The pilgrimage we do every year.

When you drop a pin on a map, that's where the direction is.

That's where I'm going.

If you're going against the grain in whatever environment that you're growing up in or living in, you're going to feel like a social outcast.

Everyone at some point in their life has a breaking point.

Well, a lot of people think they're on a spiritual journey and they might not be.

They might be on an ego trip.

You know, when when a person speaks truth, he attracts a lot of people, you know?

There's so many sides to him.

It's like there's like this fire, like pure fucking ability to just rage and anger.

Use it today.

With a permanent kid.

I walked into this club and there's Ray Cappo sitting on the couch, and I just knew, this guy is going to be my best friend.

Check this out.

Something must have happened in his life.

Really, really dark.

There were also kids, you know, they were all kids really.

And it propelled him to search for answers and ask questions that he had never asked before.

I like to take people to holy places of the yogis, of the sages.

You know me, and I saw too.

I honestly felt sort of threatened by it.

This is kind of breaking up our band, potentially, and our friend is gone.

He lived, which sounded like a really great life.

Maybe that felt like it wasn't enough.

As a society, are we moving deeper into materialism or are people are segment society starting to question that and try to move away from that?

The essential teaching is you're not this body.

When you actually surrender, you see like things and magic happen, you know?

Transformation.

The transformation happens here in real life.

On one hand, it's such a free and open thing.

Its like, this is punk this is this hardcore.

Do whatever you want.

But to be honest, there's a lot of rules, a lot of restrictions.

Lot of people get slapped on the wrist for stepping out and doing this, and that's dumb and that's fucking this and that.

Blah blah You know, you're not going to find a tradition that you agree with 100% about in anything, you know.

In fact, if you find something that you agree with, 90% or even 70%, you know, that's I would consider that a good tradition.

There are a lot of things I respect about Ray, but one of the things is his ability just say, fuck it, I'm going to do this.

I want to do it.

It means something to me.

We have social stigmas and and social norms.

He often says things that, you know, like like in a sense many of us might think, but we wouldn't say out loud, and men are supposed to be this and men are supposed to be that.

He can touch, you know, people like me coming from like, you know, the very aggressive scene in a very soft, sweet way.

But Ray has always been sort of a searcher of things and spirituality.

And you know.

Why death?

Why sickness?

And why do you have to get old?

In Rays defense, he had to go hard this way.

You know, he talks to me about it now.

He's like, yeah, I wish in retrospect, I was a little more inviting, you know, because it's not really cool to just be like, goodbye, I'm this.

Ray Cappo has lost his freaking mind.

What does he do?

Like, the band is huge, and we're just getting bigger.

Why is he going to India?

It seemed to me that things were going good.

I guess for him being the singer, you know, he was going through that whole kind of like trip of what his offering was going to be.

Here is 1.

Yeah.

No, I don't have any dollars.

[speaking foreign language] How did I decide on India?

And now say I don't have any rupees.

India has this thing where like there's like a living, breathing, culture that's still present.

It's still here.

It's what they've always been doing.

It's like having, like, a tunnel into another world.

I saw this ad that Raghunath AKA Ray Cappo, was like talking about this trip to India.

Wow.

You know, this is interesting.

You know, what is this?

Even though India is like a huge industrial nation now and credibly progressive spirituality still here too.

You got to know where to look.

When you start getting hungry for your spiritual life.

The food starts to come.

Why the hell would you go to India?

It's crazy there.

It's damaging to women.

You're sitting on the ground with these people, with the cow shit and the dog shit.

Filthy, filthy.

Dirty.

But you're in it.

One of the things I've said to my daughter is some of the most fun you'll ever have in your life is when you're dirty.

And I hate to say that's true of India.

It's dirty, but it's the most precious jewel you've ever seen.

The first time I heard a harmonium, it hit me deep.

It's nothing you can explain with words.

It's nothing you can explain physically.

The sound of that harmonium just goes inside you and it touches something.

I already knew him.

Like as Ray Cappo.

At the time, Youth of Today was probably, like, the biggest band in the New York area and that of that era of hardcore.

And they had just done this huge tour and one of the most successful, like early hardcore tours.

And a lot of it had to do with just Raghunath.

Sounds like out of the blue.

I'm like, all right, I'll just drop them off, you know?

You know?

I remember the first time he answered, you know, I was like, wow, you know this guy who, like reinvented the straight edge.

You know, he's like, you know, answering my email.

So I was like a fan.

