{"id":1446,"date":"2024-04-13T15:32:30","date_gmt":"2024-04-13T15:32:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yoganandafortheworld.com\/story\/?p=1446"},"modified":"2024-04-13T15:32:44","modified_gmt":"2024-04-13T15:32:44","slug":"conversations-with-ananda-ch-64-raghu-clark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yoganandafortheworld.com\/story\/conversations-with-ananda-ch-64-raghu-clark\/","title":{"rendered":"Conversations With Ananda — Ch. 64, Raghu Clark"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Raghu<\/a>
Raghu in 1999.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Q:<\/strong> How did you become involved<\/strong> with Swami Kriyananda\u2019s music, perhaps going back to before you came to Ananda?<\/p>\n

Raghu:<\/strong> I started listening to music on an AM transistor radio in the 1960s. I was nine or ten and I would come home for lunch and listen to the AM station in Buffalo, New York. Sometimes I would sing along, but mostly I listened. I was quick to catch the melody line and it would stay in my consciousness, but what I didn\u2019t understand was that I was tuning into the song and the consciousness that it expressed.<\/p>\n

My older brother and sister were in college, and they would bring home records by the latest soul groups, so I started to expand my horizons from AM to FM, and I did the same thing with those songs \u2013 I\u00a0 would listen to them and sing the melodies and get the songs into my consciousness, and for a long time I listened to Chicago rhythm and blues, soul bands, and singers like Wilson Pickett.<\/p>\n

I would enjoy the music for a time, but then I\u2019d be ready for something else and I would move on, because I was always looking to find what else there was in the music world.<\/p>\n

My brother returned from the West Coast with a stack of San Francisco music, and it opened another door. Listening to Moby Grape, Quicksilver Messenger Service, the Grateful Dead, and Jefferson Airplane showed me that, okay, this is good music, it\u2019s just different.<\/p>\n

In college another avenue opened for mewhich was Appalachian folk music, and from there I went to country music and then country-western.<\/p>\n

When I returned to Buffalo after college, I would go hear the latest bands in the nightclubs. I had gone from Appalachian music to country, to jazz \u2013 Coltrane, Charley Parker, Thelonious Monk \u2013 and then Jazz Fusion with electric groups like Return to Forever and the Mahavishnu Orchestra with John McLaughlin.<\/p>\n

In college I would spend the evenings with friends in a basement where we had wall-to-wall record albums, hundreds, and the latest quadraphonic sound system. But there eventually came a time when I began to pull away because the music wasn\u2019t fulfilling me anymore. It kept me questing and searching, which was fine, but I realized that I was looking for a sound that I just wasn\u2019t finding. Everything I listened to was good and the musicians were talented, but it left me hanging, because there was nothing that I could lock onto.<\/p>\n

At some point in the early 1970s I read Autobiography of a Yogi<\/em>. I had been searching for a way to balance my life, and I didn\u2019t recognize Yogananda\u2019s path as a new personal vocation, but reading the AY changed my inner direction. I began to pull away from nights of listening to the latest bands, and I started to become quieter, and in becoming quieter I more or less gave up listening to music on the radio.<\/p>\n

Around 1976 I discovered that Swami Kriyananda had a community in northern California, and that it was called Ananda. I knew that it was a cooperative village, but for some reason I didn\u2019t realize that it was an actual piece of land. I read Yoga Postures for Higher Awareness<\/em> and Your Sun Sign as a Spiritual Guide<\/em>, and then Cooperative Communities \u2013 How to Start Them, and Why<\/em>, and that\u2019s when I realized that there was a community of about a hundred people near Nevada City, California.<\/p>\n

I made a commitment to move to Ananda Village, but I first spent a year cleaning up the loose ends in my life, and I began practicing hatha yoga. I had met a teacher from India, and I would drive across the bridge to Canada and do yoga postures with him.<\/p>\n

