AI transcript
0:00:07 In 2018, Madison Smith told the county attorney she’d been raped by a classmate, but he told
0:00:11 her he couldn’t charge him with rape.
0:00:16 Then she found out Kansas is one of only six states where citizens can petition to convene
0:00:18 their own grand jury.
0:00:24 Having to tell over 300 strangers about what happened to me seemed so scary.
0:00:26 I’m Phoebe Judge.
0:00:27 This is Criminal.
0:00:35 Listen to our episode, The Petition, wherever you get your podcasts.
0:00:36 Hey, this is Sean.
0:00:41 We’re running a special series this week on creativity, and thinking about this topic
0:00:44 brought me back to one of my favorite episodes of The Gray Area.
0:00:49 I spoke with pioneering musician, LaRajie, about a lot of things, but what lingered with
0:00:54 me was his theory of creativity, which he describes as a kind of surrendering.
0:00:59 For LaRajie, to create is to get out of your own way, to get out of your head and drop
0:01:01 into the moment.
0:01:05 Creativity understood in this way is really the art of spontaneity.
0:01:08 It’s all about opening yourself up, and anyone can do it.
0:01:11 It’s a beautiful idea, and I wanted to include it in this series.
0:01:17 I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
0:01:24 There’s an old saying that writing about music is like dancing about architecture.
0:01:27 It’s intended as a dig at music criticism.
0:01:30 But beneath that, there’s a deeper truth there.
0:01:33 Music is intangible, subjective.
0:01:37 It’s universal, yet still deeply personal.
0:01:43 And while, yes, science and math are involved in its creation, there is something undeniably
0:01:45 mystical about it.
0:01:51 And that mysticism is worth exploring.
0:02:05 I’m Sean Elling, and this is the Gray Area.
0:02:13 The music you’re hearing now is the 1985 song “I Am Sky” by today’s guest, LaRajie.
0:02:18 The 80-year-old pioneer of so-called new-age music has been sitting in the lotus pose on
0:02:24 the fringes of the music world for decades, and recently, he actually joined Andre 3000
0:02:31 on stage for the first performance on his “New Blue Sun” tour in Brooklyn.
0:02:36 When he was young, LaRajie experimented with acting, including a role in the landmark film
0:02:38 “Putney Swope.”
0:02:44 He also spent time in the 1960s stand-up comedy scene in New York.
0:02:49 But after he became interested in spiritual communities and discovered the auto-harp,
0:02:52 he devoted his life to music.
0:02:59 So naturally, I was delighted that he could join us today to talk about music, meditation,
0:03:04 spirituality, and laughter.
0:03:10 LaRajie, welcome to the show.
0:03:12 Thank you, Sean.
0:03:13 I’m so glad you’re here.
0:03:21 I have a lot of interesting people on this show, but you, sir, are truly one of a kind.
0:03:24 So this is a treat, really.
0:03:26 It’s unique to be here.
0:03:28 It’s new-age communication.
0:03:34 You know, I’m so intrigued by all the artistic interests you’ve had in your life.
0:03:37 You’ve done stand-up comedy, you’ve done acting.
0:03:41 Obviously, in the end, you gave yourself over to music.
0:03:44 Why music, above all else?
0:03:51 I think music has the most immersive impact, transport of impact on my life.
0:03:55 There was since a child, even though I didn’t verbalize it, I went with the flow.
0:04:01 Music, whether it was for dancing or listening on the radio or within church, it was no
0:04:03 contest about the winner.
0:04:08 It was music and sound that could shift me instantaneously.
0:04:16 And I liked that I could use music to please others or to set their feet moving or to inspire
0:04:17 them to sing along.
0:04:25 So I enjoyed the power of music, almost the undisputed power of music, to set inner settings
0:04:29 in which alternative realities become clearer.
0:04:35 You know, I’ve always been fascinated by stand-up comedy in particular.
0:04:39 It’s the thing I do if I had the talent to do anything, and I don’t know, maybe it’s
0:04:46 a strange question, but did the experience acting and doing comedy make you a better
0:04:51 musician or was it just creatively a totally different thing?
0:04:54 It’s the same thing, Sean.
0:04:59 Wherever I choose to open and give expression to, I’m practicing the art of surrendering
0:05:08 and spontaneity, and that carries over from music into humor and a lot of my laughter
0:05:13 life is involved with spontaneous interaction, social interaction with friends, and that’s
0:05:20 the same kind of spirit, free flow, inventive spirit that I depend upon in music and proposition.
0:05:23 I think that’s why I’m a lousy musician.
0:05:26 I’m too in my own damn head.
0:05:31 I can’t just open up and let it go and just, you know, be in the flow or however you would
0:05:34 put it, surrender, I guess, is the way you put it.
0:05:35 Yeah.
0:05:38 I said, “People who have trouble surrendering,” I said, “observe your body language when
0:05:39 you have your next orgasm.”
0:05:40 I don’t see how.
0:05:46 I don’t think anybody wants to see that.
0:05:51 But look at your breath, look at your body language, look how focused you are into surrendering
0:05:54 to this energetic expression.
0:05:59 And I see some of that expression carried over into the way people sing pop music or
0:06:00 rock music.