And of course, like, you know, I had this, like, you know, this feeling of like, you know, feeling like a 16 year old again.

But I was like, oh, man, should I do it?

Should I not do it?

You know, I was not prepared physically.

I was really weak.

You know?

There was like times that I couldn't even get out of bed and, you know, like, it was just really sad, you know?

I knew shit had to change, and I had to do.

I had to do something for me.

And I jumped on a plane, despite everyone saying, what the heck are you doing?

But I knew I had to dive full on into spiritual life and just sit back and figure out just what the fuck just happened to me.

You know what?

You should go.

There's people taking care of stuff, you know, in the stores and the office.

You have the time.

You have the money.

Do it.

Ancient bhakti teachings.

And it's a little social contract we keep.

And not only is it good for traveling with big groups on a cramped bus.

On the rest of the trip, we will not criticize anybody, even if that person is sitting too close to me.

Even if that person is driving me a little crazy.

Even if there's a person who's wearing something that I would never wear, why would they wear that?

I will not criticize.

I will not criticize.

I have a tendency to criticize people all the time, and it's not a good habit.

So I'm going to let go of that, at least for this trip.

As far as I'm concerned.

I mean, I may be a little biased because I was in a band with him, but I mean, he's just generally known as like in the hardcore scene and in the punk scene.

He was just like one of the best front men out there.

Super charismatic front man singer.

Humility means not thinking less of yourself.

It means thinking of myself less.

He's the guy who's writing all these lyrics, and he's like the real sort of like focus of the things that all these kids are, like, latching onto.

And he was a real kind of, like, cult figure, you know.

You know, back then.

That's a real kind of mind trip for like a 19 year old kid, you know, where you have all these people like looking up to you for answers and you got to, like, look at yourself and check your own head and be like, dude, do I even have the answers?

But my arrogance and I'm pretty arrogant.

It pushes away information.

If you think I know it, I know this, I got this.

It shuts down information from entering in.

So it really sent him on this path at like, am I really like, how am I supposed to live my life?

[Singing and praying] I saw like you know the love of my life.

You know, going with like somebody else.

And I would witness my own daughter call somebody else Dad, you know?

[Singing] When I was in India, you know, the first days.

Why me?

Why is this happening?

Because that's what, you know, our culture.

And that's how we've been brought up.

You know, something happens.

Boom.

You react and you're angry and, you know, like, you're aggressive about it and you're, you know?

Spiritual life is the opposite of material life.

See material world is looking for some type of deep respect.

Respect me.

I deserve this respect.

And we're walking around trying to say, did you notice this about me?

I was playing this really nicely.

Did you notice that song I sang?

Did you notice how I do this?

I'm looking desperately sniffing out ways to try to get people to respect me.

Babaji is not like that.

We're trying to see the other thing.

We're trying to flip that on its back.

How can I respect you?

How can I respect you?

How can I notice the greatness in you?

And maybe there's some person I can't see, a great ascent, some greatness in.

I'm going to work extra hard for that.

Do you find some greatness in them?

There is greatness there.

But due to my own Maya, due to my own arrogance, I can't see that greatness.

All I see is this person that's driving me a little nuts.

Don't let him drive you nuts.

You're nuts.

Spiritual life and hardcore are like these twin things.

Which is like, I don't buy the lie of the material world, that it's going to be a place that satisfies me.

The material energy is a place for disconnected beings.

We're disconnected.

We're desperately trying to find our connection, desperately trying to find our tribe.

Maybe I'll find it in my family.

Maybe I'll find it in my my ethnicity or my skin color.

So you reject that if you're into hardcore.

You reject that if you're into spirituality.

Because if you buy into the thing that you're going to be born, you're going to like, drink beer, watch TV, go to college, have a job, and then grow old and be happy, then you would never be interested in hardcore or you wouldn't be interested in spiritual life.

Do this little experiment where I'm focus.

I'm serving a controlling my tongue of the stupid things I usually say, the thoughts I usually think, the nonsense that usually spills out of my mouth.

My resentment.

That is like my best friend.

I keep resentment in my mind on a regular basis.

By taking offence on a regular basis, By getting my ego hurt on a regular basis.

Pull that off for two weeks and create a bubble of some type of actual sanity.

Music completely changed my life.

I mean music is this amazing thing that kind of bypasses the intellect and goes straight to your heart.

You're kind of putting out an energy.

Then the crowd picks up on that and the crowd gives that back.

And that's just like, that's the magic.

