The Art of Vibrant Living Show with Daniel Aaron - Dave Stringer: Video automatically transcribed by Sonix

The Art of Vibrant Living Show with Daniel Aaron - Dave Stringer: this mp4 video file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Daniel Aaron:
Me. You. All right. Hey, y'all. Welcome. I'm Daniel Aaron, your host of this show, The Art of Vibrant Living. Super excited that we've got Dave Stringer on the show. I'll tell you more about him in a moment. Thanks to Longevity Drops, our sponsor for the show. And I'm especially excited for this show. Not only do we have Dave. We've got Accouterment. It's a rare opportunity for me to actually get to do a show in person. The live part, we do that regularly, but in person is a nice bonus. And Dave, for those of y'all that don't know him, he's got a very cool story and maybe we can pull some of that out of how he got to be a spiritual musician, for want of a better term. It's not the worst term, though, right? Well, some musicians.

Dave Stringer:
Would maintain that all music is spiritual, so.

Daniel Aaron:
Oh, fair enough. Okay. I can go with that. Well, I came across Dave first. He's almost 20 years ago when I was a hardcore yoga student in Encinitas, California. And Dave came through offering a kirtan evening. For those of you that don't know what kirtan is. I'm probably not the one to translate it, but I'll say it quickly as a musical event that has devotion as part of it, or singing to the gods. And and I had never heard of Dave before that, but I went to the show and I was just so touched and blown away by not just the the music and the quality of that, the performance of it, the skill of the music, which is cool because that doesn't always happen in the Puritan world, but also the energy that he created around it. So it was, you know, it was part spiritual practice, it was part musical event, but it was also something that was really uplifting in ways that I didn't even understand, which probably will get us into some of what you're up to these days, which has to do with neuroscience. And we're at such an exciting age where, you know, science and spirituality are coming together in incredible ways. So Dave has continued on and you know, from before that and on since then performed all around the world hundreds and hundreds of times and been nominated for a Grammy, has been a guest on my teacher training and come to Bali several times and taught there and performed with incredible musicians. So really excited and honored that you're here with us. Thank you, man. Always happy to talk to you.

Dave Stringer:
I suppose I should maybe get clear for your audience about what kirtan is and where it comes from. Please start there. Okay. So it's a from the perspective of the 21st century, I'm going to say it's one of the world's oldest forms of consciousness modification. My way into yoga is really the subject itself is consciousness. There are a lot of people that put sort of pseudo religious structures on top of it, but the actual fact is, is that yoga philosophy began as an inquiry into consciousness. And so everything that I've done subsequent to my involvement in yoga really can be put in the category, I suppose, of my process of inquiry. It's not necessary to believe in yoga. It's not necessary to believe in God. It's necessary to be propelled forth by your questions. One of the great texts of yoga philosophy, the Bhagavad Gita, actually starts with a chapter called The Doubt of Arjuna. Not like the great faith of Arjuna. The premise is that your questions, your problems, your obstructions are all opening doors into the practice of yoga. So yoga is using everything that you've got. You know, I have this one friend who's read pretty much every book that he could find on yoga, but he's never actually practiced it. Okay. And and I just laugh at him because I'm like, Dude, all the books that you've read will tell you nothing.

Dave Stringer:
Actually. You know, it's all framing the discussion. It's all interesting. But unless you actually practice. Nothing actually happens. So you have to start there. He's like, Well, I'm not ready, you know, I need to know so much more. I'm like, No, the first thing you need to know is that you don't know, right? Yeah. Yeah. And then from there, your practice takes you forward. But for a long time, the philosophy of yoga has been chanted and not written down. It was alive in the form of people who who sang the mantras that contain the philosophy. And for a long time that preceded Brahmin priests who were at the upper strata of society, held this knowledge within them and passed it down to. Generation upon generation, however, was a conflict between what yoga taught and the way it was taught. Yoga taught that each person has access within them to the fullness of truth, beauty, wonder, love, consciousness, however you want to define it. And that in this way that as as all as little particles emanating from the same source that we were equivalent. That's a pretty radical way of looking at the universe and at the role of the individual. But it was taught in this tremendously hierarchical.

Dave Stringer:
System.

Dave Stringer:
Ands so along comes the bhakti movement in roughly the 15th century that says, Wait, yoga belongs to everybody. And they started to literally take it out of the temples and. The streets. And they taught people simple mantras that people who are not educated could understand and get stuck in their heads. So it was a kind of like pop music of the streets, you know, in its time and its subject was essentially people going around saying something to the effect of like, I am God, which, you know, is also a controversial way of proceeding in kind of a radical statement. So so the kirtan movement begins, and that's actually where the transmission of yoga philosophy on a wide level starts. So if it weren't for those bodies in the 15th century who took the message seriously, we wouldn't have yoga all over the world. It would still be being taught kind of in secret by special people to other special people. So many people come to yoga to practice Asana. That's their way in. And they're they're like, Do we have to do all this chanting? And it's like, well, no, you don't.

Dave Stringer:
You can start anywhere. You know, you I mean, some people's yoga practice is just to like sit and breathe and pay attention to their breathing. And that's really the fundamental thing in any case. But once you start practicing Asana, there's a rich world of philosophy that that opens to you because in a sense, your body is already philosophical. You know, when you have to confront your obstructions, you are immediately once you get past like the physical barriers, you know, I think many people find that actually the biggest barrier is their mind. You know, this says, I can't do that or I'm too this or something or other. So all these practices are about confronting the barriers of the mind and providing means by which we can push past those boundaries. So chanting is a way of triggering mass ecstasy. And it's a joyful practice. It's its process and its product are entirely, you know, integral to one another. And and it's fun to sing with other people. And you can't go away mad. Something about singing like transforms your vibe, you know?

