitely is some... Like if you look at Vedic astrology, you know, it's like there's crazy stuff with life. But implicit in that is this idea that, there is an architecture for you already. Sure. There is some type of karmic journey we're on. I just flew out to California, but what I do on that plane that's my free will. So we do have some karma that we have to live out to the degree that we have these yoga principles in our life, which are in one sense are so related to the 12 steps, just like a person who is newly recovered, they're still bound. The noose is very tight around their neck. And so if I say, come into a bar. Let's just hang out. You don't have to drink. They still might be like, no, no, no, no, I don't go to bars because the news is still tight. 20 years, 30 years of recovery, a person feels like I can go anywhere I feel very safe. You know, I have some healthy fear, but I'm pretty safe. I don't deal with people, places or things that could trigger me, but I feel a little safer. So as we become this whole yoga culture that people are getting into nowadays with higher Veda and with meditation and with pranayama and with yoga lifestyle it's to bring our consciousness to Saatva, they call it. And Saatva means, a regulation a control where you're not dominated anymore by these lower passions. From there, you can make a better choice. Some of us are born triggered by lower passions. So we're triggered the yogis call it Raja sir Thomas, were triggered by the we're born into them. Our parents were like that. We are born with these very lower qualities. So a yoga culture helps you change that culture. And in that culture either allowed more freewill, just like a drug addict has no free will. They've relinquished their free will. And now you could offer them something like heroin or cocaine, and they'd be like, yeah, give it to me. Are you sure? Cause last time I gave it to you, you lost your family. Give it to me. Just give it to me. It takes away their intelligence. There is some like type of yoga. There is some destiny karmic destiny we have but we can also transcend that because spirituality is higher than that material destiny as well. And that's part of what we have. And then the beautiful thing is you'll start to see your karma, not as this, good luck and bad luck and good fortune and bad fortune. And sometimes you'll see that a lot in the India culture too you find your chart, and you find where your malefic planets are. And then you try to count your act, your malefic planets with jams or with poojas. If you know about dating culture, you do some ritual to overcome some malefic thing which is gonna hurt your finances or hurt your ability to have a child or hurt your romance in your life. But in Bhakti, oftentimes there's a throwing up your hands in the air. If you want me to be poor, I'll be poor. If you wanna be successful, I'll be successful. Whatever you like. And we're not gonna play metaphysical Amazon prime with God, or the devas or the higher beings that we just accept like there's a higher plan for me, right? The prayer isn't to have your will be done but to serve God, whatever God's will is for me, allow that to take place allow that to flourish in me let me be a vessel or an expression of whatever that is. And that demands a certain humility. And it demands a level of acceptance and surrender to live in that place. I accept you, whether you accept that label as I accept this, guy's on a Bhakti path. When I see you or hear about you or hear you talk I say this guy's on a Bhakti path, and I'm sure you could see times in your life that might have appeared tragic on paper to be like, thank God that happened. Oh, every time, right? And that's been the greatest teacher outside of any kind of doctrine to just track my own experiences in life trajectory and understand that those things that happen that were so awful in the moment were happening for me, not to me they've been my greatest teachers and the greatest accelerants of personal growth in my life. And that's why when I see somebody suffering or meeting there, my wife calls it their divine moment. You don't wanna rob somebody of that experience. Our instinct is to try to save them or pull them out of that. And that may not be the correct approach for that person. That person is undergoing something that could be ultimately the best thing that ever happens to them. But there is a spiritual law at play, which is when you are in a karmic context, when you're living your life in a manner that isn't on that path, that isn't on the path of spiritual growth, the universe will knock on your door and it will knock gently. And then it'll knock a little bit louder and it'll keep knocking. And the consequences of your actions will continue to slowly at first and then very extremely ratchet up until you finally pay attention and that culminates in your bottom or your, hitting that, driving your car metaphorically into the wall so that God, the universe, Krishna whatever you wanna call it has your full attention. Now you can hear, now you are ready. The teacher has