You know, when you have something in your heart and you can see it reflected, that it's in that person's heart too and they're singing it back, you know, with so much sincerity and especially hard core, because then they can come up on the stage, grab the mic, sing, jump off.

I mean, there's no like, rock star barrier between the band and the audience.

It's just kind of like this celebration of the music where everybody's involved.

[Singing] Sometimes we know our thoughts about ourselves and not our genuine selves.

I ended up with Stage Four lymphoma.

I spent $1,500 a month for my family on organic groceries.

I worked out.

I was of reasonable weight, yet still I got cancer.

You see on the internet people saying, oh well, if you eat well and you do yoga and you're all peaceful and zen man, you're not going to get sick.

Bullshit.

I got sick anyway, and that was a total mindfuck.

Why me?

Concept in India is your pure being.

You are part of God.

We have a beauty to us that's just been covered over.

We get covered by one layer of lust.

We get covered by greed.

We get covered by anger and envy and rage.

And they're just different layers.

And the real thing, the real beautiful thing is you.

We don't have a soul.

We are a soul.

The band got instantly big.

Raghunath moves from drums to vocals and starts writing all the songs.

It's like, bam!

People are just interested in the band all of a sudden.

And so we're touring the world, we're touring the country, we're writing albums.

For an 18 year old kid like I'm a teenager, and all this stuff is just kind of like erupting around me.

And it was like it was, it was a ride.

And then when the ride ends, Raghunath went to India for that first time and he was really starting to get into, you know, all this Krishna stuff and we know he's not going to come back.

You just gotta get focused on what your contribution is in this world.

Life is short.

Isnt it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Life it so short.

In this short time, why waste my time?

I've been busy doing nothing for so long.

What is my contribution?

That's.

If we don't know.

That should be like on the top of the priority list.

And when you really dial that in, then you just move forward.

And what people think of, you know, none of your business.

Say it with me!

It's also put it up time.

When you go through pain and you hit rock bottom, you know, you're like, what can I do?

You know?

You just tear off all of the layers and you strip everything away, which you have to do.

When youve been interested in spiritual life, it's not pretty.

You know, it's not like la la la shanti shanti.

India sees you for who you are, a spiritual soul.

And what happens in India is you get boiled down to your genuine self.

[Singing] They broke up and it was around the time.

It was like the early 90s where the hardcore scene got super violent.

I was in like my early 20s and I was just like, what am I doing?

I'm involved in this music scene.

It's like, so crazy.

I got to risk my life to play a show and go to a show.

There's got to be more to life than just what I'm doing right now.

[Music playing] [Raghunath shouting] The sound that comes out of your mouth affects your mind if you speak ill, if you criticize, if you find fault it affects your mind.

If you see the good in other people.

If you can learn to love unconditionally, if you train the mind to love, it changes the minds.

The words that come out of your mouth are so important.

The yogis do this.

So they abandoned all fault finding all criticism and they replace those words with Shriram.

Baha ree nam, the Holy Name.

The Holy name.

The Holy name.

I want everyone to repeat after me.

Radha Krishna.

Radha Krishna.

I had the feeling that Raghunath was kind of shy to talk about his hardcore background, you know?

From the time I started Youth of Today, my father slipped into a coma.

And the material world is a temporary, miserable place.

No, it's not man, you got to hang outside.

You got to go surf.

Go to the beach more.

Everything that we embrace, will get pulled out of our hands.

We are a dream.

This thing's over in a moment.

Life's taken away.

[Singing] This chanting, open gates that haven't been opened in the heart.

Mana means the mind and tra means to free.

So this mantra is meant to free the mind from all anxieties, from all worries that we have.

[Singing] It doesn't matter what color you are, you know if you are educated or not.

It doesn't matter.

[Singing] For me, there was a hard line in the sand.

It's like crazy punk rock is over here.

I don't want that.

So I'm going to do the complete opposite lifestyle to be spiritual.

I moved to a Christian farm and I went from playing guitar in hardcore bands of CBGB's to literally milking cows.

When I see cheerleaders, it makes my blood boil.

I'm like, why are you standing on the side of the court doing some crazy thing as entertainment while the actual game is being played?

Like, take off your fucking saddle shoes and strap on some sneakers and go shoot baskets.

Like, I don't want to be just watching from the side of the stage forever.

You just got to DIY it.

If there's no women in a band, go buy a fucking guitar.

[Singing] I lived in a world where there's a lot of hate, and I lived in a world where theres constant separation.

