One Track Heart - by Krishna Das

This is the one that started it all. It's the one to get first if you don't have it. All of these songs come directly from the heart.

Tracks
• Hara Hara Mahaadeva
• Devi Puja
• Kali Durge
• The Krishna Waltz
• Hanuman Chaleesa
• Forgiveness
• Prayer to the Goddess For Forgiveness
• Prayer to Hanuman
• Shri Ram Jai Ram
• Brindavan Hare Ram

What Krishna Das says about One Track Heart:

I speak to Hanuman
Thus I speak to King Ram, the perfect, gentle one...

I speak to Shiva Himself, the ocean of grace.
Beware! And listen all!

Of joy and sorrow, love and anger, of virtue and vice
has the creator made all.
Of time and nature and fate,
Ram is the doer.
So I have known this Truth
having dwelt upon it in my heart.
Ah Lord, only quench this moping and grieving.
What is there that You can't do?

Let me grow silent
having known
that I reap what I have sown.

Tulsidas' Last Poem

I lived in India from September 1970 until March 1973, when my Guru, Neem Karoli Baba (Maharaj-ji), sent me back to the West. During this period I either lived with him in his temples, in the houses of his devotees, or tried to find him when he ran away from us and disappeared.

Many times there would be a group of us sitting around him and he would be talking or laughing or throwing fruit in all directions, when suddenly he would turn to one of us and shake his finger, like this.

We had realized that he knew everything we were thinking and everything we had ever done or would ever do, so we always assumed this gesture meant 'Watch Out!' or 'I caught you!' or that he was getting on our case about something. Finally one day someone asked, "Maharaj-ji, what does it mean when you do that?"

He looked at us and raised one finger, then another and another until all five fingers were raised. Then he waved his hand, shaking all his fingers at us. He closed his hand into a fist and then raised that one finger again and said, "There are many names and many forms, but it's all One."

This was the underlying reality of Maharaj-ji's being and it was reflected in everything he did. He made no discrimination between rich or poor, high or low caste, Westerners or Indians; he saw the heart of those who came to him and provided what they needed. His blessings were given freely to all who came. Everything he did was to help us learn to live with an open heart. You could not come before him without receiving his blessings, whether you knew it or not. He would do whatever was necessary to get you to the place where you could live free of attachment and fear, in the presence of God. It would just happen. His methods were unique and extraordinary. There are endless stories about the miracles that happened in his presence. But the bottom line was the simplicity of the love and affection that he showed to all.

In the sacred traditions of the world, it is taught that God is not only one of us, but God is all of us. There is only the One of which we are all a part. How can we realize this truth? There are many paths to this awareness mapped out by the many spiritual traditions found on this 'third stone from the Sun.' It is said: "As many beings that exist, that is how many paths there are to God."

The chants in this recording come from the ancient tradition of Bhakti Yoga, the Yoga of Devotion as it exists in India. In this yoga, separateness is not seen as a roadblock on the path, it is the path. The devotee longs only to love more and more, to enjoy eternally the Lover/Beloved relationship. Those who follow the path of devotion become purified through the intensity of their longing for God in whatever form appeals to them the most.

The interaction of God and the devotee is called the Divine Lila. Lila is a Sanskrit term that roughly translates as 'play.' The moth, enjoying the light of the candle, flies closer and closer and finally is drawn into the flame. The devotee of God is the same, longing only to be closer and closer to the Divine Lover, to feel the warmth and ecstasy of that love. As the longing for the Lover grows more and more intense, the devotee experiences separation from the Beloved so intensely that it obliterates all the other suffering in life. Eventually, the devotee is drawn into the flame of Love and the mind dwells only on the Beloved and sees Him/Her in everyone. This is Lila.

Chanting the Names of God - said to be the most powerful mantra in this Kali Yuga - is one of the Devotional practices that can dissolve the feeling of separateness from the Beloved. Chanting utilizes the body, mind and emotions. But here is the mystery: What we experience as the longing for God, is really God pulling us from within, pulling us into Him/Herself. There is only One and we are already a part of that One, but we think we are separate. This is Lila.

