Episode 99 | Jesse Sadhu Gallagher | The Beauty and Awe of Sound and Life

(1) Episode 99 | Jesse Sadhu Gallagher | The Beauty and Awe of Sound and Life - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWxw0hUs6XA

Transcript:
(00:03) [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign
(01:15) [Music] peace [Music] thanks [Music]
(02:23) foreign [Music] [Music] s after that yeah I want to start just by asking you about music and your relationship with music and maybe specifically about seeing music as medicine okay excellent um well for me like music Started really early my parents were both musicians and
(03:29) so I was raised like just having instruments around all the time so it became like second nature I guess to me um so it's always been like at the Forefront of my life not necessarily being pushed into it but just like naturally just like when I look back at photos of me I'm like playing this playing that picking up guitar so I guess it's my like language in a lot of ways I feel like I can communicate um deeper emotions or deeper understandings I think with sound not right off the bat like when that just started like I couldn't just jump
(04:04) in and all of a sudden be but like you know maybe 45 seconds 50 seconds into it I'm like okay I'm in some kind of musical space that I'm not necessarily like um therefore I sort of am just playing the the harmonies the harmonics that are happening so in terms of healing did that make sense yeah you see you're not there for yeah I mean I just get into the flow of the sound and I'm just reacting to what is happening and what is coming it's almost like you're I don't know how to surf but maybe it's
(04:40) like surfing or something it's like once you're in it you just are in it and you're and it's like maybe meditating or doing yoga when you're really doing your pasta and your not thinking or something you know like it's it's you can drop into this thing where it's almost like you're playing the sound that's already floating around if that makes any sense like there'd be times where I'm going like this and then a couple notes are like okay that's where it's at and then you just know
(05:10) when to add something lower and it's I'm not thinking so much but it's almost like the sound is already happening and you're kind of just like um I guess you're playing it but I don't know I feel like with sound it's like it's almost already existing in some ways um and you're kind of like ushering it into the space if it makes any I mean it's a it's an interesting thing it's like I'm still amazed by the sounds of one or two strings coming out of silence and just like whoa you know I
(05:46) still can get pretty Amazed by just that simplicity and um with something like this I tune it so that everything is sort of harmonic so then you're just kind of [Music] um dealing with different like a different thing you're not thinking about chords you're not thinking about like changing the key you're changing um you're just kind of like floating in the space of just sort of Rhythm and harmonics so it's like it's you know you don't want to just it's like there's something very delicate
(06:24) that you're almost listening to the space around you to tell you what should be coming off this thing I don't know I don't know if I'm making that much sense but I think so so yeah what I hear a little bit is yeah is what happens maybe is like a falling away of identity yeah of Jesse would you say that that is true that's what's happening for you I think when it's going well for sure and when and when you're fighting with the music or you're trying to make something happen
(06:51) Like Jesse or sadhu is definitely there like and getting frustrated I've been in those zones too in my life where you're like frustrated trying to make something happen with music and I could be writing a song where you're making all these chord changes happen well this has to get to here this has to get to here and I have this idea for this lyric so I have to do and then it starts getting almost contrived in some ways and then you have to loosen back and be like okay should I be really composing all these chords or am I just
(07:18) doing this because you know it and that does me personally there's some people that approach music I'm sure mathematically and different ways um yeah it's interesting I don't talk about it too often it's kind of interesting like trying to even I'm hearing myself talking I'm like that make any sense why do you think that's so like sticky to get caught in like the minds uh impressions of what's happening and the strategy and yeah wanting something to be a certain a certain way like I
(07:50) imagine that you've been on to this like letting go and tuning into what's already here for a long time yeah but to be aware of it's one thing to practice it yeah is another that other aspect right of getting caught super strongly in the identity yeah seems to be very sticky right why do you think that has such a strong pull well I think at the at the heart of it a lot of musicians at some point want to be recognized or maybe famous or known so you have to keep kind of honing in what it is that you do and
(08:28) what your identity is who you're reaching for an audience that kind of thing yeah you do I mean I've been there too especially when I was younger I mean I started this real early so I did my first U.S tour when I was 18 just out of high school and like that tour I had to book um through magazines and writing letters to clubs with you know CDs and and actually waiting to hear back from them via letter and I mean it wasn't so quick with the emails at that point or anything like that so at that time I certainly was like
(09:04) trying to push my specific band my songs My you know just trying to I want to be a successful musician um and yeah you can get a little backfire of pain and disappointment and you know all the things that come with identifying with the thing and pushing hard and you know overcoming uh you know obstacles or you know um yeah I mean I was definitely in many just rock and roll bands where we were pushing hard and trying to do better than the other bands you know you'd be playing on a bill with maybe three bands and
