Episode 38 – Raghu Markus

the human experience is exploring the realms of meditation and looking for enlightenment as we speak to my guest mr. Raghu Marcus Raghu it’s a pleasure sir welcome to hxp same here glad to meet you so Raghu why don’t you give us some background for the people that might know you were a program director in Montreal tell us what you do well I started off yes I did I started off in radio and I was a program director for a major rock and roll station in Montreal

and I’ve been basically in media my whole life all the way till now where I’m the executive director of a foundation called love serve remember Foundation which really represents all of the ROM das whoever knows ROM das out there who wrote be here now and and many of the teachers that are on the spiritual circuit today who were with us in India way back when with ROM das and so you know we do a lot of we do books and we do films and we do workshops we

do live retreats in Maui we do webinars online courses and then my other hat is with mind pod network which is a podcast network and that includes myself and what I do with mind rolling with my partner David silver and Brahm das and krishna das and jack Kornfield and Sharon Salzberg and Lama Surya das and a few others so yeah very very interesting career that you have over there I mean when you you met Ramdas how did that occur and what was what was that like

that actually happened when I was I was in Montreal at that rock-and-roll station and one day somebody rang up and said we would love for you to promote a talk a lecture that this man ROM das is giving and I went around us like what’s that and they went Richard Alpert Tim Leary and I went oh yeah I love those people because I was all in the psychedelic heyday right and so I said but before I do anything I really would like to hear something of what he’s done

before now I knew some stuff around Eastern spirituality and so on you know that was it was more or less like going over to the Hari Krishna people’s place on Sunday and eating that great food that they had it was that level I did TM Transcendental Meditation stuff like that so I wasn’t completely unaware but I had never heard of Rahm Das and so they sent over a lecture he had done earlier in the Lee in the year and they so I put it on in the studio right away

and every word just hit me like a ton of bricks and it was like everything I had been waiting to hear that there was an opportunity you could be happy in this life and this life was beyond the cultural norms that we were put in a straitjacket with at that time especially and so I put it right on the air I said I’m gonna put this lecture on here right now I put it on the air I tell you the switchboard lit up people went nuts in Montreal who is this and

then I met him I brought him down to the station I interviewed him and and then I started going to his his father’s farm those famous a couple of years where he was doing these amazing shot songs with the whole pile of spiritual hippies doing Sufi dance and chanting and he would give lectures it was a ball it was just incredible then he said I’m going back to India and I said well I’m going to and he said well because he was not

supposed to say a word about his guru he was instructed not to of course that’s all he talked about because he could not stop himself from sharing which is the beautiful essence of this man anyhow long and short of it as I made it to India and met neem karoli baba so what were the what was some of the personal I mean transformations that happened for you that caused you to kind of follow Ram Dass to India I was really unhappy I was

terribly unhappy could not believe that what society offered and what religion offered you know straight-ahead judaism christianity had any promise to be happy and fulfill any you know any of my questions about what what this life is all about so I was really you know in my teenage years pretty disturbed and unhappy and the only thing that saved me was music I have been and I’ve worked in music I had a independent label for 20

years actually in Los Angeles just before I started working with this foundation and the only thing that saved me was the likes of John Coltrane with who I saw one night in Montreal I mean I don’t think I was more than sixteen seventeen and just it was a transcendent experience transformational experience alongside of psychedelics which were transformational experiences and that gave me the inkling of course that there was something else to our lives beyond

our senses mind ego and I wanted to pursue that and so when I when Ramdas came along and he elucidated all of that all of those spiritual truths and he was so honest about his own pitfalls and so on that everybody could relate with so I I just said I gotta get me some of that and I went to India Wow Wow I mean what would you say how how do you think ROM daus’s teachings are so different and what connected you to them so much that I mean you felt it’s