shown up and the student is ready. They can hear the message and they are prepared to actually do the work in order to shift. And that's how I've seen karma or maybe there's another term for it in Bhakti that's more appropriate play out in my own life. And it continues to happen, but the more attuned you are you can read those signals when they're, when the universe is knocking gently, you can hear it. You don't have to wait until the cataclysm. You're already tuned into it. Oh, okay. This is where we're going with this. And I can look back in my own life think, oh man, thank God for that. Thank God for that failed relationship. Thank God for that economic downswing. Thank God when the sinkhole appeared in my life, where the black ice of my life was spinning out of control. And then you start to realize, man I've been cared for my entire life. I've never been neglected. I've always been looked after. It just didn't appear that way at that time. And you start to see all the, as you look back at your life you start to see all these messengers were also sent to me at different times in my life. And you realize how like your life wasn't just some random karma. It was actually your karma that you were born into actually has a divine play as well. And the material sense and even the metaphysical, spiritual overcoming some malefic planet. Don't you want to see those malefic planets are there for you as well. And that's the another very interesting facet of astrology. I've never done that. I've never like tried to work the planet thing. That's a thing, you know. You can go down a crazy rabbit hole with that. I know you talked to Rogan about some of the crazy Vedic chart readings. There's crazy. Crazy Vedic chart reading. They're so incredibly accurate. You can't. I mean, I didn't talk to him about palm reading. We had like palm readers that were just like fascinating. They predicted. I remember me in Paramananda Porcell, my guitar player. We were like monks in India, met some palm reader just looks at our palm. Just goes, you know, I'm a New Yorker. So I'm a cynical cynical, but I love all this stuff as well. So it looks at, did I tell this? I don't think I told this story. Looks at my palm. He said, he says a hundred rupees. I said a hundred rupees. That's not a dollar 50 or something. A hundred rupees, I'll read your palm. I said, okay, I'll give you a hundred rupees but you gotta tell me something about myself first. Then I'll know that your club, then I know you're for real. So he looks at my palm and he said, well you'll get married someday. And you'll have so many children. I said no, no, no. Don't tell me about my future. You tell me about my past. If you can tell me about my past, I'll give you a hundred rupees. And he looks at my hands sort of like indignant and says, "You are a famous musician." I was like, pretty good. Because he didn't know me from Adam. I'm dressed like a monk in the middle of West Bengal. And then Paramananda said, read my hand too. And so he said, you too are a famous musician. And then for the next 30 minutes, this guy dissected my entire past, present and future. And it was like, so uncanny what this man knew about me. And finally it ended with this. He said, oh, but you're going to get into a tragic car accident namaste. I was like, what do you mean namaste. You can't just walk away. Tragic coming. I said, well, how can I avoid it? He goes, Prabhu, you cannot avoid it is in your hand. You cannot avoid this. I was like, well, there must be something I can do to avoid this. He goes, "Do not worry, no one will die." And I was thinking, oh great. There's a lot of horrible things that can happen but death isn't included. And so my friend immediately said, well, can you check my hand? He goes, yes, you too will be in a car accident. And so I'm just thinking, oh my God, so this guy leaves and fast forward three years later and Shelter had, I was no longer a monk and Shelter had a hit record in Brazil and we're touring Brazil. And the record company put a party on for us. And the party. You know, the record company is trying to make a theme party. So they make a theme East, West yoga party and they invited MTV and all this press and journalists. And they invited a famous palm reader from the Amazon. Who's like a celebrity yogini from Brazil. So I was like, oh cool, a palm reader is here. And I was like, hey, you gotta read my palm. And so she read my palms, very good. This is gonna be a very good tour for you. You're gonna travel all over South America. This is your first time here. You will come here many times. And I was like, oh, very cool. And then her face soured and she said, "Oh, you will get in a very tragic car accident." And I was like, oh my God. I was like, and she's like, don't worry. No one will die. I was like, I know no one will die. I was like, you gotta check out my friend. So I grabbed Paramananda and he looked at Paramananda's. Yes, him too, he will get in a car accident also. And I was just like, oh my God, when is this? Is there like the classic car accident line on the palm-- That