I don't want that anymore.

I don't want to keep breaking barriers.

I don't want to keep building walls.

I want to break that shit down.

Break!

Down!

The!

Walls!

Yoga needs to connect, to link up.

Kirtan is a very powerful form of prayer, and you pray to be able to connect.

The 90s like they got dark.

I was super violent and aggressive about anything and anyone.

That kind of made me blind.

I don't think I would have had the guts to kind of like go so far outside of like mainstream society where I would like, shave my head, wear orange robes live in a temple if I wasn't a punk rocker.

One day I'm in the barn, I've got these boots on.

I'm literally shoveling cow dung into this truck.

And all the sudden the barn doors open.

It's time.

And there's Raghunath.

“Marcell, I can't believe you're a devotee now, we're looking for a guitar player.” Dude, I know you came a long way.

We're old friends.

There's no way I'm doing hardcore.

The hardcore scene is crazy.

I don't want crazy in my life anymore.

I want to just be peaceful and be settled and just chant and have a peaceful place to chant.

And Ray said, have you read the Bhagavad Gita yet?

And I said, yes.

And he said, well, if you've read the Bhagavad Gita, you'll know that one of the main themes of the Bhagavad Gita is Arjuna comes to the battlefield.

He looks across to the other side of all the people that hes gonna fight.

He sees his grandfather, he sees his cousins.

He sees all of these loved relatives.

He sees his guru.

He's on the other side.

I can't do this.

I don't want to fight.

I don't want to be a warrior anymore.

I'm just going to leave all this madness.

And so Krishna tells him, no, you're a warrior by nature.

And so Raghunath said to me, he goes, dude, I don't know how to tell you this.

You are not a farmer because you think you're going to be at this farm in ten years milking cows.

You're going to be bored out of your mind.

I give you like six months.

You're not a farmer.

This isnt what you're supposed to be doing with your life.

Your guitar player.

You have this ability where you can kind of, like, inspire people.

And you're sitting in a farm?

You should take what you're good at, what comes natural to you.

I get it.

You know, being in a band, it can be a whole, like ego trip.

And when you do it that way, it's miserable.

He goes, “Well we're going to try something different.” The universe said, okay, all your life you've wanted to be a successful musician.

We're going to give you everything and it's going to destroy you.

Growing up, as little punk rockers, we could say like, yeah, fame sucks, but when you experience it and you fall in love with it, fame, external validation, promiscuity, alcohol, drugs.

I really thought this was going to fix me, and it was going to basically help me to sort of make up for all my fear and sense of inadequacy from growing up poor in Connecticut.

I can become angry, resentful, bitter with my faith, with the hand I was dealt with my father.

Or I can forgive.

What do I have in common?

How are we connected?

If I could just take that seriously, it would change my world.

And if the world could take this seriously, it would change the world for all of us.

What does God do when we're not paying attention?

Two things puppies.

A puppy is a product of the universe.

It tells me a lot about the character of the divine that it would make a puppy.

And our immune systems.

The divine, is constantly trying to heal us and protect us.

Oh my God, like it loves us so much it doesn't stop.

Hold it.

You guys hold each other like a human force.

Listening to the words.

You say your family members name out loud, all your family members.

Elieen, Aridge, Asaki Rocco.

And listening to the chanting.

Made me realize how grateful I should be every single day of my life.

[Singing] From the health that I'm given.

I should be grateful for like every little thing.

And also in connection to my daughter in relation to, you know, what was happening Let's put things in perspective and is a healthy child is going to grow up.

You know, her mom and this guy are doing a great job, you know, every day, you know, giving her love and a shelter and food and everything and I might as well be happy and grateful for what you know they're doing.

The word bhakti itself means love or devotion.

It's practicing any type of religion or spiritual path that says the living entity can have direct access to divinity through relationship.

First, we're going to worship the lamp that we're going to offer, and they're going to worship his Lakshmi, Vishnu and Ganga.

And then with the lamp we offer to the Ganga.

Everybody gets to experience divinity exactly how they need to.

They have a personal relationship.

You know, it gets tiring having to defend how you want to pray to God.

What's funny is, were all reaching for the same thing.

A higher power.

This is a subtle philosophical thing.

So I'm just going to say the simplest version.

It requires a subject and an object, and the the object is God.

And so the subject is us.

You know, what they call God?

I dont know.

Krishna, Jehovah, Jesus Christ, Allah.

What does it matter?