(09:44) you're trying to light the stage on fire and make the other bands almost like be like oh geez you know um especially when you're on a tour opening for a band that's more popular or more famous Maybe you know you brought 50 people to the show and they brought 500 and you're the opening act but really you're trying to like play better than them because you wanna you know then that's and that's the whole world of music I think over time and with my own successes I was able to kind of loosen up from that
(10:14) mentality or maybe also disappointments or just um seeing you know like that sort of hierarchy in the music industry for sort of what it is in a lot of ways and being like okay I gotta re-check in with why music is so special to me and you know for me luckily doing that more and more over the years has also created more opportunities and success or something you know so it's like one of those it's one of those things you can take a couple different routes and um yeah I mean yoga and yogaville has been very helpful to opening up this you know
(10:54) type of music for me that has been an interest since I was young like a young kid like making more ambient atmospheric music that was just like mood things and you know atmosphere I've been doing that since I was a kid but never really considered like maybe I should be doing this like a lot more I was always like a songwriter who would write like two and a half minute songs and you know compose something pretty tightly so it's been nice maybe the last like 10 years or so like working on was there anything specific that allowed
(11:28) this type of music to elevate um well there was a couple things and one of them was Satya greenstone here um when I took her teacher training I had made some ambient music and I always work with synthesizers I've been doing that forever but um Satya had me play in her restorative yoga class A few times like a live um situation right here in samadhi and she told me that was the first time she had ever had anyone do live music and kind of took a chance because it was a teacher training and um you know at that time it was like 25 or
(12:04) 30 people and when you're in restorative yoga you're in a really vulnerable relaxing place and so to be like yeah just you know do the music it's like all it takes is one or two like pretty bad notes and not that it's like the end of the world but it definitely takes you out completely of what you're feeling oh that's um so having that sort of like pressure to just keep it super chill I did maybe two sessions with her and it was like really beautiful and I could feel like the holding the space not only for
(12:36) yeah just for the whole room and just playing the music and being like wow okay there's a lot more here at stake or to hold on to than just like moving to the next idea moving to the next idea like there's actually people like completely opened up relaxed and so that was really sort of eye-opening to me is just like um yeah that people need that type of music and that I I was good at that you know I was like oh yeah it's totally natural for me and then she asked me to make some tracks record them for a video
(13:09) she was making for integral yoga like a restorative thing so I went and was like I mean she's so inspiring to me as a teacher but I was like of course it's like you're composing something for your teacher so yeah I went home and um worked on a couple different pieces for her and I thought they came out great and she used them for a little video she made so then I was able to see it in action and to give myself a little confidence too to be like wow this amazing yoga teacher who I look up to is now using my music
(13:42) and her videos so that was like empowering in some ways made me want to keep doing more and then maybe about I don't want to say six or eight months later I got this really random call from a producer at YouTube that was looking for me to compose some music for meditation and yoga for YouTube and they knew I was a yogi and stuff like that but they were saying like you know we're getting a lot of videos on YouTube for people doing yoga and meditation and we don't have any music that's available
(14:13) for that for people when they're making videos so they gave me this huge project which was 20 pieces of music actually they gave me a project that was 10 pieces of music and I was like tell you what I'm gonna make I want to make 20 and they're like okay like it's still going to be the same deadline but I was really like I was like I'm gonna I had a bunch of ideas and just went after it and ended up making this like three hour long album of meditation music but it came right on the heels of working with
(14:40) Satya and just like went right into this like Smooth transition that was like you know that particular one I'm always like oh that's the grace of the guru because I went from like working on this little project in samadhi to like doing this project that like millions and millions of people have heard now and it all was like one smooth transition that I wouldn't have seen coming at all and it happened right before the pandemic so it was released April of 2020 I had finished it at the end of 2019 and like
(15:10) right when it came out it was right when the pandemic was hitting so everyone was in their house and they needed relaxation and so it was It was kind of surreal and since then it's influenced my live setup so I do performances now that are way more relaxing people lay on the floor sometimes and sometimes I'll leave yoganidras and so yeah it's really changed like in a lot of ways the way that I've been approaching music and enjoying it um because yeah I mean I was in a I mean this is I got this when I was 18 on my
(15:43) first tour so you know I'm not a flaming skull you know it's like I've come a long way with the different types of music and yeah yeah I wonder um if people who go to you know a rock concert yeah anything more more intense if they're still ultimately looking for the same or a similar thing that people who are you know laying down to listen to this ambient music are looking for like is it is it all about healing really even if I'm not right in music like I'm not into metal music really or stuff that's like super