On my way home from a yoga session, I stopped in Buffalo to visit a friend, and he said, \u201cHave you heard Yogananda\u2019s voice?\u201d I said no, and he pulled out an album of chants and prayers and put on the first cut, \u201cPrayer at Dawn.\u201d And when I heard his voice, I thought, \u201cThat is what I\u2019m looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was so expansive and far-reaching. Hearing his voice and listening to the harmonium lifted my consciousness, and I thought, \u201cThis is the sound I\u2019m looking for. This is the sound that I have the potential to resonate with.\u201d<\/p>\n

I fell in love with it, and I gave up all the other music. I bought the album and listened to it over and over, and a year later I was on the bus to Ananda.<\/p>\n

I joined the apprentice program, and occasionally one of the Village residents would come over to lead a kirtan. The one who came over most often was Lakshmi, and the chanting was a whole new sound that I wasn\u2019t used to. I was familiar with Yogananda\u2019s chants, and I realized that other people could chant, too, and I thought, \u201cThis is very good.\u201d [Laughs]<\/p>\n

I discovered that after chanting I was very still inside. I had tried meditating before I moved to California, but it had never quite worked for me, and even in the meditations with the apprentice group I still felt very restless. But after chanting I found myself feeling very calm, and I thought, \u201cThis is a good combination!\u201d<\/p>\n

I decided that I needed to learn to play the harmonium. I would listen to the person who led the chanting, and late at night I would leave my tent and walk down the hill to the temple at the apprentice village and plunk out the chants. I would hear the chant in my mind and find the first note, sing the note, hear it in my consciousness, and slowly string the notes together using my index finger and pumping the bellows. That was how I learned to play the harmonium, and one chant led to another until I had built up a repertoire of four, five, six, or seven chants.<\/p>\n

Soon after I arrived, the Gandharvas sang some of Swamiji\u2019s songs before a class at Spiritual Renewal Week. One of the songs was \u201cThe Secret of Laughter,\u201d and coming from the kind of music I had been listening to for so long, I thought, \u201cThis is ridiculous \u2013 what a goofy little song!\u201d [Laughs] I thought, \u201cThis is so simple\u2026I cannot believe it!\u201d<\/p>\n

I was comparing it with the sophistication of jazz and jazz-fusion, and the talented musicians I had heard, and I thought, \u201cThe Secret of Laughter? Lu-ru-lu-ru-lay-roh? Joy will come to anyone\u2026?\u201d And I just didn\u2019t get it.<\/p>\n

That was my first week at Ananda, but I told myself to shut up and just listen. [Laughs] I told myself to keep the ego at bay and listen to what was being sung. So whenever I would hear the Gandharvas, I would shut up and just absorb the singing.<\/p>\n

But I really liked the chanting, and over time I gradually acquired a taste for Swamiji\u2019s \u201cSongs of Divine Joy.\u201d It was a slow road for me to begin to like his music, and then after six months I found myself invited to sing with a little performing group. I had never sung a song in my life, but I said yes. There were six of us, and they told me I was a bass, and I said okay. I didn\u2019t even know what it meant, but I realized I could sing low, and the first song we worked on was \u201cThe Secret of Laughter.\u201d [Laughs]<\/p>\n

It was a big eye-opener. I learned the bass line and practiced singing it until I had memorized the part, and then I had the same experience as when I heard Yogananda\u2019s voice for the first time, that singing this very simple song was changing something inside me. I had memorized the words, and I had the notes down correctly, and I was changing inwardly. The vibration of the song was having an effect on my consciousness, and it was something completely new for me. It didn\u2019t give me confidence to sing, but I found that I felt really calm and inspired after singing these songs, even in rehearsal.<\/p>\n

We premiered our new singing group at a Sunday service. We sang \u201cThe Secret of Laughter,\u201d and I was so embarrassed and self-conscious! The basses were in the back row, and I deliberately stood behind somebody with lots of hair. I remember it was very frizzy hair, and I remember trying to hide behind it, and how my knee was moving because I was so nervous, and how I kind of moved it to the rhythm of the song.<\/p>\n