Really?

I don't care.

Just dont care.

And we sometimes call God Krishna and sometimes Vishnu.

And then we can't ignore that the bhakti traditions also encompass Shiva and the Devi.

Shiva says, I am the source of everything.

Here are the Devi Pranas.

Shiva and Vishnu come out of her body and she makes the philosophical point who was born without a mother?

When we die, I don't know what happens.

I don't know what happens.

I don't know if God is a blue cow or hes a boy, or hes crucified in the Middle East, or if it's all one.

Or if it's matter that's transformed into different dimensions and involves a consciousness that weren't, in the human form, not capable of understanding.

We all die.

We all get sick.

Our matter is dissolved back into the universe.

Nothing ever exempts us from that.

Our form is gone.

Why act as if somehow we can prevent ourselves from being ravaged by the human condition?

No one gets out alive.

How can I make myself happy?

What can I kind of pull into my life?

Money, a beautiful, attractive partner, a good job that not only brings me money, but also brings me prestige in society.

That's how I'm going to be happy.

All this yoga literature for thousands of years tells us that's not the way you're going to be happy.

That's the way that you're going to be confused and frustrated.

I don't know, I've got $1 million in the bank and somehow or other I've got nothing in my heart.

It's not about me.

It's not about what I can get.

It's about what I can give.

It's not what the words say.

its whats in your heart.

To the effect that I try to live according to these like yogic principles.

I can feel love and contentment arising in my freaking stone heart.

I went to Vashishta Cave.

Caves are where things began.

Swamis went to the cave, downloaded as thoughts into their mind that ended up making their religion, and I crawled back into the very back, back, back of this cave and everything went silent in my head.

And I understood everything about India, and I understood everything about myself.

Hey Raghunath, you should be here.

Look at this crowd we got.

I got a good crowd for you.

Blown in the grounds like a jailhouse Reaching for something bigger.

Of course, I love playing big shows.

What a great avenue.

Like get to play in front 10,000 people.

Or sometimes we played shows in front of 100,000 people.

Go on the street, people touching me.

Don't mean the way that I feel.

His band, Shelter, they played on the main stage some years ago to 350,000 people.

They loved him.

They still remember Raghunath.

To embrace materialism.

If you don't have the ability to embrace it, it can get frustrating.

I want to be a celebrity.

I want to be famous.

I want to have sex with all these women or all these men, or I want to get invited to this particular party and you just can't get in the door.

It's another thing like, yeah, you're more than welcome.

And it gets to like, feed all these, like, only secret dark desires.

Like, are they bad?

Are they good?

Maybe I'm just not stepping into it [Punk music] You know, it's like light and dark.

The ego is always there.

For example, like, you embrace service.

The egos like, yeah, maybe people will give you credit for being really like, yeah, like I'm the best service guy in the world.

And like, you should bow down at me for my service.

What it doesnt say in the Gita, you shouldnt make money.

Never says that.

It says you have to learn to do your duty with no attachment to the results.

The problem isn't the money.

The problem is the clinging and money.

Money allows you to cling to all different things.

What you're actually rejecting is the Maya of materialism.

The organizer of this entire Poland Rock event.

He's a philanthropist.

He raises a lot of money for handicapped children.

And as a thank you.

He puts on this festival for free.

We're cooking for 160,000 people.

Devotees cook.

We have subgee, we have rice, we have halava and papadom.

There is something about really understanding your dharma that's challenging.

Some people's duty is to make a lot of money.

Some people's duty is to chant.

I really didn't know what I was, and I knew I was not like my friends in high school.

I remember like in 1982, I'm watching a band at the stage - You're in very good hands.

and all of a sudden a mosh pit starts.

And I just said, theyre slamming, theyre slamming Theyre slamming.

You see people chanting, you know, that's a hardcore show, man.

The body is moving and like almost moshing, you know, like going crazy.

It's like energy, like, you know, felt to the core.

You know?

The whole process of Bhakti to not give up what you're good at.

I grew up scared of everything.

My whole life was scary.

School was scary.

The only thing that wasn't scary, ironically, was the hardcore scene, which was which terrified everybody else.

But for me, I was like, oh, we're all dysfunctional, broken people.

When I was a kid, I loved music.

Some of my earliest joyful experiences that I had were like listening to music, discovering music.

Spending hours with my headphones as a kid, my Walkman, And just like listening.

I was like, you know, in bliss, you know?

I was like, really kind of like into music.