0:06:03 They’re into the most orgasmic, passionate level of release.
0:06:11 And do you think of yourself as primarily an improvisational musician for those reasons?
0:06:13 That question is a really good question.
0:06:14 I’m tempted to say yes.
0:06:19 I depend more on improvisation than I do on set scores.
0:06:25 I find that improvisation is aligned with what I call my spiritual belief, that every
0:06:29 moment is new and to trust that what I need in this moment is here.
0:06:35 I’ve been listening to a lot of your music, preparing for our chat, and so much of it
0:06:39 sounds otherworldly to me, like in the best sense possible.
0:06:47 And I feel this way when I listen to great musicians who just seem like they are convening
0:06:53 with some kind of creative energy or creative force that I just can’t touch, but at least
0:06:56 I can vibe with it.
0:07:02 That’s what fuels artists’ enthusiasm to have people like you to serve.
0:07:10 So you are part of the reason I like doing professional music and doing shows, that I
0:07:15 feel that I’m able to articulate, maybe express for you what you would do if you were in my
0:07:16 shoes.
0:07:17 Humans always talk about that.
0:07:19 You know, they feel like they’re not writing or playing music.
0:07:20 It’s more like they’re conduits.
0:07:21 I mean, is that?
0:07:22 Yes.
0:07:25 Is that what it’s like for you on stage?
0:07:30 Yes.
0:07:38 And it’s magical and mystical and transported place because you’re witnessing somehow beyond
0:07:44 linear time flow, but you’re in the midst of local time, but you’re also witnessing
0:07:47 an unbroken constant present time.
0:07:50 It’s speaking through me and it’s speaking as me.
0:07:53 It’s like it’s my total presence at that time.
0:07:54 I’m sound.
0:07:55 I’m space.
0:07:56 I’m timelessness.
0:08:06 And I’m witnessing in the midst of this going on.
0:08:09 Music that happens surprises me at times.
0:08:11 It’s like music I can’t dream up.
0:08:18 Part of my art is knowing when to get out of the way, how to set up a musical flow or
0:08:36 a musical event and then to step to the side of it and let it speak through.
0:08:42 Your instrument of choice is the auto harp, which is not exactly conventional.
0:08:44 What is it about the auto harp?
0:08:49 Well, how you open the question, my instrument of choice, well, it’s the instrument that
0:08:54 was chosen for me, for me.
0:08:55 Fair enough.
0:09:02 I would not have chosen the instrument except for a mystical communication event in a pawn
0:09:05 shop in Queens, New York, 1974.
0:09:07 Tell me more about that.
0:09:08 Yes.
0:09:15 It was at a time that I was married, child, and we were living with my in-laws.
0:09:20 And I was playing jazz rock piano with a group called Winds of Change.
0:09:29 And on one particular day, I felt like my finances were low and I had a good Yamaha
0:09:33 steel string guitar that I wasn’t using it, although I loved it.
0:09:38 I decided to take it into town, South Ozone Park Queens, and pawn it.
0:09:45 And as I was going into the store, I noticed in the window, right-hand side, an auto harp.
0:09:50 And I remember thinking to myself, there’s that chunky looking instrument I used to see
0:09:52 in the village when I did stand-up comedy.
0:09:59 So I go into the pawn shop, I’m ready to exchange my guitar and a Martin’s fiberglass case
0:10:00 for $175.
0:10:05 And the clerk on the offer me $25.
0:10:08 And I said, whoa, that’s not going to work.
0:10:14 And just about then, the clerk and I were the only one in the store, so it was very quiet.
0:10:19 And there was this moment of, am I going to really settle for $25?
0:10:26 And this very clear, distinctive directive came through, says, don’t take money, swap
0:10:30 it for the instrument in the window.
0:10:34 And so here was something trying to help me make a choice.
0:10:36 And I thought it was way out.
0:10:38 How was this voice appearing?
0:10:43 And I heard it so clear, there was so much love and so much wisdom that I just had to
0:10:45 see where this was going to go.
0:10:58 So I left that pawn shop with $5 on the auto harp.
0:11:06 So when you said instrument of choice, something in that, it’s also my life of choice, something
0:11:11 has impacted me in such a ways to make choices that are more aligned with, I would say, a
0:11:22 higher intelligence.
0:11:27 You also sing, not always, but the singing, it feels part of the music.
0:11:33 There’s little distinction between the instruments you’re playing and what’s coming from your
0:11:34 voice.
0:11:35 Do you think of it that way?
0:11:38 Your voice is just another instrument, not something separate?
0:11:39 Yes.
0:11:48 I do like doing everything at the same time, spontaneous, unified flow, create a flow with
0:11:56 several instruments at the same time, using the voice without calling the mental process
0:12:12 into linear thinking.
0:12:19 Using the voice as an emotional, expressional instrument is what I’ve been exploring, especially
0:12:25 with meditation or deep contemplation of contacting altered planes of conscious present
0:12:26 time.
0:12:35 So to talk about it is to take the mind out of it.
0:12:40 Then there’s sounds of passion, passionate immersion.
0:12:48 The voice can be used to express witnessing inside of an awe-inspiring perception, just
0:12:55 to be in the passionate emotional moment and to let it speak through and use the body,
0:12:56 not just the voice.