Daniel Aaron:
Do you mean mad as an angry? Not as in crazy ecstasy. Well.

Dave Stringer:
Right. Well, I mean, yeah, I guess there's a question, you know, like, how mad is it to be as crazy to be ecstatic?

Daniel Aaron:
Well, Krishnamurti said right to be well adjusted to an insane society. Not a sign of sanity. Right. Exactly.

Dave Stringer:
Exactly. So, you know, this is a this is maybe something that we should value more in our society. But so one of the things I've been privileged to be able to do is to talk about how the philosophy of yoga is embodied in the practice of chanting. To many of Daniel's students in Bali and in other places, and to to try and connect these different realms of yoga. But one of the things that particularly has motivated me because I'm fundamentally an agnostic, which surprises people because I'm a kirtan singer and they assume that I'm singing to God. I would say that I'm just singing and then things happen and it connects me deeply to my sense of wonder and the transcendent. And if you want to use the word God for that, you're entitled to be careful about it. But in any case. But I've always wondered, like, why? How does this work? You know, how how is it that we come equipped for ecstasy? Why is it that if I don't know anything about yoga, that if I practice it, that stuff happens? You know, so the process of inquiry continues in this regard. Those questions have led me to investigate the neuroscience of what happens. And I've come to see the way a chant unfolds as being a kind of textbook way of particularly working with the autonomic nervous system to create a kind of sense of transcendent weightlessness. I guess one way that I would describe it. I don't know. What's your experience?

Daniel Aaron:
That's great. Thank you. Thanks for sharing all of that. Because I think not only do a lot of our viewers maybe not know the story of kirtan and how it came to be. A lot of the people in the yoga world don't know all of what you up and it's such an interesting time We're in right where there's more division happening politically and culturally than than, you know, in a long time say. And there's also more connectivity happening in a certain way, too. And that yoga is still growing in popularity and yet was at one time very, as you said, special people for special people and that nobody owns yoga now and rather been lawsuits about that and nobody owns singing. And you know I love what you said too that it's it's practical on the level. Yoga is it's not about what you know and learning and, you know, your friend and all the books and and that's what I love about yoga is it's it's a practical philosophy. It's a great philosophy. And that's why we always have fun talking because we love philosophy. And this says, you know, and you got to actually do something to make it work. So to answer your question, though, for me with singing, even like when we first met, I. Hated singing because I grew up afraid that I couldn't sing and people told me I was tone deaf. It's a surprisingly common trauma.

Dave Stringer:
Not to diminish your. But no, I've just encountered a lot of people. And it's really funny because music is so important to us neurologically. In some ways you could say it's like it's the operating system. If you see people who whose minds have come apart through particularly, say, dementia or Alzheimer's, the thing that seems most able to put them back together is music. When they hear like an old song from like when they were growing up or something like that, they become instantly like themselves in a way that was recognizable, you know? And so it seems so deeply embedded, you know, in, in, in our emotional lives in the way that we connect to one another. It's really surprising that we don't just as we teach children to ride bicycles, you know, we ought to be teaching children how to keep time and match a pitch. You know, you could say that even evolutionarily we are adapted for music, music and ritual connect us together in ways that allow us to cooperate. When we can cooperate, we can better survive. So in some ways, it's hard to say what all the many different families of early human beings were. But let's just say that the the species of of of of hominid that survived to this day is one that was very practiced with ritual and music and and practices that conveyed an intense sense of connection, a sense of wonder and mystery and that we're adapted for that.

Dave Stringer:
So too, even though musicians are often struggle to make a living and are often kind of at the margin of society when our transitions happen, when we need to celebrate, when we need to mourn like music becomes essential. It's deeply embedded in our emotional and lives. In many ways, I would say we truly can't live without it. So to practice yoga, we always have to look at our abilities and move toward that. Where we we find ourselves either in a place of resistance or deficiency, you know, like we all love to do the stuff that we're good at. You know, like, I love Backbends, but my forward bends are, like, problematic, right? So, of course, if you'd left to my own devices, I'll just do backwards, you know? But a real yoga teacher is going to say, Dave, you know, let me show you how these things are related. Okay? So the ability to hold a pitch is also related to the ability to like.

Dave Stringer:
Focus your mind to take in information from.

Dave Stringer:
Outside and adjust yourself to it. And it's not a difficult once you get it, you won't lose it once you learn to ride a bicycle. You could not ride a bicycle for 20 years and you'd still be able to jump on. So it's just a bit of learned behavior. It's very useful.

Daniel Aaron:
Yeah. Well, you know what? I eventually I learned about that is it also has had a lot to do for me. And I'm curious if this is a typical thing for musicians. You know, like everybody knows this, and I just thought I discovered it, but that it's it's where the ability for me to hear myself and hear what's going on out there at the same time. Yeah. Right. And you know, the psychological, spiritual, metaphoric implications of that are huge. They're massive. They're massive.