I basically took music from whoever was near me.

I asked my dad for $200, and I bought a guitar for my friend, and then I learned to play the bass because somebody needed a bass player, and I was like, I can play bass.

And I looked exactly like a boy and invented that.

I actually invented that look.

I go to the bathroom and they said, “Boys room or girls room?” It's all about transformation.

Women are still kind of kicking and screaming to to have a voice.

When you're a little kid, you're like yourself and you're the subject of your life, and then you, like, hit puberty and suddenly you're an object.

Women are stoned to death for being raped.

Theyre burned.

Theyre have acid thrown on them.

In our cellular matrix, I'm quite convinced that women feel that this worldwide essence of what it is to be female.

I had to decide to own my own life, and knowing what had happened in the past, to lift under that rock and see that darkness.

[Singing] What happens in India is it's a little like taking a pill with a time lapse release.

You move a little bit slower and it's like your heart goes silent.

[Singing] Part of me, doesn't even know if I even officially mourned my father to this day.

[Singing] Don't you understand?

Dad didn't die.

You're about to die.

[Singing] My best day at chemo.

If you could think, you could have a best day.

It's actually one of the best days of my life which makes zero sense.

I had a gallon bag IV dripping into my arm, listening to the chanting.

Over and over and over again.

[Singing] And I left that bed.

I left that room.

I felt like I was up in the ethernet and just getting healing.

[Singing] According to the way you lived, in previous lifetimes, you will get your juti.

You know your your birth, which can be like your parents are college professors or your parents are bricklayers.

You get your iha or your lifespan.

Some people only live for seven years and then you get your vogue, your life, your life quality.

[Chanting and Singing] You could be born in a really poor family, but your grandmother has an abundance mentality, so your whole life is filled with abundance and it could be so perfect.

You create your own juti, your own iha, and your own vogue My parents coming from like a farmer family, you know, like no culture, no diplomas, no high school degrees, nothing.

I went to this, like, really sort of upper middle class high school in Westchester.

Something else on that one.

A lot of rich kids, a lot of BMW in the parking lot.

And it was just sort of like, okay, go to college, get a good job.

There's one thing we do have free will.

Oh, you're not going to go to college.

What, are you, crazy?

My parents had an idea.

Go and stay in the States for, like, about a year.

There I am, like 16 years old, you know, I'm like, by myself in the middle of everything.

Gang wars.

And, like, you know, all this crazy stuff happening.

Im a CPA and I have my own accounting firm.

I used to work for my father.

I hate my father.

He's a horrible person who was highly abusive to me.

And then I went out on my own to do my own business.

And I realized I was doing my father's profession.

Yeah, I started playing classical guitar when I was nine, and then I broke my poor guitar teacher's heart, and I sort of tried to unlearn everything I'd been taught so I could start this punk rock band.

One time, Shelter, at the height of our popularity, we got a show in Maine.

Dude, three people showed up and we were just like, what the hell are we doing here?

What are we doing here?

Raghunath was at the merch booth And so some kid came up and he's like, what is all this Krishna stuff about?

Whats it like this bhagvita stuff about?

And like, they just had a conversation for like three hours.

Materially it makes no sense.

You make no money, but you don't understand this one kid.

His life is like, kind of like transforming.

He gets sort of sent on this path.

Thank you so much.

Youre words give me a lot of solace.

It becomes like a lifelong thing for him.

The only Krishna people I would ever know was like a street gang.

They had very tough lives growing up, and I didn't have a tough life.

And I grew up in the suburbs.

That was the tough life.

You know, I'm dealing with junior high school.

One of the members of the band who was into Krishna started to preach to me.

He was a tough guy.

It was a violent guy.

Now, I liked all those things too.

I want it to be cool and liked and be tough.

And so he would preach to me the soul is eternal.

He was a gang leader, but it was mixed with a real element of danger and violence.

So I don't get it.

Are we supposed to be violent and cool?

Are we supposed to be incredibly peaceful?

Arjuna's duty was to kill his entire family.

What the fuck?

This is Shyamasundar Das one of a handful of small, super cool people.

The cancer came to me as a gift.

I didn't want to look under the dark rock before I was sick.

I learned to love myself and accept my life as it was.

[Singing] There's been sexual harm and there has been emotional abuse.

Physical abuse.

The harm was on the person who victimized me.

Now the rest is up to me.

You can only be a victim for that one day, and then you have to turn yourself around and you decide the rest of your life.

[Singing] What is the positive?