(16:22) hardcore music but I think at the end of the day even that music is for people to like find some sort of healing whether it's like camaraderie with the people going to the show or the release of some emotion is stuck in them or a freedom or something you know it must be um for me I think that like what I would call like the Psychedelic experience which doesn't have to do with drugs it's more of like I think once I got into yoga more and more it's like that same experience where it's like that loosening of the
(16:56) veil of just oh this is who I am what I'm here for this is what I have to do today but that place where you kind of like that all fades away and you're having like a a moment um and I think that even in my rock and roll band like that's what we were going for we were trying to lift people to this point that was outside of their normal I show up to a show I drink a beer I clap like but something that's like whoa this is transcendent oh my God all of a sudden the harmonies and the energy and everything it reached this
(17:23) point where people are like you know and so I think yeah I've always been trying to do a similar thing and it's like hypnotized people to this like Beauty and awe of just sound and life maybe in general um so I yeah I agree I think in some ways I think it doesn't matter what type of music people are usually looking for that same kind of thing yeah and and maybe it's the same for The Listener of of what's happening there that when I'm really tuning in that the identity is gone and there is just the
(17:57) music just like for the musician also the The Listener the real gift yeah is when there's no me anymore yeah yeah I love that yeah one of my best friends he lives out in Los Angeles and um he's a great musician he went to Berkeley College of Music um and graduated as a jazz trumpet but then he just became a baker and like a really high-end Baker and like started making pastries and started making all these different things and now he runs like a restaurant and a bread shop and all these places in La is super
(18:31) successful nothing to do with music but I went and stayed with him for a few weeks and he has this whole wall like the prop wall just filled with vinyl records and I mean unbelievable records and going to his house at the end of every day he'd work so hard and I'd just be sitting around playing guitars and waiting for him to come home from work he'd come home and like he would put on a record and he would really just sit and like listen to the record and that was like and and I actually forgot that that's like a thing
(19:00) because I'm always making music if I'm not making music either I'm doing yoga or doing something but to remember that people just come in like these brilliant people that work super hard do all these things like they'll put on a record and sit and like right in between The Sweet Spot of the speakers and just really use that as their meditation and yeah exactly he probably loses himself completely makes a cup of tea and he's just sitting there and he's just like I am in the sound yeah so important I wonder about this
(19:29) with music too if maybe we've overdone it without becoming more aware of like the importance of the question of how much yeah right even the things that feel like so healthy yeah like music yeah can I have too much of it where the value is starts to to lose itself like even I think about things like you know water right because it's so plentiful yeah you know just because it's plentiful does that mean that I should cherish it less yes okay so in relation to music yeah you know is that happening a little bit
(20:04) because there's all this amazing music out there and I'll be in the grocery store and they'll be playing and I'll be driving my car and music will be playing and it's just like all the time and I love what you shared about your friend just coming home and that is the only thing that he's doing yeah and the deeper times when I'm really tuned into the music yeah it feels like it's appropriate to honor it at that level yeah to to be yeah completely focused on it and nothing else yeah
(20:38) yeah I think music can just also distract us from things and take us out of things you know as well or music can be like reinforcing heartbreak memories and you know maybe you need that but you know it can also be tough like it can be hard to get over certain things if you keep listening to the song that's breaking your heart because it's so raw and I'm totally guilty of that and that's a beautiful way to work on that or reflect on some you know I mean I'll love a song and listen to it over and over and over for
(21:13) months you know and uh yeah I don't know sometimes if that's overdoing it sometimes and it might it totally could be be like Oh I'm just going back to the same vibration that's comfortable and either safe or makes me feel a certain way but um but yeah is it the now is it like what's really happening or am I just putting on this thing and then also just like needing music all the time throughout the day music playing all the time like you were saying in the grocery store like it's so funny I live near a Whole
(21:41) Foods back in Boston and um I'll go in there and I'll hear songs that like I love the songs and they're kind of obscure sort of but at this point they're not anymore because they're being played at Whole Foods all the time while you're just shopping for groceries and it does somehow I don't does it cheap in the songs Maybe I don't know you know I do know that some of the best hits and the finest music were when people had to go buy the physical record play it or had to sit and wait for it on
(22:11) the radio maybe you record it with a cassette deck that's what I used to do I'd sit and like wait for the song that I had heard once on the radio and people don't even realize it I mean I'm not old and I remember that very much so where I'm like literally sitting at the radio being I heard that song I heard the second half of it it sounded awesome I'm gonna wait until they play it again and I'm sitting there for eight hours doing different things and they finally play it you've missed it you
