SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Beat the Prosecution, presented by Northern Virginia criminal defense and DUI lawyer Jonathan Katz, where we are here to regularly present you information and ideas for beating your prosecution as best as possible. Nothing on any of our media sources, such as our podcast or website, is legal advice. John Katz only provides legal advice to current clients or for individuals who have paid for a consultation. And now for your host, John Katz.

SPEAKER_03 0:32

Hello, everybody. This is John Katz. I'm a criminal defense and DUI defense lawyer here in Northern Virginia. I am beyond ecstatic on who our guest is here today. We have Nina Rao. I first heard about her uh through her association with Krishna Das, who is a great uh Dharma teacher and a great singer. I think he was actually uh the the lead singer of the precursor to Blue Oyster Cult. And uh he does uh uh kirtan chanting and and so does Nina, and there's so much else that interests me about her. Uh it wasn't exactly intended like this, but we almost have well we do, we have a doubleheader of uh people who were presenting at the Boone uh Mountain uh retreat uh in honor of uh Ram Das. Uh and this was a few weeks ago, and uh we had Ragu Marcus uh from that group, and now we have Nina. Nina Rao, please introduce yourself.

SPEAKER_05 1:32

You just did everything. Well, John, first of all, I'm I'm very interested to know about you as a as a criminal um as as a lawyer in this whole field of criminal defense, and that's a whole other world that I know nothing about. Okay, and I think that you must have tremendous capacity and strength and clarity of thought and strength of heart to do a job like that. So I congratulate you.

SPEAKER_03 2:04

Well, I can talk about that briefly. Um I would like to know the first thing that led me to this mountain retreat. It was certainly Ram Das first and foremost. Uh, but I've been interested in you and Krishna Das for many, many years. And I first uh heard Krishna Das perform in 2011 along with uh Sharon Salzburg on stage in DC, and then again the year later. Uh but it was in 1990 when I was uh with a corporate law firm in DC, uh, one year out of law school, and I went to one of the monthly uh Vegetarian Society lunches because I've been a strict vegetarian since 1988, since I was in law school, and there was this person there, uh uh I'll I'll get his yeah, Howard Lerner, and he would talk about all these interesting things. One day he would talk about this store called Fresh Fields that then merged with some other companies and became Whole Foods. That was a very new company at the time. Another time he was talking about this man named Ron Dawson, how Ron Dawson got together with Timothy Leary and turned people on to uh acid, but he told this story, I think it was from Be Here Now, about how when Ram Doss had to, I think, update his visa and he went into the city and uh he was feeling guilty that after having this uh huge uh huge banquet of a meal over at a vegetarian restaurant, he actually ate the cookie after. And then when he went back to Maharaji, Miyam Kawli Baba, one of the first things that uh Maharaji said to him is he took him by, I guess, the uh put his hand on his on his head or whatever, he said, How did you like that cookie? Uh so I was fascinated from there. And I met Ram Das in 2004 when he spoke, or 2003 or four when he spoke at the Lisner Auditorium in in DC. And as I told uh Ra Gu, I said it was amazing. When I when I approached him after he spoke, when he was probably exhausted, having had his stroke a few years before, he was just there to serve the whole audience. He grabbed hold of my hand or wrist with his good hand, and it was as if he was paying attention to me, as if I was the only person in the world. And uh it was just amazing. He essentially blessed me, and uh then I went on my way. But in the interim, uh what this is all about is yes, I mean, being a criminal defense lawyer, this is finding uh calm in the eye of the storm. And what works for me is a daily Tai Chi Chuan uh martial arts practice, both the uh going through the calisthenics and doing the sensing push hands sparring on on the weekends, which is less about violence, but getting into harmony and uh checking your own practice, and uh usually a few times a week, at least four or five times a week, at the end of the Tai Chi Chuan practice, I do standing meditation for five minutes. I love doing sitting meditation, but the nice thing about doing the standing meditation is I feel like I'm gathering the qi. And for me, uh you know, I I see it as asymmetrical or contrarian uh combat or battle that I do in court. The prosecutors and uh cops are often trying to push my buttons, and often they're not able to uh find my buttons. And when they find my buttons, they're often able not to push them because, as one person said, I have a thick skin and an open heart. So here I am uh doing work on the side of the angels, doing criminal defense, and uh I do have to get back to calmness in my in my pocket. I think actually are the malabads uh that were handed out during the ceremony. They had to be uh they had to be sent to me because I had to leave before the malas ceremony, you know, but just holding on to the malas. I mean, that's that by itself does a great thing. But the these don't fit on my wrists, so I have my other wrist malas made of bamboo. So let's say a judge is is yelling at me or whatever, I just might just touch my malas to to get me grounded again. So I'm I'm in the place that I need to be at, but these kind of retreats and knowing people uh like you and uh Krishna Das and uh Ragu and having met uh Ram Das, it really helps me a lot.

