Russell chats to the King of Kirtan, Krishna Das, who holds a Grammy nomination and a repertoire of enchanting vocals shared worldwide with the likes of Madonna, Sting and Rick Rubin. He's meditated in the jungles of India and performed in various spiritual spaces. In this episode, we explore the mysticism surrounding Neem Karoli Baba, a revered guru who influenced notable figures like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg. My stand up special BRANDEMIC is premiering on 25th June over on Moment, you will love it! Get your ticket https://www.moment.co/russellbrandFor a bit more from us join our Stay Free Community here: https://russellbrand.locals.com/Come to my festival COMMUNITY - https://www.russellbrand.com/community-2023/NEW MERCH! https://stuff.russellbrand.com/Find out more about Krishna Das: https://www.krishnadas.com/
Thanks for joining me on this voyage to truth and freedom on this day of all days.
You might think it's just a Wednesday.
You might think it's a glorious gift to be alive at any time.
You might think there's a limitless, unknowable force behind the material world, haunting it with great majesty, but beyond even that, It is Donald Trump's birthday.
We did a poll earlier and we asked you specifically, precisely, whether or not you wanted me to sing Happy Birthday to Donald Trump.
I'm going to reveal the results of that in just a moment.
If you're watching us on YouTube, you're going to have to eventually click over onto Rumble because do you know what we believe in here?
Free speech.
Free speech is everything to us.
You can ask me.
You can ask my on-screen assistant.
Free speech.
You can ask my dog.
Have a look at him.
Let's get a single little dog.
Let's have a look at that little guy.
Come on, Dan.
Repo, repo, baby.
Don't worry about crossing the lens.
We're going to be on your shot.
There we go.
Ask him.
I would feel physically sick.
I would feel physically sick.
Was that the dog?
That's amazing.
Can that guy speak?
What kind of show?
I've underestimated you.
The speech is so free that even the dogs are using it here.
It's Donald Trump's birthday.
Do you want us to sing Happy Happy birthday to Trump in the style of Marilyn Monroe.
We're going to need that camera again, Gal.
Dear Dan, at the beginning of the show, if at all you think he's right, sing to him.
73%!
Another option, let me know in the comments.
What were some of the other options?
13% of people chose another option.
I like the idea of people going, no, no thanks.
No thanks.
I don't want that to happen.
I don't want that to happen.
Let me know.
If you're not watching us on Locals yet, watch us on Locals now.
There's a red button on your screen.
Exclusively on YouTube, we're going to be talking about 10-foot aliens spooking the Vegas police force.
That's not even a made-up story.
That's a legit... They're like, the police are in the video.
Yeah.
The police are there going, sorry, this may seem like a strange inquiry, but have you seen any 10-foot aliens?
We saw a light in the sky.
They're scared of it.
The world is changing so fast, we can barely keep up with it.
This is epochal.
This is a paradigm shift in real time.
Is the prosecution of Donald Trump... Let me know what you think about this in the chat.
Is this about justice or is this about eliminating political opponents of the establishment?
Whether you're a MAGA person or not, whether you love or loathe Donald Trump, do you think the utilisation of the Espionage Act, the same act that currently sees Julian Assange in jail without trial, Edward Snowden exiled for revealing what we all sort of suspected and now know, and the fact is it's got worse, that the American government are spying without permission on their own citizens and they want to carry on doing it and now the Espionage Act He's being dragged up from its crypt once more to attack that great opponent of the establishment, or a cipher, an emblem of the establishment, depending on what you think, Donald Trump.
Let me know in the chat right now.
Do you think that this is a witch hunt or not?
Do you think that Donald Trump Trump represents ordinary Americans and is a genuine anti-establishment
figure and that's why he's being attacked in this way.
Whether you believe that or not, you have to surely address the fact that American presidents
are almost de facto criminals.
That's a question that could be asked.
What's the worst thing any American president has done in office?
Is it Trump and his box of secrets?
And many of us, many boxes of many secrets, but Joe Biden's got boxes of secrets too, right?
That's fair to say.
That's not just allegedly, is it?
No, it's not allegedly, Russ.
That's a hard fact.
Is that worse than some of the other things that have happened under the auspices of various other administrations?