0:13:03 So the whole body becomes the voice and the breath and the movement and become a conduit.
0:13:12 And so invented or improvisational language can be the evidence of a person or a practitioner
0:13:19 in total immersion, total submission, getting involved with a total perception that’s beyond
0:13:29 linear description.
0:13:36 I also consider that if you can use gibberish, if I’m called gibberish or glossillaria or
0:13:46 talking in tongues, to relax the mind from its conditioning into gathering linear information.
0:13:50 So the mind is given or the brain is given a vacation.
0:13:58 And in that vacation place, it might be freed up to have an alternative space-time experience.
0:14:03 And that might be the message the artist wants to convey that there is an alternative way
0:14:05 of being conscious here and now.
0:14:13 I’ve heard you talk about music as a tool for total presence, like a way, I think the
0:14:16 way you put it is, it’s a way of dropping into the now.
0:14:17 And I like that.
0:14:21 Why do you think music has that kind of effect on us?
0:14:29 I think generated or channeled by the right musician or artist, the artist is in a state
0:14:37 of contemplation or meditation or a suspended time awareness.
0:14:42 And the languaging that occurs with their instrument, their interaction with their instrument
0:14:49 and with their voice can convey this repurposing of the human instrument, repurposing it from
0:14:57 a conveyor of local human-based emotion to a conduit of exalted emotion.
0:15:04 Direct perception inside this timeless present moment is always available.
0:15:11 Certain sounds, drones can do that, music that’s very spontaneous, that can pull the
0:15:18 mind out of linear thought, could allow the perceiver, the listener to subtly, directly
0:15:24 notice the reality of eternal time and the infinite space.
0:15:32 Sound works primarily as a suggestion, through suggestion, and it can point to the invisible.
0:15:39 And sound can suggest the flowing of energy, the flowing of blood, the flowing of breath.
0:15:47 It can suggest the integration of seemingly separate and discordant aspects of anything.
0:15:54 It can provide a model of an all-pervading unity and harmony, in the case of a harp where
0:16:00 all 36 strings are vibrating at the same time and producing this synergetic tonal event.
0:16:06 So as to say that sound can, through suggestion, it can point to the invisible, it can point
0:16:15 to the transcendent, it can direct the emotional body out of heaviness so that lightness, a
0:16:19 more ethereal resonance, can be directly witnessed.
0:16:22 That is so damn interesting to me, you know.
0:16:27 And you know, there’s that laugh, we’re going to talk more about that briefly, but you talk
0:16:32 about talking and how that kind of gets us stuck in linear time in our heads, and you
0:16:39 know, once we start using words, we’re already in the world of ideas and abstractions, but
0:16:41 music is more primary than that, right?
0:16:46 It touches something in us that existed before we invented words.
0:16:50 It’s primal, I guess, in that way.
0:17:07 Yes, I agree with that, Shawn.
0:17:15 Music might be able to say more than what speech can say in the case of getting an audience
0:17:22 to drop into deep relaxation without using words, but using sound, or to get a group
0:17:30 of people roused up in a noble pursuit of an ideal vision.
0:17:37 My general mode of operation is to prepare before performance or recording through just
0:17:44 dropping into a refined sense of the meditative field, do some yoga postures, some breathing
0:17:51 exercises, some positive affirmations, and then to sculpt this field or point to this
0:18:00 transcendental field and letting it transmit itself into a sound reposition through me.
0:18:06 And this happens, I tend to call it sound bath, celestial sound bath, though it’s for
0:18:11 immersing the immersion experience, and once again here, we’re away from the words and
0:18:16 we’re into the pure, impacting force of sound.
0:18:21 You do sing, though, and you do have lyrics on occasion, and one of your earliest recordings
0:18:23 is called “All of a Sudden”.
0:18:24 Yes.
0:18:53 And, you know, “All of a Sudden” is this refrain about the spiritual awakening, and
0:18:57 is that how you experienced your musical or spiritual epiphany?
0:19:02 As in, you know, it was just sudden like that, does a song correspond with the time when
0:19:03 you felt that shift?
0:19:04 Yes, very much.
0:19:12 I was visiting Florida at the time on a tour of doing inspirational music and songs.
0:19:17 I was interfacing with several spiritual communities that practiced meditation and I would join
0:19:18 them.
0:19:24 And what I observed in meditation experience is that I may have forgotten why I’m meditating
0:19:28 until, boom, all of a sudden I realized while I’m meditating, this is to contact a different
0:19:30 version of present time.
0:19:35 All of a sudden it’s a different sky, it’s a different reason, it’s a different world.
0:19:41 I discovered that earlier in long hours of sitting meditation that a different version
0:19:45 of the universe slips into view, something that’s always been here.
0:19:50 So actually when I say “All of a Sudden” it’s really “All of a Sudden” I’m ready to have
0:19:51 this experience.
0:19:56 All of a sudden it’s a different game, it’s a different place, it’s a different state
0:19:57 of mind.
0:20:15 All of a sudden it’s a different world, it’s a different rate of vibration, clearly.
0:20:21 It’s a shift in perception, it’s a shift in the way that I am gathering information.
