WEBVTT

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Welcome to Destiny. Now here's your
host, Cliff Dunning. Hey, Hi,

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how are you come on in and
have a seat. I am back

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from a twenty one hour flight from
Egypt from Cairo. What an excellent group

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of people we had on this tour, the fifth annual Grand Egyptian Tour.

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Our host was the one and only
Mohammed Imbraheem and his wife Noha, and

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the team Sammy and the others who
were with us for a couple of weeks

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were just fantastic. I gotta say
this. The weather was just exceptional.

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A lot of times we go to
Egypt and it's in the hundreds and it

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can make a really daunting tour.
You want to get out of the sun

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and into the shade. But these
tours are fabulous and if you get a

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chance to join us on a tour, consider it. Because I've been very

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lucky over the last i want to
say, eight years in having hosts and

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guides that are exceptional, provide an
exceptional experience and also provide wonderful accommodations.

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And that's everything from the hotels,
the food, the transportation. It's perfect.

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I can't think of a tour that
we've had that was bad, and

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that's rare, especially when you're in
Mexico or you're in the Middle East.

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Things are not great in the Middle
East. I mean, Egypt is a

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developing country. Sixty percent of the
population is considered below poverty or at a

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poverty level, and so it's tough
to see that and it's tough to experience

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that on a social level. But
if you're into the ancient, ancient historical

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buildings, temples, statuary artifacts,
Egypt is a fabulous place. So had

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a great time. You know,
over the years that we've launched and have

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been doing Destiny, I always say
that we try to offer tools for transformation,

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everything from meditation to yoga to everything
in between, energy work, and

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I've been fortunate to have worked with
a number of celebrities who have written books

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on their spiritual journeys, people like
Shirley McClain, Will Smith, Kevin Coosner.

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Has done a number of conferences over
the years and on and on and

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on, and when these people speak, people the public listens. And my

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guest today is a punk rocker.
His name is Ray Cappo and he is

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the leader of the band Youth of
Today. He also was with shelter,

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and he's written a book called From
Punk to Monk, a Memoir. And

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you know, I was going,
well, should we have something like him

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on the program? But when you
listen to his transformation, what he went

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through and where he is today,
it's really kind of inspirational in a way,

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and I've decided to have him on
the program. In fact, my

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producer, Hello Gail Tour who's in
Hollywood, said hey, Cliff, you

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got to have this guy on the
program. He speaks well, he has

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a lot to say, and his
story is fun and it is kind of

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revealing. And I have to admit
that I wasn't sure about it, and

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because I've had other, like I
said, celebrity types who have written perhaps

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great books, have presented good information, but the interviews are not always the

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best. So this is fun.
This is a great deal of fun.

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So today's program is From Punk to
Monk, a Memoir. My guest is

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Ray Capo, by the way,
it's Ray Ragna, that's his spiritual name,

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Ray Ragoneth Capo. And we're gonna
hear from him and what he has

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experienced and his spiritual transformation. So
I hope you will enjoy this. We've

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got a good one for you.
Today, we are speaking to a musician

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who has written a book called From
Punk to Monk. It's a memoir and

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his name is Ray Cappo. His
spiritual name is Ragunath. Reaganath. Okay,

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Reaganath okay, thank you, and
uh this book I just finished it

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and it is a really a look
at a young person who is very creative,

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who's seeking more than just what is
offered in the States, and eventually

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becomes a spiritual, deeply spiritual person
and converts to I guess you could say

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Hinduism and becomes a monk. So
Ray, welcome to destiny and I'm really

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looking forward to speaking with you on
this on this word. Thanks. It

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was great talking pre show banter was
great as well. I feel like we're

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cut from the same cloth. Yeah, it's interesting. One of the things

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that I wanted to start with is
you really open in high school when you're

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kind of highly creative, and you
know, I remember when I was in

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high school, I was very artistic. Actually got I was not a good

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student at all. I was academically
terrible, but I was an artist and

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I actually got used that talent to
get into college with my portfolio. What

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was music for you? Was it
a departure from the troubles of family life

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or was it just a way to
express yourself? A great question. A

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music for me was sort of a
It was sort of a catalyst to sort

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of find myself. Everything in the
early eighties, if you're anywhere near my

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age is it was arena rock,
corporate rock, corporate music. And I

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just didn't want to be part of
like a rubber stamp like everybody else.

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I wanted to find my own groove
in this world. And so I started

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at a young age because I had
older brothers and sisters that lived in New

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York City. I started going to
New York City and watching bands play and

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punk punk or hardcore music back in
the early eighties of New York was very

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raw. The people wrote their own
Sometimes they were lacking in talents, but

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they were they made up for in
heart in creativity. Most of the people

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in my high school who were playing
music were really just playing cover music.

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They were playing other people's music.
Even if you go to the New York

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City Philharmonic, we're hearing Mozart or
Hayden or Chopin. These are things.

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It's cover music. It's not necessarily
creative. You're just writing playing someone else's

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music. And in high school you
were playing whatever Jay Giles band or Rush

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or Led Zeppelin cover songs. And
so when I first started seeing young kids

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in New York City doing this,
writing their own music, getting on stage

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heart over technique, I was like, Wow, I want to do that.

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This is cool. These people are
their own people. They're unique,

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they're not cut from the same old
mold. They're finding they're finding themselves.

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It's a it's a creative a creative
community. And so then I just started

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doing music. I went from being
playing violin and orchestra to just start immediately

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start learning how to play drums and
getting a few other of my freak friends.

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We all grew up in Connecticut,
so a few of my other freak

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friends and just started writing music.
And you know, we don't even know

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how to play music really, but
we were just writing music and putting out

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records and are making our own records
and recordings, and that's sort of how

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it started. That's how you know
Moby who wrote the introduction to the book.

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Yeah, I want to say Moby's
I'm a huge fan of Moby is

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I'm an ambient freak. In fact, my ambience all over the place.

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But that's very cool that your friends
with him. Well we you know,

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we were friends from like sixteen,
yeah, because he was also like that.

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But in another city in Connecticut,
and what would happen is, you

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know, all the freaks of the
high school would like we'd migrate together.

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And there were some like cool underground
clubs in the eighties, and one was

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in Stanford, Connecticut, and it
was a cross between an art gallery and

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you know, street art was real
big in the eighties. It's you know,

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I remember the refrigerator downstairs was all
painted by Keith Herring and I was

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thinking, whoa that must that refrigerator
must be worth the fortune right now,

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Yeah, serious money. But there
was an art gallery upstairs and bands played

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downstairs, and all the kids from
Connecticut, he had Danbury, New Haven,

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Stanford, Norwalk, weird towns,
rich towns, poor towns. They'd

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all come together and they'd migrate to
this place on the weekends and that was

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our hangout. And it was completely
different than everything everybody else was doing in

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high school. But you know,
there's always a few people that don't just

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fit into their high school, but
don't just want to give up on life.

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They just want to try to find
their own pace. So between that

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and hanging out in New York City
anyway, that's how I met Moby because

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he also in a neighboring city.
Was the same way. He was an

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artist and very good guitar player.
People don't know that about him, but

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he's a very good guitar player as
well. White Punk Ray because punk.

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I'm not a musicologist. I don't
understand it, but when I think of

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punk, I think of like anger
and violence, but there's a subtlety too

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punk that maybe you can describe that
is what you you expressed in your music.

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You know, I don't know.
I can't speak for anybody else,

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but for myself, that music had
sort of a teen rebellious aggression, monal

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burst, and it just served me
at the time. It was powerful,

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and you know, this is sort
of the origins of the mashpit and upstage

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dive, which before nineteen eighty two
was unheard of. Yeah, and it

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was sort of aggressed. It was
almost like a football game. You know,

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you get together and you can lose
yourself in the music physically, emotionally,

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mentally, but there was something also
the way I started moving towards in

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which what my band Youth of Today
got into was instead of that anger,

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frustration, rage being forced like outward
blaming the world, we turned it more

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on an inner, our inner struggles, our inner demons, climbing our own

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personal everest to try to work on
ourselves. Whereas punk music in general was

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a blaming thing, was a political
thing, it was a finger pointing thing,

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and I think the straight edge movement
was more positive. It broke away

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from that, it became self reflective
and that created a very very big scene

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internationally, and that was what I
was a part of, and champion champion

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change. Was there one or two
songs that really marked Youth of Today or

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some of your early bands that you
can say, yeah, this is who

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we are. This song was what
we are remembered for, and we were

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put on the map for this.
Sure again just putting this out there,

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Youth of Today was not the Rolling
Stones, but yeah, but I mean

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it was well enough that you had
a good following. So we had an

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internet and we still have, strangely
enough in international following. But we we

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tended to write like anthems, so
at the time when there was sort of

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division not only within the punk scene
but within the within all different types of

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people. Because as as human beings, we try to find our tribes and

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we sort of rally behind our tribes. It could be a national tribe,

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or a political tribe, or a
I'm a punk and you're a metal head

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tribe, or I'm a skinhead and
you're a you know, whatever it is.

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Everybody had something they're trying to find
themselves. So I'd say the song

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that youtha Today wrote that we could
all rally behind was break down the walls

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and see see people beyond their economic
status, beyond their race, beyond their

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religion, and try to find something
essential in everybody that we can uh and

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we can approach people with a type
of dignity, dignity and respect. And

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I think that that song sort of
set us on a different pace than a

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lot of the punk bands out there, even our tribe of being straight edge.

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We didn't drink, we didn't smoke, and it it we don't want

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to let things that we're doing for
our self betterment just become another form of

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ego aggrandizement. What can happen with
diet, with with politics, all these

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things. We can get into these
things for good causes, then it just

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becomes part of our ego oftentimes.
Yeah, no, I totally hear.

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It's funny because you're we're gonna talk
about your soul age. You're very much

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an older soul who is cutting to
the cutting to the chase, rather than

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coming up and taking drugs and getting
high and just becoming a rebellious kind of

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person. Somehow I was saved from
all that in the midst of I was

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in the midst of it too.
I was. It was not like it

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wasn't around me. It was everywhere
on the Lower East Side of New York

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City nineteen eighty two, eighty three, eighty four. But I was somehow

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in a bubble and protected. Well, it's funny because you're one of seven,

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You're you're from a big family.
Yeah, and a lot of times

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when you have that many kids,
there's a need to to get out there

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and express yourself. And it's not
always harmon harmonious. It can be you

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know, violent and you know you're
jail and you're high and you die young.

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I had a lot of friends like
that who were taking drugs in high

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school. I'm a little older than
you, but not that much. And

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expressing yourself through taking acid or taking
uh cod cocaine, or or taking uh

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uh cannabis and getting high is uh
is important. I'm curious when was what

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would you say with the point where
you sign a big contract and you knew

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that you're on your way on a
spiritual path. No? No, As

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a musician, you know, truthfully, I never did music to be a

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professional musician. It only turned out
to that. I did music as a

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form of expression. I never thought
it would even be popular. I just

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I never went into it like I
want to be in a band, I

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have a calling to play rock and
roll. It was never like that.