(22:36) missed the first 10 seconds or they put an ad on the top of it oh my God record and then you listen to it over and over I captured it you know it's just a different thing um and that made it super special that becomes like your favorite song because you went out and sought it and now it's like yeah it's so easily comes to you I mean I have Spotify I finally got it after kind of trying to avoid it for years and um it is funny sometimes there's so many options like a Netflix or whatever that you almost are like
(23:06) and I don't know you just put it down it's really funny yeah that that would even happen right it's so interesting there with like uh our relationships with specific songs yeah I'm considering right like you hear something the first time and and there's that uh attraction yeah you fall in love with the song right and then you're in love with it for a while and then after a certain point yeah maybe you don't want to hear it anymore because you've listened to it too much yep or you hear some of the
(23:34) tricks in there or not even tricks but you hear these like elements you're like oh or you can hear mistakes you can even like like I've listened to Beatles songs enough that I'm like oh that's really messed up the bass part and they kind of like covered it over with something and like you start hearing stuff like that or I think the practice of hearing something new and fresh again that you've heard so many times before that's a real challenge to myself like I'll be listening to a song I've heard so many
(24:00) times yeah it's like can you hear something different yeah this time or can you really hear it this time or can you find a really high quality file of it play it through a tube amplifier through two really nice speakers or a really nice set of headphones and you realize like oh my God this is what they were going for not like the sound coming out of the speaker on my phone or just like on some Bluetooth thing on the cross you know if you really and that's that's me it's like I do like to have a
(24:27) really nice sound set up because some of these musicians me included like we're spending a lot of time in the recording process doing things that are rewarded if you listen to with like either headphones or in high quality ones too because there's a lot that can be done with sound I think a lot of sound things have gotten maybe less I don't know I don't know if it's like not as high a quality but it's you make certain trade-offs for like the convenience of like one of those JBL wireless little sound bars you can throw
(25:00) in your backpack I mean it's sweet but there are certain elements of like proper sound or when I know that musicians are mixing music to sound good coming out of the speaker of a cell phone and you're like I mean I get that that's what people do but you want to raise people up to be like and have a set of left and right speakers and put yourself in the middle and make a equilateral triangle with the middle of the cones and it really does take on a whole new Sonic space you know okay but I want to go back to what you shared
(25:32) about the sequence of events that kind of led to you being more focused on this ambient music yeah yeah yeah with satya's requests and then YouTube's requests that's so it's almost seemingly random right yeah outside of your your control when something like that happens in your life yeah does that help you to prioritize this just letting go to your life because it's so obviously you know not in your control yeah absolutely yeah it's inspiring too and that's something you're trying to do more all
(26:06) the time yeah and I'm always trying to do that I don't really have like um I don't I I over the years I've developed less of a like a need to oh I want to do this I want to do that I want to do that at all I just feel like I'm super grateful and lucky I've been in a nice stream I try to work hard at the things they're presented to me and I have more creative ideas than I have time to get through so when someone steps in and gives me a little priority because they want something that's
(26:39) really helpful you know it's like okay that's the right because a lot of times I feel like I'm just doing the things getting prepared for someone randomly is going to be like hey can you do this and I'm all ready to do it it could be four years of waiting you know I don't know um yeah yeah I mean that that particular instance felt very good because it felt natural and I think that this path specifically right now what I've been doing with meditation music and colors and video projections and things
(27:12) like that it's very easy for me like it feels like I've um sort of arrived into my own thing that it just feels comfortable and that I can be as creative as I want it's still very much of service and it's an interesting interesting place to land because sometimes if you're in a rock and roll band or something you could be doing great things and people are like oh that song is awesome that's awesome but um you're still following a path that's been traveled a bunch by different bands
(27:44) and you're in this sort of music business that's sort of selling songs and images and things like that and when you kind of step out and are making like sort of ambient healing music for maybe people that are meditating or people that are doing yoga kind of takes on a different Vibe entirely I wanted to ask you about that too you know because I got a chance to experience this a few a few weeks ago yeah when you led you know it's hard to even describe what what it was yeah yeah you were performing yeah and it was kind of just
(28:19) an open practice space Oh that thing yeah for people to you know dance if you want to dance do yoga if you want to do yeah to meditate if you want to like it and what I'm curious about is what was your experience yeah facilitating this yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and like for me the crucial aspect yeah that was so special yeah is the freedom yeah like even going to a music festival which is very free yeah I don't feel that level of Freedom yeah yeah as I do in the space in the space that you led where I