raining here that you felt you know compelled in this way I mean what what would you say are some of the core messages that Ram Dass is presenting I guess what I just said one word that was super important and that’s honest self honesty he was so honest with himself about all of his foibles and all of the stuff that was going on in his mind all the shadows that we like to put down and stuff way down deep and not deal with them and not

even you know not even allow any awareness whatsoever for any kind of transformation so that self honesty was a huge thing that immediately touched me and the other thing that you know it just comes off and it’s a it’s a it’s a shitty word it’s called love I mean he I remember when I first went I first met him in the first moment he just contacted me you know I – I and there was just something that I could feel a compassion a level of empathy a caring

and in that moment there was not anything else going on for him except being in that moment with me and those things were extraordinarily impressive to me I had not even my parents you know maybe when I was a baby with my mother or something but this was something that I hadn’t really experienced in this way especially with a stranger somebody I’d never met so that that obviously was key and and the other thing was there was a

trust level so that the things he was talking about I really resonated with there was something beneath all of it that allowed me to have that kind of trust and it was only when I got to India and met neem Karoli Baba the Guru where we call Maharaj ji that I realized where that all was emanating from so Rob das was really an incredible ambassador for what we now know is unconditional love so let’s I mean let’s dig into that how how

do we find a way through this constant suffering that we are dealing with here and I mean how do we how do we love ourselves well tough stuff for us Westerners to love ourselves and not judge ourselves I I would say that and we talk about this all the time on podcasts that we do with the different teachers I mentioned before part of mind pod network and the very very I mean it certainly helps everybody at some point has some sort of ineffable experience

where there’s no time in space you’re just completely present relaxed you’re not looking for anything you’re not looking for anything from anybody and you were you’re just feeling in the moment be here now and surround us going the word and so at at that time and so with that experience then you can say to yourself okay I have now a little bit of trust that there is something that I can enter into and relate with that is completely diametrically opposite my

normal day-to-day experience so that’s the first start that that’s the first important thing that somebody has to realize the second thing that everybody has to understand is you have to develop the chops to be able to engender those moments those ineffable moments those spacious moments those moments between the thoughts with by practice everybody has to have a daily practice or you just are taken over by your mind and you got

to start with a one pointed practice of any sort I don’t care if it’s looking at a candle flame or doing a breath meditation or doing a mantra I mean there are many many different ways in fact here’s a little commercial go to Rama’s door because in July for four weeks we are going to be putting up a summer meditation course with Ramdas so that if for those of you out there listening to this show that might give you an opportunity let

me bounce in here because I mean I I experienced you know a stage I started meditating very early in my life right after college and I felt that same sort of suffering state where I just felt like the world wasn’t enough I wanted answers and and now years later I I still meditate but it’s not the cornerstone of my life it’s part of my everyday routine and I believe in it but it’s as if there’s something missing any thoughts on that it’s just practice it

doesn’t it’s not a solution it’s just a method by which you can get some kind of some kind of ground from which you are not taken over by your mind okay so it’s not the solution to life what is also necessary is as much as one can get with a teacher who you know a righteous teacher who is has some experience and for instance and we’ve been talking about Ramadan so we might as well continue he in his those lectures and the one that I heard one of

the main things he talked about was there was a couple of them a number of them obviously but one thing that was really crucial important was developing a witness so that you are looking at the dated and the phenomenon that’s being created by the mind either you know as things come in it reacts to stuff anger lust greed all of it and and you get and you just get run down a tunnel you’re just just on a merry-go-round so what is

necessary is is to develop a way in which you can have a vantage point that we call the witness and it would be from not from your mind but from that place that little small place in the middle of our chests we call soul spiritual heart whatever pure mind the Buddhists would call it and and then then you start to have a little bit of a fulcrum so that you are not so caught up in the vicissitudes that come to us on a daily basis and you start to see that

that’s suffering the I mean we all experience it you know through our lives as the Buddha said the suffering is the first noble truth but you start to see that those things can be converted and by converted I would say I would mean that you see that these things can contribute to you getting free of of the shackles of one’s mind and emotions and and that as Ram Dass calls it I love suffering as he says I love suffering it brings me closer to God and