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It was like this is something cool. I did it to sort of find

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myself, and very soon I realized
there's a message I have, and there's

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a message of self betterment. And
I sort of clicked into that right away,

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and I became a spokesperson for clean
living, positive thinking, a clean

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diet. You know, do unto
others as you like to be others to

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do to you. A twist of
spirituality, what goes around comes around,

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and these were all just sort of
became part of because at this while I

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was creating music. I was also
somehow very very interested in Eastern mysticism,

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spirituality, Uh, this reincarnation,
life on other planets. Where does the

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soul go after depth? What is
the purpose of reality? Is this a

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real world? What's the purpose of
life? And that started getting almost like

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cooking on the flames as my band
got bigger and then and and and sort

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of and this is expressed in the
book How my Father. At the time

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I really started my first popular band, Youth of Today, my father got

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fell into a coma and it was
quite sort of mysterious, and it just

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went on and on and on,
and it let me lose faith in the

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material world. And I think that's
a big part of our spiritual growth is

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to make to get to this point
where like, you know what, there's

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nothing here that's actually going to port. There's nothing, there's no safety here.

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Are you saying all that is helpless
because your dad was constantly ill with

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these lung issues. He wasn't constantly
ill. He just got sick quick and

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then his lung collapsed and he went
into a coma. Okay, so I've

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never remember him as being sick,
but when he got sick, he got

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sick, and then it was just
out. And so I just started realizing,

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like, well, he was reasonably
young, you know, only a

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few years older than I am.
Now, he was reasonably young. He's

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done everything sort of right. He
was a good father, you know,

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honest, hard working, raised seven
kids on a school teacher's budget. Why

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is death? Why does death as
a sniper single this guy out out of

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all the people to kill, want
to kill a pol pot al capone?

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Uh? You know, why go
after my dad Mussolini? You know stylin

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Since Yeah, it seems unfair,
it seems pointless or not pointless, but

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it seems so random. And then
I started asking these questions, why do

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bad things happen to good people?
You know, this is like a what

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is the point of living in a
how do you find eternal happiness in a

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temporary world? How do we find
lasting happiness in a temporary world? So

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these were like the pestering me and
pushing me towards spiritual ideas spiritual teachers,

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and it reflected in my songwriting.
It went from not just okay, control

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your senses, control your mind,
control what you consume, to what about

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some inner engineering of the consciousness?
What about how to find peace within your

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own mind. Why worry about the
world when you can't even take care of

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your own consciousness, your own mind. I'm part of this world. If

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I want to make this world better, I got to begin with what's going

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on in my head? Were you
ready music about your interests in spiritual realm

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and reincarnation? I mean, I
mean that would really lock it in for

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you as a musician and your bandmates
to begin writing about these other dimensions.

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Well, I think what happened was
the first band really branded themselves straight edge,

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clean living, vegetarian, animal rights, things like that. So that

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was sort of the brand. And
then as I started developing in these other

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things, the rest of the band
members were like, you know, you're

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going off brand here. You're taking
this to a whole new level. And

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then I realized, this is my
thing. This is maybe it's not their

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thing, and you're right, I
am off brand and im and then my

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father left his body and so I
said, you know what, now I'm

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leaving this band. And that's when
I took off for India. It just

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everything sort of came to a head, came to a boiling point where I

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realized that it's so much more than
not just putting junk food in my mouth,

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or you know, not smoking or
not drinking. Big deal. I

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mean a squirrel doesn't smoke or drink, does that mean he's like an enlightened

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being. I want I want to
enlightenment. I want I want, you

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know, my consciousness shifting. I
want to be able to control my senses

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and not just act on impulse.
This is why I think you're what you

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know, if we look at soul
levels, you're a very older You're you're

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an older soul. And I want
to just make a comment that in the

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book, you're not taking acid,
you're not getting high, you're not drinking

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until you're unconscious, which is some
is a theme for a lot of bands,

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music especially, you know, and
and it's like I don't want to

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do for every band practically, well, it's almost like it's, ah,

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you have to go through this uh
pillar of fire and come out. If

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you live, you are a success. If you die Hendrix, Janis Joplin

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and so forth and so on,
you're the martyr for the movement of that

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time period. Right. And we
can see historically these musicians who die through

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overdose, and it's just the you
have to wonder, and I'm interested in

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your point of view, in who
you are. When you look at these

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other musicians and go, wow,
they took a drug and they died.

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Where was it for you that you
didn't need to do that to evolve as

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a musician? You know, I
will say Cook, it's a there is

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a point where you can't handle what
you're getting, and so something whether it's

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your beautiful Some people fansist with beauty. They're so breathtakingly beautiful that they get

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whatever they want. They use that
as their currency. Where some people are

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born with the trust fund. They
have so much wealth they can't even spend

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it in this life time. And
then this other very eluding thing which you

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cannot purchase and which you and it
seems like uh is random. Also is

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fame, and sometimes people get famous
and fame and this helped me understand this

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more when I got Intoto serious Yogic
studies, which was fame is a type

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of energy that if you can't control
it, it will destroy you. And

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these things have to work for you, but you can't let them be your

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master's fame, beauty, strength,
knowledge. You see sometimes people too also

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they're very very smart, but they
use their intelligence in horrible ways, whether

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to manipulate people to be crueled or
to build, you know, weapons of

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mass destruction. And that's what they're
that's what all their straight a's did.

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So the fame is the same thing. It is like an electric wire that

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falls from a telephone poll after a
storm, and if a little child picks

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up that wire, they'll burn themselves
up. But it doesn't mean that electrician,

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a qualified electrician can't come up and
take that wire and put it back

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on and now the entire street has
light. Again, electricity is not bad.

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It's like if you can't handle it, then it's problematic. So in

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the same way, all these different
types of you know, the the yogis

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called them shokds or like the divine
feminine energy is that we get it might

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again, wealth, beauty, fame, strength, intelligence, all these things

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are powerful, and we believe you've
got to take this feminine energy and connect

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it with the masculine energy. You
got to ground it all to the masculine

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energy. This is different than the
male female thing. Don't get hung up

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on that then, as we have
in the material world, but there's an

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idea of a masculine, a divine
masculine and feminine. So you got to

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take your shocked and you've got to
offer it back to source. And that's

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what bakti is. Bakhti is when
your feminine energies are connected to your masculine

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energies and they're grounded, and therefore
you're using your fame or your strength,

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or you're if like, for example, you're a great speaker, you're a

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great communicator. You know, you're
a deep thinker, but you're using it

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towards enlightenment. You could use that
same thing towards degradation. And so when

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these people have these powerful shaktis,
like Jimi Hendrix you mentioned, or Janis

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Joplin, they have so much power, so much shockedy, but if it's

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left ungrounded, they fry, they
can't handle it, and it always becomes

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a sad story. Yeah, it's
really bad. I want to talk real

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quickly about one other thing that you
bring up in the book that I thought

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was just amazing, and that is
your decision to be celibate. And you

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know, you talk about having a
girlfriend who's gorgeous, you know, and

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who's desirable, and it's like,
I don't feel I'm in a place right

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now where I want to be sexual, I want to explore other things.

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And a lot of people at that
age group would just say, screw you,

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I don't want to have anything to
do with you, you know,

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and you'd be kind of left on
a desert island. But talk about celibacy,

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because it is such a profound way
to live your life, especially in

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the Western culture where where it's tits
and ass everywhere and everybody wants to get

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laid and everyone's working to be slim. To be pretty sure, it lay

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people up in the morning. Sometimes
as a musician, I would think women

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are throwing themselves at you, you
know, and you're kind of going,

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you know, a stand back or
whatever. But talk about that's a really

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huge decision to make, and I
want to hear about that. Sure.

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I always felt like there was a
difference between love and lust, and somehow

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they've we intertwine them both together as
one thing. But sometimes we'll just say

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things like, oh, yeah,
man, I love her, she's so

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hot, Whereas we're using this word, which is sort of a hallowed sacred

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word to describe your appetite, how
you want to consume somebody and so it's

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almost like we need more death,
We need more words to describe these emotions.

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Lust and love are two different things. One is like iron, one

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is like gold. They're both metals, you know, but one has value

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and one actually sort of can wreak
havoc on your consciousness if it possesses you.

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No one wants to be possessed by
their body. No one wants their

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senses or their mind or their lower
passions to take control of their intelligence.

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So in Vedic teachings of the Yogis
they break these things down. There is

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me, a spirit soul. Then
there's the senses which are desiring, the

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tongue and the belly and the genitals
which are always passionate. Am I gonna

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let them work for me? Or
am I gonna work for them? Right?

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Am I gonna work for my lower
passions? Or are they gonna work

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for me? So there's a power
in controlling your senses, and it's a

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new take on freedom. Freedom doesn't
mean like I'm just like free. I'm

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on a tropical island. I can
do whatever I want. Oftentimes, people

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who can do whatever they want ruin
their lives. Oftentimes people who have the

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ability, the resources do whatever they
want. They become depressed, they become

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alcoholic. Not all the time,
but oftentimes. You see that. Whereas

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our take on real freedom means I
control my senses, I control my mind,

336
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I control my thoughts, I don't. I'm not possessed by rage.

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I can evoke anger, but I
don't want to be possessed by it.

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When I heard about this, I
was like, that's what I want.

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I want to be like that and
that, and believe me, I'm far

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from it, but that's what I
feel like I'm working towards. So in

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my twenty is it not like it
was an easy task. I'm going to

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be a celibate monk. But I
felt like, you know what I've seen

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in my life, in my own, my very short life, how lust

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can you know what yours? The
best way to even understand it is you're

345
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not even looking at a at A
For me, I wasn't even looking at

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it as a woman anymore. You're
looking as them as objects. It's almost

347
00:29:26.359 --> 00:29:32.640
like you're depersonalizing them and you're thinking
I want them. It's got nothing to

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do with them as a being.
So what I would my realization then was

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lust is almost the beginning of misogyny, because you're looking them as a thing

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and not as a being. Once
you put a being in something, then

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you have to deal with their emotions
and their heart and their mind and their

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00:29:49.079 --> 00:29:56.240
their sense of It's one reason why
I became a vegetarian, because I started

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thinking, well, this dog is
a being. I've given it a he

354
00:30:00.839 --> 00:30:03.759
sleeps on my lap, he's my
best friend. Yet I have a pig

355
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over here, and this pig is
a commodity. It's a thing. This

356
00:30:07.839 --> 00:30:11.839
cow is a thing. How much
different is a cow and a dog.