(28:53) you know because sometimes I want to sit down I want to be still and I just want to be meditative yeah yeah yeah sometimes I want to let my body you know move yeah yeah well so there's a few things that's that's that's awesome thanks for first of all I didn't know that was even gonna happen here and I credited a lot of it to the yogaville community just being super cool and just like open to just being themselves so that was really sweet and I remember the next day I was talking to a friend and I
(29:16) was like I've been doing I'm doing the same thing that I do in the cities and all sorts of stuff but it's so sweet doing it here because I'm looking out and I'm just seeing like legs go up and then like the legs go up over here and then someone's dancing and then like four people are just completely motionless for 40 minutes and and I'm only seeing shadows um but one thing I would credit it to um and I've sort of been messing with this for a while is the video projections because I think when you're
(29:46) able to shut the lights off and have just moving colors and things to sort of when people want to be distracted or they want to just look at one thing and have things unfold and move around it sort of helps some way like loosen people up a little bit I don't know what it is um it works for me so I realized it worked for them I also make music out of drug rehabilitation center so when I'm back home that's like one of my main jobs and I use these video projections for the people so I come in and it's a room maybe half the size of
(30:19) this samadi room and there's maybe 30 people in there and I'll teach yoga and blast visuals all over the walls in the ceiling just bright colors moving around and something about that gives people a freedom I don't know what it is exactly but it's like well if these colors are melting on the walls and everything but like I feel more comfortable I don't know exactly why it is but somehow that helps I don't know if it's because people don't think anyone's looking at them because there's already way more
(30:51) stimulation and I think that's part of it it's like when there's just Stillness and people are talking or playing music you're aware that you're just here someone could just start looking at you like someone else could start looking at you but when you're in a space where there's already moving colors there's Sound Vibrations moving around and yeah I think your more apps to just kind of feel like you're you know a movable shadowy kind of thing and and just and then the music that I'm trying to make
(31:20) is one that would bring you inside or be like because I'm completely almost inside when I'm playing especially during that in no way am I trying to be like I'm a performer pay attention to me at all I'm like look elsewhere you know like listen it actually happened to me when I was there I was like maybe you know 30 minutes through or an hour through it I was just like oh you're like oh somebody oh yeah yeah yeah you know it's like I had years of jumping around like a nut and doing you
(31:48) know with my guitar and everything and um now it's like I just want to get lost in the sound and I would love other people too I mean if they want to look at me doing it it's fine but I mean it's really like what you're hearing so um so I think that's part of it too I think people are like oh well this guy's not doing anything I can look at him a couple times and then I'll just go into my own experience and just like trust the music and I think that's what I'm trying to do more is have people have an
(32:15) internal experience um and maybe that's because I already had my little time of being like famous and being in a rock band and all that stuff so it's like okay I remember I know what that's like I couldn't possibly want to keep doing that all the time and so you know when I travel back into the sound it's more of a internal thing and then trying to give people that experience too of just this relaxation and Harmony and um which doesn't have a ton of ego in it it really doesn't I mean the music I make
(32:48) now in some ways is a lot a lot a lot simpler I mean it's sometimes it's not changing key I mean this I mean this sounds beautiful and I love it but all it took was me tuning this for a long time and I'm just doing that I mean you could do it but it's just saying you know like getting to that point where it's like oh that sounds really good it feels good like and then I don't know so it's like in all my playing of every instrument it's like that's I'm like arriving at this place that's like even more simple
(33:17) yeah I wonder a lot about this if it just in Outlook in life can be much simpler than we make it yeah and where it gets really complicated is when I'm trying to um understand predict how someone else is reacting as opposed to just trusting in the experience that I'm having especially in relation to this right like that's kind of what I hear you saying a little bit is is you moving to the place where you're just doing what feels good to you and you're just allowing yourself yeah to experience your time well yes you
(33:57) know and it just so happens that the byproduct of that is something that's very valuable to other people but I wonder like would it be as valuable to other people if you were more focused on making it valuable for them it's a good point I don't know yeah I mean I would find I find that the best music that I came up with for this meditation album were the tracks that when I would go back and listen I would almost be like whoa that when like I wouldn't recognize that I was doing it I'd be like oh I must you know you just set up
(34:32) all the conditions to record all the sounds you do all the sound design of your keyboard maybe there's eight different sounds that you blend through and you set up everything you set up the vibe you have your cup of tea you make sure you're super chill and that's just to like begin but then I might play for two three hours and I'll listen back to it maybe a week later for real I'll listen back to it and in there I'm like whoa there's like 25 minutes there where I don't know what was going on and