0:20:27 And it’s a beautiful experience too because the tendency is to search along the plane
0:20:33 of the linear that I’ll get there one day, I’ll get there tomorrow, I’ll find it in somebody
0:20:38 else’s yoga session or in somebody else’s religious manual.
0:20:42 But the preparation for yoga is to be ready now.
0:20:49 Learn how to relax and stay relaxed when there is a divine epiphany or divine intervention.
0:20:55 How not to block it, not to over intellectualize it with words.
0:21:01 But how to be ready for this sudden emergence or the sudden revelation or the sudden opening
0:21:03 of the doors of perception.
0:21:09 And then being ready means how not to freak out.
0:21:14 And that’s usually called a bad trip, a bad psychedelic trip.
0:21:17 When all of a sudden is too much, all of a sudden I don’t have a body.
0:21:18 What is this?
0:21:19 All of a sudden…
0:21:20 Oh yeah.
0:21:21 I’ve been there.
0:21:22 It’s rough.
0:21:29 You just gotta hold on for dear life until you come out the other side.
0:21:33 Do you actually find a meaningful distinction between music and meditation or is it all
0:21:36 just different manifestations of the same practice?
0:21:42 Well, that is a super dandy question because my ultimate answer is that they’re one and
0:21:49 the same, meaning that in the moment of deepest meditation, I consider meditation to be the
0:21:53 highest romance and that romance is the highest meditation.
0:22:02 My experience of a very high, if not the highest, romantic meditation is and was during listening
0:22:08 to a cosmic sound current going on where I am, pervading all that I am and pointing
0:22:11 to a self that is beyond the body.
0:22:17 So this meditation is simultaneous with music that couldn’t be separated.
0:22:25 So to answer your question, yes, in the deepest and fullest experience that I call meditation,
0:22:30 there is a musical event when we can debate what is music.
0:22:34 It doesn’t have to be the top 40 Grammy Award-winning hit.
0:22:43 It can be the movement of energy and consciousness in such a way that has balance, form, aesthetic
0:22:54 quality and has equilibrium and mystically it has a very clear mathematical character.
0:22:57 Why can’t I hear the cosmic sound current, Leraji?
0:23:01 When I sit on the cushion and meditate, I find myself just sitting there thinking about
0:23:02 meditating.
0:23:03 Really?
0:23:05 Which seems to not be the idea.
0:23:11 My answer is that you are aware of the inner sound current and that you are not aware of
0:23:14 the you that is aware.
0:23:15 That’s my answer.
0:23:23 You are aware right now, but there is a you that you’re involved with that is not allowing
0:23:28 the you that is aware to be your dominant present-time experience.
0:23:33 So once again, I’m saying everything everywhere is permeated by a cosmic music.
0:23:36 So to answer your question, why don’t you hear it?
0:23:41 My refraining of the question is why aren’t you aware of yourself hearing it?
0:23:42 I don’t know.
0:23:45 I don’t know.
0:23:47 I don’t know.
0:23:53 What is the most glorious awe of lifting sound listening experience you can remember?
0:23:57 The sound of my infant child laughing.
0:24:01 Most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.
0:24:02 Yes.
0:24:12 No doubt that’s beauty, that’s music.
0:24:17 When we get back from the break, we talk about Leraji’s development as an artist and a chance
0:24:21 collaboration with one of the world’s most revered producers.
0:24:35 Stay with us.
0:24:38 Your name, Leraji, where did that come from?
0:24:46 Leraji as a name came out of an association with a spiritual community here in Harlem,
0:24:53 which centered around a bookstore on the corner of Lenox Avenue and 125th Street.
0:25:01 I would offer my music at that time by sitting outside of the store or in the vestibule,
0:25:07 and one of these occasions, two of the spiritual community members approached me and said,
0:25:12 “You know, we’ve done some research and we’ve taken your name, Edward Larry Gordon.
0:25:21 Edward Larry Gordon, Larry Gordon, Larry G, and we’ve morphed it into a name that includes
0:25:24 reference to the sun god, Ra.
0:25:28 These spiritual community members didn’t know that I was already looking for a name
0:25:32 and I intuitively suspected it would be three syllables and have something to do with the
0:25:33 sun.
0:25:35 So when they approached me, they said, “We have a name for you.
0:25:36 We want to suggest it.”
0:25:40 I said, “Well, well, I have a little concern because if I didn’t like the name, I would
0:25:41 embarrass somebody.”
0:25:47 I said, “Let’s meet in Central Park tomorrow and you can reveal the name to me.”
0:25:52 We get to Central Park, we found a place, and they revealed the name to me as Leraji,
0:26:01 which is a gentle transition from Larry Gordon to Leraji, but I was very impressed with this
0:26:07 synchronicity and I accepted the name there in Central Park.
0:26:09 My friends took it very easily.
0:26:14 My biological family members thought it was interesting.
0:26:18 They made a sincere attempt to use the name.
0:26:20 My mother was very polite.
0:26:28 She would make an attempt to use the name, but she reminded me that whatever you call
0:26:34 yourself, “I’m your mother.”
0:26:38 Her favorite words was, “Take care of yourself and you’re taking care of me.”
0:26:42 Was this around the time, as you mentioned earlier, you were busking, you were performing
0:26:46 music in the streets of New York, and that led to a fortuitous collision with the very
0:26:50 famous musician and producer Brian Eno.