must be a car accident, I'm no palm reader. But you haven't had this accident yet. Hold the phone. Then I said, well, maybe the band will get in a car accident. Can you check our drummer and our guitar player's hand. So he checked the drummer, and he checked the other guitar player. He said, "No, these two are fine." And I was like, man, what's going to fast forward a year. The drummer and the guitar player left the band. We got two, a new drummer and new guitar player with two new sets of palms, on that tour from Las Vegas to right after we had this incredible vegan meal at someone's house after the show, we drove through the night through the rocky mountains on the way to salt Lake city the driver fell asleep at the wheel and we rolled 150 feet down a cliff. Oh my God! 150. I kid you not. And it was but some people say, well, you created it with your, no, the driver didn't know. We didn't tell anybody this. It was, we went down 150 feet. No one died, the guitar player, or I'm sorry the roadie who was 19 at the time, the doctor said they never seen anyone survive this or walk away from it because he got the same break Christopher Reeves got. And he recovered. Matter of fact that the coolest thing that happened was I woke up my harmonium which is this pump piano they use for chanting. I brought one in the car with me, smashed me in the head and knocked me unconscious. So when I woke up, everything was destroyed. We had one of those high top extended vans with a fiberglass roofs that was ripped off. The van was at the bottom of a cliff, half in a river. And everything was just a mess. And our roadie was screaming and saying, I can't feel my legs. Am I gonna be okay, Raghunath am I gonna be okay? And out of all the mess and all the garbage in the van his head is resting in a Bhagavad Gita, like the Bhagavad Gita is open, his head is like a pillow in the Bhagavad Gita. It's like splitting the book open. Splitting the book open and I was like, you know, I don't know what's going on but you are resting in the Bhagavad Gita. I think you're gonna be fine. What page? I don't know I should have checked the page, but truthfully three or four of us literally walked away. They climbed up the mountain, flagged down a trucker and got help. They walked, they were unscathed. And three of us, me and Paramananda were treated and released that night. And Will had to recover, and Rodi had to recover, but he recovered. He's all right. That's a crazy story. It's crazy story. Palm reading, astrology, brigade readings. These are all sort of mystical things. Not necessarily spiritual things, but sort of mystical things that I found that they're sort of real. And then there's a... It's more fun to, it's more real, what do you make of on the mystical tip the saddos who are, you know in the caves who are like breatherians and don't eat or have eaten for. There are the stories. I don't know whether they're true or apocryphal of these mystics. Who kind of transcend the mortal coil through deep states of meditation. I think it's all real. Have you ever encountered? I've met people who've I mean, there's a very famous, documented guy. I can't remember his name in India. Who's been on air documented by Western science. There's people who've, you know Iyengar's guru Krishnamacharya was documented by, you know a lot of this stuff is readable in old British newspapers. The guy that was buried, I've met mystics who could read minds who could just see you and tell you about your life. And all my students, like shocking, shocking stuff. They would tell you. I've met mystics who, yeah. Reading minds is a big one and it's super shocking the stuff that you can come up with. Well, I'll share it. What is it like? It's too crazy. It's too crazy, it's too personal with people that I know plus, but it's stuff this, and there's some mystics who can see sometimes we see I won't get too much into this cause I will go off on a tangent but there's some mystics who can see spirits who are haunting a person, that you can't see. It just manifests in you as I'm depressed, or I'm filled with anxiety or I'm filled with anger or rage or depression, or sometimes even a sickness. And we'll say, well, you know, it's just a chemical imbalance. That's why. It manifest as a chemical imbalance but they'll see it as a subtle being. Right. You have an infestation of dark beings inhabiting your-- Exactly. And sometimes they're related to you and they haunt you. So this idea of a haunting it means a unbodied being entering into your body. Like, you know, we say growing up with (indistinct) a ghost but the ghosts are real, they're unbodied beings. By the way, this is the Vedic teachings. I'm a yoga teacher. I don't know if any of this is true. Even if you don't believe that, just consider for a moment that we're all on some level haunted by you know, the people that we've encountered in our lives. Just think about how often you think of that person who holds power over you. That, you know, just neurochemically like somebody's a teacher or a parent or somebody who wronged you and you replay and