SPEAKER_05 6:14

I can understand that. I mean the first time I met Ram Das was in um I think it was either 1997 or 1998, and that was just a year after I met Krishna Das um at a yoga retreat that I had gone to and I'd first heard him chanting. And I was completely enchanted and brought back to the whole practice of chanting which I had experienced as a child in India with my grandfather, and then for years never did anything. Just kind of lived in the world doing what we do. But I didn't understand that practice was actually a path until I met Krishna, and then he was talking about Ramdas as if I should know who Ramdas was. So I went running to get be here now, and then he told me that Ram Das had had a stroke. So that was a very big thing, you know, in the Satsang at that time because Ramdas was an elder for all of these people, Ragu and Krishnadas and the rest of them. So I got the book and then Krishnadas called me one day, and this was when I wasn't working with him in those days. I had a safari company that took people on wildlife trips in Africa and India, but I also learned how to play like one or two beats on the drum, so I could accompany Krishnadas in these small home kirtans that we used to do back in the day, and he'd come and sing in my apartment. And so he called me one day and he said, Okay, so Ramdas is ready to come and give his first public talk after the stroke. Arrange it. Can you arrange it? And I said, Okay, I have no idea. I had no idea, and the only thing that had happened is that uh Dr. Mark Epstein had uh booked Synod Hall, which is uh adjacent to St. John the Divine in New York, which is a big, beautiful chapel. And I knew I had a venue, and then I had to figure out how to sell the tickets. And I don't know if you spent any time in New York, but you know, we had the I lived there for a year. Did you? So there used to be a newspaper called The Village Voice where all things were advertised in. So I remember taking an ad out in that paper and going to Staples and printing out together. It was it was so long ago, you know, right? We're talking so long ago, and we didn't have websites or anything in those days, so it's a miracle, but I got a bunch of volunteers together, and the place of course had nothing to do with me. The word got out that Ramdas was coming, the place was packed, and Krishna Das was gonna sing. Um but the thing that I remember about the day was how few words Ramdas spoke. Yes, and how much was transmitted in that silence.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

Yes, you know.

SPEAKER_05 9:15

So I get it when you say about meeting Ramdas was it's definitely and then subsequently, fortunately for me, when they moved him to Maui, he decided he wanted to live there. I was able to go to many retreats with him. And just like you said, you know, when he looked you in the eye, it was like he was only looking at you and there was no one else.

SPEAKER_03 9:39

Yes, but of course, he he his view was we're all so connected, there's no separation. So, of course, that's that's of course the way he would have been.

SPEAKER_05 9:49

And uh Yeah, he's truly an amazing being, and his teachings, you know, they continue to arise and be helpful moment to moment because the way in which he received them and then retransmitted them, they're available and accessible to everyone of all ages, including young people now who are listening to his words, you know.

SPEAKER_03 10:14

Um, I want to uh take a little uh interim here to make sure that everyone uh knows better about you if they want to be toggling on their computers while they listen. What is your web address?

SPEAKER_05 10:26

My website is Nina Rao N-I-N-A-R-A-O-Cant, C-H-A-N-T dot com. Nina Raochant.com.

SPEAKER_03 10:37

And on that website you can find at least two of her CDs. Let me tell you something, everybody. Nina has an amazing voice. I have one of her uh videos, I don't even know if I'm pronounced correct, uh, or DVDs, Antarayami.

SPEAKER_05 10:53

Antarayami.

SPEAKER_03 10:54

That's that's pronounced better. And I just love listening to her voice. It's so beautiful. Uh Nina, how did you get such a beautiful voice?

