Photo from www.krishnadas.com

If you’ve practiced in a yoga studio you’ve probably heard Krishna Das.  His voice is hard not to like.  I think it’s safe to say that Krishna Das made chanting accessible and definitely elevated the cool factor of traditional Indian music up the charts a bunch.  He’s quirky, funny, and pretty much awesome.  He has that thing that makes you feel like he is singing to you, like he knows you individually.  It’s like you’ve had lots of conversations with him and spent years with hanging out with him, even if you’ve never actually spoke.  He has that kind of magnetism.  To me he feels like my favorite uncle.  To others he feels like a close friend, or a secret crush.  He has the boyish charm of James Dean.   He’s the kind of guy you just want to hang out with.

The chanting I’ve heard before Krishna Das reminded me of an off-pitch soloist I heard growing up in church.  I have memories of my ears hurting from the sound.  I turned around and looked up in the balcony.  The view consisted of the tips of the colossal organ reaching up to the high arch of the ceiling (and heaven), the back of the organist’s bald head rolling around with emotion, and a squealing woman clutching her hymn book with conviction. This was their routine.  First, the organist and her would make eye contact.  Next, he’d play the note. Then, she would try to match it, first very unsuccessfully, and continue on by moving her voice up and down until she sort of landed on the pitch.  Lastly, they would continue with the hymn together in a struggle. When they got the notes right she sung louder and he played harder.  When they got the notes wrong they backed off tentatively, like it was part of the song.  It was horrible. It made me squirm in my kneeler! 

Lots of devotional chanting had jolted my sense memory right back to those screeching church sounds.  I prefer low-pitch monotone of monks to the squealing.  They don’t have much harmony but at least their sounds don’t cause a tensing physical reaction in my body.

I understand the power of singing.  I love music.  Everyone does. Hearing a song can instantly trigger feeling, emotion, and memory.  Singing a song magnifies all of those emotions because of the vibrations in your own body.  So I get chanting, I love the idea of it, and I’m glad Krishna Das came along to make it so cool he’s on iPods across the world.  Sting has recorded with him.  I think that proves that KD is pretty awesome.

A “Krishna Das experience” usually consists of hearing him in a kirtan or workshop environment.  He’s always traveling around to different cities and countries now doing his thing.  He’ll sing for a bit, people sing along, he talks about his experiences in India and with his guru, he answers questions, and he tells really good jokes.  A cool and unique thing about KD is how down to earth he is.  He talks about yoga philosophy as not something far away but as ways and attitudes we can take to be happier people. 

I heard someone in a workshop say to KD, “I’ve gotten waves of advancement in my practice, like I’m becoming more enlightened.  How do you know when you are becoming a more advanced yogi and more enlightened?”  His answers crack me up because he tells it like it is.  My mid-west sensibilities are right on the page with that.  He says thing like, The Dalai Lama doesn’t run into the bathroom when no one is looking, jump up and down and shout, “I’m the Dalai Lama, I’m the Dalai Lama.”  It’s not about becoming more spiritual than the next person, or being able to do a headstand or a hand stand.  He says when you start to see yourself as separate or better than anyone else you’re on the wrong path.  I think that is a huge message.  

His voice sounds like Tom Waits; low, raspy, and full of soul.  He says his chanting is an offering, a prayer.  It’s his gift, talent, karma, however you want to put it.  He talks a lot about how he wanted to be a rock star when he was younger.  How that got him into a lot of trouble and he moved to India with no thought of coming back.  He says, “I wasn’t coming back.  I gave away my blue jeans.”  He credits his guru, Neem Karoli Baba, with where he is with his singing now.  He said Baba told him he had to go back to the states.  KD didn’t want to but he did anyway.  Now, he is the rock star he wanted to be.

Go to his website.