And is it really that Donald Trump is an opponent of imperialism and an ongoing effort to have perpetual global war in order to sustain an
economic model that requires Constant bombing and that time where you've got Lockheed
Martin sponsoring gay pride It's time to acknowledge that the old optics the old ideas
and the old alliances are Shifting is Trump's birthday. You lot want me to sing?
Happy birthday. Let's keep the poll open just in case it changes
You can still vote on that. We'll post the poll in the chat trying to wriggle out of it
Election fraud are you suggesting that there's a lecture for?
I've counted every single vote.
What are you saying?
Which voting machine was it?
Dominion.
Some of the best damn voting machines money can buy.
The money just buys the machines, not the outcomes.
Let me make that clear, baby, because you know what we believe in.
It's going to be a fantastic show.
It's Freedom Day in some places.
It's Donald Trump's birthday everywhere else.
You can keep voting if you join us in Locals.
Press the red buttons on your screen now.
Let's have a look at how the mainstream media are covering this event.
Of course, Trump did one of his famous speeches after his arraignment.
How do you feel about the word arraignment having to be learned?
Well, I don't like it.
Arraignment.
It's not Mar-a-Lago no more, is it?
It's shut up.
Why can't you get into Mar-a-Lago?
I think it's the weather or something.
Too many boxes!
Too many boxes of secrets!
Kid Rock's in there, scurrying around, looking in all the boxes, looking at all the secrets.
This is at Bedminster, one of his other strangely named venues.
He's like Bruce Wayne, like there's Wayne Mansions.
He got Mar-a-Lago and now Bedminster.
It's just interesting how famous those names then become.
Like Mar-a-Lago, we will know forever now.
Mar-a-Lago.
Mar-a-Lago.
And now it's Bedminster.
It means sea near the lake.
Right.
Mar-a-Lago.
Mar-a-Lago.
I got arraignment at Mar-a-Lago.
It sounds like he's got loose mandibles.
It does the way you say it.
Mar-a-Lago.
I got arraignment at Mar-a-Lago.
Let's have a look at his speech.
[crowd chanting]
[crowd chanting]
Nice birthday!
Wonderful birthday.
They were saying happy birthday.
I was with Eric and Laura, the kids.
Happy birthday, Grandpa!
And I said, oh great.
I just got charged with, they want 400 years approximately.
If you add them all up, a fake 400 years.
Oh thank you darling, that's so nice.
It's a wonderful birthday.
If you're watching us on YouTube and you're one of the many people who doesn't like Donald Trump and think he epitomizes everything that's wrong with American democracy and global politics, then you have to acknowledge in a moment like that, look at the easy breezy communicative style that he utilizes.
Imagine Joe Biden who's got allegations of his own.
Allegedly!
...to address if indeed there has been repression of a five million dollar... Allegedly!
...bribe.
Imagine the way that he's going to tackle that.
It's not going to be by making genuinely amusing remarks.
Even if you loathe Trump and you're not all MAGA and you loathe some of the things he said and he stands for, you have to recognise that the conditions that led to Trump's rise still have not been addressed.
hypocrisy, corruption, a donor class dominating the political space, the Democrats becoming
the party of the military-industrial complex, legitimizing and justifying perpetual war,
freedom fighters like Snowden and Assange banged up, exiled and lost their testimony,
discarded.
You have to accept that under Barack Obama, the Espionage Act was used more than by any
other president.
And you have to look at what other crimes American presidents have committed before
assuming this is the worst day in history.
Listen to this outrageous clip taken from CBS when Trump's plane landed.
This is gonna crack you up.
If you're watching this on YouTube now, you've got to get over to Rumble.
Click the link on the description.
If you're watching this on Rumble, press the red button on your screen now and join us on Locals.
This is fantastic and funny.
Check it out.
The first appearance by an American president to face federal charges.
A former president or current, Ulysses S. Grant, got in trouble for speeding in a buggy around the White House.
That is the extent of law-breaking we've seen from people who have sat in the Oval Office.
We've looked at all American history.
It's been spotless.
No one's done anything weird in that Oval Office.
I don't remember a guy called Nixon.
I don't remember a guy called Obama.
I don't remember the Second World War and bombs being dropped in Hiroshima.
There was one time Ulysses Grant rolled his buggy a little enthusiastically on the White
House lawn.
Look at some of the other things, not crimes.