Dave Stringer:
And that's why we practice these things, because ultimately the yoga is so useful. Metaphorically, at least you know, in so many circumstances that we find ourselves in. So the more that I've been able to take practices of chanting pranayama, asana and see how they're applicable to the world in any situation that I'm in or, you know, the more intensely involved I become in yoga. But there is an interesting trick that occurs with physical practices such as Asana and and particularly pranayama and singing. Okay? And it involves a moment of neuroscience people, your autonomic nervous system of which you have two component parts, sympathetic nervous system, which could be called like your excitation response or your fight or flight response. Right. And your parasympathetic nervous system, which is your chill out.

Daniel Aaron:
I'll act it out for you. I'll be the nervous system.

Dave Stringer:
So the thing is, is normally they act in in sequence, right? So the hypothalamus is constantly trying to achieve a kind of middle state. It's it's it's issuing signals to, like, speed up, slow down, you know, to try and keep things balanced. So what happens is if you get too excited, the parasympathetic nervous system kicks in to kind of chill you out. At a certain point, you get too chilled and you're like, This is boring, and you search again for excitement. So our days go, you know, but there are certain human activities that can cause both aspects of the autonomic nervous system to fire in parallel. Okay. And so the way this works in one of them is, well, I should say singing, dancing, vigorous physical activity is one way and a subset of vigorous physical activity that most people are familiar with is the ecstatic practice of sex, which also causes both aspects of the autonomic nervous system to fire. So you are, you know, at the moment of orgasm maximally excited and maximally relaxed. And so these kind of reactions are what kirtan is triggering. It's also what a vigorous vinyasa practice can trigger. If you ever have that 108 Sun salutations kind of experience, there's a certain point where you drop deeply into the relaxation of your breath. You have to or you're not going to make it through. But yet the repetitive activity stimulates the.

Dave Stringer:
Sympathetic nervous system.

Dave Stringer:
So it's happening in yoga practice is first, you connect yourself deeply to your breath. And that triggers a relaxation response. So you become and anybody knows this, this is why in our culture, if you say, hey, man, take a breath, right? Everybody gets it like, yeah, taking a breath calms you down. So you become first established in this. But then as you engage in repetition, particularly as things speed up, it stimulates your excitation response. But here's the thing, because you're maintaining connection to the breath. Because your breath is measured regularly. It your relaxation response is not released. It persists. And so the excitation response comes in like in parallel with it. And that feels great.

Dave Stringer:
We love this because.

Dave Stringer:
To feel really relaxed but also really present, really and really aware is like that's a state that when you find yourself in it, you're like, I want to do that again, you know? So in many ways, what we're doing with.

Dave Stringer:
Yoga practice and.

Dave Stringer:
With chanting.

Dave Stringer:
Is, is giving people.

Dave Stringer:
Experience in what that state.

Dave Stringer:
Feels like.

Dave Stringer:
And it really only takes, in my experience, about.

Dave Stringer:
15, 20 minutes to cultivate it, to.

Dave Stringer:
Not much.

Dave Stringer:
Longer.

Dave Stringer:
It's necessary to hold things slow for a little while so that people become really grounded in it and to let the mind kind of do what it does. You know, many times people in a kirtan because it'll start slowly and repeat over and over. I'd be like, wow, this is this is just going to be the same thing over and over again. This is boring. And then your mind just starts to, like, go into, like, this thing. You got to do this thing, and then it just persists. At some point you settle into it. And I'll say this from like perspective of asana practice to like the first.

Dave Stringer:
Thing for me, like I just encountered my resistance.

Dave Stringer:
Like, that's the first part of it completely.

Dave Stringer:
It's like, well, I don't like the way he's teaching today. I don't want to do this pose. I feel.

Dave Stringer:
Cranky about this, that or the other thing.

Dave Stringer:
Know or there's something on my mind. And like the.

Dave Stringer:
First 15 minutes of practice is like one of like, why did I come, you know, etcetera, etcetera. And all this stuff comes up and then there's a point where you just go. If you just drop it. And then you're just there. Then yoga begins. And and that's where the excitement of it comes, is at that point when when both of these systems kick in, it's almost like you like you're present, but you're not bound like, you know, the self is aware, but it's not restricted. And like that's, that's the beautiful.

Dave Stringer:
Golden thing, right?

Daniel Aaron:
Yeah mean, in yoga terms and in every spiritual tradition, this is where the small self merges with the big self, right? And that's, that's ecstasy. That's what everybody wants. And, you know, and there's I'm just so excited that we not only technology and science is catching up to it these days. The research and academic research is to write, you know, and there's so much exciting stuff around it. Sexuality is one of the greatest entrances to it Music, physical activity. And then I have to say this part because it's so dear to me, just breath Yeah right. And using breath in so many different ways. And that's why for me, that's why it's the core of spiritual practice. That's why it's the core of what I teach the breath. And then of course, when you combine all of those things and I know that's something you talk about with In the Power of Kirtan, it's there's also the breath involved in it, right? And. I want to steer us a little bit because there's a couple extra exciting things happening right now. Well, one, the research you're doing and engaged in and I want to talk about entrainment and that concept, because not everybody knows that that lingo. Everybody knows, of course, the experience of it. And also, you're about to see a film that's about to come out that you are part of featured in. And well, let's let's start there because that's always interesting for people. And and it's coming out really soon, right? Yeah.