357
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They're not that much different, but
one has become depersonalized, and therefore it

358
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makes it easier to kill. And
so the same is with lust, and

359
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whenever we control our passions or let
our passions go rather it's really I just

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want to do whatever I want to
do, and it's the core of materialism,

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which means I want to satisfyt by
my senses first. And whenever you

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start to think like that, whether
it's within the family, whether it's within

363
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the city, whether it's with the
nation, whether it's international, there's always

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war because it's like throwing thirty rocks
in a pond. All the ripples of

365
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those rocks are going to collide with
each other. But when there's one focused

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self and we're focused and we're connected
the spirit, then it's like throwing a

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00:31:02.279 --> 00:31:04.839
thirty rocks in the pond, but
they're all landing at the same point in

368
00:31:04.880 --> 00:31:08.680
the pond, and those ripples never
hit each other. They're always there are

369
00:31:08.720 --> 00:31:15.359
always perfect concentric circles. So a
big part of a spiritualist is I have

370
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to get out of my selfishness.
And that's very, very tricky, and

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that's that's like a huge task and
that's what we work on. H So,

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yeah, so controlling the senses of
my twenties it was huge. It

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was it was difficult, but it
can be done, and there's and there's

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and there's ways to do it,
and there's it's pretty amazing that you that

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you took that route because you know
now that you're a spiritual person. You've

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00:31:38.160 --> 00:31:41.519
been to Indian Now you're a monk. We look at the shakra. By

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00:31:41.559 --> 00:31:44.799
the way, I'm no monk.
Now let me interrupt your I'm no monk

378
00:31:44.839 --> 00:31:47.559
now. I have five children.
You know, I live on a farm.

379
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Oh yes, okay, this is
this is this is the second book

380
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My life Now after being among mon
to monks, yoga teacher. But but

381
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now kids, in the period of
time when you were celibate. You know,

382
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we look at ancient Hindus traditions and
in the sitting monk or yogic individual

383
00:32:13.519 --> 00:32:20.799
who is focused on their chakra systems, and if you bring that that genital

384
00:32:21.359 --> 00:32:23.640
energy up into the other parts of
the body of the heart, the head,

385
00:32:23.759 --> 00:32:30.319
and the brain and crowns, Yeah, it actually enhances those other creative

386
00:32:30.359 --> 00:32:36.319
centers. And so without really knowing
it, you were actually achieving this.

387
00:32:37.160 --> 00:32:38.359
Well, I knew it. I
knew it. That's what you did know.

388
00:32:38.400 --> 00:32:40.599
That was the point of it.
Yeah, I mean, that's the

389
00:32:40.640 --> 00:32:45.400
point of it. You don't you
don't release your energy. And this is

390
00:32:45.559 --> 00:32:50.559
Chinese medicine, it's Indian medicine.
Is you're not you're not subjugating it.

391
00:32:50.599 --> 00:32:57.960
You're not feeling frustrated. This was
Freud's you know complaint people aren't having enough

392
00:32:58.000 --> 00:33:04.000
sex or they're just they're repressing their
desires. It's not repression, it's sublimating.

393
00:33:04.000 --> 00:33:07.759
It's bringing it to a higher place. You're taking that energy and you're

394
00:33:07.960 --> 00:33:14.039
using it for uh the creative uh, a creative change or for lifting your

395
00:33:14.039 --> 00:33:19.119
consciousness higher well there, and it
becomes a struggle, it becomes mind,

396
00:33:19.160 --> 00:33:22.599
and you start to realize the coolest
thing was. You start to realize,

397
00:33:22.640 --> 00:33:30.079
like, geez, everything I'm doing
is to impress somebody else. It's very,

398
00:33:30.160 --> 00:33:36.319
very powerful when put into the recipe
of a spiritual practice, because if

399
00:33:36.359 --> 00:33:37.839
you just say I'm gonna be celibate, then you're gonna be frustrated because you're

400
00:33:37.839 --> 00:33:40.880
gonna be looking around and you're gonna
be I want it, but I can't

401
00:33:40.920 --> 00:33:45.480
have it. But if you're actually
because I promised myself I'd be celibate.

402
00:33:45.599 --> 00:33:50.920
But when you're putting it into your
spiritual practice, like I'm doing this because

403
00:33:50.920 --> 00:33:57.680
I'm trying to train myself to see
everybody as spirit and what actually and what

404
00:33:57.799 --> 00:34:02.160
enjoyment is there outside of a mental
concoction which exists in my mind. For

405
00:34:02.240 --> 00:34:07.960
a fleeting moment of happiness or a
fleeting moment, There's got to be something

406
00:34:08.079 --> 00:34:13.079
deeper. There's got to be something
that lasts longer. There's got to be

407
00:34:13.199 --> 00:34:16.760
a joy rather than a fun.
And so when you keep that in the

408
00:34:17.199 --> 00:34:22.320
forefront of your mind, it changes
the way you think of people and changes

409
00:34:22.320 --> 00:34:28.440
the way you think of yourself.
And your mind and yourself as a spirit,

410
00:34:29.119 --> 00:34:35.280
and it becomes an interesting experiment that
you're throwing yourself in. Let me

411
00:34:35.320 --> 00:34:39.599
see if I can just treat people
with a type of like integrity not based

412
00:34:39.639 --> 00:34:43.639
on their butts or their ass or
their abs or there. And when you're

413
00:34:43.639 --> 00:34:46.960
twenty two, that's a massive challenge
because the whole world is recommending it.

414
00:34:47.159 --> 00:34:51.440
If you're celibating. If you're celibat
in your twenties, you know they're you're

415
00:34:51.480 --> 00:34:54.639
a loser. It hits an ass
in the Western culture and the ancient cultures

416
00:34:54.679 --> 00:35:00.360
like Indian and China, they're covered
up. They appreciate male and fear email

417
00:35:00.519 --> 00:35:04.559
energy, and people in the West, it's like, push those boobs up,

418
00:35:05.440 --> 00:35:09.840
you get those tight abs. Yeah, and it makes something very sacred

419
00:35:10.280 --> 00:35:16.199
cheap if it is, Yeah,
it is. And Yeah. We're going

420
00:35:16.239 --> 00:35:22.400
to take a short commercial break to
allow our sponsors to identify themselves, and

421
00:35:22.440 --> 00:35:28.559
we will return shortly with my guest
today, Ray Cappo, and his new

422
00:35:28.599 --> 00:36:10.239
book From Punk to Monk, a
Memoir, will be right back. My

423
00:36:10.280 --> 00:36:17.360
guest today is punk rocker bandleader Ray
Cappo. He is the author of a

424
00:36:17.400 --> 00:36:22.119
new book called From Punk to Monk, a memoir where he actually goes through

425
00:36:22.159 --> 00:36:30.639
his spiritual emergence from a young artist
and travels to India and we're learning about

426
00:36:30.639 --> 00:36:37.960
his transformation and what he's all about
today. Talk about the opening of your

427
00:36:37.960 --> 00:36:45.119
book. Could you describe your first
visit to India in this miserably hot train

428
00:36:45.320 --> 00:36:52.760
and you're packed in with people,
and you're with monks, and it's a

429
00:36:52.920 --> 00:37:01.320
pretty surreal experience that you're challenged with. Have you ever traveled on an Indian

430
00:37:01.400 --> 00:37:05.280
train? I haven't, but I've
had a lot of friends do it,

431
00:37:05.960 --> 00:37:14.039
and uh, and it's pretty for
Yeah, it's it's something that's just undescribable.

432
00:37:15.119 --> 00:37:16.400
It is. They're they're like I
think they were. I think the

433
00:37:16.519 --> 00:37:22.199
Indian Railway was built by the British
and the forties perhaps, and they're almost,

434
00:37:22.599 --> 00:37:27.679
you know, eighty years old to
this day. And you're riding some

435
00:37:27.719 --> 00:37:31.400
really old trains and these there's first
class, which you know, if you

436
00:37:31.440 --> 00:37:34.679
have some money, you can afford
the first class, and even those are

437
00:37:34.679 --> 00:37:37.519
pretty tough, but the second and
third class trains, those were very,

438
00:37:37.679 --> 00:37:43.400
very tough. And for me it
was sort of adventurous because you know,

439
00:37:43.480 --> 00:37:46.239
I was a punk from the Lower
East Side. I'm used to dirt and

440
00:37:46.320 --> 00:37:54.639
grime. But it's just, uh, I've realized actually how intolerant I was,

441
00:37:54.760 --> 00:37:58.360
and how the people on the train
were so tolerant. And I was

442
00:37:58.440 --> 00:38:00.519
like, I mean, for me
yet twenty two to go to India,

443
00:38:00.719 --> 00:38:07.000
pre cell phone, pre credit cards, pre internet, it was like traveling

444
00:38:07.039 --> 00:38:13.079
on a whole another time. It's
hard to even explain it to kids nowadays,

445
00:38:13.079 --> 00:38:16.880
like, yeah, well you playing
it very well, thank you.

446
00:38:17.079 --> 00:38:22.559
Ray. You described the swell train
heat, no air conditioning. I think

447
00:38:22.639 --> 00:38:27.440
he even described the bathroom as a
hole on the floor that you just squat

448
00:38:27.519 --> 00:38:30.840
over. It was, which is
right in the train tracks I've heard of.

449
00:38:31.159 --> 00:38:37.559
I've had friends go there for spiritual
retreats to India and go outside of

450
00:38:37.599 --> 00:38:44.159
the cities and people are literally crapping
in the streets and it's just unimaginable.

451
00:38:45.000 --> 00:38:52.880
It's yeah, things have to be
tweaked, composting toilets have to be introduced.

452
00:38:52.639 --> 00:39:02.360
But I want to use that opening
and take a into your journey to

453
00:39:02.440 --> 00:39:09.159
become a monk and your spiritual growth, I guess is my point. But

454
00:39:09.239 --> 00:39:15.239
talk about that ride and meeting people
and how it I think it actually changes

455
00:39:15.280 --> 00:39:19.800
you in a profound way. And
I think that's how you opened them,

456
00:39:19.840 --> 00:39:24.320
why you opened the book with that
experience. Sure, it was a trip,

457
00:39:25.920 --> 00:39:30.079
you know, a twenty four hour
train trip should have been a twenty

458
00:39:30.079 --> 00:39:35.239
four hour train trip to CA.
From Delhi to Calcutta. I was going

459
00:39:35.280 --> 00:39:38.280
from one sort of holy city near
Delhi to another holy city in Calcutta.

460
00:39:38.519 --> 00:39:43.639
And I was sort of packed into
with you know, two monks on either

461
00:39:43.679 --> 00:39:45.880
side of me and three months across
from me. And I was brand new.

462
00:39:45.960 --> 00:39:49.000
I was green to all this stuff. I had read the bog of

463
00:39:49.039 --> 00:39:51.039
a Gita and I was like,
you know what, I'm gonna try.

