drummer meets dharma: a tale of musical devotion

Hi, angel! Welcome back to the inside of my brain!

Here’s a transcript of the podcast episode above for all my voracious readers:

Let's get one thing straight, y'all. Yoga is not a stretch. Yoga is not a breathwork technique.

Yoga is a feeling. A feeling of union with the supreme soul, a feeling of pure, unconditional love and devotion. Today I'm here to tell y'all the story about how I came back to that feeling after losing it for so long.

Welcome back to another moment of stillness. If you're new here, my name is Etai. I'm coming to you live today from New York City, the only home I've ever known. I just got back from solo traveling all over Asia for a whole year. I was studying yoga, I was bound at the feet of many elders, I was hiking through nature, and now I'm back home for just a few weeks before I begin my next adventure.

While I was traveling in Asia, something happened. We built a community of over 400,000 yogis, and my one mission in this life is to share with y'all all the ancient yoga knowledge that I've studied and change it into modern tools for transformation that my chronically online generation can understand.

So today I'm here to address a common misconception about yoga, and I want to tell you about it through a little bit of personal experience. We're going to be talking about Bhakti Yoga today.

To put it simply, Bhakti Yoga is the yoga of devotion. We have Karma Yoga, which is the yoga of action, of philanthropy, of public service. We have Jnana Yoga, which is the yoga of knowledge, of studying, of scholarship. Bhakti yoga is the yoga of prayer, of chanting, of mantra, of loving the divine.

Bhakti yoga practitioners understand that if you can cultivate this feeling in your heart, then all the other imbalances in your life will take care of themselves. This feeling is the most important pursuit any of us can have in this life. Sometimes we think material possessions will get us there, and sometimes they do get us there for a little bit. But due to the cyclical and dual nature of this material world, those highs never last. There's always a comedown. Bhakti is the practice of staying in that state of love.

There are many ways to practice Bhakti Yoga, but the one I want to talk about today is Kirtan. Kirtan has changed my life completely.

Kirtan is a style of music that's super popular in India and in yoga communities all over the world. Essentially, it involves a lot of singers gathering around, some of them with instruments like harmonium or drums or chimes, and everyone's chanting mantra. What is mantra? Mantras are Sanskrit phrases that are divinely tuned for resonance with the divine.

What do I mean by that? When you make different vowel sounds like O or Ah or E, it creates different cymatic waves in the body. If you don't know what cymatics is, it's the study of the shape of sound waves. Different sound waves have different geometric patterns, and yogis have known for a long time that different cymatic patterns have different effects on the body, mind, and spirit. Every mantra is engineered for a specific outcome, and the mantras we use in Kirtan are engineered for divine love.

This is a kind of music like nothing I had ever heard before.

Listen, way before I was a yogi, I was a musician. In fact, I was a drummer in a rock band for seven years of my life. All I wanted growing up was to be the drummer in a band that toured all around the world for a living. That happened to me when I was 17, and I feel very lucky that happened at such a young age because it made me realize that it wasn't actually what I wanted, and it forced me to ask a lot of spiritual questions. Because of that, I wasn't sure what my relationship with music was for a very long time, until I discovered Kirtan.

I want to tell you a little bit more about what Kirtan really means to me by reading you this journal entry that I wrote about it.

Here's a piece about how yoga and Kirtan helped me fall back in love with music.

How Yoga Taught Me to Sing Again

Yoga killed my writer's block. Gone are the days of finite creative juices. How many times can I pour my holy devotion onto a page before the message gets old? Before the well runs dry? I'll let you know if it ever does. For now, my every artistic act is an offering crafted for God. No more asking, "Why am I writing this? Who is this for?" I know exactly who I'm addressing. It's all prayer.

But long before I was a writer or a yogi, I was a musician. My parents met in their high school marching band. They had to drag me into my first piano lesson as I kicked and screamed in protest. I was eight years old. I hated it. But at 10, I floated over to the throne of a drum kit and fell in love. By 16, I was the drummer of a rock band. Together, we missed much of high school touring the world instead. Pure euphoria and oxytocin would rise up in me nightly as we graced massive stages, but the lifestyle left me nocturnal, and morning signified comedowns of a torturous caliber. The kit was my life. The rest was limbo.

I smoked away the space between gigs in the studio. I smoked shallow songs into existence during intermittent spells of sobriety. My fishing lines in the sea of music seldom caught game. I'd get frustrated once it all flopped. I'd think it was all to get back on stage. I had no regard for anything else. Creativity stopped being fun. My addiction masked itself well. That's when yoga found me. Mundane monotony became beautiful. Breath became a drug. God became real. The sun welcomed me home to the hug of its warm rays. I even put the pipe down for good.

I rushed about my sadhana to anybody who'd listen. I became obsessed, feeling deeply called to disperse the light I'd found, tirelessly utilizing word of mouth as my vessel to pass on the dharma lessons that changed my life. Consequently, I came to find out that the relationships I'd carried over from life before yoga weren't built to nourish my new passion. I was misunderstood and dismissed, even scoffed at by friends I'd long considered allies. Above all, there was no place in my band's music for my devotional sentiments to find expression.