After the service a long-time member of Ananda asked me if I\u2019d been hiding. [Laughs] I said yes, and she grabbed my knee and said, \u201cAnd don\u2019t move your knee like that.\u201d She said, \u201cYou can\u2019t hide. You just have to sing!\u201d<\/p>\n

I said, \u201cOkay,\u201d and I slowly accepted the role of singing in a small group, because my doubts and self-consciousness weren\u2019t strong enough to prevent me from singing, and the joy and peace I felt after singing was so strong.<\/p>\n

Yogananda assigned particular qualities to many of his chants. In the first edition of Cosmic Chants<\/em>, published in 1938, he described what each chant was good for. For example, he said that singing \u201cThou Art My Life\u201d is good to \u201csweeten a sour disposition.\u201d So anytime I was in a sour disposition, I would sing that song, and I would come out of it.<\/p>\n

I learned more of the chants and songs, and I learned that when I was chanting, it was not really \u201cI\u201d who was doing the chanting, but that the vibration of the song or chant was coming through me. Over the years, I learned that, in fact, it\u2019s better if Raghu doesn\u2019t participate in the chant.<\/p>\n

If it\u2019s one of Master\u2019s chants, I visualize Yoganandaji at the point between the eyebrows, and if it\u2019s one of Swamiji\u2019s chants, I visualize Swamiji and feel that he\u2019s singing with me through the chant. If I\u2019m singing a bhajan to Ganesha or Shiva or Krishna, I visualize one of the deities and offer the chant to them.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve realized that chanting is forever new. I\u2019ve sung some of the chants hundreds of times, and yet it always feels new and fresh, because the chants are so expansive and it\u2019s never quite the same. Yoganandaji said that his Cosmic Chants are registered in the superconscious, and when I\u2019m chanting I try to tune into a superconscious state that\u2019s coming through the chant. Sometimes I chant with my eyes closed, even if it\u2019s at a public kirtan, and sometimes I visualize that I\u2019m chanting above the planet, and chanting out into the cosmos. I learned that you can\u2019t space-out, and this is why at our kirtans we have brief meditations to give people a chance to go inside because the chants are very deep and expansive.<\/p>\n

The experience of singing in the small group evolved over time. I realized that when everybody was spot-on with the music \u2013 when we were all in sync and on pitch \u2013 that the group had a unique vibration. I also realized that the vibration didn\u2019t sit with the individual, but it came out through all of the individuals.<\/p>\n

It feels as if it\u2019s in front of us, going out like a wave. If you\u2019re singing in a concert and you\u2019re in tune with the group, you feel a connection with everybody you\u2019re singing with, and when everybody is singing in sync, it creates a special vibration for each song. The people in the audience are touched by it, and it feels like it\u2019s going beyond the audience and spreading that vibration into the universe.<\/p>\n

When I lived in Palo Alto I had the good fortune to sing with some fine people \u2013 Sabari, Chaitanya, Ishani, Dambara, Karen, Pavani, and Amara. It was a great group, and we evolved together over the years. We sang for a long time together, and it was a joy. They were topflight singers, and they were all very much in tune.<\/p>\n

I remember a thrilling experience we had. Swamiji had just written \u201cLife Mantra,\u201d and our group was practicing it in the back room of the Palo Alto temple. We were rehearsing to sing for Swamiji, who would be coming to Palo Alto to speak.<\/p>\n

We would always chant AUM after our rehearsals, and as we were AUM-ing I heard a voice singing, \u201cLife is a mission from above\u2026 Life is a quest for inner joy\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

We took a breath and AUM-ed again, and I heard, \u201cGod is life\u2026 God is joy\u2026\u201d It wasn\u2019t a sound that was coming from the physical plane.<\/p>\n