SPEAKER_05 11:05

Well, first of all, thank you for saying that, because in a million years, I first, John, you have to understand, I grew up in an Indian family that was geared towards bringing me to the West so that I, my father was very keen that we my sisters and I would have professions and we'd be working independent individuals, which at the time that he was thinking about it, he didn't think that unless we were an engineer or a doctor, we were gonna make it in India. And none of us had that proclivity. We were my sisters are both artists, and I was gonna go in to do business. So I came here to New York and I started working in a bank. And um I have never thought about the possibility of singing anywhere outside of a choir or in the bathroom or with my family. Like that was never a thought for me, ever, really seriously. I tried out for our my school, high school, you know, plays like we all do. And I only tried out for the choir because I wouldn't dare try out for anything else. But I'm not sure where this is obviously it's come from somewhere, but my grandfather was an incredible, beautiful, natural singer, natural musician. And he was an engineer, but he sang just because he, for the love of it. And he could play flute, he could play harmonium, he he learned all these sacred hymns of poet saints from India, and he could sing them. He had a natural thing. And my mom's family is very artistic too, but I never took voice lessons or any such thing. And I think uh just the practice of singing, chanting. I when I first met Krishnas, I chanted with him as much as I possibly could. He used to sing in New York every week until he started traveling. And it was then I had a a boyfriend at that time who is a whose mother was a very well-known Hindustani Indian classical musical singer. And I'd go to visit her because I loved her. We had a great relationship, and she'd say, You should sing with me sometime. And I said, There's no chance I can sing with you. Because I could see all her students coming to learn from her. And she said, No, just come sit. And finally, one day I was leaving the apartment and she said, just sit down. And she had the beautiful Indian instrument called a tanpura, which is, you know, it's a drone instrument with uh strings. And she said, Okay, follow me. And she started to sing something and she said, just repeat what I do. So I just did it. And she she I opened my eyes and she looked at me and she had like tears in her eyes, and she said, You can sing. That was that, that was long ago. And then I don't know what happened, John. It was I I sang so much with Krishna Das and I loved chanting so much. And going to India to be in Kenji, the practice is so much about chanting. Siddhima had us chanting all the time. And ultimately, um I was sitting with Krishna Das one day, and we were doing 108 Hanuman Chalisas for some situation in his life or my life or somebody's life, I don't even know. And I was leading what is now called the Nina Chalisa on his uh Flow of Grace album. I was chanting that and he said, That's so beautiful, I love that. I want to learn it. And so I said, sure. And he and he at that time he was also being asked by Sounds True, which is a publication and a like an audio, video and book company, to write a book about Hanuman and to make an accompanying CD of the Hanuman Chalisa. So he said, I want to learn it so that I can sing that and record it on the album. And I said, sure. So he came over, I played the harmonium chords, and um he said, Oh, you sing it in that key. Okay, fine. He took the recording home. And uh, I was living a little away from him in Massachusetts at the time. And then the recording date was coming, and I had arranged for the recording and a choir and everybody to come. And he said, Okay, we're not, I'm not gonna do it alone, we're gonna do it as a duet, and you play the harmonium, so practice. So I said, What? I'm gonna do a duet with Krishna. How could this be happening to myself? And then um, so I went into the studio, drove in from Massachusetts, we're singing all his, he did all his Hanumanchalisas first, and then he said, Okay, we're gonna take a break. And he said, Nina, just get set with the harmonium, and when we come back, we'll record yours. So we come back, and the choir was on the other side of the room, like facing me. And he comes in and then he goes and sits with them on the other side of the room, and I said, What are you doing? And he said, Aha, you're gonna sing this by yourself because he knew I would be too nervous, so he didn't give me any chance to be nervous, he just put me on the spot. So um that's how I started chanting like that with people, really, is I did that recording, and then after some time, people started asking me to come to their yoga studios to come and chant, and one thing led to another. And all this time I had been chanting at home with a harmonium that um Krishna Das had had given to me when I said I want to just chant at home, and he gave me a harmonium. And then slowly, slowly I had all these songs, and people said the the ones that the ones that are on that CD that you're looking at. I recorded that in 2012, so that's a long time ago.

SPEAKER_06 17:08

It was a while ago.

SPEAKER_05 17:09

It was a long time ago, and I had all these different melodies of the Hanuman Chalisa, and I thought, you know what, I'm just gonna record this. And uh the father of my child at that time was uh said, I'll just do it at home. We'll do a simple recording. Um, we'll get a choir in, and we'll and and that's what we did, and that's how that CD came about with all these chants that had been kind of brewing inside of me. And um people liked it.

SPEAKER_03 17:39

Chorus. Well, what was the progression? What came first and along the way with your um uh devotion to Hanuman, your meeting, Sri Siddhima. And I think I heard something about that when you first heard about Krishna Das, you weren't all that interested in what you had heard about, but you were taken one once you met him.

SPEAKER_05 17:58

I hadn't heard anything about him, actually. I just was going to a yoga retreat with my yoga teacher, um, who I loved. And so she invited us to a retreat. I'd never done a yoga retreat before. So I said, okay, let me go see. And I thought it'd be good for my body. I'll hang out with my friend. I brought my friend along who was to take classes with with me, with with my teacher. And on the schedule, it said satsang with Krishna Das. And I I actually thought it was going to be a failed Indian musician. That's what I figured, that he had nothing else to do but to sit with a bunch of us, you know, trying to learn how to do some yoga and come and sing. It was very, you know, it's it was a thought, just a thought. And for no reason at all. And uh, but because I honored my teacher and I wanted to be there, I showed up. But what I noticed when I showed up was there were two things. One was that he wasn't Indian. Um he was a big big white guy from Long Island, which I thought was gonna be worse. But he also had brought a photo that was on the side table of Hanuman with a candle. And then it struck me, oh, this is something else that's happening here. It wasn't anything ostentatious, it was very simple. And I still sat in the back of the room because I wanted to leave if I could early. But I do remember that the moment he didn't say very much, he just sat down and started singing. And that first Sri Ram Jairam is what I heard, and three hours later I was in the front of the room, like harmony and I never left, and I've never left since then. In some way or the other, I'm always there as close as I can be to his chanting. So um that's sort of where it came from, and we we became friends that weekend, and I knew that you know, I knew intuitively that this whatever was happening in this retreat, whatever was going on, I didn't know who Neem Karoli Baba was, I didn't know anything. I just said this place, the space that's created with the chanting and the telling of stories of Maharaji is where I want to be.