What is like our gift out?

Italians eat horsemeat.

My big first choice I made, you know, when I was 16 years old, to give up meat and go vegetarian.

Imagine if I said you were going to chop a bunch of dog bodies today.

Youd be like, “What are you talking about there?” No, no, no, I made a mistake.

We're not chopping up, dogs.

Were skinning alive cats and hanging them.

Are you sick, man?

These are the golden animals that will never get killed.

Yet these ones are commodities.

We buy, sell, trade.

Butcher.

Actually, I don't want them.

Throw them in the trash and chop up the bodies.

What are we doing?

Why are you ruining our Thanksgiving meal and making these statements?

We had one rescue cat named Tucker, and I was petting Tucker.

And I suddenly realized that Tucker has two eyes and a central nervous system, and this rich emotional life and a desire to avoid pain and suffering.

If my orientation towards life and other creatures is don't hurt them and don't contribute to their suffering.

That has to be all creatures.

I went to New York.

I was on Sixth Avenue, and there was a skate shop, and I go inside and I asked the guy like, hey, you know, this shoe like a skate shoe, like as a vegan?

And the guy was like, yeah.

Are you vegan?

Yeah.

Come and stay at my house.

Please come in.

We'll make you lunch.

Well, you know, thank you very much.

I'm with 30 people.

We don't make you all lunch so high.

Krishna, this is chapati.

And you know when it is cooked on the wood and fire, when it pops up, you know, it becomes like this big, this much big and this big.

That concept of prasad giving food, sanctified food.

It's been like a part of spiritual culture in India.

You grow food with love, you prepare food with love.

You offer food to God with love.

And then you distribute food with love.

The Swami who has given everything up.

Theyre living with their robes.

And they're teaching us.

A great value of how to live your life.

Should I just give up?

As the Swami says, everything and live in robes?

All these years of accounting experience.

But don't confuse the two.

You're actually trying to strip off this mentality that the material world is the only place.

I really thought that I was going to leave my accounting business.

You think the swamis aren't taking any material possessions?

Everything is provided for them.

Everything's provided for them.

You shouldn't get confused, but there's a difference.

So the difference is this they take what's given to them and they're detached.

As a parent, you still have to help out your kid and your friends and family and the people who are relying on you and some of the people who are relying on you are your clients.

I mean, that's the karma yoga is.

Some people will just teach that their drama, some people will earn money and they'll give some of that money to the teacher so the teachers can teach.

And it says that there's no difference between those two.

It's from the Gita.

Whether you're sitting alone in a solitary place and chanting or you're performing karma yoga, those are identical.

What I realized is to live as a swami.

I'm giving up my gift to the world, and it's needed in the world.

The world feels like it has to be compartmentalized.

You're either one thing or another commercial, spiritual But I'm both.

I'm an accountant.

And what you do with it is what's important.

And also your level of attachment.

I'm going to now publicly criticized Swami's.

If you're attached to people being your disciples, you're attached to being honored.

Then what's the use of being a swami?

If you're detached and you're a millionaire?

That's better.

I'm the cool guy.

Everybody check me out.

As soon as you get in that mentality, you suffer.

According to the yoga point of view, it really doesn't matter like what you do and life is going to throw you stuff because, hey, that's what we're here for.

We're here to become more loving, kind, connected people.

Sometimes I take some hard lessons.

Along with yoga.

Come on, come on, come on.

Material life is hard.

You get older and you get sick.

And you know your kids get sick.

You have to kind of center yourself to not get carried away with that stuff and understand that, like, my main business here is not to make $1 million.

My main business here isnt to like create some kind of like empire that's going to turn to dust in a few decades anyway.

My main business is to connect with who I am as a spiritual being, you know, and who God is.

What is the definition of success?

You know?

What is that?

Of course.

Like, you know, when I had nothing like, you know, like a material nothing.

It was important to me to have like a house and food and, you know, all the basic needs, you know, to take care of my life.

But.

Dude, when I'm getting very emotionally.

To feel the pain of, like, you know, being away from my daughter, it didn't matter.

It didn't matter, you know, how much money you had in your bank account.

Because, like, I was still feeling like like a homeless dude, you know?

I was feeling like a homeless dude, you know, like, because I had no shelter, you know?

I didn't know where to go.

There is a tangible way that I feel better, that I feel good, that I feel free, that I feel liked that I feel love, that I feel connected.

And there's definitely a way like, this is dark, this is abusive, this is selfish.