464
00:39:51.239 --> 00:39:52.760
I'm going to try this out and
see if it works. I ask if

465
00:39:52.760 --> 00:39:57.480
they could host me at the Ashram. But I will tell you I was

466
00:39:57.639 --> 00:40:00.639
sort of like it was a little
overwhelming. And I was never celibate in

467
00:40:00.679 --> 00:40:07.320
my life, and I felt like
it's getting sort of intense, so maybe

468
00:40:07.320 --> 00:40:08.719
I should just spend some time.
And I was going to stay in at

469
00:40:08.719 --> 00:40:14.280
Ashram and Calcutta actually for a while. And on the train ride, I

470
00:40:14.639 --> 00:40:17.119
started noticing that, Okay, I
can do this. Okay, there's no

471
00:40:17.199 --> 00:40:21.079
ac Okay, there's a hole in
the toilet, you know, to the

472
00:40:21.159 --> 00:40:23.440
train tracks. Okay, I'm wearing
a robe that I barely know how to

473
00:40:23.440 --> 00:40:28.199
wear. Okay, I can do
that. And then I started noticing that

474
00:40:28.199 --> 00:40:30.480
people are getting on the train but
sitting on the floor. And I was

475
00:40:30.519 --> 00:40:35.760
thinking, and I talked to the
other monks, who I barely knew they

476
00:40:35.760 --> 00:40:37.840
were all Indian. I said,
you know, why are they sitting on

477
00:40:37.880 --> 00:40:42.800
the floor and they said, well, they have no money, and you

478
00:40:42.840 --> 00:40:45.119
know, so they just ride the
trains for free. And I thought,

479
00:40:46.280 --> 00:40:49.639
so they're going to sit on the
floor for twenty hours, Well, it's

480
00:40:49.679 --> 00:40:53.800
crazy. And instead of just saying
yes, it's crazy, he thought I

481
00:40:53.880 --> 00:40:58.760
was inviting them to sit with us. So in a very sweet way,

482
00:40:58.800 --> 00:41:00.079
he said, yeah, yeah,
just come sit with He waved these people

483
00:41:00.079 --> 00:41:02.960
to come sit with us, and
then we just start and I was like,

484
00:41:04.519 --> 00:41:06.599
before I could even say no,
please, I don't want them to

485
00:41:06.599 --> 00:41:08.519
sit with me, I was just
noticing that they were sitting on the floor.

486
00:41:08.840 --> 00:41:12.840
So sure enough, these two old
ladies and two old men are now

487
00:41:13.159 --> 00:41:16.000
packed in these seats of that hell
three now we got five in them,

488
00:41:16.039 --> 00:41:21.280
and they're you know, different cultures
are different, and in India there's no

489
00:41:21.440 --> 00:41:25.119
like personal space. You know,
people can just like rub and touch you.

490
00:41:25.599 --> 00:41:30.760
And so I have these ladies with
their heads like resting on my shoulders

491
00:41:30.320 --> 00:41:34.320
during the train, and I was
just at that point, I was like,

492
00:41:34.400 --> 00:41:37.199
Okay, I get what's going on. I wanted to approach God.

493
00:41:37.280 --> 00:41:43.159
I'm praying to learn things like tolerance, love, compassion. Okay, how

494
00:41:43.199 --> 00:41:45.719
are you going to deal with it
now? So you're getting it in dose,

495
00:41:45.760 --> 00:41:51.400
You're getting in a massive doses of
tolerance, compassion, love. Can

496
00:41:51.480 --> 00:41:54.280
I do it? Or am I
going to crack? And then to make

497
00:41:54.400 --> 00:42:00.119
matters worse? How could it get
any worse? The train breaks down on

498
00:42:00.159 --> 00:42:05.559
in a field for eleven hours,
and it's like no one is complaining about

499
00:42:05.599 --> 00:42:07.360
anything. No one's even like,
you know, if that happened in a

500
00:42:07.599 --> 00:42:14.400
Jersey transit or somewhere in the Metro
North train in New York City, everybody

501
00:42:14.400 --> 00:42:15.679
would be living where are you going? I've got places to go? Who's

502
00:42:15.719 --> 00:42:22.559
in charge here? And I started
to snap into my psycho white kid New

503
00:42:22.639 --> 00:42:28.280
Yorker mode and everyone else was just
chill and relaxed, and I just started

504
00:42:28.320 --> 00:42:30.519
spiraling out of control. A lot
of the book and my trips in my

505
00:42:30.599 --> 00:42:36.039
time in the Aschroon was just me
noticing my own mind and how sort of

506
00:42:36.079 --> 00:42:38.760
broken and how sort of what is
the true north? I want to get

507
00:42:38.800 --> 00:42:44.320
my mind and my consciousness too,
and how far I am from it.

508
00:42:44.480 --> 00:42:46.360
Just like if you have you ever
done a fast, you realize, well,

509
00:42:46.400 --> 00:42:50.440
big deal'll just fast for a few
days, and you don't realize that

510
00:42:50.559 --> 00:42:54.400
how much food controls you. And
or if you're ever trying to control any

511
00:42:54.440 --> 00:42:59.280
of your senses, whenever you try
to put it control them, you say,

512
00:42:59.320 --> 00:43:00.400
okay, I'm not going to date
for a year, and all of

513
00:43:00.440 --> 00:43:05.119
a sudden you just realize, Man, it's like I can't control my mind.

514
00:43:05.159 --> 00:43:07.280
I can't control my senses. People
experience that when they try to,

515
00:43:07.519 --> 00:43:10.360
you know, quit porn, quit
cigarettes, quit any of these things,

516
00:43:13.079 --> 00:43:15.920
do something on a regular basis that's
good for them. They find it very,

517
00:43:15.039 --> 00:43:20.400
very difficult. So I was feeling
like all these things and controlling my

518
00:43:20.440 --> 00:43:23.079
mind, controlling my senses, I'm
putting through these tests, and I've just

519
00:43:23.119 --> 00:43:29.480
started to notice like, wow,
I'm putting my whole psyche in an experiment

520
00:43:29.559 --> 00:43:34.480
right now, and I'm failing tremendously. And then I'd get then every now

521
00:43:34.559 --> 00:43:37.480
and then when I'd feel like I
was going under deep, I resurface,

522
00:43:37.599 --> 00:43:39.199
I say, nope, this is
what I want this So I think my

523
00:43:39.280 --> 00:43:43.039
whole time, every time I go
to India, it's something that's like this

524
00:43:43.239 --> 00:43:45.199
struggle with my mind, back and
forth, back and forth, back and

525
00:43:45.239 --> 00:43:49.639
forth. And I think that's part
of the game I signed up for,

526
00:43:49.880 --> 00:43:53.760
is can the mind become a friend
instead of an enemy? And I think

527
00:43:54.159 --> 00:44:00.440
that's sort of the lesson, Like
if I could learn in this lifetime how

528
00:44:00.480 --> 00:44:04.079
to use the mind as a friend
instead of the mind as an enemy.

529
00:44:04.119 --> 00:44:08.880
If I could, if we can
just crack that Rubik's Cube, we can

530
00:44:09.440 --> 00:44:15.079
we can attain real peace in this
lifetime. The guru that you met at

531
00:44:15.119 --> 00:44:22.920
this ashrom is he somebody that you
returned to on a regular basis or were

532
00:44:22.960 --> 00:44:29.159
you experimenting with different ashroms as you
grew older, because at twenty two you're

533
00:44:29.280 --> 00:44:32.480
very impressionable. If you didn't have
a good time, maybe you thought about

534
00:44:32.519 --> 00:44:37.360
going to other are sure? You
know, I've been blessed that have really

535
00:44:37.400 --> 00:44:42.880
great teachers in my life, and
some I find that the universe sends a

536
00:44:42.920 --> 00:44:45.199
teacher for a season. There's like
a leaf, you know. Sometimes the

537
00:44:45.280 --> 00:44:49.079
leafs are there for a while,
then a strong wind comes and some leaf

538
00:44:49.159 --> 00:44:52.639
goes away. And so I've had
some teachers that come into my life for

539
00:44:52.719 --> 00:44:58.079
a season. Some teachers have been
like branches. They're also there for a

540
00:44:58.119 --> 00:45:01.880
while, but sometimes they can also
snap off or I go away for some

541
00:45:01.960 --> 00:45:06.840
reason. And then some teachers in
my life have been like trees. So

542
00:45:06.840 --> 00:45:09.000
I've had some teachers in my life
that have been there for many many decades

543
00:45:09.039 --> 00:45:14.519
actually, and then sometimes different.
I just feel like the universe is real.

544
00:45:14.920 --> 00:45:22.920
It's a real benevolent and dynamic energy
that that sort of sends you what

545
00:45:22.960 --> 00:45:30.000
you need as a directional uh,
you know, landmarks on your on your

546
00:45:30.079 --> 00:45:35.599
journey, and sends you someone exactly
when you need them. You know,

547
00:45:35.679 --> 00:45:38.280
if you if you put yourself out
there and put yourself open to the to

548
00:45:38.360 --> 00:45:45.360
God or the universe to send you
teachers and instructors, then I've always find

549
00:45:45.400 --> 00:45:52.639
every time I get blessed with that
fantastic talk about the first time you received

550
00:45:52.639 --> 00:45:59.679
your mantra for meditation and how meditation
changed you, I want to just mention

551
00:45:59.760 --> 00:46:04.119
that because for those of you listening, I'm you know that I'm a big

552
00:46:04.159 --> 00:46:10.000
advocate of meditation for so many reasons, and I learned meditation when I was

553
00:46:10.039 --> 00:46:15.360
eighteen the Maharashi Meshiogi in the TM
program, and it was so profound for

554
00:46:15.400 --> 00:46:22.639
me the first time I meditated with
an instructor. And I'm just interested in

555
00:46:22.679 --> 00:46:31.360
your experience and how that began to
change you and if you noticed the changes

556
00:46:31.400 --> 00:46:38.239
that were taking place when you meditated. Well, sometimes the sometimes the meditation

557
00:46:38.360 --> 00:46:43.840
practice can be like a cuckoo clock
or an alarm clock, where it's like

558
00:46:45.159 --> 00:46:50.199
and sometimes it can be like the
hands of a clock where you're not noticing,

559
00:46:50.320 --> 00:46:52.760
like I don't think anything's happening.
But if you stare at a clock,

560
00:46:52.920 --> 00:46:55.199
but if you look at a clock, the hands of a clock are

561
00:46:55.239 --> 00:46:59.400
moving. They're just not moving at
the pace you think they should be moving.

562
00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:01.119
They are actually moving over time.
You see, Oh, actually the

563
00:47:01.159 --> 00:47:05.760
hands are the hands are moving.
Yeah. So I've had I feel like

564
00:47:05.800 --> 00:47:08.639
I've had both experiences. And the
type of meditation I do is sonic.