that’s a big statement and and again the way but it is a vantage point where you start to see that everything that happens is is is fodder for being able to to transform yourself would you say it’s necessary to push yourself into these sort of uncomfortable boundaries well no I don’t at all because you get enough uncomfortable stuff coming to you you don’t need to push yourself anywhere I’m not quite sure what you mean not actually well I just mean that maybe a

person can’t sit still for more than five minutes or they find their own thoughts so unpleasant that they always have the radio or TV on so in that sense kind of meditating would put you into the sort of uncomfortable state so I’m asking have you found that pushing yourself through these uncomfortable moments I mean you said that earlier you said that we need the chops for this right yeah I mean have you found that putting yourself into this sort of uncomfortable

space allows you to grow further or see parts of yourself that you couldn’t see before yeah I I wouldn’t put it putting myself into an uncomfortable space in my own experience I just day to day no matter what I said and and it’s not a matter of you know one day I I don’t feel you know if I don’t feel right I don’t feel good or I feel great I don’t even look at it like that I just sit just because just as if you were you know you’re you’re you’re training to do

you know an event of any sort an athletic event you just do it because you know that that’s what’s necessary to be able to account you know to to be able to do what you want to do and in this case so if you’re only going to do it when you’re when you’re you know once you realize there’s different levels of it but the initial level is you’re just unhappy with your life and you want to change and you realize that one of the ways that that

can happen is through and it doesn’t you don’t have to I mean if meditation I mean I would say to everybody that you really it is necessary to get one-pointed so that you’re not at the whim of your mind I mean that’s absolutely necessary and and and that only happens someone you know either you you realize that this and you’ve had enough experiences where that makes sense or you just are so unhappy as I said before and you just do it because you

know that that will give you the leverage over this being caught and it’s not and the reactions to it and the judgments you make about it so you just end up doing it for no other not for any big reasons of becoming enlightened or anything like that but it’s an internal investigation that we need to do so that we understand our minds and the buddhists of course are very good at this and they talk about this a lot i think you there are people

that are maybe don’t spend a lot you know they don’t spend time in that respect and chanting for instance that’s a meditation so chris honest that’s his main his main practice that’s what he teaches and and if you go to one of his concerts and you’re there for 2-3 hours you know after a while you find your your find that you’ve lost yourself into the moment of the mantra and it’s it’s it’s for some people it’s quite a lot easier because it’s got music behind it

it’s got energy behind it of other people you’re in common with and and you find that that does it for you and then you know you can do that on at home on a daily basis it does need a daily practice of one sort or another and it does need we do need a teacher i mean it helps to have somebody that we can trust that has trodden the path you know i i recently changed locations and to move cities and near one of the cities was a krishna temple and reluctantly i I would

go there I was reluctant about the whole thing but I would go there because of the free food and I I noticed something in the eyes of all the the monks and the people who would go there and I’d never seen it before was that this brightness it’s like it was like they knew some secret to something and one of the one of the monks gave me a set of beads like the mala and he encouraged that I start chanting and this is something that I

would never do you know I just I would never do this but I was suffering so much that I was willing to do anything and so I started chanting and I I can’t really use words to describe how powerful and how much it changed my life because it really did so I mean hearing you talk about it is amazing I think I just said exactly what what you confirmed it is the chanting is meditation there is no difference absolutely none in fact in India they

say because it’s the Kali Yuga you know the age of destruction the most efficacious way to transform yourself is through chanting chanting Hari Krishna of course they say but any chant so again what is necessary in my mind is doing it on a daily basis a regular practice is super important because it consistently brings you back into that one-pointed place or one hearted place or identification with who we truly are so that when we step off the you know