(35:02) I don't know what's going on I know that I was there pressing the keys but I'm not um thinking about it so much and um yeah there's something really simple to that I mean I'm not doing anything difficult at all but I am setting up the conditions and just being tuned in and allowing you yourself to have a good experience and that's the thing is my experience becomes very um very holy for myself like the experiences of just doing this are amazing and so then when I start being like wow that's really cool like I I
(35:35) don't even feel like I did that I just set up the conditions for this to be channeled through me kind of you know like I don't think of it like that like I'm a channel but it is like that I mean I really think it is music in so many ways I mean it's just you're just you practice enough that like you can just sort of open up and just play um so me doing that and getting better at that in my own practice not for anyone else I mean and before that YouTube thing there'd be times where for weeks in a row almost three hours a
(36:06) day I would find myself sitting on the floor with keyboards just practicing and playing it was for no reason other than just being in that meditative State and being in the place with sound and um so the more and more I got into that exactly more other people started resonating with that as well because I think internally we all are harmonizing to similar things and you can tell when someone's hit a place of inner peace a bit you know with sound and stuff like that you know a lot of times with ambient music
(36:35) and electronic music especially now my competition or whoever is making this a lot of it's pretty automated at this point like like there's a lot of videos on YouTube that have millions of views and it's like eight hours of relaxing music blah blah and I'll click on it and I'm like I can tell I'm like this is a computer or this is someone programming a computer to make relaxing music like they're not even there and no one's hitting a keyboard no one's like free you know no one's doing that and it's
(37:03) still pretty good but I'm amazed that people can tell the difference people write to me and the way that they write to me about the meditation music is like I can tell there's something in there that you have um and it that I don't know there's some there's something there and that's been revealing to me like oh people can tell the difference between like a human going deep with sound and a human that is trying to make deep music for people by using a computer or something you know it there's there's almost a subtle
(37:37) difference but there's a difference and so I don't know it just there's probably the time just spent sitting and doing it I love what you mentioned about setting up the conditions yeah yeah I think this is really important to realize that this is what's happening whether whether it's music yeah or I set up a specific time for myself to meditate or do yoga or yeah whatever it is that that's what's happening is that I'm setting up the conditions for myself to have a positive experience
(38:10) and potentially tap into this Flow State really that maybe our hearts are are craving absolutely yeah yeah it's exactly it's the same as meditation and everyone knows like you have a better meditation when you are like okay I'm gonna wake up this time I'm taking a shower I'm putting on my meditation outfit going into that one spot I'm not going to check my phone you know all the ritual and the thing to prepare yourself for that it's super important same with yeah it's totally the same with music I
(38:40) mean you're setting up the conditions to be free to feel open and supported yeah yeah I mean it's it almost feels like you know it's you know getting high but without using any substances but that's really what we want is we want to get high we want to connect with God we want to feel good feeling good is is being high it's feeling late you know that's how I got that job at the the rehab like I had a friend who was a counselor there and she had been working there for years and she got me an interview with the
(39:09) owner of and it's a really nice big modern drug rehabilitation center and and I don't have any specific like training with that my mom actually was a drug real Rehabilitation counselor as well but um but they were like so what do you wanting to do and I and I said well like to be totally honest I want to make people feel like they're on drugs which without drugs and and um let's not beat around the obvious here like all these people are here because they took it way too far with drugs but they did that because they
(39:43) were trying to reach a state of peace and healing and this place where they could release from just being their person with all their tensions and all their problems and their mother-in-law you know this and that and you know just all the things um and luckily for me I've been able to figure out ways for sound and light to help people do that so it's like yeah I'm trying to get people to feel like they're high with sound and light and maybe that's really the only way to replace what honestly someone who's in rehab oh yeah
(40:11) you know their situation replace it with a cleaner natural high exactly it doesn't have this I was talking to Durga Leela about it because she was here when I first arrived and I showed her some of the clips you know of what I've been doing and I was like is this something that is this you know basically it was like I don't know anyone's doing this is this cool like and she was like yes this is amazing because people that are coming in especially early days of rehab they can barely get off the floor
(40:36) sometimes and just coaxing them with sound and light to feel comfortable to sit up and just kind of passively take things in and get a little more energy and awareness it's like it's huge I didn't even she put it into words for me but I was like yeah I think that's what's happening actually because I've seen these like amazing results from people that come in um all messed up you know totally messed up and within two or three months they're like thank you so much for this and oh you know yada yada loving the