Dave Stringer:
There's actually today's March 16th I think the New York premiere is this evening. And the Los Angeles premiere is April 6th. And I think screenings are rolling out over the country. There's a new it's funny, the revolutions that have hit the music industry are now hitting the film industry in the sort of kind of like do it yourself like realm an and for films with more of a documentary appeal as opposed to like Mass Black, they're kind of appeal. There's a service called Gather Now in which people are able to host screenings in in their communities, in movie theaters, you know, and just like Thursday night, whatever, we're having a screening of this movie and a number of films with yoga or spiritual appeal like Walk With Me and Awake have gone out this way where as opposed to a big massive opening and playing for a few weeks in a, you know, a cineplex near you or whatever, people host screenings wherever they are and sell tickets. So they're rolling out mantra sounds into silence that way with premieres on either coast. But then I think people are invited to host screenings all over the country. And this will be going on for, you know, in world wide.

Dave Stringer:
So the movie is a survey of really one of the curtain scene is has become a kind of a worldwide folk music movement, from my perspective, because I've played all over the world, I've seen how it's become a kind of international community and how the practice of singing together is something that has kind of enriched people's lives and brought them together in communities, particularly people who are in yoga practice. Yoga tend to be refugees from one organized religion or another. Yeah So anyway, the film is coming out and there are a lot there are there are 8 or 9 different kirtan musicians that are interviewed and I also introduce my friend Andrew Newberg, who's a neuroscientist who wrote a book that I read back in the day, long before I met him called Why God Won't Go Away. And in it, he says, it doesn't really matter. He calls himself a neuro theologist, and he says, if if God, it doesn't matter whether God exists, like we have a neural structure that will create it one way or another. So anyway, I discussed the neuroscience of of of ecstatic states introduce him. And I also in the movie talk about the sort of radical social action implications.

Dave Stringer:
So. Wow. Okay. So maybe is there a.

Daniel Aaron:
There is a trailer and I think we'll play that in a couple moments. Before that, though, I want to say thank you to our sponsor because Longevity Drops is Well, when I was a kid, I used to sell stereos and there's some drops here.

Dave Stringer:
Drops.

Daniel Aaron:
We love natural healing and all kinds of drops, but those are different ones. Longevity drops are. What I was going to say is when I was a kid, I used to sell stereos and TVs. I worked for a company called Circuit City and I was really good at it. And at the time I loved stereos and TVs and car stereos especially, and that was why I was good at it. And and part of why I love talking about longevity drops. One is I'm grateful that they sponsor the show and allow us to do this. But two is that it's it's real stuff. It's really good stuff. It's totally natural stuff. You know, Chaga mushroom alone would make it worthwhile. But then you mix in the Romanian the cordyceps and do it in a really high quality way. It's and it's so easy, you know, it's like you take a dropper full and put it under your tongue and it's good. So thank you to. Drops. And also a quick word, because I love the way we can riff around and who knows how quickly our time is going to go. I want to tell y'all about my new program, which is a mentorship membership, and I'm so excited just the same way. I'm excited about the fact that we can come together like this in, you know, in my friend's studio called Shanti Shala.

Daniel Aaron:
Thank you, Jody, for allowing us to use it, that we can create this and reach people in ways like for me, you know, when you came to the trainings that I did in Bali, that was such a hassle, I mean, on the level that, well, you know, had to fly you over there and people spent well, that was great. That part was great. And going on a trip is fantastic. But and not everybody has 26 days to give of their life or thousands of dollars. And so what I'm saying actually, I haven't told you about this before. My my new program, what I've created is a membership where people come together for a virtual satsang Sangha community, and I get to teach in ways like this. And and it's so much easier and more affordable, largely because technology has made it so easy for me to work with people. So I'm super excited about that. If if you all are interested. Also until the end of the month, anybody who joins will get a private 1 to 1 coaching session to sort of accelerate your progress and really define your goals and take some steps with it. So all that said, I think we're probably ready to roll the trailer. Is there anything we should know beforehand?

Dave Stringer:
No, it's just.

Dave Stringer:
It's a minute that tells you about the.

Dave Stringer:
Movie.

Dave Stringer:
I mean, it's somewhere and.

Dave Stringer:
You know, it's.

Daniel Aaron:
Cool. All right. Are we ready, Tom? I'm assuming. So that. Did you hear what he said?

Dave Stringer:
Something about it's coming up right now.

Dave Stringer:
It's coming up right now. Excellent. Yeah.

Daniel Aaron:
Cool. Well, and our.

Speaker4:
Manchus are, you know, they're not descriptive things. They're like boulders of of energetic sound.

Speaker5:
There was some part of me was like, oh, this is way too hippie. And in the same time, I felt I needed a big change in my life.

Speaker6:
It's not about even losing yourself. It's about becoming yourself.

Speaker7:
I'm.

Speaker8:
I was searching for something that made sense. The American vision of meeting someone, getting money. All of that. And still it was like I was empty inside.

Speaker9:
Oh, we're seeing a shift in the function of a very essential structure in the brain, the thalamus that probably changes the way we see reality.

Dave Stringer:
So when we chant.

Dave Stringer:
Turns out that you have an experience that your your boundaries soften.

Speaker10:
The bottom line is making that connection is what giving me the power to actually exist even in this realm of things.

One, two, three, five. Come on. I got him. I got him now. I got him. Hey.

Speaker8:
Bhakti yoga and meditation saved my life.

Daniel Aaron:
But that's so cool to see. And it looks like it was really beautifully shot And Yeah.

Dave Stringer:
The filmmaker is out of Georgia, is out of she's Swiss, but she she lives in Barcelona. And a guy named Rory Holm is responsible for the cinematography, which is really beautiful.

Daniel Aaron:
Excellent. And so tonight in New York, two weeks from now in LA.

Dave Stringer:
I think there's another premiere event.