And it's selfishness motivated by control and fear.

Okay, we are part of this world, you know, how can we use what we do as a tool, as a good, positive weapon, you know, to make a change?

I realized that through my work, I had my expression, my I had my my voice.

We are one of those influencer companies right now.

I have this power right now to talk to kids.

But I don't want to make it sound like I'm, you know, your father.

I want to make it sound cool.

But I want to make it sound positive and constructive.

We actually designed the gratitude collection.

To see, like, a 22 year old kid wearing a humility or gratitude t-shirt.

It makes me smile.

Generally, religions create a problem that you're a loser and you'll never be perfect.

Accept that.

But you can be saved if you just opt in here.

So here is Christ, the Prince of Peace.

Talk about loving your enemies and forgiveness.

Seated at the right hand of the father.

And somehow he took that to mean I've got it right and everybody else has it wrong.

What do you teach?

Surrender to God with your heart, mind and soul?

Didnt I just say that?

Thats bhakti yoga.

Love God with your heart, mind, and soul.

That's bhakti.

The downside of an institution is it creates a very one sided, very linear, you know, type of religion.

As far as I'm concerned, when I read the Bible, I see a bhakti literature.

You know bhakti is about falling in love.

So it's kind of like lining up a bunch of guys in front of your daughter and saying, let me explain to you why you're in love with this person, and then you have to accept it.

It's just not how love works.

They're definitely going to pick the person you don't want them to fall in love with.

I'm such a rebel and I don't like rules, but in my heart I guess I'm a devotee.

The six pillars of Bhakti.

They're tools to help you out in your life.

Ones that helped me the most is I will not criticize, because in my whole life I don't acknowledge the good.

I only see the problems.

There is a narrator constantly analyzing everything.

This is wrong, that's wrong, this wrong.

When I was first in business, clients would bring me absolute freaking messes and they hardly wanted to pay me anything for it.

Instead of sitting there criticizing them, I flipped it around and said, that's why they need me and that's why I'm here.

And that's the whole reason I have a business.

And so when people say, can you help me with this?

My answer is, this is what I do.

There are six pillars of bhakti.

that I pulled out of all my studies.

I'm tolerant.

I take no offense.

I'm quick to apologize.

I see the good and others.

I let them know it.

I'm grateful and I keep a tally of my blessings.

Bhakti is connecting to God through your heart, through your mind, through your spirit, through your words, through your actions.

I forgot who I was.

I'll know when the thermometer starts to go down.

Then I know I started getting healthy.

The fever is gone.

It's just truth.

And like Shakespeare has been thinking about stuff like this.

We used to be so young and beautiful.

And now where's my friend now?

Now he's dead.

And you're like, thoughtful people have been kind of contemplating these, like, universal truths thousands of years.

It's not just like some kind of, like, sectarian, like Krishnam thing.

It's just all about like, how we can kind of maneuver our way through this world with wisdom so that we become truly happy.

Whether you hear it from like Buddhism or here from the Christian tradition, the truth is truth is truth.

- In the truest sense, we are all connected.

And these songs, I can still sing them with all my love and all my passion, because I want truth in my life.

That's the food for my soul.

Sing with me.

The song is called The Praise of Others.

[Singing] We went to the temple and there was three curtains.

The curtains were opened and there are deities, statues of Krishna and Radha.

I wasn't really connecting to it.

So what I did was I kind of left the group and made a circle by myself around the temple and looked at the love, the skill, the devotion that it took to construct that temple.

My heart just welled up with so much emotion.

All of these people in this temple, it must have been hundreds of people there.

Were singing, dancing, loving these statues, their devotion, their love, their energy.

Everything was dedicated to.

These plastic dolls.

And the thought that ran through my mind was, if all people who worship some kind of beauty or a cross or something symbolic, took that love and that devotion and turned it around to the person sitting next to them, living next to them, working next to them.

That would be the end of all pain and suffering in the world.

If people saw God in each other instead of God on an altar, there would be no pain and suffering.

That moment upset me.

It really upset me.

And.

I came back as I was like, oh my God.

It was amazing, it was ecstatic, oh, oh, oh!

Ragunath came to sit next to me.

And he asked me, what did you think?

And I told him the truth.

And while I was telling, I even had this moment of like, maybe I shouldn't tell him.

He listened to me with such attention, and he had a completely different answer than I thought he was.

I thought he was going to get defensive or try to explain something.

He looked at me and said, you have a good point.