SPEAKER_03 20:33

So you you met Sri Siddhama after you met uh Krishna Das?

SPEAKER_05 20:39

Yes. Because when I met Krishna Das, I I wanted to meet Maharaj because he talked about Maharaji the whole time. And I realized this was 1996 when I met Krishna Das. So Maharaji had already left the body in 1973. So now what am I gonna do? And you know, I was raised in India where I'd heard about gurus and fake gurus, and there's a lot of that that happens in India and scams, and I was never really interested in joining anything, you know, that's not really what I wanted. But when he talked about Maharaji, I just said I'm gonna meet this being. Like I really but when I found out that he wasn't alive anymore, I said, you know, I'm gonna go to Kenchi because I believe in going to sacred places. I always have. And I grew up traveling and going to many sacred places, and it could be a mountain, it could be a lake, it could be a major temple, it could be anything. And I said, I I know that when I go there, uh something will happen. I don't know what. So he said, Okay, okay, if you want to go, I can't tell an Indian not to go to India. So um if you go, you will meet Sri Siddhima. Because in those days, she didn't want her to self to go. Spoken about. There were no photographs of her except for a couple of them with Maharaji, you know, that were floating around. So I said, Oh, who's this? And he's and so he just described her very simply and said, you know, Maharaj, she he she took care of Maharaji for 40 years, and then he entrusted the care of the temple and so on with her. So you should go meet her. So he wrote us a letter, and and my friend and I went. And it was then that was it's now 1998, was two years after I met Krishna as I finally got there. And um that's where my journey with Ma began.

SPEAKER_03 22:42

Wonderful.

unknown 22:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:44

Well, I know that there's a book about here. I haven't um I haven't read it yet, but I'm looking forward to doing that. Yeah. My understanding is you you had a very uh very long and deep uh relationship with Ma.

SPEAKER_05 22:58

I had in terms of the number of years that I spent with her, yes. I mean it was 19 years. That's a long time in my life that I was ever in one place with anybody. So, but I didn't see her for extended periods of time because my life was here in America, and I would go and see her for like maybe two weeks if I was lucky in a year. Um, otherwise, it was shorter. I used to take people on wildlife trips. So I would kind of hop into India, run up to the temple, see her for a couple of days, and then wait, go back to Delhi and wait for my group to arrive and take them around to the jungles. But um I knew that first time that I met her, it was actually this time of the year, exactly this time, September, which is the beginning of the festival of the goddess called Navaratri, Devi Navaratri. And that's what was happening in Kenchi, and it's a very profound season and time for practice in the temple. There's beautiful mantra going on all day long, and fire offerings being made, and a lot of the people come to participate in it, so it's festive and so much chanting. It's very, very beautiful time, and we got to experience that that first year. And so, you know, I've gone try to go back as much as possible during that time. And um she my time with her was such that I I felt that whatever she gave me during the time that I was with her satisfied me completely. I never felt like, oh my gosh, I really miss her. I need to go back, like I can't make it without you. I never had that feeling. I felt completely as if she was, she just abundantly gave me everything. I was completely sat satiated, full, not stuffed, but full, full, and whatever she gave me was going to carry me through for the rest of my time without her. And then she would say, Come back soon, make sure you come back soon. And you know, so I was able to do that, and it was a very beautiful time because it was from the time I met Krishna Das, and I was just beginning to understand this world of being with enlightened beings, and what is that like, and through Ramdas and learning some of the Buddhist teachings and Sharon Salzburg, and you know, so many teachers we have access to in the West, and the tr the intertwining of the two traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism, and Buddhism helped me make so much sense out of traditional Hindu practices as well, because of the philosophy and the way it's discussed and the way it's spoken about. And so I just for me it's it's been an ever-growing, even after she left the body, she hasn't left, she's still very much here with me. And that's the beauty of a guru. I I think if you if if your karma is such to meet a teacher in the body in that way, a guru in the body. Not everyone needs to, but for me, I guess that's what had to happen. And she remains, and I feel like I've been I was prepared for her departure from this realm in all the years that I was with her. So many stories. I used to translate for her because I I could speak some some amount of Hindi, enough for me to translate to the Westerners when they had questions. So I feel very fortunate that way. I got to be in Darshan with so many different people, hear their stories and hear her answers. That was the main thing. It's like, what did she say? How did she, what was she able to give them that brought them some amount of peace or some direction? Um and to just be in that space with her was the greatest gift, really an amazing gift. And I did write everything down that I could remember because some some days the days were so long by the time I came back to my room, you know, we didn't have voice memos, and like I just I never thought about recording that stuff. But whatever remained inside of me, I tried to write it down so that now when I go back, which I need to do, it's been some years, go back and start to read some of that stuff. And um I got close with Jaya, who wrote this book, which is the book you were talking about. Yes, this is the book, and now understand that Jaya was with Sidney Ma for 37 years every day. Can you just imagine the number of stories and encounters she has? And when the pandemic hit, you know, we were talking about so Ma left the body in 2017. And when the pandemic came, I just I should before that, even I had said to her, I said, Are you gonna write? You should write these stories. You've heard so many stories. And she said, Nina, I just I want this book to be about her, not about me, my experience of her, but her. How do I do that? So she sat with it, and then she said, I'll know, Ma will give me the sign when it's time to write. So I don't know what sign she got, but she did write this book, and it is it is universal. You don't have to know who she is, you don't have to know anything about her, you don't have to know anything about Hindu traditions, you don't need to know anything. You just have to want to be in that space where love makes everything possible.