Dave Stringer:
I want to say, in Boulder, Colorado, on the 18th of April. And then beyond that, screenings all over the place. I think the websites Monterey movie.com, you can figure out how to either host a screening or attend one somewhere.

Dave Stringer:
Cool.

Daniel Aaron:
All right. Well, now I want to dive a little deeper into. We'll see where this goes. But there are three strains that are speaking to me right now. One is you talked about Andrew Newberg in his work, which is neurotheology, which I learned about when when I got into the research being done about the flow state and the way that's evolved. And I still loved when when that became a buzzword in positive psychology and and a lot of what's being taught in terms of performance. And so hey, what we call yoga flow, right? Vinyasa And so there's this work being done in the flow state, but also where that's coming together with spirituality. Andrews Neuro theology, meaning in some ways the brain science of spirituality in a sense. And and then there's the concept that we tossed out earlier called entrainment and maybe I'll just explain what entrainment is quickly and then turn it over to you to see how you integrate these pieces. And I want to hear about more about the research that you and Andrew were doing and what's coming up with the with the measuring of ecstasy and. Okay. Well, let me rephrase to clarify ecstasy. One way of defining ecstasy or ecstasy from its origins is actually this what we might call divine state when we go outside of ourself. And for me, all of this and really I'll confess in a way, the Art of Vibrant Living is the name of the show and everything that is part of my work and goes in with that is really about remembering and discovering who we are on a spiritual level and a fundamental level, whatever the belief system is around that.

Daniel Aaron:
And when entrainment is is a concept everybody knows it's when well, if everything is frequency and we are all operating in different frequencies, entrainment is when the frequencies come together. It's the principle of why when an opera singer hits just the right pitch in a glass shatters. Or why clocks old style clocks in a clock shop will all entrain. In other words, get in sync with the biggest pendulum there, or where women living together in a dormitory will their menstrual cycles will tend to align. And and I think of it often from yoga. And when I teach yoga asana classes, you know, the physical movements, the main thing that I'm going for really is get people breathing and then get everybody entrained. And there's this magic that happens when when we're breathing and moving together for a specific aim, for a you know, there's an intention in it, too. So that's my not so short definition of entrainment. Over to you. How is this all integrating.

Dave Stringer:
Integrating? Well.

Dave Stringer:
I would say that when people sing together and dance together is the original form of entrainment. So we.

Dave Stringer:
Ah, and.

Dave Stringer:
To harken back to something I said earlier, we're adapted for that. The more that we engage in activities that allow us to train, the better we are able to cooperate. But one of the things that this is leading us toward is most of the research that's occurred on ecstatic states or entrainment states have actually been conducted on individuals. And but it's like trying to know how a flock of birds like moves by studying an individual bird. You can't know that. And consciousness appears to be something that we share. But there's a reason why we haven't been able to find the origin of it. For one, we have a dominant ethic right now that science is attempting to explain how consciousness arises from material matter and has been unable to do so. Yoga philosophy says, Well, of course.

Dave Stringer:
Because.

Dave Stringer:
Actually from that perspective, physical matter arises from consciousness. Okay, So in some ways it can be said that science has it precisely backwards and there are more and more scientists that are coming around to that view. That consciousness itself is the substrate of the universe and everything else is a kind of a condensation of that. But so what's important with regard to entrainment is actually how we. Link up and how we are joined in consciousness. So rather than thinking of it as me taking my consciousness and.

Dave Stringer:
Linking it to your consciousness.

Dave Stringer:
It's rather that there is consciousness and our awareness is becoming linked to that central.

Dave Stringer:
Source of all.

Dave Stringer:
And that involves slipping the boundaries of what often is called the ego or that sense of separation. Okay. One thing that happens neurologically in this has to do with like blurring the distinction between subject and object. There is a part of your brain in the parietal lobe which is up here from the yoga perspective, your crown chakra. But but within the structures of the brain, the parietal lobe does many things. But what's important here is the is that it provides a sense of body image. So it's giving us a sense that, like, my body ends here and the world begins here. So it's creating a picture of separation. It's useful one because if you didn't have it, if everything seemed all just connected, then you would not even bother to look walking across the street and like, you know, you're dead, you know? So evolutionarily we have adapted. Like this sense a strong sense of individualism, you know, because on one hand helps us to survive. On the other hand, it works against our survival. So it's kind of paradoxical. But what happens in when you are engaged in training activities is that activity in the occipital, the back part of the parietal lobe begins to diminish. And when people report a state of deep connection or a feeling of like softening of the boundaries of self, it's reflective of something that is actually occurring from a neurological standpoint. If you look at blood flow with an MRI, you can see that there's diminished blood flow to this area of the brain. So what's interesting about this is that scientifically, both your state of separation and your State of Union.

Dave Stringer:
Are both true.

Dave Stringer:
So neither is either. In a sense, neither is an illusion or they're both an illusion. But in either case, the brain is responsible for for creating this. When we.

Dave Stringer:
Engage in training activities.

Dave Stringer:
Though, we we have a palpable sense of being in, I guess, an unbounded state. We feel less distracted, we feel more responsive to what arises. So in some ways, I guess you could say that we're more connected to the flow of consciousness itself in the same way that if you can visualize that as a kind of river and each of us are like a, you know, like a bucket or something, you know, that's in it. You get only a certain amount of the river in the bucket. But if you break the edges of it, then all of a sudden it's like, well, you know, you're the river again. So entrainment in practices that do that, that help to engender that experience, you know, connect us to the source of consciousness itself. From the yogic perspective. There are certainly definitely scientists who will argue against that and will say that research budgets and professional reputations get staked on certain premises as much as science does have within.