After the third AUM, we didn\u2019t say anything. Finally, Chaitanya said, \u201cDid anybody hear that?\u201d And we all said, \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was thrilling, and at the same time it didn\u2019t seem unusual. It was like \u201cOf course \u2013 it\u2019s the AUM vibration.\u201d But it helped us realize that the songs that Swamiji wrote are part of the AUM vibration, and that if we sing them together, and if we do the best we can, it opens us to the vibration of AUM, and it can open others to the vibration of AUM.<\/p>\n

Swamiji has often said, \u201cIf you want to know me, get to know my music.\u201d Many of the people in the choir have been around Swami for years, but others have not. And speaking for myself, I find that singing Swamiji\u2019s music has helped me tremendously to know him more deeply, and to meditate better and deeper. Our choir in Sacramento has been singing at Sunday service, and they\u2019re getting to know Swamiji better. The choir has gone light years toward the AUM vibration. We know it from the feedback we receive from the audience, when they tell us after service how inspiring the singing was.<\/p>\n

We certainly have Sundays when it doesn\u2019t click perfectly, but we keep moving forward because we don\u2019t associate ourselves with the praise or the mistakes. We associate our songs with the AUM vibration. Chaitanya would always tell the choir before a performance, \u201cExpect a lot of grace.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the beginning, I judged the music with my mind, but I was strong with myself. I told myself to do what I had done all my life \u2013 just listen and don\u2019t judge. After listening, I would sometimes wake up in the morning with a melody in my mind, and I would feel that there was something beyond the borders of what I had labeled as too \u201csimple.\u201d<\/p>\n

I realized that the vibration of the music is everything. It\u2019s why I urge new people to set the mind aside and just tune into the music \u2013 listen to the notes, listen to the words, and think about what\u2019s being said, and how it registers not so much in the mind but in the heart. Then lift the heart to the spiritual eye, and that\u2019s when you start to have the experience, and it will be different for everybody. It calmed me so that I could meditate better, and it made me realize that there\u2019s much more to music than the complications of jazz.<\/p>\n

The more complicated the music and the more impressive the musicianship, the more I liked it. But when I heard Yogananda\u2019s chants, and when I started singing Swamiji\u2019s songs, my heart started to open. My heart connected with the spiritual eye, and the music began to realign my awareness to an experience of depth and never-ending expansiveness.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why I tell beginners that it\u2019s good just to listen, just listen to what\u2019s being sung and bring the vibration into your heart and don\u2019t put a judgment on it. Don\u2019t put the mind on it. It\u2019s heart music. It\u2019s \u201cclarity of the heart\u201d music. It can change your consciousness and it will change your consciousness.<\/p>\n

When I was growing up I loved classical music. I particularly loved choral music \u2013 Chanticleer and the King\u2019s College Singers. But now I\u2019ve given up even that. I don\u2019t listen to it anymore, not because it\u2019s bad but because my consciousness has changed and now I just listen to Swamiji\u2019s music. I have it playing in the background, and I have it playing in my consciousness.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t even call it \u201cSwamiji\u2019s music,\u201d because he receives it and shares it. He\u2019s often said that it isn\u2019t his music, because it flows through him and it flows through us, and when it flows through us it changes us. It changes our consciousness. And that\u2019s the biggest thing. It can work on many levels. It\u2019s a healing tool. It\u2019s a great meditation tool. If you have problems meditating, it will give you depth. It can change your life.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Q: How did you become involved with Swami Kriyananda\u2019s music, perhaps going back to before you came to Ananda? Raghu: I started listening to music on an AM transistor radio in the 1960s. I was nine or ten and I would come home for lunch and listen to the AM station in Buffalo, New York. … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nConversations With Ananda — Ch. 64, Raghu Clark - Swami Kriyananda: Lightbearer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda tells his journey from rock and jazz to performing music that inspires.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.yoganandafortheworld.com\/story\/conversations-with-ananda-ch-64-raghu-clark\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta 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