I mean, this is what we're inviting you to analyze.
What is the category of crime?
What is the category of classified?
Maybe it's a crime for Donald Trump to fill up his bathroom at Mar-a-Lago with boxes of
secrets, but is it a greater crime that when Edward Snowden reveals to you the extent of
surveillance Edward Snowden has to go into exile?
When the imperialist project of the United States of America, and I don't mean American people, I don't mean American people, I mean the people that act on behalf of globalist corporations, when their agenda is revealed through Assange's revelations and WikiLeaks, He has to be smeared.
He's still in prison right now as we're speaking to you Julian Assange is in Belmarsh.
And also look at some of the other things that are not considered crimes.
And to show you we're not biased, to show you we don't care about anything other than truth and freedom, we've even included Trump.
Look at this.
So Trump, tax breaks for the rich, the Covid wealth transfer, that happened on his watch.
Let us know if you love Donald Trump.
How do you handle the fact That while he was president, that wealth transfer took place.
It's the deep state.
Is that what you're going to say?
It's the deep state?
There's no doubt there's a deep state.
What about if you love Barack Obama?
How do you deal with his policies of quantitative easing?
His ongoing drone strikes?
How do you square that with his easy charisma?
His ability to speak in public?
And in my view, the happy fact that he's a person of color in the White House at a time where America clearly needed to address cultural and issues around ethnicity.
Or if you love Bush Jr.
What do you feel about the illegal war started in Iraq, which we now know was precisely that, an illegal war?
Or, indeed, Truman dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
And, a little closer to home, but always close to the crypt, it's the great Dodderer himself, it's Hunter's pappy, it's Burisma's greatest agent... Allegedly!
Joe Biden!
Stay free with Russell Brand.
See it first on Rumble.
I am more excited yet to join Krishna Das, world-renowned spiritual teacher who has meditated in the jungles and ashrams of India.
He's conducted sessions with famous people.
such as Madonna, Sting and a friend of the show and great guest of the show Rick Rubin.
Now he's joining us ahead of his two sold out London shows so you can't even go and see him
even if you want to. I'd like to go and see Krishna Das.
Krishna Das thank you for joining us today it's an honour to meet you sir. Hi, happy to be
here with you.
Thank you very much.
One of the things we talk about continually are the times that we live in and the way that they are defined by conflagration, conflict and doubt.
An inability for people to engage in a good faith discourse about the way that power might be utilised and used.
The ability to perhaps transcend division and find new forms of unity.
I wonder how your experience as a member of the counter-cultural movement that Was that one question?
Well, you know, they say that the state of the world is the state of our minds.
in bringing a different moral and spiritual dimension to something that perhaps gets lost in secular rhetoric
and materialistic ideas?
Was that one question?
Maybe, there's a couple of sub clauses in there, Krishnadas.
Well, you know, they say that the state of the world is the state of our minds,
all the minds of the people in the world.
And, you know, you talk a lot about politics, but politics has become where people who want power
over other people, that's where they go to get work.
It's no longer to help people.
It's no longer to help people overcome suffering.
It's about creating more suffering and getting more personal power in the world, egocentric power.
So, living in India, of course, the politics there is, you know, a hundred times worse than the West.
But living in India with the saints and the yogis, it's a different experience.
They help you touch that place in you that's real love and that you can feel actually help you in your life to be a better person and not create suffering for yourself or other people.
Your experiences in India with Neem Karoli Baba are obviously well documented.
I've seen you, I feel like, on stage with Ram Dass talking about very exciting mystical experiences, his ability for prophecy.
I suppose the reason such teachers are so powerful is because they suggest and somehow paradoxically
embody ethereal principles that seem difficult to access and are really, really needed
now. Can you tell us an account of your experiences with your teacher that demonstrated to
you the potential for the real mystical? Examples of how he engaged with you and
demonstrated to you the possibility of other ways of regarding reality beyond materialism,
rationalism?
Yeah, you know, let's talk about Ram Dass for a minute because as a Western teacher,
we see him in a certain kind of way that's kind of very limiting.
So one day, Maharaji, Neem Karoli Baba had told Ram Dass not to touch money, and to give me the keys to the car, and that he couldn't touch money or do worldly things.
So, whatever that means.
One day, he got left in Nainital with no money and no car, and he had to walk to Kenshi, to the temple over the mountains, four hours.