Dave Stringer:
It.

Dave Stringer:
A mechanism by which it eventually can overcome things, beliefs or theses which proved to be false. It still can take generations because people are people and they've got their drift. Defend. But it can be said that many.

Dave Stringer:
Aspects of science.

Dave Stringer:
Particularly where it refers to consciousness, are beginning to come around to look at things from a rather fundamental Eastern perspective. And I find that really interesting and relevant to, to yoga practice itself. Um, yoga itself takes this big world view of looking for the commonalities within different cultural and spiritual practices and how they reference consciousness. So, um, you know, yogis tend to be people who are quite comfortable, you know, like drawing sustenance from Zen Buddhism here and, you know, quantum physics there.

Daniel Aaron:
Yeah, Well, and fundamentally, the premise of yoga is it's all relevant because it's all part of it. And that's so exciting. The age we live in, where we get to bring it all together. All right. Well, two strains come next for me here with where we're going with this one is here you are all this time holding a guitar and a harmonium sitting in front of you. And probably not even everybody knows what a harmonium is. Can you even.

Dave Stringer:
See the harmonium?

Daniel Aaron:
Yeah, sure, I guess. Might as well lift it up a little bit then, so everybody can see and. Yeah, can you see? Here is a little keyboard. It's a little keyboard and it breathes. I love that.

Dave Stringer:
It does breathe. It holds a drone, but it also keeps the melody. And so you use it to accompany themselves.

Dave Stringer:
The tool suitcase is quite portable. It's in the overhead rack. And Yeah wouldn't normally play it this way, but here's at least you can see it. And you know, it's actually it's funny. People see it as a traditional Puritan instrument, which it is. But people are surprised to find that its origins are French. And the British brought it to India. Indians kind of chopped it down so you could play it cross-legged and and it's often used I don't know if it's in the frame now, so I have to try and hold it up since we've only got one camera. Um.

Dave Stringer:
So people would use it to support mantras.

Speaker11:
The version of such a noble yet is Shanti om shanti om bundibugyo gestiona. Okay. And maybe we could become good in the good of peace.

Dave Stringer:
May the peaceful be freed.

Dave Stringer:
From bonds, may the freed set.

Dave Stringer:
Others free. There's a ton of.

Dave Stringer:
Mantras.

Dave Stringer:
That are full of juicy stuff.

Dave Stringer:
Here's another. I'll just give you a cavalcade of medley of mantras. Um, this one is rather famous, I think for yogis set to.

Speaker11:
My.

Dave Stringer:
My.

Speaker11:
Thomas or my Joe to Kamaya with your mama to Maya.

Dave Stringer:
And if you just keep that going, I know we've done it in Bali, you know, around fires and things like this and people chanting.

Dave Stringer:
Something.

Dave Stringer:
Like that over and over and over for like an hour is really transcendental, trippy experience. And the mantra itself is saying, Lead me from from what is what is false to what is true. Lead me from the state of like darkness and heaviness to one of unbounded experience. Lead me from that which is essentially from the transient to the eternal, which is the whole point of these practices is to shift our awareness away from the transient to the to the eternal. But there's a bunch of different traditions here. You know, some of the mantras I was just chanting are from like the Vedic tradition, and those would be more difficult. Something like Isotoma Sadgamaya Thomas Amassoma Ghaniya. Jorma Gamaya is complicated, but still something you can memorize, right? And and there are other simple mantras. I'll stay on the harmonium here for a moment. Om Namah Shivaya is often one of the first ones that.

Oh, come on.

Dave Stringer:
Shiva.

Dave Stringer:
That mantra is often a place where people first come in to chanting mantras and they say, Well, it's really soothing to.

Dave Stringer:
Sing the sounds. Oh, and. Uh, like this. But what does it mean? You know.

Dave Stringer:
And often what I tell people is, well, listen to it. Like, what does it. What does the sound o mean?

Dave Stringer:
Does the sound mean.

Dave Stringer:
Or does it sound.

Dave Stringer:
Mean? What does the sound mean?

Dave Stringer:
And. And so on. Each of the mantra, each of the sounds.

Dave Stringer:
Of the mantra conveys an experience. You can meditate just on those sounds. Oh, it gives you a sense of openness. It gives you a feeling of closeness. So just in the word om.

Dave Stringer:
There's a connection vibrationally.

Dave Stringer:
Or.

Dave Stringer:
Experientially of being open to the world and integrating that world. There's a connection between what is massively big and what is intimately close. Okay. And there's your word OM, which represents essentially the totality of all things. And the sounds aren't random. I mean, it's those sounds are deeply integral to the way you experience.

Dave Stringer:
It and its meaning.

Dave Stringer:
Um, it's used mantras are used in some ways to give the mind something to do because it needs a toy and in the process, while it's busy playing over there, you know, like the essence of you is, is connected to the essence of all. So to chant a mantra like Om Namah Shivaya, which means.

Dave Stringer:
Literally om.

Dave Stringer:
Salutations to Shiva. Shiva is a metaphor of how creation arises from destruction, how letting go of one thing allows you to receive another thing. One ends, another begins. People come to yoga thinking they want to get something. And but yoga steadfastly says, Well, maybe first you need to let go of something.

Dave Stringer:
Maybe it's your ego. Maybe it's your expectations.