(41:06) visuals showing up taking their shoes off getting a blanket just getting cozy I mean just the fact that you have a room of you know all strangers that are all there for one reason and now they're like getting psyched to Get Cozy take their shoes off relax like you know maybe sleep that kind of thing um it's really it's really been cool it's really been cool for me to experience that do you find when when what you're doing is feeding other people yeah you know and helping them that that feeds you
(41:41) back absolutely yeah that's motivating you to continue I mean like yeah is that even your main interest what I said um well I mean it's honestly when I first started that job or even teaching yoga it's like I'm like terrified I don't I don't love doing it every every you know not not every time but for many months it's scary because you think of yourself like I'm not a teacher man I got so many problems on my own I got this I get that and I gotta show up for this group of people and hi well you know
(42:12) um but yeah seeing the reflection and seeing that it's actually helping and it really does fuel me to do it more and more because it's like oh wait this is actually working people are telling me that this is their experience so I need to start believing them and believe in myself and believe in what has you know what has been happening because I mean this is still just that extension of what I was saying with Satya into the other project the meditation music and so now I'm not just doing it in my
(42:40) studio but I'm doing it with people in real life and that's when it totally becomes a different thing like I'm honestly planning to start traveling around and trying to hit up yoga studios I had mentioned it to you just just doing this very thing and being in real life about it and connecting with people um yeah I wanted to ask you about art and creativity yeah because when I go on your YouTube channel and watch some of the videos I mean they're so creative oh thanks yeah and I'm wondering if you can
(43:15) share just a bit about that process like yeah how does something like that manifest well a lot of those videos are collaborations with my friends that are just incredible artists um and but they're like close friends you know I like to work with my close friends and luckily over the years I've cultivated some relationships with people that are just like insanely talented and know me so like there's the video where I'm like a bunch of gnomes like little gnomes and I'm riding on the top of my dog and going through all
(43:44) these Adventures um that's actually like one of my closest friends that I grew up with I've known him since I was a little kid and uh he ended up becoming a really well-known like video editor or any edits TV shows and you know and I had this song that was successful and doing well and I said hey could you have any ideas for making a video for this and you know he was like yeah this would be fun he had all the ideas and he wrote out the whole thing he shot you know so it was just like and I just became like
(44:12) this actor in my own little video some of the more psychedelic videos with the um the mandala sort of art that's like changing everything that's actually this guy who's now in his mid 70s and he started making that art in the 60s and it's just this beautiful process that he came up with making sort of machines with fragments of light and sending you know light beams through it and then capturing it on a wall and I mean all sorts of this elaborate video stuff but his intentions was totally to put people
(44:47) in a meditative relaxing space I mean the intentions were the same so when we met and became friends it was like a no-brainer it was like oh we're meant to be working together um so yeah I guess following some of my passions and following some of my creative ideas have just led me to these places of working with other people that are in the same kind of you know spectrum and um yeah and and obviously color for me for some reason has always been really the color and sound Spectrum have always been kind of mashed I don't think I have
(45:26) like synesthesia but something like that you know where it's just it all feels tied in um so ever since a young age music has always been sort of like hand in hand with some kind of visuals for me if possible another thing that I noticed it seems to be a relation interesting relationship with with history with us passives things that are that are old that you like like old cartoons yeah westerns and things like that what's what's going on yeah I I honestly um you know I think I was born in the right
(46:00) era but I definitely relate to older time periods in terms of Art and music a lot more um especially the 60s and I don't know if there was just like a Renaissance of just thought and you know people breaking out of old paradigms and so there was like an explosion of I mean a huge reason why I ended up getting turned on to integral yoga was because I had already been a fan of like Peter Max and art like that and things like that and once I started realizing the scope of the history of integral yoga and like oh Carol King one of my
(46:33) favorite songwriters she was involved Alice Coltrane she was involved one of my favorite musicians like these artists and the type of colors and sounds that were being inspired by also this practice and everything it was really appealing to me um but yeah I you know with both of my parents being musicians when I was a young kid I inherited a lot of my dad's record collection so I mean I would be five or six years old going cover to cover on like every Bob Dylan record every Beatles record every Simon and
(47:05) Garfunkel record every you know just the whole gamut and then back from that I mean my favorite um comedians are Laurel and Hardy from the 20s and 30s I just something about older stuff um I don't know if there's like a purity to it because it's like there wasn't as much I don't I don't know I just always feel like I'm looking to the Past in some ways to be inspired to create things for the future I don't get super inspired by things from the 90s on in terms of Art and maybe that's because so much money