out of our little corner of a room with our with our altar or whatever we’re using and we go through our daily stuff there is always that connection to to that place which is beyond the kind of caught up ‘no stand to get during our daily lives so absolutely and i’m i that’s very much a big part of what we were given in india by maharaja was chanting i mean he actually he never he would send us to these buddhist meditation courses but only because we

kind of wanted to go you know it wasn’t he of course he wasn’t a teacher he he is not a teacher he never taught us anything he would just his being was the teaching and of course you know there’s a lot of other happenings that you everybody is sure is read about or or can read about in rhombuses book be here now miracle of love so that is very much part of my own personal practice absolutely every day I mean along with a sitting practice I just find that you

know it’s using a sitting meditative practice is is is easy to clear the mind and I will tell you one other thing that’s interesting Ramdas I remember him saying you know he went off to some Buddhist meditation courses and and he came back and you know he had a very offended miss that he had gained and he said it absolutely helped him to open up that heart place that place of bhakti that is the center is a centerpiece of really the tradition

we come from which is bhakti yoga how how important Braga would you say is gratitude and in our lives I think it’s essential it really is essential I mean when you know you you talk about stuff like well we’re doing let’s say we’re going to do all this work on ourselves we meditate we chant we we read books that that help enlighten us we go hang out with teachers satsang community we do all these things why so that we can become personally emancipated and

nothing else I don’t think so I don’t think that’s why we were you know put on this earth and I think that gratitude you know is is something that is very much in line with being able to give a about our human the humans that we relate with on a day-to-day basis and and I think we have to have gratitude that we were given this incarnation this body to be able to be of some service so I think in that sense gratitude is you know it’s very

important and it also helps defeat shall we say some of those mind spaces that really create tremendous self interest as the Buddhist collet and so yeah I mean I think gratitude is is is super important and especially related to being able to to give something to the people around us so rug art yeah it’s such a powerful message our time is a bit short here but I’ve got one last question for you and if you could go back and tell your younger self 20 years

30 years one thing what would it be if I could go back until I got to tell you I mean when I met neem Karoli Baba that first day moment and I realized oh you know I had the most overwhelming feeling of being home and I knew that this is something that happened I’ve been connected to him way before and way in the few you know there was no time in space and I thought I’m finished I really had that thought okay that’s over now it’s just a matter of playing

out karma and I have had a lot of karma play out over the decades I just I mean I’ve done some pretty dumb stupid things I in my life that but I don’t think about going oh gee if I could go back and have something any different I I think that it really was all designed perfectly to get me a little bit more wise and a little bit more free of this glue-like self cherish right that we do from the morning the minute we get up in the morning and we

start as Christian does calls it the movie of me you know I Me Mine and so it is absolutely necessary for all of whatever happens to somebody in life and that’s what we were talking about before about suffering yeah suffering is is a grace and it’s something to have gratitude for because it’s the only way that we get woken up and it’s the only way that we have the opportunity to transform our lives and so looking back you know on a on a

rational worldly level there are things that I wish you know I could say to myself I wish I did this that or the other but that doesn’t last for more than a mind moment and I because I firmly know at this point that everything was is my whatever actions I took and the results and all I was able to to see it for the good and see it for the way in which it’s helping transform my life yeah Wow Roger thank you so much for being here sir there’s a lot of

wisdom in your in your message working people find your website find your work well I encourage everybody to go to rhombus org and you know we have so much media and so much information so many things going on like that summer meditation and mindfulness course that starts July 6th I don’t know when this podcast will go up but people certainly you can go there and that’s a great resource and then if you all like podcasts which you must because you’re

listening to Xavier go to mind pod Network and the one that I do with my partner David silver is called mind rolling and you just mind pod network.com and and look up mind rolling and every all the other podcasts that are up there it’s very very rich resource for all of this kind of stuff that we’ve been talking about perfect and we will make sure that the for that are all below thank you guys so much for listening this is the human

experience I’m Xavier and we are gonna get out of here