0:26:51 How did that come about?
0:26:52 Yes.
0:26:58 It was playing music in the parks and the plazas of New York City and Brooklyn.
0:27:04 What I was doing was earning money while testing the idea of channeling or performing music
0:27:11 in altered states to see what could I bring any meaningful uplifting experience to New
0:27:13 Yorkers, random public audience.
0:27:18 It turned out to be so that the Museum of Natural History, Central Park, and one of
0:27:25 my favorite more constant places was the northeast corner of Washington Square Park.
0:27:31 One evening, I was performing with my eyes closed, as I usually do, cross-legged, sitting
0:27:39 on a carpet in one of the cobblestone circles there, and that’s where Brian Eno left me
0:27:47 a message in my zither case, introducing himself and an idea he was offering to listen
0:27:52 to a project he was working on, and he thought I would be interested.
0:27:56 So I call him up, and the next day I go to visit him, and we have this talk.
0:28:02 I’m still not clear who he is, I just know he’s a producer, and he worked for Frippanino.
0:28:11 But his energy was that he was an avenue to getting my music into a high-end recording
0:28:12 studio.
0:28:18 This was also the time during my spiritual practice to practice scientific praying.
0:28:23 What that is is affirmations, whatever you want, you act like you’ve got it, you think
0:28:29 like you’ve got it, and you develop a sense of emotional presence as if you’ve got it.
0:28:34 And since you don’t know what it is that you want, you don’t particularly give it a name,
0:28:37 you just use generally “right,” the word “right.”
0:28:43 So I remember praying for the right producer, and the right producer coming into my creative
0:28:49 life and the right producer finding it very inspiring to work with me.
0:28:55 So it turns out that the right producer was Brian Eno, and I never knew Brian Eno.
0:29:00 I didn’t know enough to know that that would be the right producer.
0:29:05 So there’s that meeting of Brian Eno and the Day of Radiance album.
0:29:28 It’s so good, my God.
0:29:34 I just felt an automatic shift of my attitude of being in a studio, of shifting to a very
0:29:42 high professional attitude, and a feeling that I was connected to a very classical inner
0:29:46 conduit that would come out as beautiful new music.
0:29:51 None of that was pre-arranged or written out or scored.
0:29:58 It was all in the moment after doing my usual preparation of centering and getting into
0:30:10 a flow state.
0:30:14 When did laughter become such an important thing for you?
0:30:20 It shifted the energies of the bullies in my neighborhood when I was young to use humor.
0:30:27 I would be so afraid of their presence when I could use humor, and in the church we’d
0:30:32 use humor when the church would get boring, and because I wasn’t the right place to use
0:30:38 it, we’d use it to get some of our other peers to laugh in the middle of a serious sermon.
0:30:46 But I noticed the power of laughter to alter, to break the sense of rigidity and separation.
0:30:54 I began writing scripts in high school and doing situation comedy for talent shows because
0:30:59 I enjoyed seeing people lose it to laughter.
0:31:05 The family I grew up in, the uncles, the aunts, the cousins, all were laughter friendly.
0:31:08 So laughter was always on the menu.
0:31:16 I can’t remember even a funeral where laughter was outlawed.
0:31:20 You really do see it as a transformative force, don’t you?
0:31:25 Well, after doing stand-up comedy and decided to let stand-up comedy go for a while and
0:31:32 just focus on music, it was a book by Raj Nish, Osho Raj Nish, to help me realize that
0:31:40 I could access the laughter experience without doing comedy and that I could guide other
0:31:49 people into the laughter zone and enjoy the deliciousness of laughter without using humor
0:31:56 and at the sacrifice of something, of human standards or a human character.
0:32:01 And now through laughter play shops, I call them, we use laughter to get people into the
0:32:06 play zone and to get them into contact with their inner child and to get them into deep
0:32:16 relaxation and I really enjoy laughter now because it can come up out of people without
0:32:18 it having to be nervous laughter.
0:32:23 The entire body can get involved, the entire breath can be open and it’s getting sweeter
0:32:29 and more delicious every time I do one of these.
0:32:32 You said it gets us to the play zone.
0:32:37 You really mean laughter is a way to transcend the thinking mind, just to get out of that?
0:32:38 Yes.
0:32:43 Someone put it into words, Raj Nish pointed out that when you’re laughing, really involved
0:32:49 with laughter, that you or us who are always laughing is not thinking, they’re not involved
0:32:51 in the thought process, linear thought.
0:32:58 That may be so if you’re into pure, open laughter, if it’s nervous laughter where you’re mindful
0:33:03 of a threatening situation, that would be a different situation.
0:33:09 But real full-bodied, cathartic laughter, you’re releasing faster than you can think.
0:33:14 So there’s no thought process, processing what it is that’s been released.
0:33:20 It’s just yummy, open, nurturing release.
0:33:24 Is that cathartic full-body laughter?
0:33:28 Is that an expression of bliss for you when it comes out?
0:33:34 It’s laughing openly can be bliss, but what I’m talking about is conscious bliss or mindful
0:33:35 bliss.
0:33:41 I’ve laughed for 70 minutes once, and the result was akin to breathwork.