565
00:47:09.000 --> 00:47:16.000
It's it's sound vibration through mantra.
And when in a in an Ashraam experience

566
00:47:16.079 --> 00:47:21.519
especially, you're not so distracted.
There's just a time to sit and chant

567
00:47:21.599 --> 00:47:25.840
in peace, and the mantra is
uh. The Harry Kushna mahamantra, which

568
00:47:25.880 --> 00:47:32.239
is what i've what I chose to
chant is the mantra for It's sort of

569
00:47:32.280 --> 00:47:36.679
like asking the universe not to give
you what you want, because there are

570
00:47:36.719 --> 00:47:39.360
mantras for that. Please give me
abundance, Please give me you know,

571
00:47:39.519 --> 00:47:44.360
progeny, Please give me this or
that. It's it's more of a mantra

572
00:47:44.480 --> 00:47:49.559
for give me what I need in
this life. Sometimes if we get what

573
00:47:49.599 --> 00:47:52.639
we want, we could people people
get what they want, they ruin their

574
00:47:52.639 --> 00:47:57.159
lives. Sometimes yay, But but
give me what I need. And when

575
00:47:57.239 --> 00:48:00.880
you say that, when that's your
sincere, heartfelt prayer, give me what

576
00:48:00.960 --> 00:48:05.519
I need, it says, if
you're already liberated, because you'll accept that

577
00:48:05.679 --> 00:48:08.400
anything that you get is a gift
from God. Anything that you get is

578
00:48:08.400 --> 00:48:12.199
a gift from God. It could
be good fortune. It could be great

579
00:48:12.199 --> 00:48:15.199
distress. It could be chronic illness. It could be you know, a

580
00:48:15.239 --> 00:48:16.920
blessing. It could be a child. It could be the death of the

581
00:48:16.960 --> 00:48:22.559
death of someone you love. Please
give me what I need to grow in

582
00:48:22.639 --> 00:48:27.800
this lifetime. It sounds like a
manifestation mantra in a way, but it's

583
00:48:27.880 --> 00:48:35.880
not, is it. If anything, it's sort of a petitioning of God

584
00:48:35.960 --> 00:48:38.559
to sort of take the driver's seat
of your life, not that we were

585
00:48:38.599 --> 00:48:44.960
ever in control, but to become
fully cognizant of it and to understand that

586
00:48:45.039 --> 00:48:52.920
all the karmas that were going through, which becomes evident if you look at

587
00:48:52.920 --> 00:48:55.960
your astrological chart, your jote's chart, you're going through some karma, some

588
00:48:57.000 --> 00:49:02.239
planetary position, some molific planets,
some benevolent planets. Whatever you've got laid

589
00:49:02.280 --> 00:49:07.800
out in your in your chart right
now or not just ups and downs of

590
00:49:07.800 --> 00:49:12.880
your karma. Now they're actually being
used for your liberation and so there's no

591
00:49:13.039 --> 00:49:15.760
more. Oh man, I've got
a this is big within hinduism as.

592
00:49:15.800 --> 00:49:20.760
I've got to counteract this, you
know, Mars or this Rahu planet which

593
00:49:20.800 --> 00:49:22.800
is calling me, that causing me
all these problems. I have to wear

594
00:49:22.800 --> 00:49:27.239
a particular jewel to count. Oh
I love Rahu. I used to wear

595
00:49:27.360 --> 00:49:30.400
a gold ring with that. I
can't remember the jewel, but you got

596
00:49:30.400 --> 00:49:34.719
it on. I took mine off
because I don't know, I kind of

597
00:49:34.719 --> 00:49:38.360
fell off of it. But uh, Siderial or Hindu astrology is very accurate,

598
00:49:39.039 --> 00:49:43.760
very powerful, very powerful stuff.
It's like reading reading, it's like

599
00:49:43.800 --> 00:49:46.280
reading your autobiography. Yeah, it's
amazing if you get a good astrologer,

600
00:49:46.559 --> 00:49:50.360
and it makes you start to really
think. I was like, how much

601
00:49:50.360 --> 00:49:53.440
control do we have? Actually,
there's a it's a very very good question.

602
00:49:53.480 --> 00:49:58.440
And even the Christian missionaries went to
India, they they condemned it all

603
00:49:58.559 --> 00:50:00.760
because they said, well, no, because once you say there is destiny,

604
00:50:01.400 --> 00:50:06.559
then there is no free will,
and that's how you approach God with

605
00:50:06.599 --> 00:50:09.039
your free will. But the Yogis
of India say no, no, no,

606
00:50:08.880 --> 00:50:14.119
no, there is destiny. But
there's also how you react to your

607
00:50:14.159 --> 00:50:20.039
destiny, and that creates future karma's
future reactions. So you all have some

608
00:50:20.119 --> 00:50:22.639
karma and a lot of times we
can't avoid it. But how you react

609
00:50:22.679 --> 00:50:25.400
to it, that's your free will. And to the degree that you raise

610
00:50:25.480 --> 00:50:30.000
your consciousness higher to this, they
call it sut vaguna, or this mode

611
00:50:30.039 --> 00:50:34.920
of goodness where you're regulating your senses. For example, if I'm addicted to

612
00:50:34.960 --> 00:50:38.960
something, how much free will do
I have? Nothing? I take a

613
00:50:39.519 --> 00:50:44.039
snore cocaine and it ruins my life. I lose my wife and my family

614
00:50:44.039 --> 00:50:45.480
and my children. And then someone
says, you want more cocaine, I

615
00:50:45.480 --> 00:50:50.280
say, yeah, yeah, because
why, because the from addiction, we've

616
00:50:50.320 --> 00:50:53.960
lose our free will. So the
entire yoga system, no matter what tradition

617
00:50:54.039 --> 00:50:59.320
you are within, that vadic system, is to bring the consciousness up,

618
00:50:59.800 --> 00:51:04.039
to control the mind, to pacify
the mind, so between stimulus and response,

619
00:51:04.639 --> 00:51:07.920
spons there's more space in between,
so you can make a better choice

620
00:51:07.960 --> 00:51:14.960
and eventually get out of this wheel
of some sorrow, this repeating repetition of

621
00:51:15.079 --> 00:51:21.159
birth and death, this repetition of
making the same secular choices again and again

622
00:51:21.400 --> 00:51:24.480
that you can't get out of.
And we see it happen in our lifetime

623
00:51:24.719 --> 00:51:30.000
in small circles. I make the
same stupid choices again and again, but

624
00:51:30.159 --> 00:51:34.039
it happens actually over lifetimes, and
so that's what we're trying to do.

625
00:51:34.159 --> 00:51:37.480
Raise the consciousness off. That's why
everything within the yoga system is about pacifying

626
00:51:37.519 --> 00:51:43.360
the mind, calming the mind,
becoming more regulated, regulating the senses,

627
00:51:43.519 --> 00:51:46.760
controlling your tongue, controlling your passions. Why because we can make better choices,

628
00:51:46.760 --> 00:51:51.280
because our choices that we make create
our next body, Create our next

629
00:51:51.280 --> 00:51:53.159
body, not just in your next
life, create your new body tomorrow.

630
00:51:55.079 --> 00:51:59.159
Yeah, it's funny you're mentioning that, because that was something I wanted to

631
00:51:59.280 --> 00:52:07.360
ask you. Do you have a
sense of your previous incarnations? And from

632
00:52:07.400 --> 00:52:14.239
a yoga perspective, what are you
trying to burn off karmically right now?

633
00:52:15.599 --> 00:52:20.440
That's a good question. I mean
you could like for me, I look

634
00:52:20.440 --> 00:52:24.039
at it, there could be like
one lifetime that's influencing and it's you have

635
00:52:24.079 --> 00:52:30.320
to be really tripping in your meditations
to go out of body and go okay.

636
00:52:30.360 --> 00:52:35.960
That lifetime as a doctor, as
an engineer, as a musician is

637
00:52:36.079 --> 00:52:39.280
really influencing me right now. I
don't know how far you go. I'm

638
00:52:39.320 --> 00:52:44.440
not saying I go that far.
But in your spiritual practice, what are

639
00:52:44.440 --> 00:52:46.679
the influences if you can, if
you know them. I mean it sounds

640
00:52:46.679 --> 00:52:50.639
like you have a pretty spiritual audience
that gets this type of thing. Oh

641
00:52:50.719 --> 00:52:53.199
yeah, but if people don't get
it. And I like to explain things

642
00:52:53.199 --> 00:52:55.920
for people who don't get it,
because even if you say, well,

643
00:52:55.920 --> 00:53:00.519
I don't believe in a previous life, the Bagha the Gita teaches it in

644
00:53:00.559 --> 00:53:06.840
a real pedestrian manner for anybody to
understand. Just like when you were a

645
00:53:06.840 --> 00:53:12.280
little child, you were observing your
body. Then you were a teenager,

646
00:53:12.400 --> 00:53:15.039
you're observing your body, you're observing
your mind, You're observing your passions,

647
00:53:15.119 --> 00:53:19.360
just like when you're in your twenties, you're observing your mind, your passions.

648
00:53:19.360 --> 00:53:22.280
Your body has changed, and you're
the witness. As C. S.

649
00:53:22.360 --> 00:53:23.920
Lewis said, you know, you
don't have a soul. You are

650
00:53:23.960 --> 00:53:28.519
a soul that has a body.
And so the body is always changing,

651
00:53:28.599 --> 00:53:32.159
the ego is always changing. Had
we had this conception of ourself as a

652
00:53:32.239 --> 00:53:35.880
teenager when I was little, I
wanted to be a baseball player, right

653
00:53:36.119 --> 00:53:39.000
then in your twenties, you have
another self conception in your thirties or your

654
00:53:39.000 --> 00:53:44.519
forties. So all this time we're
almost like playing roles, different personas,

655
00:53:44.599 --> 00:53:49.880
different bravados, different egos, almost
like we're wearing different costumes. But there's

656
00:53:49.920 --> 00:53:54.719
always been an observer, and even
the body right down to the molecule,

657
00:53:54.760 --> 00:53:59.559
has changed. So in this lifetime, I've had different bodies, I've had

658
00:53:59.599 --> 00:54:02.760
different minds, i'd have different egos, i'd have different intelligence, I've had

659
00:54:02.800 --> 00:54:08.320
different personas. They're not me.
They're just a change of clothing, a

660
00:54:08.400 --> 00:54:13.519
change of body, a change of
matter. Nothing here in my hand that

661
00:54:13.559 --> 00:54:16.960
I'm waving with was here when I
was five years old. This is molecularly

662
00:54:17.280 --> 00:54:25.360
completely different. So there's reincarnation going
on in this lifetime. Western science says

663
00:54:25.360 --> 00:54:31.159
that every every molecule in the body
has changed every seven years. Every seven

664
00:54:31.239 --> 00:54:37.199
years, everything's different, thing's been
replaced. So the question is what we

665
00:54:37.679 --> 00:54:42.719
Who am I that's observing these changes? And the question is your otman or

666
00:54:42.760 --> 00:54:45.960
a spirit soul just witnessing and just
almost like a wave, you just witness

667
00:54:46.000 --> 00:54:50.599
a wave. And so anyway,
the idea is that the atman or the

668
00:54:50.679 --> 00:54:55.679
spirit it also had another body and
that it animated and in the same type

669
00:54:55.679 --> 00:55:00.320
of maya or the same type of
illusion. Was completely convin it's in the

670
00:55:00.320 --> 00:55:04.960
same way. I'm completely convinced.
I'm an Italian American New Yorker. I

671
00:55:05.079 --> 00:55:09.079
was completely convinced I was something else
in a previous life. And we forget

672
00:55:09.159 --> 00:55:15.719
due to the trauma of childbirth going
down. That's like a traumatic experience.