And the whole time, he was absolutely furious.
He was just flipped out.
And he walks into the temple, and all the Westerners are being fed across the courtyard.
Maharajah was watching us.
And this guy who Ram Dass hated the most stood up and offered him a plate of food.
And Ram Dass took it to food, and he threw it right in the guy's face.
And from across the courtyard, Maharaji says, Ram Dass, something wrong?
So Ram Dass goes over there, and then he began to cry.
And Maharaji says, Ram Dass, what's wrong?
And Ram Dass said, I can't stand impurity in myself, and I can't stand it in other people.
So Maharaji kind of looked him up and down a couple of times, and he said, I don't see anything impure.
And then Ram Dass once again broke down crying.
He said, Ram Dass, love everyone and tell the truth.
Ram Dass says, the truth is, I don't love everyone.
Maharaja said, Ram Dass, love everyone and tell the truth.
And at that moment, Ram Dass kind of realized what the rest of his life was going to be about.
And by the end of his life, after sitting on a wheelchair for 20 years, which is enough to destroy anybody's spirit, he actually got to a place where he loved everyone.
He saw the beauty.
He used to keep a picture of a bush up there in the old days, you know, on his puja, on his altar.
And it was extraordinary to be around him.
And so I've seen that What we can overcome and what it feels like when you do overcome, when we do overcome our selfish bullshit.
It's natural for us to feel those feelings of agitation and disdain and separateness and encouraging for me to hear that not only are those compromising feelings included in spiritual discourse, they are perhaps it's Yeah.
primary subject, the reason that we need spirituality is because it is hard to be a person in the
world. It is hard to feel jealousy, it is hard to feel heartbreak, it is hard to feel
yearning and longing. The commodification of spirituality has been obviously a broad
trend of recent years.
All things perhaps are increasingly commodified these days in our culture.
Is it true that Mark Zuckerberg has a deep interest in mysticism?
We're really excited to have the opportunity to speak to Mark Zuckerberg.
That's going to be manifest soon.
And that Steve Jobs apparently chose Apple as a logo because of a connection to Neem Karoli Baba.
Do you think that there is a danger that spiritual principles can be misused, maligned?
Is there a kind of magic in them that is neither benign nor malign but can be directed according to will?
You mean personal egoistic will?
Of course.
People can use anything to hurt themselves and hurt other people.
But Spiritual practice is about calming your ass down and trying to let go of the programs that are running in us, like all those things you mentioned—jealousy, greed, shame, fear, anger—those are programs that have been put into us by the world, by our karmic situation.
To uncover those programs and uncover what's underneath them, that's simply what it's about.
You know, it's more natural.
Love is more natural than all that bullshit.
That stuff is not natural.
That's imposed on us by the world.
Which is part of the show, but it's the stuff that causes us pain.
Yes, sometimes that feels like an optimistic appraisal of the human condition.
Myself, I know that I strongly feel greed, yearning, a requirement for status, those kind of things, they play out in me a lot.
They doubtlessly have a biochemical and natural component.
Are you saying that there are sort of cultural systems that are most adept at directing and harnessing those original conditions?
Are you saying that those conditions aren't original?
That they are somehow parasitical or violations?
Definitely parasitical.
Their programs, their karmic programming.
We get born to a certain parents at a certain time and a certain place.
We have all kinds of experiences that teach us about ourselves, mostly in very negative terms.
My parents didn't know shit.
They didn't know anything.
They didn't have real love.
They didn't love themselves.
How was I going to find that?
But by chance, I tripped and fell into something that was Extraordinarily beautiful and extraordinarily powerful, which was meeting, you know, Neem Koirali Baba.
Yes, and I suppose a great teacher can transmit phenomena that you may not otherwise have received.
Primal Colin too has a question for you.
He says, how do you stop people taking advantage of goodwill, Krishna Das?
You know, what other people do is not We're not responsible for that.
We're trying to be responsible for our own actions.
If other people choose to hurt us or try to take advantage of us, you know, that's their problem.
They're creating suffering for themselves.
We don't have to let it hurt us.
We can feel it and we can release that initial knee-jerk reaction we might have, like punching them out.
That's hard, I think, to release that, when you say release that.
Yeah, but we've got to slow down in order to do that.