(47:43) was thrown into the mix by that point that like it just felt like I mean I know commercialization was always happening but it felt like I don't is it the tail wagon the dog or something at some point but it feels like a certain point it just became like too Business Heavy and it affected the art to me and then it affected the culture and then the culture reflecting the art and I don't feel super in tune with pop culture at all in the last bunch of years but it's interesting because I do feel like I'm a pop artist in a lot of
(48:17) ways even when I'm making meditation music and stuff like that I'm thinking about it from a sort of Pop standpoint in that it should be relatable to all people or a lot of people like I'm not trying to make art for like just a specific I'm trying to make it for someone who's 80 years old in a wheelchair a little kid you know like people in the inner city like I want to make music that can kind of touch different people so that's I guess what you're trying to do when you're making pop music
(48:43) but I think that from like maybe 1985 forward I'm like less and less inspired by and that's just me so maybe I just use it as my own secret tool because I just have always been but like if you look at my record collection or like my computer files of songs I mean it goes so far back and just like yeah not modern yeah at all do you think also that could have something to do with just a relationship with our childhoods maybe yeah yeah is there something so fresh and new and all inspiring about life yeah yeah yeah I
(49:21) mean I got I got into the things in the 2000s and the 90s I mean I got everyone you know I had a you know I'm learning Nirvana songs and all this all the stuff but what I really like look back and what's like internally yeah it's older stuff is like like cartoons that are hand drawn rather than ones that are now just computer and stuff like that you know yeah uh finally I wanted to just ask about your experience in the teacher training if you have anything to share about what that's done for you it's been what that
(49:51) you just finished a couple days ago yeah it was three weeks of you know yoga immersion yeah it's amazing I mean it's incredible so I um I came in April and I staffed uh the basic teacher training uh with Swami divinanda and that was amazing I hadn't been back to yoga though since before covid I've been coming here since maybe 2012 I figured it out so um that was great it was great to be like sort of warmed back up into um you know a sort of like schedule that happens all day long or you know just a
(50:30) thing area constantly something's happening and then yes stepping into that three-week intermediate teacher training I mean it was incredible it was incredible um there was points where like it felt like my body was like burning off so much Karma and just like realigning itself I mean there's there's a point where you're like halfway through it and I didn't know many of the yoga positions and the intermediate or the next levels I kind of I stick with my my basic class um love it use it as a moving meditation
(51:03) and that gets me to be able to sit comfortably and that's what I'm doing it for but when I saw that Satya was having another training that that didn't happen too often and I was just ready to come down and like step up my personal practice um and I totally got that you know by the end I was doing headstands in the correct way that you know you learn here and you know learning peacock and getting into peacock and getting into all like realizing like oh like there's a lot of things that I can be
(51:36) doing with this body that I didn't even try or know about before me and vyasa were maybe the third day into it doing like lizard pose and a couple like hip opening things and we're the same age we were born in the same year and uh we're looking at each other like how did we not know about hip opening like you know we we both are kind of like just kind of dumb to it and then just realizing oh my God my body feels so much better now we're so much more open and um the energetic awareness that I got
(52:06) from the ICT was astounding um like I already feel like I'm pretty good energetically like on you know feeling and feeling other people around me and things like that but coming out of that with all the pranayama and just like really tangibly feeling Prana and understanding like whoa and just seeing how I was when I showed up as opposed to now when I'm leaving you know it's like a remarkable difference um right on the last day of this teacher training my best friend from growing up called me and we hadn't talked in
(52:44) several months and he called me because he saw a picture of me working on the farm at yogaville and he was like oh my God he's like Jesse's been at yogaville I forgot he was still there he's been he's going deep um and so he called me and he was just asking me you know how it's been and I could hear myself just super excited just talking to him like I'm feeling the best I've felt in so long super healthy super inspired um just like what an amazing community and this and that and it was really cool to
(53:16) hear myself telling because you hear yourself telling stories about what's going on and sometimes it's not the best and it was really cool to hear myself talking to my friend in it inspiring him him being like sounds awesome man it sounds really you know it was cool I can just tell my vibration in general is just um High my body feels really clean and just yeah peaceful and really inspired I mean there's points with making music that you're trying to find that peaceful Clarity to just be a channel to to relax
(53:48) and play and sometimes it takes a little bit of work to find that and so having these couple months here to just train and to be with Sangha and with all these people doing it together um it's it's unbelievable you know it's like I feel so grateful for that well thank you for sharing yeah I'm grateful to have gotten to know you yeah miss having you around here that's for sure yeah I'm going to be back sooner yeah absolutely uh would you mind all right so I brought some chopsticks see if we can get into a little Vibe
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