673
00:55:15.760 --> 00:55:19.960
Although it seems we romanticize it.
It's very beautiful, but the birth canal

674
00:55:20.360 --> 00:55:23.480
is trauma. And then in just
like any trauma, you forget, You

675
00:55:23.599 --> 00:55:28.639
forget what happened, like you get
in the car accident, you wake up

676
00:55:28.639 --> 00:55:31.480
on an operating table in the ICU
and they say, well, what happened,

677
00:55:31.519 --> 00:55:34.320
I don't know. I was out
with my friends and I just woke

678
00:55:34.400 --> 00:55:38.360
up here. Everything got shut down. The consciousness is a way to make

679
00:55:38.400 --> 00:55:45.719
you forget that pain and bury it
somewhere so you can just deal. So

680
00:55:45.519 --> 00:55:53.920
I've had hypnotherapists who specialize in calming
the mind, of course, and then

681
00:55:54.039 --> 00:55:58.760
taking you back to childhood. And
the first time I back to like my

682
00:55:58.880 --> 00:56:02.760
childhood, I knew this was real
because I was remembering things that I know

683
00:56:04.280 --> 00:56:07.400
that I just forgot. The busyness
of the mind forgets it. And so

684
00:56:07.599 --> 00:56:13.719
then after being thoroughly acquainted with that
part of my life and these things that

685
00:56:13.800 --> 00:56:15.880
I forgot about, like things you
play a big rock I used to play

686
00:56:15.880 --> 00:56:19.840
on as a child, what my
old house looked like, where I grew

687
00:56:19.920 --> 00:56:22.840
up when I was, you know, three years old. Then it would

688
00:56:22.880 --> 00:56:28.239
take me back to previous berths.
So you could find these people who specialize

689
00:56:28.239 --> 00:56:31.239
in that if you're interested, or
you can find something. So you can

690
00:56:31.280 --> 00:56:36.320
find astrologers as well that can take
you back there as well. I'm not

691
00:56:36.400 --> 00:56:40.920
I'm gonna save you the I'm gonna
save you the the story of my own

692
00:56:40.960 --> 00:56:45.960
personal one. But yeah, I've
been taken back a few different times.

693
00:56:45.480 --> 00:56:49.920
I don't like to say well I
was definitely that, because I don't know

694
00:56:50.360 --> 00:56:53.480
that I could be wrong. I
could have just I could just fabricate this

695
00:56:53.519 --> 00:56:57.119
in my mind. I can't say
for sure it was mine. But the

696
00:56:57.119 --> 00:57:00.199
fact that we have talents coming into
this world. Sometimes people are musically talented

697
00:57:00.320 --> 00:57:07.719
or uh people, we call them
child prodigies in this in this world,

698
00:57:07.920 --> 00:57:13.039
that talent, the Jogi say,
is coming from a practice from a previous

699
00:57:13.079 --> 00:57:17.360
life that you're bringing into this world. Hmmm, that's not Yeah, because

700
00:57:17.360 --> 00:57:22.000
we keep the subtle body, we
keep the intelligence, we keep the mind.

701
00:57:22.719 --> 00:57:24.440
And that's why we might say something
like, well, my daughter has

702
00:57:24.480 --> 00:57:29.760
a proclivity towards art, my son
has a proclivity towards you know whatever,

703
00:57:29.840 --> 00:57:32.159
martial arts. Yeah, that's because
they've been practicing for like, you know,

704
00:57:32.599 --> 00:57:37.320
for who knows, maybe lifetimes exactly
How otherwise, how you're gonna under

705
00:57:37.559 --> 00:57:42.360
how you're gonna explain, you know, a Mozart writing a symphony at h

706
00:57:42.440 --> 00:57:45.599
four, Well, you said prodigy, or you know, a savant of

707
00:57:45.719 --> 00:57:50.360
some kind, somebody who's just brilliant
on something. Yeah, say, yeah,

708
00:57:50.400 --> 00:57:52.920
it's it's not it's not like they're
brilliant at it. It's it's brilliant

709
00:57:52.960 --> 00:57:59.039
because they've been practicing it for lifetimes, right in your book. So I'm

710
00:57:59.039 --> 00:58:01.079
sorry, go ahead, there's so
much when I cover, I'm kind of

711
00:58:01.079 --> 00:58:06.280
moving through this quickly. I'll just
keep talking. So I want to I

712
00:58:06.320 --> 00:58:14.360
want to bring up the anointment of
a monk monk lifestyle. What when it

713
00:58:14.480 --> 00:58:21.280
happened when you decided you want to
become a monk and the responsibilities. Now

714
00:58:21.280 --> 00:58:24.519
you say you're not a monk anymore, so you you gave it up,

715
00:58:24.880 --> 00:58:30.639
But right, what were what were
the conditions? Because in your book there

716
00:58:30.679 --> 00:58:34.320
is you're wearing the robes and you're
like, whoa a white boy? Who's

717
00:58:34.360 --> 00:58:40.280
a monk? You know, Indian
Hindu monk talk about that well a lot

718
00:58:40.280 --> 00:58:45.440
of times because, especially in the
eighties, when Indy was more of a

719
00:58:45.480 --> 00:58:52.199
developing uh nation, sometimes monks were
very poor. They're coming from poor families,

720
00:58:52.239 --> 00:58:55.239
not all the time, but especially
back then. I remember a lot

721
00:58:55.280 --> 00:59:00.000
were very poor and sometimes moving to
an ashrom can be a almost like a

722
00:59:00.119 --> 00:59:04.480
step up, like now they have
flush toilets. Now you know they didn't

723
00:59:04.480 --> 00:59:09.159
have flush toilets, but you know, just because for a Westerner to become

724
00:59:09.199 --> 00:59:12.280
a monk, you have to give
up a lot. You don't have your

725
00:59:12.599 --> 00:59:15.440
I grew up well, I didn't
grow up like that. I had three

726
00:59:15.480 --> 00:59:17.840
boys in my room when I was
growing up because we had had four brothers,

727
00:59:17.880 --> 00:59:22.639
so for four boys in my room. But you know, for a

728
00:59:22.639 --> 00:59:23.599
lot of Westerners, if they're going
to go to India, a living in

729
00:59:23.599 --> 00:59:30.199
of ASTRM, they give up their
privacy, they give up their uh governance

730
00:59:30.239 --> 00:59:31.000
of like when you wake up in
the morning, when you go to bed

731
00:59:31.039 --> 00:59:35.760
in the morning, it's almost like
joining the army. Well from a culture

732
00:59:35.760 --> 00:59:39.119
where you don't understand the newest of
the language. You know, but are

733
00:59:39.159 --> 00:59:50.000
you are you renouncing money, sex
and meet vegetarianism. I mean I was

734
00:59:50.039 --> 00:59:52.360
pretty close there already. You were
pretty close already. I didn't drink or

735
00:59:52.360 --> 00:59:58.280
smell. For me, it was
that sort of a natural step. You

736
00:59:58.360 --> 01:00:00.800
went from like controlling my when I'm
put it in my ears and eyes and

737
01:00:00.840 --> 01:00:04.280
nose and mouth, They're like,
more, now what am I putting in

738
01:00:04.320 --> 01:00:07.280
my mind? And that was that
was the That was the real like like

739
01:00:07.440 --> 01:00:13.360
trade off. And even as a
householder trying to follow the principles, it's

740
01:00:13.400 --> 01:00:16.159
a little it's a little trickier,
but you have to find that bubble that

741
01:00:16.320 --> 01:00:20.719
you have to find that balance.
It's almost like walking a tightrope. You

742
01:00:20.760 --> 01:00:22.239
know, you're raising children. You
want to want to say, Okay,

743
01:00:22.239 --> 01:00:24.760
we're all gonna be monks. You
know, the kids will, kids will

744
01:00:24.800 --> 01:00:29.559
rebel. The kids need some type
of you know, material sense gratification.

745
01:00:29.960 --> 01:00:31.119
You got to be like a chef. You know, you got to put

746
01:00:31.199 --> 01:00:35.079
some salt on it. You know, if you don't put enough salt on

747
01:00:35.119 --> 01:00:37.239
it, you don't taste it.
And if you don't put you know,

748
01:00:37.280 --> 01:00:39.480
if you put too much salt,
you spoil it. So even with raising

749
01:00:39.519 --> 01:00:43.360
a family, you have to give
a little bit of sense gratification. But

750
01:00:43.400 --> 01:00:46.559
if you give too much, then
you spoil the child and you spoil yourself

751
01:00:46.559 --> 01:00:52.119
in the process as well. Like
you want to find a balance in can

752
01:00:52.159 --> 01:00:55.320
I have it create a spiritual bubble
with it being sort of in this world

753
01:00:57.000 --> 01:01:00.920
but not of the world, Because
I remember why I got into the ashram,

754
01:01:00.960 --> 01:01:04.159
because I didn't like being of this
world. You know, I wanted

755
01:01:04.159 --> 01:01:07.760
to find a spiritual bubble, and
so I think that I didn't. I'm

756
01:01:07.760 --> 01:01:12.039
not recommending everybody become a monk,
But there still has to be some regulation

757
01:01:12.440 --> 01:01:16.840
in your your behavior and your thoughts
and in your how you treat other people,

758
01:01:16.840 --> 01:01:21.239
how you treat yourself, even if
you have a household, a spiritual

759
01:01:21.280 --> 01:01:24.280
household. So how long were you
a monk? I was a monk for

760
01:01:24.320 --> 01:01:32.000
six monk six and a half years. Okay, So you you didn't have

761
01:01:32.039 --> 01:01:37.159
a relationship during those periods, right? I had lots of relationships, just

762
01:01:37.199 --> 01:01:42.960
not with the opposite sex. Oh, great relationships with men. Well,

763
01:01:42.960 --> 01:01:47.519
of course you're having friendships, your
spiritual community, the astron so forth and

764
01:01:47.559 --> 01:01:53.000
so on. But when you came
back to the States, that must have

765
01:01:53.079 --> 01:02:04.440
been a bit imposing for you to
carry on this persona and live in a

766
01:02:04.480 --> 01:02:07.800
Western culture where it's, like I
said it, for me a beer,

767
01:02:07.360 --> 01:02:12.559
how about a steak? Yeah?
Yeah. I think if anybody I get

768
01:02:12.599 --> 01:02:15.800
where you're going with this, I
think if anybody wants to have a spiritual

769
01:02:15.840 --> 01:02:21.079
life and they're not living within a
spiritual community, then you have to sort

770
01:02:21.119 --> 01:02:24.039
of like surround yourself with people that
lift you higher. You have to have

771
01:02:24.119 --> 01:02:27.840
friends. You have to have good
friends, good company, because it's it's

772
01:02:27.840 --> 01:02:30.599
the company we keep. You know, if you're an alcoholic, don't hang

773
01:02:30.639 --> 01:02:34.360
out at a bar. If you're
a gambler, don't go to Vegas.