To cope, I turned to the tabula rasa of blank white paper. I wrote pages and pages of love letters to the cosmos within me. I drew looming, life-sized pastel portraits of meditating sadhus. I set out to employ art as a bridge that could lead me to like-minded humans. But instead, I stumbled into a dialogue with the supreme soul that hasn't ceased since. That blooming relationship made my goals shift. I set out to become God's favorite instrument. "Let me be your channel. Play me like a marionette. Your wish is my command." That's what I was telling myself. That's what I was telling Him, I should say. To this day, I haven't tired of being the wagging finger on God's grand hand, but something's still missing. I'm still terrified of making music. Why does the sonic medium intimidate me so much more than the verbal or visual?

God has allowed me to vault music's towering barrier of entry and endowed me with technical proficiency. Yet I feel so much safer exploring mediums that force me into the role of a novice. With no cerebral haze of talent or training hanging above me, I'm free to reach up into the heavens, unencumbered, and glean creative energy from its true source: whimsy, innocence, and curiosity. But above the sea of music, my sky is overcast. Sprawled out on my back in a rocking rowboat, I look up at these white pillows of mist—obstructions formed as theory lessons, technique drills, and industry scars. They seem impenetrable, severing me from my musical inner child.

Luckily, as opaque as a cloud may appear, any arm long enough can effortlessly perforate its wispy swirls and reach pristine blue heavens. Its boundary is a mere illusion. In one moment, all previously held limiting beliefs of the explorer are shattered.

In yoga, we call these magical words mantra. Mantras are not just spoken; they're sung in melodies and poems specifically tuned to divine cymatic resonance. The most potent mantras simply evoke endlessly powerful Hindu deities: Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, Krishna, Lakshmi, Parvati, Ganesha, Hanuman. As the names of these gods enter the larynx of a singer, divinity itself reverberates down the spine, soaking the whole body in unconditional love. Yogis have made a ritual of gathering to repeat these holy names for hours on end, getting exuberant, intoxicated on their own oxytocin. We call this Kirtan. When I experienced Kirtan for the first time, I found my path back to heaven. Word.

The call-and-response between band and audience, where every crowd member enthusiastically echoes back the leaders' melodic runs, reminded me of the symbiotic exchange necessary for a memorable concert. The accompanying sounds of harmonium, mridanga, and kartals—all timbres I'd never heard before—reminded me that instruments don't need electronic amplification to resonate. The living atmosphere of the event space—Kirtans usually take place in tidy, consecrated yoga shalas or Hindu temples—reminded me that live music can exist outside the Western monolith of dark clubs with sticky floors and expensive bars. The absence of applause at each improvised composition's conclusion—the room instead falls into silent meditation when performances end—reminded me how rare it is for music to demand such unbridled presence and sensitivity.

Above all, the simplicity of the music itself, mostly confined to rudimentary pentatonic scales and common time signatures, reminded me that the soul of a performance has nothing to do with mechanical proficiency. That last reminder stirred a gust of wind so intense that it banished all clouds above me, revealing a pristine blue horizon. Hanging in the air was the source of musical creativity I'd been yearning for: my immortal self, my inner deity. A complete absence of crushing knowledge. In Bhakti, the yoga of devotion, of pure oxytocin, I've remembered how to forget.

If the feeling came in a pill, we'd all take it. I'll certainly be enjoying my daily dose now that Kirtan has cleared my musical conscience. I'll let it pour from me freely, just as words and images have. Every note and squeak will be dedicated to the bhaktas that came before me. They showed us all what it means to touch the sky. May our every creation inch in their direction, tell their story, and make them proud. May we all resume our rightful roles as humble instruments in this cosmic symphony.

So that's what I wrote about Kirtan, about Bhakti. This has been on my mind, coming back home and thinking about what kind of music I want to make now that I'm back with all my gear. I realize that Kirtan is the closest to yoga that music can get, and that inspires me so much. I can't wait to see where this journey of Bhakti takes me, and I know that before long, I'll be leading Kirtans of my own.

What I want everyone to take away is that yoga comes in many shapes and sizes, y'all. You don't have to roll out your mat. You don't even have to be flexible. Never forget that the true definition of yoga is union, connection, understanding inter-being. Once again, don't be mistaken. Don't confuse a temporary high with a sustainable yogic path. If you need a substance or certain conditions to get there, then you'll be a prisoner.

I encourage you to try Bhakti, to listen to some Kirtan. In the description, I'll include some of my favorite Kirtan songs. I believe that every yogi should know about Kirtan, but unfortunately, most do not, especially if you started doing yoga in America. I feel so thankful that I was able to travel India and learn about Kirtan straight from the source.

Before I get out of here, I want to let y'all know I've opened up some time for one-on-one yoga calls. I can help you with any problem under the sun by giving yoga advice. Whether you have back pain, anxiety, insomnia, self-doubt, tight hips, breathing problems, or addiction problems, let's get on the phone and I will help you design a yoga routine that's custom-made for you. Check it out!

In the meantime, stay smiley, stay chanting, stay devoted, stay loving. I know you will. I hope you dream a happy dream tonight and enjoy the Kirtan that I've shared with you.

I love you so, so much. I appreciate you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for giving me your time. Peace and love.