0:33:45 And breathwork, if you’ve ever done it, can take you into bliss.
0:33:55 So on that level, mindful laughter and intentional laughter can bring us to the bliss zone very
0:34:04 easily.
0:34:08 When we get back from the break, Larajji tells us what he’s learned in his 80 years
0:34:10 on this planet.
0:34:23 Stay with us.
0:34:28 You’re obviously a musician, but also a spiritually serious person.
0:34:35 Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,
0:34:36 ha, I love it.
0:34:39 But that spirituality is so central to your life.
0:34:44 You’ve been a professional musician for decades, performing all over the world, you’re entangled
0:34:47 with the business and the commercial side of music.
0:34:52 I guess I just wonder how you navigate that element of being a professional musician and
0:34:55 being a spiritual person at the same time.
0:35:05 Well, I did many years ago get it that unless I integrate my spiritual nature, I would never
0:35:10 be totally happy, content, or experience resolution, because I can’t get it from the
0:35:11 physical world.
0:35:17 I’m not hating the physical world, but things in the physical world are temporary.
0:35:23 And then constantly, we’re reminded things come, they stay, and then they leave.
0:35:28 And some things are just too beautiful for us to accept that they’re ever going to leave.
0:35:37 And I grew to understand that behind the world that is changing, there is this spiritual field
0:35:44 that if I learn how to embrace it constantly, even while I’m embracing my outer wealth,
0:35:50 that when the outer wealth shifts, I’m not bent out of shape because I’m still connected
0:35:54 to this inner spiritual platform that doesn’t get bent out of shape when the outer world
0:35:55 shifts.
0:36:03 So for me, staying constant and staying with my spiritual practice allows me to be more
0:36:09 playful and less fearful of the physical world and less fearful of change and less fearful
0:36:10 of losing.
0:36:17 And so I find that the spiritual side helps me to be more present, more experimental,
0:36:21 and more risk-taking with my music for expression.
0:36:25 Was there ever an opportunity you had that you couldn’t take or wouldn’t take because
0:36:29 it would have compromised you musically or spiritually?
0:36:38 There was one situation that I was hesitating to take, and a friend reminded me that I could
0:36:47 sublimate my spiritual message or spiritual energy and do the engagement, so I did it.
0:36:57 And I also was reminded spiritually that rather than curse the darkness, light a candle.
0:37:06 That shifted me from being gun-ho about resisting wrong assignments, that if I feel I can still
0:37:13 shine my light or let light shine or let joy prevail during that assignment or that gig
0:37:16 or project, I will tend to take it.
0:37:21 Any gig that I would not take would be if I thought there was not healthy, either for
0:37:27 pollution reasons or that the environmental setting is physically unsafe.
0:37:33 But for now, I’ve been guided to see that every opportunity is an opportunity to represent
0:37:36 the all-pervadingness of one spirit.
0:37:37 What do you mean by that?
0:37:45 I mean that right now, one all-pervading spirit, maybe you could call it bliss, love, or light,
0:37:50 is everywhere, not only in the universe, it’s creating the universe.
0:37:52 That all of spirit is everywhere.
0:37:58 I can perform anywhere, and knowing that all of spirit is there, and I can allow spirit’s
0:38:01 presence to receive reflection or representation in that place.
0:38:09 I think I’ve also heard you say that you think our core spiritual problem is our misidentification
0:38:10 with our bodies.
0:38:11 What does that mean?
0:38:12 I’m not going to ever do this.
0:38:14 I wouldn’t think of doing this to you, Sean.
0:38:15 To what?
0:38:17 What are you going to do to me?
0:38:23 I would amputate your leg, your feet, you’re still there, your torso, you’re still there,
0:38:26 your arms, your elbows, you’re still there.
0:38:27 That’s tough.
0:38:28 You’re just ahead, and you’re still there.
0:38:32 None of your ears and nose goes, you’re still there, your lips and tongue goes, you’re still
0:38:33 there.
0:38:38 Suddenly, your head disappears, but you’re still there, and you’re saying to yourself,
0:38:40 “Wait a minute.
0:38:42 I thought I was that body.
0:38:43 Look, I’m timeless.
0:38:44 I’m invisible.
0:38:45 I’m weightless.
0:38:48 What do I do with this?”
0:38:57 I believe that identification with the physical body, which is birth, that lives, that dies,
0:39:03 and we get attached to it, and we get sentimental with it, and we try to enjoy its five senses,
0:39:09 and we forget or we don’t access the joy that we can have, more expansive joy we can have
0:39:14 through the infinite self that is always here.
0:39:21 You, perhaps your buddies, have had an epiphany through the use of certain ceremonies where
0:39:28 you’re suddenly in another sense of present time and space, a different sense of expansiveness,
0:39:36 a different sense of how time is unfolding, slower or not at all, and that to have this
0:39:44 experience is to be taking advantage of a different form of body.
0:39:51 The deepest sense of happiness and joy, I feel, comes from having an intimate communing
0:40:00 experience with my eternal present time self, the spiritual presence which is always here,
0:40:02 always everywhere.
0:40:08 It just needs to be totally present to dig it and to catch it and to wear it and to behold
0:40:10 it.