774
01:02:34.519 --> 01:02:37.599
It's like, it's that simple.
If you find like you're trying to upgrade

775
01:02:37.639 --> 01:02:40.079
your life and you've got all these
people saying, hey, come on,

776
01:02:40.159 --> 01:02:45.599
let's do let's do this, it
just it just won't jive. So I

777
01:02:45.639 --> 01:02:47.960
had to I had to start to
recreate myself. How am I going to

778
01:02:49.000 --> 01:02:53.519
be in this material world and relate
and relate again? I mean, it

779
01:02:53.639 --> 01:02:58.519
was it was a balancing act,
and it did take me along to It

780
01:02:58.519 --> 01:03:05.119
took me a while to find my
stripe and and it was almost comical at

781
01:03:05.119 --> 01:03:07.280
times. Truthfully. You know,
do you wear robes for seven years seven

782
01:03:07.360 --> 01:03:12.199
and a half years just wearing robes? Did you come to America wearing robes?

783
01:03:12.800 --> 01:03:15.559
Well, I didn't stay exclusively in
India when I lived in and I

784
01:03:15.679 --> 01:03:20.440
share that in my book. I
go back and forth between India and America,

785
01:03:20.639 --> 01:03:22.400
right, but stayed in Austros.
But I had no clothes. I

786
01:03:22.440 --> 01:03:27.119
had no regular clothing. So for
me, it was almost a little peculiar,

787
01:03:27.559 --> 01:03:30.360
like I got to figure out,
like I don't even know, fashion

788
01:03:30.440 --> 01:03:35.800
changes every decade, every sometimes every
six year. When I went. When

789
01:03:35.800 --> 01:03:38.199
I went into the Ashram, everyone
had like in nineteen eighty eight, everyone

790
01:03:38.239 --> 01:03:44.199
had like tight jeans, and then
in nineteen ninety five everyone had those stove

791
01:03:44.880 --> 01:03:49.719
what were they called, like stove
pipe pants, Jenko jeans that were really

792
01:03:49.800 --> 01:03:52.079
huge. They covered your foot,
they dragged in the ground. The girls

793
01:03:52.079 --> 01:03:55.440
wore the middrift shirts and these are
like fashion changes. And I was just

794
01:03:55.440 --> 01:04:00.280
like, well, who am I? Not only does our bodies change,

795
01:04:00.280 --> 01:04:02.360
it a fact, I gotta figure
I gotta refigure out who I am.

796
01:04:02.800 --> 01:04:06.440
And that was like a balancing you're
out. You had to figure out,

797
01:04:06.480 --> 01:04:11.519
like how am I going to carry
myself in this world? So anyway,

798
01:04:11.679 --> 01:04:15.480
that was a little fun adventure.
Also, Hey, I could talk with

799
01:04:15.559 --> 01:04:18.960
you forever. The book's called You
from Punk to Monk is a memoir.

800
01:04:19.679 --> 01:04:28.920
My guess has been Ray Ray and
that's the that's your spiritual name. Yeah,

801
01:04:29.000 --> 01:04:30.559
Raguanov is like a very common name
in India. It's a name for

802
01:04:30.679 --> 01:04:35.960
Ram who's like Avatar Vishnu. But
Ray Kappo is the name I was born

803
01:04:36.000 --> 01:04:41.039
with. I love that you have
on the cover, So it's very It's

804
01:04:41.079 --> 01:04:44.360
like a tattoo. It's part of
who you are. Hey, as we

805
01:04:44.480 --> 01:04:47.159
conclude, Ray, what would you
like people to take away from this book?

806
01:04:47.159 --> 01:04:50.880
I mean, there's so many different
elements, but if you had one

807
01:04:53.000 --> 01:04:59.239
thing to say that would be what
you hope people receive. What would that

808
01:04:59.280 --> 01:05:03.559
be? Sure, treat each day
like it's your last day on earth.

809
01:05:04.239 --> 01:05:08.280
Wow, Treat each day because it
could be your last day on earth.

810
01:05:08.320 --> 01:05:12.679
And so if it is our last
day, then we want to make sure

811
01:05:12.719 --> 01:05:15.519
we don't have any unsettled business with
people. If we want to find peace

812
01:05:15.559 --> 01:05:17.800
in this life, we don't want
unsettled business. When we have unsettled business

813
01:05:17.840 --> 01:05:23.559
with people, we have unsettled business
with God. And so therefore it's time

814
01:05:23.599 --> 01:05:29.440
to say some thank you. Some
I'm sorries and some I love yous before

815
01:05:29.920 --> 01:05:31.559
it could do it immediately as soon
as you hear this, send out some

816
01:05:31.599 --> 01:05:34.960
text messages. I love it,
fantastic, thank you. Hey, give

817
01:05:35.039 --> 01:05:41.800
people a link to your website.
How can people get a hold of you

818
01:05:42.440 --> 01:05:45.000
if you want people to get a
hold of you and what's going on in

819
01:05:45.079 --> 01:05:49.440
the future. Sure? Well,
I have a daily podcast on yoga philosophy

820
01:05:49.480 --> 01:05:54.039
I do with my good friend.
It's called Wisdom of the Sages, right,

821
01:05:54.440 --> 01:05:58.800
And it's like We've done like over
thirteen hundred episodes. We do it

822
01:05:58.840 --> 01:06:02.599
every day since twenty two went January
first, almost every day. Sometimes I

823
01:06:02.639 --> 01:06:04.840
travel a lot so I can't get
it in, but for the most part,

824
01:06:04.880 --> 01:06:08.840
we try to do it every day. Big yeah, thank you.

825
01:06:08.960 --> 01:06:14.639
And we have a big, beautiful
community. And also I have a Instagram

826
01:06:14.719 --> 01:06:18.280
Ragunath r A g h u n
A t h Ragunath Yogi or or my

827
01:06:18.360 --> 01:06:24.119
website is ragunaf dot Yoga r A
g h u n A t h dot

828
01:06:24.239 --> 01:06:27.920
Yoga. And I take people every
year on pilgrimages to India. It's just

829
01:06:27.920 --> 01:06:30.000
like I used to go, but
I make them not you're not you're not

830
01:06:30.079 --> 01:06:33.679
You're not sleeping on an ashron floor. We make it comfortable. But also

831
01:06:33.840 --> 01:06:39.400
we have a strong spiritual experience.
We also do a two hundred hour training

832
01:06:39.559 --> 01:06:43.000
at three hundred hour yoga training if
people want to become yoga teachers in India.

833
01:06:43.679 --> 01:06:45.239
All that stuff's available on my website. Oh, this year I'm taking

834
01:06:45.239 --> 01:06:49.000
a group to Nepal because Nepal is
a very special place too. Yeah,

835
01:06:49.079 --> 01:06:51.719
very cool. Yeah, thank you
very much, Cliff keep Yeah, it's

836
01:06:51.719 --> 01:06:55.760
been a pleasure. I want to
mention also when you get this book,

837
01:06:56.079 --> 01:07:01.840
there's a photo of Ray in a
yoga pose that's amazing. It's almost a

838
01:07:01.880 --> 01:07:06.960
handstand, and I don't even know
how long ago that is, but that's

839
01:07:08.039 --> 01:07:12.159
that's a pretty intense. So you
have a regular yoga practice, I guess.

840
01:07:12.239 --> 01:07:17.199
Yeah. Fantastic. Hey, much
success on this book, and real

841
01:07:17.320 --> 01:07:20.559
nice having you with us. Great
pleasure, my friend, Keep up the

842
01:07:20.559 --> 01:07:34.000
good work. I was trying to
think where I had heard about soul ages,

843
01:07:34.159 --> 01:07:42.639
young souls, infant souls, old
souls, ancient souls, and I

844
01:07:42.719 --> 01:07:50.719
came across some earlier books that I
had read on Indian philosophy, Chinese philosophy,

845
01:07:51.800 --> 01:07:56.880
spiritual philosophy that is. And I
need to get somebody on the program

846
01:07:56.960 --> 01:08:03.079
who can discuss it more full.
But when you hear somebody like Ray talking

847
01:08:03.119 --> 01:08:11.519
about wanting to be in adhering to
a celibate lifestyle, that is very,

848
01:08:11.599 --> 01:08:16.760
very challenging, especially somebody who's celebrity, who's in the spotlight, who has

849
01:08:16.920 --> 01:08:23.119
people throwing themselves at him, men
and women, I'm sure, and to

850
01:08:23.479 --> 01:08:29.920
be celibate at that point in your
life is just a real challenge. And

851
01:08:30.000 --> 01:08:32.039
he told me off when we finished
that he does have he is in a

852
01:08:32.079 --> 01:08:39.319
relationship and he has kids, so
that all changed the older he got.

853
01:08:39.800 --> 01:08:45.600
That's just really a challenge, you
know. And also to not be involved

854
01:08:45.600 --> 01:08:53.439
in drugs mine altering substances of any
kind is also a challenge because it's so

855
01:08:53.560 --> 01:08:59.319
freely available when you're in that setting. So and we mentioned Jimmy Hendricks his

856
01:09:00.079 --> 01:09:08.279
untimely death. We didn't mention Jim
Morris of the Doors Janis Joplin. When

857
01:09:08.319 --> 01:09:12.520
I was growing up, there was
just one death after another, these wonderful

858
01:09:12.640 --> 01:09:18.760
musicians who were consuming drugs. And
that's the whole ruling of the times.