That's why spiritual practice is about letting go.
Letting go again and again and again.
Just let go, come back, and then you're gone again.
You let go, you come back, then you're gone again.
Right.
Surrender.
Every time you let go, the neural pathways in the brain get deeper and it gets easier to let go.
We should practice letting go when we have opportunities like for in small trivial examples like being stuck in traffic being an obvious one and minor conflicts if we can surrender our will in that moment it's possible that it will open new terrains within the psyche and perhaps beyond even the psyche that will grant us a new power when it comes to dealing with immense displeasure and opposition.
Well, I try to, about driving, you know, I try to see every driver as His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
Oh, you just cut me off, Your Holiness?
Okay.
Yeah, you can go.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Ram Ram.
Yeah, very good.
So you just try to find a way to short-circuit your own stuff, you know.
Oh, His Holiness the Dalai Lama's getting out of the vehicle.
He's hitting my windshield with a car jacker.
Thank you, Your Holiness the Dalai Lama.
Thank you so much, Krishna Das.
You can join Krishna Das at a workshop this Saturday in London.
Go to krishnadas.com.
The shows are sold out.
Where are they, Krishna Das?
I want to come, please.
The Union Chapel.
If you want to come, let me know.
I'll put you on the guest list.
Yeah, please.
I would like that very much.
Thank you very much.
Thanks for joining us and thank you for conveying this important message to our viewers.
I'm very grateful to you.
Thank you.
Take care.
Bye bye.
Goodbye Krishnadash.
So there you go.
There's a bit more information about those workshops available for you still.
We have got so much more to offer you this week.
On Friday we have an exclusive interview with presidential candidate Marianne Williamson.
Excitingly, her background is within the world of spiritual discourse and we ask her about how those principles are applicable in the field of politics.
Now think about this.
Why is it that most presidents are keen to garner the support of the Christian establishment?
Do you think it's just because Christianity represents certain important values?
Or do you think there are political reasons for that?
We talked to her about that.
We talked to her about corruption.
We talked about Joe Biden's refusal to debate her and RFK.
And if you fancy a laugh, why don't you watch my special?
Brandemic is premiering on the 25th of June.
On Moment, there's a link in the description.
It's self-funded.
It's uncensored.
It helps me if you watch it, so give it a watch if you want to, if you fancy it.
We've got so many fantastic things available to you on Locals.
If you're watching us on Locals right now, hello guys, how's it going?
I asked a few questions, let me see what they're saying in there right now.
Joe can join the debate, I'll have the debate without Joe.
Did you guys like Krishna Das?
Did that help you?
Ginger or Marianne, she's asking.
Hello Russell, I love you.
She has sensitive hearts.
25.
Oh, also she loves you, Gareth.
In fact, she loves you more, I think, Gareth.
There's a lot of love flying around in there.
A lot of love.
So join us in there for a little loving in the locals community.
We do meditations and stuff like that and our full interviews go up live.
You can join our interviews live.
Often we have to pre-record them because of the scheduling of our great guests like Richard Dawkins or Jordan Peterson or God... RFK.
RFK, he's been on there.
I want to get Eckhart Tolle on again soon.
He's coming on again soon, isn't he?
And of course, you know, we're always chasing Elon.
Let's see if we've heard anything back from Tucker's people.
Of course we have.
I listen to people.
I don't know about you.
I listen to people on double speed.
Do you?
I ain't got time to listen to people in normal speed.
I'm a fast thinker, baby.
Let's see what Tucker's people are saying.
You guys are so funny.
Yes, of course, Tucker loves you as does our whole team.
There you go.
What?
What's going on legally?
Whoa, that's a little too exclusive over there.
This is what we offer you on Locals Inside Direct.
access but we've stopped it getting too intense. Hey we've got fans. You walk a line Brands. We walk the line baby it's
the only thing to do.
How do we know that there's an edge there if we don't visit it from time to time? We're still
chasing Elon Musk. He texted me as recently as the day before yesterday saying would you, well let's
see, stop bothering me. How did you get this? Well anyway the fact is the interview could happen any
We've got fantastic content still to come this week.
We're looking at stories of global corruption.
We're looking at the way that the Donald Trump trial could indeed be the wish case that many of you believe that it is.
Join us tomorrow, not for more of the same, but for more of the different.