SPEAKER_03 29:14

So, does that define what the poll was for uh Tama or an is Tama? It's the love.

SPEAKER_05 29:20

It's the love and the and the wisdom, pure clarity of thought. And she always knew the right thing to do because in her mind, all the answers lay with what she called Maharaji, which you can call the presence, you know, the wise, the one presence, which if we tap into it, we all know what is the truth, what is it that we need to do in our lives in each of our situations, and being in her presence, you were in a space where you knew everything was gonna be okay, fear would fall away, courage would arise, and you were held in this space of love and that everything was gonna be all right.

SPEAKER_03 30:08

That's all that we want most of the time, and this is where I want to connect to um during the retreat. Am I gonna mispronounce the word again? Acharya, Shunya, and you were on stage. Yes, and someone said, with all the turmoil that's going on in the world, how can we just uh uh you know continue to just have a nice day, like you know, just even enjoying a the beautiful retreat in the mountains? And is it any more than what I thought I heard both of you say, which is to have your daily practice?

SPEAKER_05 30:41

I do, I I don't remember the question exactly, but I do know a few things. One is that being with Siddhima and knowing what people came to her with, there's suffering everywhere. John, you see it every day, and and in a very intense way, actually, in the kind of work that you do. But for the rest of us, even just opening the newspaper is is very difficult to face all the things that are going on. And even if you start to kind of close your eyes and try to connect with all the beings and whatever is going on in the world out there, there's a lot. And somehow we have to be able to navigate it, navigate ourselves with a sense of not just resignation, but a kind of acceptance of the fact that this is how the universe is right now. How am I going to be able to help this situation? How and how do you help by trying to alleviate suffering somehow? Not necessarily by being right, because our idea of what is right is not necessarily the truth. So, how do we find what is that truth? What is justice? What is correct? It's if you follow some very simple guidelines, which is what Ma talked about all the time, is how do you help someone? How do you uh protect yourself from things that uh can be destructive to you? That's also important. And how do you give how are you going to be present and listen to what people have to share? Because she did that. She listened to everyone, she didn't turn anybody away, she had no judgment about who they are. What she was able to do was to give them a little gem of advice about what would alleviate their own suffering inside. And I think if we can do that one person at a time, every encounter we have with everybody, if we can find a way to do it peacefully, that is the only way we can navigate in this world. There are people out there who have great causes and do amazing things. Let's support them. But it may not be in our our dharma or our karma to be able to do that. It's okay if we can just be kind to our neighbor or our people in our family or our community, or the people we deal with on a daily basis at the supermarket, or the secretary here. Doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_03 34:01

I'd like to talk a little more about singing now. It's an important part of your life, and it's uh interesting that when I was at uh the Chalores College at Jerry Spence's Ranch for the entire month of August of 1995 in western Wyoming, uh, everyone was required before finishing the college to sing a song. And I think I uh did a variation of uh he's got the whole world in his hands. I may have changed she's got the whole world in her hands, including having the criminal defense swords in her hands. And my son Dennis, who's now 19 and a half, and he's in college, and uh he just blew me away. I'm getting emotional right now. I'm thinking about it. During Parents' Day weekend this last weekend, when he was with his four-person on a cappella group, actually five and four in there, and he built it out um uh from um imagination from uh William Monka. I was just floored. And I didn't know if it had any connection to as he was growing up, I would find the silliest of songs to uh uh to sing, but uh it would give us our voice. We'd we'd sing about it like uh uh people who eat rice and beans, and afterwards it smells really mean and just laughing our heads off. And I think that's just wonderful that uh part of the way he finds his voice is through the singing. And and when when I'm uh when I'm uh getting my ideas out in court, I'm I'm almost reminded of uh there's this guy named Jeff Todd Titan, who is or was an ethnomusicology professor at my college, and and he did a study uh uh called Powerhouse of God at this independent Baptist church in uh Virginia, uh not far from the Luray Caverns. It's only about two hours from here. And uh the preacher would say, God shouts me out because the way he would uh he would preach, he would do a lot of huhs in the end, and they go there and everything. And he said that was all from God shouting them out. And and I just really think the singing is is just really so important for just about everything.