859
01:09:18.840 --> 01:09:24.399
You know, one need to experiment. I have to wonder what it would

860
01:09:24.399 --> 01:09:30.199
have been like if ayahuasca was available
in the sixties and seventies, during this

861
01:09:30.439 --> 01:09:35.800
transformational period, the Hippie period,
the beginning of the New Age. I

862
01:09:35.960 --> 01:09:41.640
was kind of at the tail end
of the New Age and was really fortunate

863
01:09:41.720 --> 01:09:47.399
to be a program director and have
people like Timothy Leary, who's the father

864
01:09:47.439 --> 01:09:54.199
of LSD, come and speak to
our audience in San Francisco. You know,

865
01:09:54.239 --> 01:09:57.680
he was in LA He lived in
La but God the room standing room

866
01:09:57.720 --> 01:10:03.039
only, and I mean he traveled
with us to a number of different cities

867
01:10:03.079 --> 01:10:12.399
when we were doing traveling conferences.
The program was Whole Life Expo, based

868
01:10:12.399 --> 01:10:20.279
on Whole Life magazine. The guy
I worked for I purchased the conference arm

869
01:10:20.479 --> 01:10:29.119
of that catalog and it was you
know, featuring people. I mean,

870
01:10:29.159 --> 01:10:31.279
I came on really funny. I'll
tell you a quick story. I was

871
01:10:31.319 --> 01:10:39.279
in the high tech had a design
business and my clients were high tech people

872
01:10:39.279 --> 01:10:45.199
who were making chips. I see
chips, silicon wafers, making hardware machines

873
01:10:45.239 --> 01:10:49.720
that created the chips. I had
a I worked with Apple Computer, worked

874
01:10:49.720 --> 01:10:54.319
with Microsoft. I had a lot
of big clients and it was it was

875
01:10:54.359 --> 01:10:59.119
fun, but it was very I
was an artist and it was dead to

876
01:10:59.159 --> 01:11:02.199
me. It was like these peopleeople
were like robots, robatons. Nobody was

877
01:11:02.239 --> 01:11:05.760
like tapping into, you know,
the potential. And I went to a

878
01:11:05.760 --> 01:11:11.880
Whole Life Expo because the lineup of
speakers was phenomenal back then, people like

879
01:11:11.960 --> 01:11:15.640
Deepak Chopra, Mary Williams and so
forth and so on. And I sat

880
01:11:15.680 --> 01:11:18.640
in the audience and I thought to
myself, after listening to I think it

881
01:11:18.680 --> 01:11:24.720
was Deepak Chopra and give a really
inspirational talk. I was like, there's

882
01:11:24.760 --> 01:11:29.600
something missing. Here. And I
mean I had no background as a as

883
01:11:29.640 --> 01:11:36.199
a conference producer, but I was
an artist. I was creative and successful.

884
01:11:36.399 --> 01:11:40.600
And I walked up to after that
presutation with Deepak, I walked up

885
01:11:40.640 --> 01:11:45.159
to the producer Kent, guy named
Ken Kaufman, and I said, you

886
01:11:45.159 --> 01:11:46.840
know you can do this better.
You can, you can make this more

887
01:11:46.880 --> 01:11:51.680
impactful. And I, for some
reason, I sat there and I was

888
01:11:51.720 --> 01:11:56.680
telling him what he could do to
enhance the show, to make it more

889
01:11:56.720 --> 01:12:02.239
impactful, to make it more memorable, and and I thanked him and I

890
01:12:02.279 --> 01:12:06.000
walked off, and a couple of
days later he called me up and offered

891
01:12:06.039 --> 01:12:13.439
me a job as his program director. And I mean, that's kind of

892
01:12:13.640 --> 01:12:16.439
a marketing job. I had my
own. I was. I was not

893
01:12:16.520 --> 01:12:23.520
happy at my job, so I
quit my job as a designer and I

894
01:12:23.560 --> 01:12:29.640
became a program director for the Whole
Life Expo. And it didn't pay anything.

895
01:12:29.720 --> 01:12:31.920
I mean it paid enough to make
to live, but I mean it

896
01:12:32.000 --> 01:12:35.239
was half of what I was normally
making. But I wasn't I was in

897
01:12:36.439 --> 01:12:43.239
I was in heaven. I really
enjoyed it. And I enjoyed learning about

898
01:12:43.279 --> 01:12:48.359
these people and bringing them to San
Francisco and creating panel discussions and it was

899
01:12:48.720 --> 01:12:51.279
world class, you know. I
mean, it was just something that was

900
01:12:51.359 --> 01:12:57.880
I was natural at and uh you
know, and I had a talent for

901
01:12:58.000 --> 01:13:01.920
it. And it's like that behind
the guy behind the curtain, you know,

902
01:13:02.520 --> 01:13:06.199
kind of a situation where producers are
not standing on stage. I mean

903
01:13:06.279 --> 01:13:11.039
I was. I would introduce one
or two people occasionally and maybe do a

904
01:13:11.039 --> 01:13:15.600
panel discussion on a topic because we
couldn't find anybody else. But I wasn't

905
01:13:15.600 --> 01:13:20.479
really in the forefront like I am
now as a podcast host. But that's

906
01:13:20.600 --> 01:13:29.960
really where I cut my teeth on
developing programming and really reaching out and bringing

907
01:13:30.680 --> 01:13:39.079
to stage to you the audience,
unique voices and unique perspectives. And now

908
01:13:39.079 --> 01:13:45.039
I have Gail Torr, who's in
Hollywood, and she's former Hollywood publicist and

909
01:13:45.199 --> 01:13:54.560
also currently publicists for some of the
biggest publishing houses in America, and so

910
01:13:54.800 --> 01:13:58.359
we make a good team and we
have other people too. But anyhow,

911
01:13:58.359 --> 01:14:04.439
that's a little side note on my
exploration and my you know, kind of

912
01:14:04.560 --> 01:14:14.439
evolution from high tech too to transformational
spirituality, personal growth wellness. And it's

913
01:14:14.479 --> 01:14:17.680
funny too, because I would occasionally
have I didn't have Graham Graham wasn't on

914
01:14:17.720 --> 01:14:25.560
the scene yet, but I had
John Anthony West when he was first you

915
01:14:25.560 --> 01:14:29.640
know, his book had come out
Serpent in the Sky, and I had

916
01:14:29.720 --> 01:14:34.520
him repeatedly, and he was kind
of like my introduction into ancient civilizations because

917
01:14:34.560 --> 01:14:40.960
he was in his book introducing Schwaler
de d' lubich, who was talking about

918
01:14:41.199 --> 01:14:45.399
the perfect design of temples in Egypt
and so forth and so on. So

919
01:14:45.000 --> 01:14:51.119
anyhow, a little highlight on Clifford
Paul Dunning your host, So that was

920
01:14:51.199 --> 01:14:59.319
fun. Anyhow, Yeah, Ray
was fun to have the program and really

921
01:14:59.319 --> 01:15:05.159
a transformationtional journey from punk to monk
a memoir. Hey, I mentioned earlier

922
01:15:05.159 --> 01:15:09.600
in the program that I have just
gotten back from Egypt. We are we

923
01:15:09.640 --> 01:15:13.880
still have two events left for this
year, and there's a beauty coming up.

924
01:15:13.920 --> 01:15:17.520
Our first visit to Turkey. It's
August fourteenth through the twenty fourth,

925
01:15:18.079 --> 01:15:21.159
and we're going to meet in Istanbul, and I have to say this,

926
01:15:21.520 --> 01:15:26.920
it's the first time that we've been
there. We're going with Muhammed Imbraheim.

927
01:15:27.039 --> 01:15:32.920
He is also we're also going to
be joined by an archaeologist who is a

928
01:15:33.079 --> 01:15:38.239
kind of our leader and who's taking
us to these secret places. Come out

929
01:15:38.239 --> 01:15:41.720
and join us if you can.
This price, which is roughly five grand

930
01:15:41.920 --> 01:15:45.800
for two weeks, is unheard of. It covers everything everything, your food,

931
01:15:45.840 --> 01:15:50.239
your beverages, the flights, the
buses, the accommodations, the private

932
01:15:50.319 --> 01:15:54.600
visits, everything, everything everything.
And I can tell you this, it's

933
01:15:54.600 --> 01:15:57.800
not going to be that price next
year. It's going to be double.

934
01:15:58.159 --> 01:16:02.439
In fact, most of the tours
that we we emulate are double the price.

935
01:16:02.560 --> 01:16:06.760
Most of these Egyptian tours, these
Mexican tours, these Turkey tours are

936
01:16:06.840 --> 01:16:11.600
ten grand or more. Ours are
half that. If you can join us,

937
01:16:12.239 --> 01:16:15.800
come out and see the program.
Go to Earth Ancients dot com Forward

938
01:16:15.880 --> 01:16:19.760
slash Tours. Look at the itinerary. We got a like, we got

939
01:16:19.800 --> 01:16:26.199
five spots left, five for Turkey, and that's going to be a blast.

940
01:16:26.279 --> 01:16:32.720
Earth Ancients dot com Forward slash Tours
Mexico is in November the seventh through

941
01:16:32.760 --> 01:16:39.479
the eighteenth. We're gonna meet in
Mareda. This is really a week of

942
01:16:39.560 --> 01:16:45.880
intense exploration of temples, pyramids and
artifacts. There's a couple of museums we

943
01:16:45.880 --> 01:16:49.600
will go to, but I can
guarantee you this. We have made preparations

944
01:16:49.640 --> 01:16:54.880
to climb pyramids and people are like, I want to climb pyramids. There's

945
01:16:54.960 --> 01:17:00.960
something special about climbing Mayan pyramids.
And we'll do that at Yucatan, will

946
01:17:01.000 --> 01:17:04.560
be at Mayapan, which is kind
of like a training ground, will be

947
01:17:04.640 --> 01:17:11.119
at Ushmo, my favorite city with
feminine energy, will climb the Grand Pyramid

948
01:17:11.600 --> 01:17:15.800
or it's called the Great Pyramid.
And then we also will be at Ekbalam

949
01:17:15.960 --> 01:17:21.159
the Black Jackuar Jaguar, and that
is an opportunity to climb the main palace

950
01:17:21.760 --> 01:17:25.720
and what a view you get when
you're at the top of that staircase.

951
01:17:25.800 --> 01:17:29.520
So for more information to come out
and join us, go to earth Ancients

952
01:17:29.560 --> 01:17:32.640
dot com, Forward slash Tours,
look at the itinerary. If you have

953
01:17:32.680 --> 01:17:36.000
any questions, if you have any
concerns, if you want more information and

954
01:17:36.039 --> 01:17:41.640
you want to talk to me,
send me an email earth Ancients for you

955
01:17:42.000 --> 01:17:45.479
at gmail dot com, and I
promise I'll get right back to you.

956
01:17:45.600 --> 01:17:49.399
These are not to be missed.
They're special, they are unique, and

957
01:17:49.439 --> 01:17:53.840
it's a great chance to connect with
others, including myself. I love to

958
01:17:53.880 --> 01:18:00.079
meet with you in a tour setting
earth Ancients dot com Forward Sla Tours.

959
01:18:02.880 --> 01:18:04.800
All right, that's it for this
program. I want to think. My

960
01:18:04.840 --> 01:18:12.039
guest today, Ray Capo, coming
to us from Connecticut. As always,

961
01:18:12.079 --> 01:18:16.880
the team of Gail tor, Mark
Foster and everyone who makes this thing happen.

962
01:18:18.039 --> 01:18:21.800
You guys rock all right, Take
care of you well, and we

963
01:18:21.840 --> 01:19:23.760
will talk to you next time you
m