replay and replay this tape. And that dictates your actions and your worldview and is so determinitive of how you live your life. That's an infestation. Whether you can actually see some entity. I'm gonna steal that. It is real and it lives inside of, I think we all have some version of that. I'm gonna steal that. And in the same way they have these epigenetics where you could pass these things on, through blood lines. The Yogi say, you know, science comes to terms with things like the yogis have been talking about forever. And yeah. So the idea of mylythic beings, it's real, right. It goes back to that Netflix documentary. There's like the Channelers right. But in Bhakti we don't mess with it so much. We don't mess with it. We don't mess with these like exorcisms and stuff like that. Unless you feel like. No Bhakti exorcism. No Bhakti. We just throw our hands in. There are a lot, but you know, Radhanath Swami talks about that in his book, The Journey Home. There was like these mylythic god, you gotta be careful like what your, who you're dealing with because you're dealing in India. There's so much access into these other worldly things that we just either take it. And it's all crazy fictitious stuff. I've been with people that can read into my mind. And it's real. And then there's other sidis. That's one sidi. Sidis are perfections. And this is why people did yoga. In previous times, they did it to either develop some type of sidi, some mystical profession. Sidi, S-I-D-I. (indistinct) So there's no real way. Special powers? Some type of type of powers. But we consider like Bhakti Siddhanta, the conclusion of all sidis is Bhakti, right? Because we don't wanna be some superhero, so to speak we wanna be connected. And we consider that the highest thing. And the highest thing they say the Bhakti master will have all sidis anyway, because they can have whatever they want because of that same loving reciprocation with God. And it's no big deal. It's no big deal. That relationship to it is like, yeah, of course. Like Christ, the mystical things that we hear about with Christ doing these were all like common things in yoga culture, not to downplay Christ at all. I'm saying Christ. That's all you got Christ. That's come on, walk in a water, give me something. But you'll hear about this stuff in the Vedic tradition about walking in water, levitation, healing people, making things manifest out of nothing. You know, these are sidis that people can get, but Christ beauty was not the mysticism. It was the fact that he was teaching people that you've got to trust your source. You gotta connect this world. This world is a temporary place. Don't make all your investments. There's very little return on investment in the material world. The bigger return on investments are in our spiritual life. Well, speaking of teaching we've gotta wind this down a little bit here but I do wanna talk about what you do at your farm, the Supersoul Farm, right? You do yoga teaching and pretty like rigorous programs that you conduct. So what does that look like if somebody was to show up and they're like, tell me everything you know, teach me, like what is the program? Well, we sort of put a pause on the farm right now because due to the pandemic. Coronavirus. But starting up we're doing our trainings. I do a pilgrimage in India, which is a great way to dive into Vedic culture. And I teach every day, not just a physical practice we teach philosophy and we go to Holy places, Holy people, Holy temples, Holy rivers, the whole thing if you've ever wanted to a beautiful experience not as tourist-- What are some other places that you've gone? All over but I think the next trip we're doing in November is jogging off Puri. It's one of the Holy Dam's of the East coast of India. Rishikesh was the land of yogis on the riverbank. So the Gunga. (indistinct) It's consider the entranceway into the sacred area of the Himalayas. And then (indistinct). That's where this trip is going in November. You can find that on my website, raghunath.yoga. And then Naipaul in April. We're going to the Holy city, Holy places in Nepal. And then I do a training in India for about a month and we do it. For people who were already yoga teachers we teach the facets of Bhakti culture. We got like a, a part of Ayurveda as well as asanas pranayama. We teach Ayurveda, we teach music, we teach, even cooking that's for our 300 hour trainees but we also have a full on-- You can't do this without teaching cooking. You can't do it without teaching. It's cooking with love. And then we also have a full on music Academy that we do for people who wanna study Keaton. And then we have a wisdom Academy that people just wanna study sacred literature. So that happens in January in 2022. And then meanwhile, you podcast every single day. How do you do that? Doing like two or three of these a week, it's killing me. It's exhausting. I don't know how you do it every day, even when you're traveling and everything, like, how does that work? You know what, this is the biggest break I took. I had took off Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. I've never taken a break this long. Usually I do it when we travel, but because of the time zone and because I'm on sort of a rigorous program this weekend, I just haven't had, it wasn't gonna work out. And I wanted to give some quality time to my son and my wife who were with me as well. But yeah, we try to do it. And truthfully the podcast, even though it's it may sound corny, but I really do it for myself. I like to read every day and it helps me. Everything is a practice. It's a practice in hearing sacred literature wisdom literature, truthful dialogue. It helps me in my life. And the secondary is a fact. It helps other people who are also getting into that. So today I will also spend some time doing that meditational practice. I'll just do it privately. Cool. So last thing I wanna ask you, which is if somebody is listening to this and this is their first introduction into some of these ideas, what is the first thing that you like? Some little nugget of wisdom that you can impart to somebody who's not familiar with yoga or the Bhakti path. Who's just starting to tap on the walls of the Maya surrounding their own life. Like where do you begin? Where do we begin? You know, you read a good book and Bhagavad Gita is a great book. Sometimes people find it a little heady at first. I mean, it's yeah. Is that the first, I mean crazy stories. I like Radhanath Swami's book because it's like a modern day autobiography of a Yogi. It's his personal journey of hitchhiking to India which is quite amazing hitchhiked to India from Europe and getting there and living with Saudis in the Himalayas. And even though it's a great story, it's peppered with philosophy of practical philosophy not just philosophy to sit in your head but philosophy to sit in your heart and in your practice. So I find that as a good intro book a journey home autobiography of a, I'm forgetting the title now, autobiography of a Yogi. Oh yeah. I think it is American. Mental block right now. But Radhanath Swami, my name is Raghunath, his name is Radhanath Swami. That's all very confusing. All this Sanskrit. And then it becomes easier. And then you start remembering these one is easier because you start to learn the Sanskrit. Where did you get that crazy mala around your neck? These my friend in Maya port makes these, silver Tulsi Malas. They are Tulsi wood which comes from the Holy basal sacred. It's considered a sacred plant and my friend makes them and he lives in India and he makes them it's pretty cool. They're beautiful, I'll get you some. Well, good man. I think we did it. How do you feel? I feel good. You feel good? Thank you so much for having me. I'm super honored and I'm really, I have great respect for what you're doing and I will continue to be a regular listener. Well, likewise, my friend, I aspire to your level of devotion. It's a beautiful thing. And I think it's, you're an example of the solution to what ails us as individuals and as a culture right now, that's struggling with how to cohere and live in unity together. And I think that the message that you're putting out is exactly what everybody needs to hear right now. So keep doing what you're doing. I think you have a tendency to see the good in people. Thank you very much you're kind. Always I try to. Keep up the great work. Cool. So if you wanna learn more about Raghunath raghunath.yoga, is your website. Raghunath.yoga or Raghunath Yogi at Instagram. And Wisdom of the Sage‪. Wisdom of the Sage is our podcast. You can listen to it anywhere you get podcasts and you can binge listen and we're on every day. And when's this book coming out? The same people who did Radhanath Swami's book is doing a book about my... I didn't wanna put out my story, but they were like, no you should put out your story first. And so we're doing a book on the six pillars of Bhakti which we were just talking about, but it's in the works, right now I'm working on-- So a memoir also. You gotta do it. You got so many crazy stories. I got a bunch of crazy stories. The more I'm writing them it's like, well, this is pretty crazy. We'll get that done. Cause I know you were talking about it on Rogan and that was a year ago. That was a year ago. Let's get this book done. Well, I put on the brakes and then the publisher told me, "No we want your story instead." Well, when that's done come back here and okay, share about that. Thanks. Cool. Peace man. Keep up the good work. Namaste.

Channel: Rich Roll

Views: 125,298

Keywords: rich roll, rich roll podcast, self-improvement podcasts, education podcasts, health podcasts, wellness podcasts, fitness podcasts, spirituality podcasts, mindfulness podcasts, mindset podcast, vegan podcasts, plant-based nutrition, yoga podcast, raghunath cappo, raghunath cappo joe rogan, bhakti yoga, life as a monk, hardcore punk, punk rock podcast, john joseph, toby morse, spiritual awakening, what is bhakti yoga, radhanath swami, youth of today band, nyc punk scene

Id: 8M3mDQ3xGBo

Length: 143min 7sec (8587 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 25 2021