SPEAKER_05 36:16

Well, singing is important. Um I mean, on a very general level, the whole human population sings, the animal world sings, birds sing, you know, everybody has tones, and so in that in that way of making melody and rhythm, you know, which is what makes a song, that I feel like the whole universe is pulsating with that, that's going on. But what we're doing is, and you know, obviously, intergenerationally in our human species, we share uh by song and storytelling, and they're often very woven together. But somehow in our daily lives, we've removed music, you know, uh, from what we do. So that's unfortunate. But if we can come back to the day in the evening and we can all sing a prayer together around the dinner table, that's great, you know. And we do listen, everybody listens to music, so we know how important it is. But what I'm doing is I don't consider myself a singer, I consider myself a chantor, and they're different because I'm not writing songs, I'm not necessarily telling my own story through a song, other than in the repetition of these sacred sounds which are called mantra. And the origin of these words like Sita Ram and Olnama Shivaya, which is like a mantra or Jayma or Sri Ram Jayram or Ram Ram, any of these words, they all come from the Indian Hindu tradition that goes back thousands of years and starting with these ancient texts called the Vedas that were transmitted to Rishis or seers who did very intense meditative practices and were able to experience enlightenment. They fully understood their being and their nature, and the way in which these understanding was transmitted over those years, over a few thousand years actually, and created this collection of mantras, hundreds of thousands of them, was through specific sound syllables. And all these chants that we do in Kirtan as we do together now are all derived from those original texts. Maybe not directly, but somewhere or the other they filtered through that way. And in those days, people had the ability and the interest to sit and learn the chanting of those Sanskrit mantras in that way, because it takes a specific um amount of dedication to follow through with that. But they say now that we are in the age of what they call Kali Yuga, which I don't even know when it started, long time ago, where on some level our obscurations in our minds are blocking us from pure, clear thinking. And so we've come to a place now where even uh dedicating a certain amount of time to doing that kind of Vedic chanting doesn't exist. So, what's going to work for us? All the saints say this, is to sing the name of God. Yes, and um, God in India has infinite names and forms and sounds, so you can never get bored. Some people choose to sing the same mantra over and over again because they're from a particular lineage, that's great. Um you can also have a basket of your own combination of mantras that you like to chant, but the ability to chant it along with music makes it very enjoyable in a certain way. It also allows for people to join in and it becomes a community event. Yes, and for that, we need each other, we need each other to come together to help in doing practice. It's still practice, but it's one in which um everybody should do their individual practice at home, whatever that might be for them, but coming together in satsang with people who are interested in looking at life the way you look at it, looking for the truth, trying to understand the true nature of things, who we are in that world of things, in this mandala of this world, when you're with people like that, it's an incredible support. And you get fortified, you are able to do more practice, you can do your work in the world, whatever that is, too. It builds a strong, calm, wise, compassionate foundation inside of you, and with that you can go out and do what you have to do. And so the beauty of, you know, even like for me, for example, I had come from India, I was 32 years old, I had no practice, and it was only when I met Krishna Das, who had brought this practice back from his time with Maharaji in the 70s, is that I was reminded of what I have. Yes, and it's available to everyone. This is the amazing thing, it's available to everyone, and so what's happened over time is you know, I sing kirtan, I'm I sing in my groups with my friends and with people who come to chant with me at live events and so on. But I also have my practice is also involved in studying the roots of chanting, and so it's my whole life has become this. I'm very fortunate that I spend most of my day planning chanting events, um, listening to music, looking at mantras and studying myself and offering chanting to the world when I get to be with Krishna and also when I'm with myself on my own. Because the more that you are sharing, the more you have to involve yourself, and it just gets deeper for you as a leader as well. It's a big thing, it's a great, great blessing to have that. And going down this path in the beginning, my family thought I might be a little bit crazy, they thought I had joined a cult. Now, you know, every my whole family is chanting. You know, I I go to India now, and it's it's really something else. I don't know what to say. What a great blessing.

SPEAKER_03 43:21

Well, perhaps this is the time that you'd be willing to uh share an example of chanting. I know you said you wouldn't bring out the harmonium, but that you might at least do a short chant. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 43:35

So one of my favorite simple mantras is Sita Ram. So Sita, as you know, is the feminine aspect of the divine whose name is Ram. The masculine aspect, and together they're always in union with each other. And often when you sing to any one of them, you usually Invoking the other as well at the same time. So everyone knows that you start with Om, right? Om is a primordial sound in in which everything is held. And then we'll we'll just do a couple of rounds of this sitar, okay?

SPEAKER_04 44:43

Sita. Sita Sita. Sita. Sita Rama. Sita Ramjaya sit rama. Sita ramja se dama. Sita ramja sita Sita Ramja Sita Sita Sara. Sarah Sarah.

SPEAKER_02 46:09

Thank you so much. That was amazing.

SPEAKER_05 46:16

So it goes on like that. It's infinite.

SPEAKER_03 46:22

Well, yes, it is. I I don't know where to follow up from that, but I I do want to ask a little more about uh your connection with uh Krishna Das. Uh do you um very often uh chant or sing with him on stage? Because often I'll mainly sing you um uh there with the cymbals.

