The Many Lifetimes of Krishna Kaur, Part 2

An interview with Krishna Kaur and Karan Khalsa, Part 2

Read Part 1 Here

The foundation of Krishna’s spiritual life started with her family. She always experienced her mother as a spiritual person, and her mother’s devotion always kept a special place in Krishna’s heart, guiding her way until she found a place where she felt at home.

Her mother was one of the greatest supporters on Krishna’s spiritual journey.

Krishna said, “She (her mother) wasn’t a real church goer, but she was with the Church of Religious Science. She had her own way of seeing things, raising her kids. When my father died, we were very young, and she wanted to make sure that if she died, we would learn to hold our own, that we would be able to understand what was real and not real, in a sense. She never supported us feeling bad about anything. Anything we were feeling, she always found a way to turn it towards the divine. Sometimes she would use my daddy as a way of pointing us in a positive direction. She would say, ‘Your Daddy is very proud of you right now,’ or she would say, ‘God is watching you right now, there is nothing to worry about.’ She always made sure we were not depending on her alone, neither spiritually nor physically. She made sure that we became self-sufficient in our relationship with the Divine. That was very special for her, and I loved her for that.”

This constant reassurance and devotion from her early years became a catalyst in Krishna’s life. She was a seeker and was constantly looking for answers, but it is clear she felt confident about her own relationship with the Divine and that she could ask the big questions. “Why was I born, what will I get from being in New York etc., how was I supposed to serve my people. I started questioning everything. The answers would come from I don’t know where and would be something like, ‘Ok, are you satisfied? You’ve done it. I’ve given you this opportunity, now figure out your real work.’”

Krishna started feeling these existential questions of purpose coming to her while performing in New York. Still, she felt such a need to go in search of answers. She says, “I went through a lot during my first trip to India. That is when I felt the Dharmic connection. I was clear that I would know in an instant, which was my path and which was not. I knew I was not a Catholic. I knew I was not a Baptist. I knew I was not a Methodist. I knew I didn’t belong to the Yoruba tradition, nor was I a Muslim. I looked at all those practices, appreciated them deeply, and I was guided to learn from them, but I realized that they weren’t my foundation. I knew also that I was not the Church of Religious Science. But knew that when I found the thing that touched my heart, that made me feel at home, then it was for me.”

Krishna says she stopped looking for a religion and began looking for a way of life. Not for something just to do on Sundays, but something she could live everyday of her life. “I didn’t know all the things about this path of Kundalini Yoga and the 3HO lifestyle, and I always said that I’ll be here as long as it makes sense and when it stops making sense, I will move on. It just never stopped making sense to me as a way of life, as a way of experiencing God, as a way of teaching about the Godness in all. I never liked when people taught any path as the only way. As kids, we would go visit the different churches members of my family attended, the Catholic church, the Methodist church, the Baptist church. People just kept saying, ‘We are the only way, we are the only way,’ … I asked what is going on? You all are saying the same thing, that you have the only way. What you are doing, it is your way, but who cares how you call it: Dios, God, Jesus, Jehová, whatever your name for God is doesn’t matter to me. The entity is the same, and if this is the way you choose to worship it, and I choose to do it differently, I’m good with that. My mother always said, ‘God is in your heart, it doesn’t matter how you worship God, but when you find that way for you, be true to it.’”

After some time of being a part of the Kundalini Yoga community, it became clear to Krishna that she should be teaching yoga to the Black community. “This was very interesting because the three things that I have in my heart, that I’ve searched for while I was in New York were: Why was I born? How am I supposed to worship God? How am I supposed to serve my people? So at first I thought, ‘I don’t know enough to teach.’ But then I taught my first class, and I was shocked at how much I knew. And it grew from there. I started teaching in LA at various high schools. The teachers would ask me to come, saying the kids are in trouble, we need what you are teaching, can you come and teach them? So I would go where I was called. I was working with communities all around Los Angeles. I was very active politically and socially. I opened an Ashram – Yoga Center on Broadway and 53rd Street. It was funny because the yoga studio I founded was on Broadway… I thought, OK, here I am, back on Broadway in a whole new way.”

While teaching in the Los Angeles communities, music kept being a strong foundation in Krishna’s life. She integrated music in all her classes as a way to reach her students, turning prayers into songs and learning shabds (sacred words of praise).

“In the places where I taught Kundalini Yoga, I sang. When I was in theatre, I used to play my guitar and sing in different shows. So, I always had that musical side that I held on to a bit. When I came back to LA, I found my guitar, and I ended up singing. When I was teaching, I used to make up songs. I would use songs to teach my kids, like my song, ‘One Creator.’ I sang that just to teach the kids, and they insisted that I sing it all the time. It helped to solve problems and teach lessons. One day, as I reached the campus of Lock High, I heard these girls singing this song from the top of their lungs and I said, yes! It was a little song I made up. The words were, ’I am I am love, I am I am, I am I am peace, I am I am, I am I am joy, I am I am, I am within everything I see ’cause everything I see is me.’ If I sang it, and made a song out of it, they would remember it, and if they sing it, they would get it.”

Krishna learned to play different instruments throughout her life: harmonium, piano, guitar, violin, and tambora. “I grew up playing the piano. I played the violin in the Orchestra School. I started playing the guitar before I was on Broadway. But when I found the harmonium, I loved that I could play with one hand. I learned that on my first trip to India. I bought a harmonium and a tambora, and learned to play some Sikh shabds while I was there, and that was how the next evolution of my musical life started. It sort of happened, there was no intention, no design, no thought.”

For many years, Krishna would sing, not just when she was teaching, but at community gatherings all around the country. She composed songs like “You Are My Lover Lord” and “One Creator” and these became favorites. She was always invited on stage to lead hundreds and thousands of yogis in song. These songs became part of her first solo album released in 2013, One Creator. On her second album, Longing (released in 2017), she added some more of her favorite songs to sing from the old days, and newer compositions. This year, she is sharing new music with her album “Looking Up.”

Every word that Krishna Kaur sings glistens with wisdom, longing, and a deep love for the world she has spent over 80 years inhabiting. This album is like the beautiful, aged skin of a grandmother, imprinted with the stories of her travels around the world from Europe, Scandinavia, New York, North Africa, West Africa, China, and back, trying to find meaning and a sense of creating community every place she went.

Krishna’s prayer in sharing these sacred mantras and songs of hope and faith during these incredibly challenging times, is that they will boost our spirit everyday and bring comfort to all no matter where we all are on the planet.

“The One Creator is embracing us all. Now let us all embrace each other as well.”

Listen to Looking Up now.