0:40:18 In all these years, playing music, experimenting, performing, composing, creating, what do you
0:40:24 know about music now that you didn’t know when you started?
0:40:33 Yes, because it’s such an international audience now, and it’s taught me that there is a universal
0:40:44 receptivity to emotional, sensual, ambient soundscapes.
0:40:51 There is an automatic acceptance of receptivity to beautiful music and to beauty being expressed
0:40:58 in music, into timelessness, into spiritual voicing through music.
0:41:03 That there is a receptive audience, it’s taught me that there is an audience here, that there
0:41:10 is an inner witness waiting to hear itself reflected in our music.
0:41:16 You’re 80 years old, you’ve been making music for over 40 years, you’ve lived such an interesting
0:41:20 life as an artist and a contemplative.
0:41:23 As you sit here now today, what is your spiritual mission?
0:41:32 What gets you out of bed every day?
0:41:37 What gets me out of the bed is mentally I’ll go through what I have to do the moment I
0:41:43 get out of bed, and I’ll visualize myself standing up, either electric toothbrush on
0:41:48 my teeth or preparing tea or doing some yoga exercise.
0:41:53 Usually what gets me up is a sense of a daily agenda, which is different every day, something
0:41:58 that I’m going to do the day that I’m going to really enjoy, whether it’s music, performance
0:42:04 or designing new tuning, or getting to know new pieces of equipment, or sitting for an
0:42:10 extra period of time in meditation either in lotus position in my house or I’m going
0:42:16 for a walk in Central Park or Riverside Park, and sitting on a bench in the sun and getting
0:42:18 into meditation.
0:42:25 What keeps me enthusiastically involved in life and passionately involved with life
0:42:32 is the sensation of an eternal non-human intelligence that’s generating this thing
0:42:38 called creation, and it’s allowing me to participate in it and to co-witness and to co-collaborate
0:42:47 with it, and that in the midst of this, it is remaining invisible, remaining infinite,
0:42:52 and I’m feeling it through my connection with it, and so it’s not the most what I’m getting
0:42:58 out of bed for, but what I’m getting out of bed as, I’m getting out of bed as this sense
0:43:06 of conscious improvisational collaboration within the divine, alternating intelligence.
0:43:13 But when I’m doing tours and I’m put in a nice, beautiful hotel, I’ll get out of bed
0:43:16 for the breakfast.
0:43:28 Well, what can I say, you are one of one, and it was lovely getting to know you a little
0:43:30 bit here.
0:43:31 Thank you, Sean.
0:43:47 I appreciate your calm, cool, collected style.
0:44:16 You know, I’m not sure I would have returned to this conversation if we weren’t doing
0:44:24 this series on creativity, but I’m so glad I did because listening to it with creativity
0:44:31 in mind allowed me to take so much more from it, things that I missed the first time.
0:44:37 But, of course, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the episode, so drop us a line at the grey
0:44:43 area at fox.com, and when you’re done with that, make sure you rate and review the pod.
0:44:44 Thank you.
0:44:45 .
0:44:52 Thank you.
0:44:54 (gentle music)
0:45:04 [BLANK_AUDIO]
0:00:11 her he couldn’t charge him with rape.
0:00:16 Then she found out Kansas is one of only six states where citizens can petition to convene
0:00:18 their own grand jury.
0:00:24 Having to tell over 300 strangers about what happened to me seemed so scary.
0:00:26 I’m Phoebe Judge.
0:00:27 This is Criminal.
0:00:35 Listen to our episode, The Petition, wherever you get your podcasts.
0:00:36 Hey, this is Sean.
0:00:41 We’re running a special series this week on creativity, and thinking about this topic
0:00:44 brought me back to one of my favorite episodes of The Gray Area.
0:00:49 I spoke with pioneering musician, LaRajie, about a lot of things, but what lingered with
0:00:54 me was his theory of creativity, which he describes as a kind of surrendering.
0:00:59 For LaRajie, to create is to get out of your own way, to get out of your head and drop
0:01:01 into the moment.
0:01:05 Creativity understood in this way is really the art of spontaneity.
0:01:08 It’s all about opening yourself up, and anyone can do it.
0:01:11 It’s a beautiful idea, and I wanted to include it in this series.
0:01:17 I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
0:01:24 There’s an old saying that writing about music is like dancing about architecture.
0:01:27 It’s intended as a dig at music criticism.
0:01:30 But beneath that, there’s a deeper truth there.
0:01:33 Music is intangible, subjective.
0:01:37 It’s universal, yet still deeply personal.
0:01:43 And while, yes, science and math are involved in its creation, there is something undeniably
0:01:45 mystical about it.
0:01:51 And that mysticism is worth exploring.
0:02:05 I’m Sean Elling, and this is the Gray Area.
0:02:13 The music you’re hearing now is the 1985 song “I Am Sky” by today’s guest, LaRajie.
0:02:18 The 80-year-old pioneer of so-called new-age music has been sitting in the lotus pose on
0:02:24 the fringes of the music world for decades, and recently, he actually joined Andre 3000
0:02:31 on stage for the first performance on his “New Blue Sun” tour in Brooklyn.
0:02:36 When he was young, LaRajie experimented with acting, including a role in the landmark film
0:02:38 “Putney Swope.”