SPEAKER_05 46:41

Yes. So um, you know, I think I mentioned earlier I started off uh I used to drum for him. I you know because we didn't have like a professional drummer, so I could keep a beat, and so I would drum, and then finally we were able to get uh like a good drummer who can actually play really well and with talent, and um so we've been we've been with him and I I like to play the cymbals and I also do sing responses sometimes. Um but when he chants, it's his that's his floor, that's his time to share. And so I I do that with him, but that's just that's just a perk of the work that I do for him. Yes I manage his business for him, that's my full-time job.

SPEAKER_03 47:31

Okay, so so that's uh that keeps you keeps you very busy by itself?

SPEAKER_05 47:37

It does. I mean, I I'm I book all his tours for him, and as you know, he tours the whole world. Um, he's usually on the road 300 out of 365 days in the year. And um, so I plan all those tours for him. Sometimes I travel um when I can. You know, I also raise my daughter, and so many things have happened over the years. So I've gone for as many things as I can do. Sometimes I need to stay home, like for example, when he goes on extended tours in Europe for eight weeks at a time and such. I stay home. I have a partner, I have a daughter, my mom, my sisters. I like to be home sometimes. So um, yeah, but my work with him is touring, it's managing his if he writes a book, publications, royalties, putting out albums. I arrange, you know, we he's about to release an album soon in September. And so basically, I oversee everything. I I started out as an assistant um in a very small way, but I just grew with him as he grew with Maharaji. You know, that's how it happened.

SPEAKER_03 48:48

Yes, I didn't mean to overlook saying, Yes, of course, you are part of the response of chanting. I didn't want to slight that. Uh at the retreat, we watched the uh documentary about KK Saw. Did you have much interaction with him before he passed away?

SPEAKER_05 49:03

Yeah, KK was a wonderful friend. Um, KK was one of those people I met on the very first trip that I went to India because he was always available for Westerners. And so when we went, um, you know, Krishna said you must meet KKesha. And KK Sha wanted to meet everyone. So I had a very beautiful friendship with him, as did many, many people. We'd always go to his house and have tea and eat, you know, sandwiches, um, simple sandwiches, and whatever else was offered in his home. And we talked only about Maharaji and the Ramayana. I mean, there was no small talk about anything else, it was all about the love and how the satsang was doing. And one of the things that Krishanas gave me very early on in my friendship with him was a tape that he and Ragu and maybe a couple of others had recorded of KK singing. I think they found a studio somewhere in the 80s here, and they didn't even have a harmonium, they had some kind of keyboard. And I heard those chants and I heard the devotion in his voice. And ultimately, in the album which you have, Antarayami, there's a song called Patihari. And that song actually came from him. I heard it from him many, many times. And finally, when I was recording the album, I used to sing it. And so I asked him, I said, KK, would it be all right if I sing this song? Do you want to hear what it sounds like? So I sang it for him in a hotel room somewhere. Maybe he had come to Maui or something at that time. I can't remember. And he said, Well, if you sing with that kind of devotion, how could I possibly say you shouldn't sing it? So um, KK and I we had a wonderful relationship. He loved to talk on the phone, he wrote letters, you know, we went to his house and he made everybody comfortable. My daughters hung out with him, and and you know, it's actually no surprise to me that soon after Ram Das died, KK didn't feel like he needed to be here anymore.

SPEAKER_03 51:20

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 51:21

Because he died soon after, just a few weeks after.

SPEAKER_03 51:27

Um Ram Das actually graduated from my college, Tufts University, about um, oh, I suppose about uh 32 years uh before I did. Okay. And uh I wouldn't be surprised if he had had actually spoken a campus, but if he did, I just wasn't ready for him. And and it's just amazing how uh we're we're ready for our teachers when we're ready for our teachers.

SPEAKER_05 51:55

That's true, that's true. We're ready when we're ready.

SPEAKER_03 51:59

And with me, uh my I think first key uh Dharma teacher is the one who did the uh uh the calligraphy behind me, Namu Myohorengeyo, the Odaimoku, Juniasuda. Well, she's not far from New Paul, she's over in uh uh Grafton, Grafton, New York, just east of uh Troy, and she has that beautiful peace pagoda there. And during the uh Gulf War I, I was at a law firm three blocks from the White House, and I felt that the war was started prematurely. So during lunchtime I would join the peace uh demonstrators, and uh there on the second or third day it was Junia Suda, my peace teacher, just constantly well, once again, chanting namu horenge kyo with the drum again and again and again.

SPEAKER_05 52:44

I like that you call her this is history. I like that you call her your peace teacher. That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 52:51

Well, she's so much my peace teacher that not only do I include Namu Mio Horenge kyo in my uh prayer over my food each time, but my license plate's acronym is NMMHRGK, Namu Myo Horenge kyo. I don't know how no one else took it. So uh if nothing else, it reminds me that uh when I get into the car, if someone's tailgating me or cuts me off, it's time to bless them rather than uh uh do something uh the opposite.

SPEAKER_06 53:22

Right, exactly, exactly. That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 53:26

Do you have any um what's what's one of your most favorite memories of Ram Das?