Dave Stringer:
Maybe it's your attitude, your anger, some deeply held belief that is incorrect about yourself. You know, all of these things. So the mantras contain within them metaphors. However, those some of the things that I was just.

Dave Stringer:
Singing are used often more in a kind of.

Dave Stringer:
Ritual environment. The curtain is quite something else. They often have different little stories in them. And it's interesting to riff on those things too. Up here, for example, a famous mantra is Shri Ram, Ram, Ram.

Dave Stringer:
Okay. And before we.

Daniel Aaron:
Go on, I'm sensing that our time is is running out. Okay. We're kind of. We'll come to a close soon, Yeah. So maybe. And I like the direction we're going in. And I'm curious for for y'all watching or listening, I invite you to notice just as you hear what happens automatically to your breath. And then as that's happening, what's going on with your state. And I just had the great experience of being here. And as you're talking about it, like there's that automatic invitation to breathe in a different way, Right? The relationship between our state and our state and our state and breath. So. Cool. All right. And you were about to say, well, I was.

Dave Stringer:
Going to actually sing just a minute of this mantra.

Dave Stringer:
It's a curtain. And curtain is usually sung in a call and response fashion. So a leader sings out the mantra, and then people sing back and there's a little model of the world in it and that we give out to the world and then we receive back to the world. So there is a call and response that in a sense that we're engaged in, but it also allows people to maintain a connection to their breath. When you sing together, everybody naturally breathes at the same time, which is an interesting link up thing in pursuit of entrainment as well. So in order for us to successfully entrain linkage of the breath is is really the fastest way to get there. So if you have a bunch of people, whether they're singing a tune or not, if they're breathing simultaneously, they have linked up in a very powerful way. So singing allows people to do this. And it's also why it's important, you know, in an asana practice, if the instructor is is giving the breath, that if everybody follows that timing, we link up. I know some people are like, I don't want to breathe that way. I'm going to breathe my own way. Well, fine. But you're not going to enter into this transcendental space in which we're all connected. So that's what singing does and that's what breathing together does.

Daniel Aaron:
Well, you know, and I'll take this moment before you bring us to that to say, for me as a yoga teacher, it's interesting. I like the perspective you get. I used to get a little bit of criticism from some people who said, why don't you just let people do their own thing in the class? And and I was I've always been really steadfast, strict, maybe about like, no, if you want to do your own thing, cool. Just do it at home is in the class. There is something about letting go of our self and our way of doing it. And it's, you know, it's not that I'm good or right as the teacher, it's just that I get to play that role and align everybody. And then and that's where the magic always happens for everybody and sometimes especially for those of us. And I've been in that position too, of like, you know, I want to do it my way. And when I let go of that and it's like, that's when the magic happens, right?

Dave Stringer:
And it's when something else deeper can can arise, you know? I mean, I'm even I found this even in collaborations, creative collaborations, they can often be a little bit of a tussle of people's ego. My song, I want to do it this way, but it's the point that that gets out of the way, that.

Dave Stringer:
Something greater seems.

Dave Stringer:
To arise that's both intimate to ourselves, but beyond it, that connects to a greater intelligence. And that really, really fascinates me, you know, to engage in yoga as a springboard to creativity, whether it's writing a song or, you know, designing a garden or, you know, coming up with a new marketing concept, whatever it.

Dave Stringer:
Is, whatever you're engaged in.

Dave Stringer:
The thing is, is ultimately I find again and again that.

Dave Stringer:
My mind.

Dave Stringer:
Is capable of a lot of things, but it's actually.

Dave Stringer:
Limited.

Dave Stringer:
And when I put.

Dave Stringer:
It in service of something.

Dave Stringer:
That is inexhaustible, it's amazing what can.

Dave Stringer:
Arise.

Dave Stringer:
So yeah, I don't know how much time we have left here. I could probably explain this mantra and leave us with a song.

Dave Stringer:
If you want to do it that way. Yeah, let's.

Daniel Aaron:
Let's definitely go in the musical realm for a moment, for sure.

Dave Stringer:
So as a parting shot here, this mantra is from JJ Ram. There's a lot of kids sing. This one just came up for me now is a shorthand for a very long parable, but a very central one to our human existence. And it's called the Ramayana or the Ramayana. Sometimes it's pronounced and in it it's like 16 volumes. So it's really hard to condense it. But I'm going to try and do the four sentence version of it. But Ram is a king who loses his kingdom due to palace, treachery, intrigue and his great love. Sita is stolen by demons and so he's exiled from the kingdom, has to wander in the wilderness in order to get his love back from the demons and return to the kingdom. And he's aided in this by the God Hanuman, the monkey God who stands for the idea of service. Okay, Why is this relevant to what we're doing? Well, from the perspective of yoga, we are all born kings and queens in this world. We are connected to our divine self, but we lose our love. Our kingdom and our love are stolen by demons. And those demons are attachment, anger, desire, sense of limitation and smallness, indifference. All of these things rob us of our sense of.

Dave Stringer:
Connection to.

Dave Stringer:
You know, to our our our origins in consciousness and wonder and the divine. We wander through much of our lives in a.

Dave Stringer:
Wilderness really of our own.

Dave Stringer:
Creation, until at some point we realize we are lost and have to find our way home. You need to return to our kingdom and get our love back. How do we do that? Well, the advice that's given is has to do with service. It's ultimately service that brings this back. Essentially, if you lack something, then paradoxically, you must give it. If you feel like you don't have love in your life, then you must love. If you feel that you don't have money, then you must give it.