I learned the chants and prayers on this recording during the last 25 years, many of them while living and traveling in India. Devotional chanting is one of the recognized Paths to Realization and although these prayers and kirtans (chants) are from the Hindu tradition, there are many similar traditions all over the world.

The little I know has been learned from so many different people all over India. I found a second home in the Kumaon Hills in northern India and I was taken in by the people there as if I was a long lost son. It was like that for all of the western devotees that came there; they were treated like family. I was like a sponge soaking up everything I could. When you pour water into a vessel, it takes the shape of the vessel. So it is only natural that what was poured into me has taken a more western form. For this recording I tried to accentuate that even more by using modern technology to help translate and communicate the beauty of this music without losing the essence.

Maharaj-ji used to ask us to sing to him often. Sometimes he would be closed up in his room and not seeing anybody, but if we started chanting, usually he would open the window and listen, and he always seemed to enjoy it. Even if we were not especially into it at the time, he always seemed to love it. It might have been that I had eaten too many sweets and my stomach was messed up and I was hoping I could get through the chanting without having to run to the bathroom, or I was depressed and uptight about something, or my lungi was falling down and I had to hold it up... It didn't matter to him. He was hearing the Name of God, the Name of the Beloved, and that was all there was to it.

"The Name repeated with either good or evil intentions, in an angry mood or even while yawning, diffuses joy in all the ten directions." - Tulsidas

"Yogis who are full of dispassion and are wholly detached from God's creation, keep awake in the daylight of wisdom muttering the name with their tongue and enjoy the felicity of the Absolute which is incomparable, unspeakable, unmixed with sorrow and devoid of name and form. Even those who are free from all desires and absorbed in the joy of devotion to God, have thrown their heart as if it were a fish into the nectar-like lake of supreme affection for the Name." - Tulsidas (From the Ramcharitamanasa)

My Guru has given me everything and continues to shower his Grace on me even though I will never be able to understand the mystery of His love.

One of His gifts to me was the desire to chant; to sing the Name of God. In March 1972, my visa was expiring and he told me to go back to America. I was totally freaked out. I had no clue as to what I could possibly do there. I argued with myself about whether or not I should ask him to tell me what to do. I decided not to say anything. On my last day in India, as I was getting ready to leave for New Delhi and on to America, we were sitting around with him in the back of the temple in Brindavan. I got up to leave and went to touch his feet, but I couldn't help myself and blurted out, "How can I serve you in America?"

He turned to me with a look of comic disgust and yelled, "If you ask about service, then it's not service. Do whatever you want to do" Then he turned away. I stood there in shock! How could this be? What could he mean? I was still standing there, paralyzed, when he looked at me again and asked, "So, how will you serve me in America?"

My mind was blank. I couldn't say anything. I just stood there with my mouth hanging open and a dumb look on my face. He looked at me and cracked up. It was time for me to go. I touched his feet again and walked across the courtyard. What would I do in America? I had no answer. I turned to look at him one more time. I bowed again from the distance and in my mind I heard the words, "I'll sing to you." It was that simple. I got up and walked out of the temple. It was to be the last time I was ever to see him in his body.

In September 1970, I came to my first darshan with Maharaj-ji loaded down with apples to give to him. He immediately took the apples and tossed them to the devotees in front of him. I was surprised. He looked at me and said, "What happened? What did I do? Did I do right?"

Maharaj-ji fed people in all ways - physically, emotionally and spiritually. Prasad in the form of food was always given freely wherever he went, distributed by his devotees.

Once Maharaj-ji said to one of his great devotees, Dada Mukerjee:

"Dada, after I go, if they say only one thing about me, I will be happy."

"What's that, Baba?"

"Let them say that once there was a Baba who knew how to feed people."

Just like those apples, this recording is my offering to Maharaj-ji. Please take it as his prasad. Ram Ram