SPEAKER_05 53:37

I think it was the last retreat that um we were in Maui with him, and uh he was sitting in the audience and we were watching a film about him. I forget which one it is because there are a bunch of them, but this guy Jamie was interviewing him, and you know, as you know, Ramdas was had an incredible sense of humor, it was very funny and so sharp-witted, you know. And I I remember sitting, I was watching the movie, and I saw that he was sitting there, and I I turned to look at him and I realized I'm more interested in watching you watch yourself than to watch this movie. And it was so beautiful, he he cracked himself up, he was laughing, he was slapping, you know, with the one good hand, and he was and he he was in such a great, like joyful space. And so he didn't have any any weird feelings about how he is, and looking at, you know, how sometimes when we look at ourselves on the screen, like, oh, should I have said that? Nothing. 100% confidence. He was, and this was just before he that that was a year, I think, after maybe before he died. And then um the beauty of that full acceptance of who he was, to me, it really struck me in that moment watching him watch himself on the screen like that. No no shame, no guilt, no embarrassment, just pure joy. And and at the at that same retreat, I believe it was the same retreat, I'm not 100% sure, but there was another beautiful moment, and someone at Love Serve remember captured this when uh he was on the stage and they were gonna take him off the stage uh after his last talk. And he sat there and he waved to every single person in the room. And I knew that that was the last time we were gonna see him like that, you know. It was so poignant, so poignant, and but again, joyful, like it wasn't traumatic in any way, it was beautiful, and and so now you know he's left us with this treasure of his words and the way they come through other people who are reading about him, youngsters who are taking little words of his phrases and putting them in music and finding ways to meditate with his words and just all of it. He he was really a gift for our generation, I feel.

SPEAKER_03 56:30

I agree. Well, Nina, if I had your permission, I'd go on and on, but I told you we were gonna finish now. But before we go, uh I wanted to share with you, you may or may not have seen uh, I think I sent you a message on the uh the retreat portal. So I don't know if you saw it there, but you know, uh when I was in New York between the year of uh graduating college and starting law school, I lived at East 23rd and Lex when it was actually uh the George Washington Gramercy Park uh apartments, then it became some sort of boutique hotel across from Bruce College. I was working at the then uh named Irving Trust Company as a financial auditor. So you and I have this uh similarity in the financial world.

SPEAKER_05 57:11

Which year was that, John?

SPEAKER_03 57:13

It was 85 to 86. And where I want to connect this with, even though I'm not aware that you're a lawyer, I think you uh beyond what you've already said, which is great, to have lawyers, criminal defendants, and everyone else. Do you have anything specific to tell the uh criminal defense lawyers and criminal defendants, whether it's about beating the prosecution or anything else? And I'd also like you to have this final word to say anything you haven't already said, whether it's about Nina Route, Shant, Krishna Das, or anything else?

SPEAKER_05 57:44

Well, first of all, I'm not a lawyer. Um, I worked at a bank uh on the trading floor. Um I don't know, I I would say that it's whatever work you're doing in whatever field you might be in, it's so important to have a sense of compassion for not only yourself, but the one you might be opposing. And I and I I think that that's hard to do, but we have to do it in every day of our lives in other ways. And I recognize that there's so much more on the line when you're a lawyer in court and you're trying to win a case. So I would I would try to approach it in that way and then really, really dig very deep to find inside of you like what is what is the truth for you? What is the truth? How are you gonna do you trust in yourself and whatever it is that you're gonna do next or say next? Give yourself the chance to find that place. And you know, uh to me, I need to do that on a daily basis with some amount of self-reflective, contemplative practice of whether it's meditation or chanting or prayer, whatever that is for me. But to just make a little space in your day, to not be looking at emails, not be on the phone, not do anything, take five minutes of your day to just allow for whatever that is supposed to arise to arise, and then find a way to let it go. However, that is for you. That would be the only thing I can possibly say. And like I said to you, John, like what you do is so important and so intense. So I can't pretend to know what is the best thing for you, but I we're all human, we all face intense situations. So this is what has worked for me.

SPEAKER_03 59:57

Well, thank you so much, Nina, and for everyone who's been listening to this, including the criminal defendants and criminal defense lawyers. I think it's helped them tremendously. I know it has with me. I thank you so much, Nina. Everyone, you have heard from Nina Rao. Visit her website, get her uh get her CDs, Nina Rao chant. Uh, check out Krishna Das. He's he's an amazing yin to uh to Nina's young. This is John Katz. I'm a criminal defense lawyer in Northern Virginia. This is Beat the Prosecution because there is no other way. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:36

Thank you for listening to this week's episode from Beat the Prosecution. This is a regular podcast giving people a leg up against police investigations and prosecutions. Nothing discussed on our media sources, such as our podcast or website, is legal advice. John Cat only provides legal advice to current clients or to individuals who have paid for a consultation. We welcome you contacting us via email at info at beatheprosecution.com by calling our office at 703 383 1100 or texting us at 571 406 7268.