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Nina Rao on Synchronicity with Noah Lampert

My guest today is Kirtan singer and lovely person, Nina Rao.Nina learned traditional chants (bhajans) from her grandfather in a village in south India when she was nine years old. The chants quietly stayed with her until she rediscovered chanting with Krishna Das in New York in 1996.Her childhood was spent living in and moving between many countries around the world and when she settled in New York her working life began in the banking world, switched to organizing and leading photographic wildlife safaris in Africa and India, and now for many years, is Krishna Das' business manager and assistant.

Topics Discussed:

  • Nina's worldly and inner journeys

  • The concept of a Guru

  • Kirtan as a regular practice

  • The power of sound/music

  • The concept of Home

  • The evolution of the Kirtan movement in the West

  • Understanding the "why" behind focusing on a particular path

  • The importance of an open heart

Mahalo Maui

Mahalo Aloha. A big thank you to all who shared in Spring on Maui. Here I am with Baba Ram Dass. 

Photo by John Phaneuf for me to remember by.

Enjoy this YouTube playlist of some of the chants that we did together in Maui including the new Tashi Lama Chenno...
These are the wonderful musicians I had a chance to chant with: Benjy Wertheimer, Mark Gorman, Genevieve Walker, Heather Wertheimer, Trevor Hall, and Daniel Johnson.

Synchronicity Podcast with Nina Rao

My guest today is Kirtan singer and lovely person, Nina Rao. Nina learned traditional chants (bhajans) from her grandfather in a village in south India when she nine years old. The chants quietly stayed with her until she rediscovered chanting with Krishna Das in New York in 1996.

My guest today is Kirtan singer and lovely person, Nina Rao. Nina learned traditional chants (bhajans) from her grandfather in a village in south India when she nine years old. The chants quietly stayed with her until she rediscovered chanting with Krishna Das in New York in 1996. Her childhood was spent living in and moving between many countries around the world and when she settled in New York her working life began in the banking world, switched to organizing and leading photographic wildlife safaris in Africa and India, and now for many years, is Krishna Das' business manager and assistant. Topics Discussed

Nina's worldly and inner journeys The concept of a Guru Kirtan as a regular practice The power of sound/music The concept of Home The evolution of the Kirtan movement in the West Understanding the "why" behind focusing on a particular path The importance of an open heart

To find out more about Nina visit her website: ninaraochant.com This week's book giveaway is Tom Robbins, "Skinny Legs and All." To enter the weekly book giveaway contests join the Synchronicity Community right here: eepurl.com/bSWrqT And of course subscribe to Synchronicity today because it's a smart thing to do.

Join me on Maui, May 4- 9, 2016

These wonderful musicians are accompanying us in Maui May 4-9, 2016.

These wonderful musicians are accompanying us at Spring on Maui Retreat May 4-9, 2016. Genevieve and Mark play regularly with Krishna Das and also with me live and on my album Antarayaami. Dan has been playing classical and for kirtan for many years and we happy to have him join us here!  

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An Interview I gave @ Sivanada Ashram Bahamas

I was at Sivananda Bahamas last February where I’ve been taking retreat for the last 12 years with Krishna Das. Happy to have offered Hanuman Chalisa chants these past two years in this wonderful ashram steeped in Practice. I sat down for an interview. You can read below or on the Sivananda Ashram website

Indeed I am grateful for this Path...

The Enchanted Life of Nina Rao: Chanting, Krishna Das, and the Hanuman Chalisa

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It’s February 2016, and for several nights before the annual Krishna Das Yoga of Chant Retreat at the ashram, Nina Rao joins a group of ashram guests and yogis in the temple to recite a chapter of the Baghavad Gita and sing kirtan. A little later, she will accompany Krishna Das onstage, playing the Indian cymbals; right now, she’s simply doing something she loves.

The group grows and grows over these nights as word gets out that Nina is singing, sometimes accompanied by Krishna Das’ drummer, Arjun. On the third night, it culminates in Nina leading her rendition of the well-known Hanuman Chalisa, the Hindu devotional hymn addressed to the monkey-god Hanuman, with which she has become associated.

Her relationship with the chant is as unlikely as it was inevitable.

The Seeds of Chant

Growing up in the Western way and moving every three years because her father was in management for Air India, Nina’s first connection to Indian writing and song came through her grandfather, a retired engineer who lived in the small village of Bekal in south India. Visiting him at about age 9 when her family lived in Thailand, the little girl with no musical training but a deep curiosity began to read the books in her grandfather’s library and fool around with his harmonium.