Dave Stringer:
And somehow.

Dave Stringer:
Or another, then you start to become deeply in contact with the source of all and realize that it's.

Dave Stringer:
Within you, but.

Dave Stringer:
Also beyond you and coming through you. So in the end, all of this yoga comes down to really.

Dave Stringer:
This prescription to.

Dave Stringer:
Serve and to put the in compassion, to put others ahead of yourself. And that, curiously, if you want to look after yourself, the best way to do it is to be concerned with others. And the best way to learn is to teach. And so these things are all connected. So I'll just sing you a little bit of this, of this thing because it's pretty random.

Speaker11:
Jay Ram. Jay. Jay, Ram. Rahm J. Rahm j. J. J.

J. J. J. Rahm. True.

Speaker11:
True.

True. True enough.

Speaker11:
Sriraam J. Rahm j.

J. Love. G. Love j. Love.

Speaker11:
J.

J. Round g.

Speaker11:
Soft Play. Rough j. J.

Round G. Love. J.

Speaker11:
Round j. J. Round.

Round. Round. J. J.

Speaker11:
Love true.

Love. J. J. C. Love. Jalen j j. All Ju ju ju.

Speaker11:
Giraffe Sriraam. Giraffe.

Daniel Aaron:
J j.

Speaker11:
Love. G. Love. Giraffe. J. J. G from J.

From J. J.

Speaker11:
G. Love. J. From J. J.

Speaker12:
G. J.

G. From J. J.

Speaker12:
Shapiro. J.

Speaker11:
Jai.

Dave Stringer:
Thanks for the backup.

Daniel Aaron:
That was great. And, well, perhaps as we wind things down, it's worth now because it'll be on so many people's minds. How can I get more of that? Oh, you can.

Dave Stringer:
Go to my website.

Dave Stringer:
Dave stringer.com and it'll lead you to all the different places you can. Buy or stream the music. I will give a shout out to Bandcamp, which there's links to at Bandcamp is actually my favorite way for people to access music because first of all, they pay the artists instantly and directly and take very little of it. Whereas iTunes takes a lot and Spotify basically hardly gives anybody anything. And but it allows you to pay what you want, make contributions. You can listen to stuff before you buy it. And it's also a place where the lyrics and all those kinds of things can be put up. So anyway, so check out Bandcamp for me or other artists and you can also. Where am I playing next? I'm playing in Fabulous.

Dave Stringer:
Boise, Idaho next.

Dave Stringer:
Weekend at the Treefort Music Festival, which is really cool. I'm playing with Sheila Bringi, who's a really fabulous Indian American singer and Kaysar who has a fantastic band with tabla and DAF and Cajon and things like this. So we're kind of doing a kirtan is increasingly a hybrid of, I guess, Indian and Western folk influences. So I think I just gave you kind of the folk guitar version of it. But, but curtains also can be very, very exciting, like gospel.

Dave Stringer:
Shows, you know, like super.

Dave Stringer:
Propulsive and people are like clapping and.

Dave Stringer:
Dancing and it's.

Dave Stringer:
Wild. So that's happening. And I teach kirtan schools. I just did one at Esalen and one in Australia. I have one coming up in Europe June 7th through 13th in Switzerland on the Bodensee, also known as Lake Constance, a beautiful lake in Switzerland. And there's various festivals coming up. I guess I need to give a shout outs to the Swiss Yoga conference.

Dave Stringer:
The Midwest.

Yoga conference or festival in September Blast Fest in New York in June. I'm probably forgetting a ton of things, but anyway, there's lots of opportunities. You can go see the monster movie. There's lots of curtain walls in lots of different styles, and more and more of this kind of experience is accessible to people everywhere. Yeah, and a great curtain is a great metaphor for what you were conveying via the Ramayana too, that it's it's really so much of life is about what you give into it. And that's you know, and for me to return to the question earlier about my experience of singing was so healing for me because I did have that trauma as a kid and so afraid to let my voice out in the metaphors of that are so big. And as you said, it doesn't matter in curtain whether we're singing or not. It's it's letting it out. But curiously, I found that the people who are singing in tune bring.

Dave Stringer:
Entity that's part of the entrainment to in one reason why it's always good to seek. Whether it's your yoga practice, people who.

Dave Stringer:
Are more advanced than you or.

Dave Stringer:
If music were more advanced. The people who are more advanced bring others along with them. Suddenly you realize, Oh my God, I'm singing in tune. And you didn't realize that you could Yeah So a lot of schools that I teach, we call it white school, actually really emphatically work on bringing people into a place of alignment with their voice and and their rhythmic ability to tell me it's empowering and way more than being just about music. And that can be said for yoga itself. It's incredibly empowering way than about yoga.

Dave Stringer:
Yeah, so and exactly.

Daniel Aaron:
Why I love coaching and I love the active people and I love getting coached myself. And while I always have different coaches life because Yeah pull us along. Yeah. All right. Well, I think we're going to wrap it up there. Thanks again to Longevity Drops for sponsoring us. And Dave, thank you so much for being part of the show. It's always about.

Speaker11:
It again sometime soon.

Daniel Aaron:
And y'all, thank you for tuning in and hopefully you sang on your own and we'll play it back. And even if nobody's there or if somebody is there, sing yourself and thanks for being interested in the art of Vibrant living. That's the name of the show. I'm Daniela, your host. Thanks. See you soon.

Yeah. All right.

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