“One day I asked him to play and he said, ‘Sing with me.’ He was a natural, though untrained in music, and we sang the bhajans (prayerful songs) of South Indian poets. I had a tape recorder and I recorded him and the two of us singing. Then he said the words and I wrote them out in English. Amazingly, I still have those papers.”

Her grandfather, the only one in the village to own a car, lived in a large house overlooking rice fields. Another year, he held a satsang (a group of people joined to pray and chant) in his large living room with the people of the village. “The best part was that it wasn’t just Grandfather, everyone in the village took turns,” Nina says. “I remember feeling this was the best thing that had ever happened to me.

“And I never did it again.”

Life Goes On

Nina grew older, went to college, and with her economics degree landed a job on the trading desk of a Wall Street firm. After five years she decided to follow her passion for nature and wildlife and in 1991, she launched a travel company, taking people to photograph wildlife in Africa and India. In the meantime, she became a yoga enthusiast. One day, she attended a yoga retreat offered by her teacher at which a fairly unknown kirtan singer named Krishna Das was to perform.

“I didn’t know who he was but when I looked at the schedule it said, ‘Satsang with Krishna Das’ and I remembered the satsang in my grandfather’s home. But I said to a friend, ‘I’m too exhausted, I’ll sit in the back; he’s probably a failed Indian singer anyway’ — although I did notice when we came in that there were pictures of Hanuman and Krishan Das’ guru, Maharajji (Neem Karoli Baba), on a table with a candle. The author of those books I used to read in my grandfather’s home had also been a devotee of Neem Karoli Baba.”

When Krishna Das walked into the room wearing black, she thought her worst fears had been realized.

“Then he sat down and started with Sri Ram Jai Ram, and I don’t remember the rest of the evening. I became good friends with him right away. I was amazed at the heart opening. I would go to his kirtans and he gave me the book, Miracle of Love. And that’s how the relationship started.”

Working with Chant Artist Krishna Das

In those days, she says, not many people followed Krishna Das. “I still had my travel business but I wanted to support him. I learned how to play drums and we would go on weekends to play.”

Seeing the love Krishna Das had for his guru, who died in 1973, her next big step was to go to India, to the temple of Neem Karoli Baba. There she met Siddhima, one of Maharajji’s closest devotees for 17 years. “I realized immediately that she was my guru; her whole presence reflects him,” she says. “Having a relationship with her has been beautiful. She has been my guru for the last 18 years.”

A lot of things started changing, Nina says, when the old stuff of her life began to fall away. She became a vegetarian, devoted herself to her practice, and chanted; chanting became a refuge, “more important than anything in the world.”

The Hanuman Chalisa Connection

Krishna Das again became a conduit, this time for the chant she loves best. He used to sing the Hanuman Chalisa in India with the kirtan wallahs (devotional singers), and when she first heard him sing it, he hadn’t started to perform it live. “I was really drawn to it,” she says. “It’s dripping with devotion, even if you don’t know it. Maharajji said that it’s a maha mantra, which means it has it’s own divine power.”

In India, the chant is sung when people are going through a difficult time and Nina believes you can fortify yourself if you sing it all the time. So while Krishna Das learned it so he and the kirtan wallahs could sing it for their guru, she learned it so she could sing it for KD on his 50th birthday.

“It’s my path to sing wherever I can sing,” she says, “although never in a million years did I think I would be sitting on a stage with musicians. I’ve just accepted that’s the way it is.”

A Surprise Turn

When she had first started chanting with Krishna Das, she had a memory of her grandfather’s harmonium and began to play an old harmonium Krishna Das had given her. “I remembered those chants and would sing them, and one melody of the Hanuman Chalisa KD liked very much. He asked me to share it with him before he went into the studio to record Flow of Grace.”

“He said, ‘Let’s do it as a duet.’ and I said okay. He said ‘Practice.’ But when I arrived, there was only one mic. He said, ‘You’re singing it by yourself.’ We recorded it in one take. He named that the Nina Chalisa.”

The record was released in 2007, but by the time of the chanting and recording, Nina had closed her travel business, gotten married, and had a baby. In 2002, after her daughter was born, she took on the management of Krishna Das’ business. “It needed some organization and I’ve been doing it officially since then,” she says.

After Flow of Grace, Krishna Das found himself at the forefront of the chanting movement in the U.S. People also began to love the Hanuman Chalisa, which Nina sang with Krishna Das and on her own for small groups.

“People were asking for a recording, so my daughter’s father did the engineering and put out a disc of Hanuman Chalisa and one of regular kirtan.” Antarayami: Knower of All Hearts was released in 2013. 

“I really love what KD is doing and want to support and continue what I can do for him and for myself,” Nina says. This year, that will likely include a new CD.

Stay tuned.