0:02:44 He also spent time in the 1960s stand-up comedy scene in New York.
0:02:49 But after he became interested in spiritual communities and discovered the auto-harp,
0:02:52 he devoted his life to music.
0:02:59 So naturally, I was delighted that he could join us today to talk about music, meditation,
0:03:04 spirituality, and laughter.
0:03:10 LaRajie, welcome to the show.
0:03:12 Thank you, Sean.
0:03:13 I’m so glad you’re here.
0:03:21 I have a lot of interesting people on this show, but you, sir, are truly one of a kind.
0:03:24 So this is a treat, really.
0:03:26 It’s unique to be here.
0:03:28 It’s new-age communication.
0:03:34 You know, I’m so intrigued by all the artistic interests you’ve had in your life.
0:03:37 You’ve done stand-up comedy, you’ve done acting.
0:03:41 Obviously, in the end, you gave yourself over to music.
0:03:44 Why music, above all else?
0:03:51 I think music has the most immersive impact, transport of impact on my life.
0:03:55 There was since a child, even though I didn’t verbalize it, I went with the flow.
0:04:01 Music, whether it was for dancing or listening on the radio or within church, it was no
0:04:03 contest about the winner.
0:04:08 It was music and sound that could shift me instantaneously.
0:04:16 And I liked that I could use music to please others or to set their feet moving or to inspire
0:04:17 them to sing along.
0:04:25 So I enjoyed the power of music, almost the undisputed power of music, to set inner settings
0:04:29 in which alternative realities become clearer.
0:04:35 You know, I’ve always been fascinated by stand-up comedy in particular.
0:04:39 It’s the thing I do if I had the talent to do anything, and I don’t know, maybe it’s
0:04:46 a strange question, but did the experience acting and doing comedy make you a better
0:04:51 musician or was it just creatively a totally different thing?
0:04:54 It’s the same thing, Sean.
0:04:59 Wherever I choose to open and give expression to, I’m practicing the art of surrendering
0:05:08 and spontaneity, and that carries over from music into humor and a lot of my laughter
0:05:13 life is involved with spontaneous interaction, social interaction with friends, and that’s
0:05:20 the same kind of spirit, free flow, inventive spirit that I depend upon in music and proposition.
0:05:23 I think that’s why I’m a lousy musician.
0:05:26 I’m too in my own damn head.
0:05:31 I can’t just open up and let it go and just, you know, be in the flow or however you would
0:05:34 put it, surrender, I guess, is the way you put it.
0:05:35 Yeah.
0:05:38 I said, “People who have trouble surrendering,” I said, “observe your body language when
0:05:39 you have your next orgasm.”
0:05:40 I don’t see how.
0:05:46 I don’t think anybody wants to see that.
0:05:51 But look at your breath, look at your body language, look how focused you are into surrendering
0:05:54 to this energetic expression.
0:05:59 And I see some of that expression carried over into the way people sing pop music or
0:06:00 rock music.
0:06:03 They’re into the most orgasmic, passionate level of release.
0:06:11 And do you think of yourself as primarily an improvisational musician for those reasons?
0:06:13 That question is a really good question.
0:06:14 I’m tempted to say yes.
0:06:19 I depend more on improvisation than I do on set scores.
0:06:25 I find that improvisation is aligned with what I call my spiritual belief, that every
0:06:29 moment is new and to trust that what I need in this moment is here.
0:06:35 I’ve been listening to a lot of your music, preparing for our chat, and so much of it
0:06:39 sounds otherworldly to me, like in the best sense possible.
0:06:47 And I feel this way when I listen to great musicians who just seem like they are convening
0:06:53 with some kind of creative energy or creative force that I just can’t touch, but at least
0:06:56 I can vibe with it.
0:07:02 That’s what fuels artists’ enthusiasm to have people like you to serve.
0:07:10 So you are part of the reason I like doing professional music and doing shows, that I
0:07:15 feel that I’m able to articulate, maybe express for you what you would do if you were in my
0:07:16 shoes.
0:07:17 Humans always talk about that.
0:07:19 You know, they feel like they’re not writing or playing music.
0:07:20 It’s more like they’re conduits.
0:07:21 I mean, is that?
0:07:22 Yes.
0:07:25 Is that what it’s like for you on stage?
0:07:30 Yes.
0:07:38 And it’s magical and mystical and transported place because you’re witnessing somehow beyond
0:07:44 linear time flow, but you’re in the midst of local time, but you’re also witnessing
0:07:47 an unbroken constant present time.
0:07:50 It’s speaking through me and it’s speaking as me.
0:07:53 It’s like it’s my total presence at that time.
0:07:54 I’m sound.
0:07:55 I’m space.
0:07:56 I’m timelessness.
0:08:06 And I’m witnessing in the midst of this going on.
0:08:09 Music that happens surprises me at times.
0:08:11 It’s like music I can’t dream up.
0:08:18 Part of my art is knowing when to get out of the way, how to set up a musical flow or
0:08:36 a musical event and then to step to the side of it and let it speak through.
0:08:42 Your instrument of choice is the auto harp, which is not exactly conventional.
0:08:44 What is it about the auto harp?
0:08:49 Well, how you open the question, my instrument of choice, well, it’s the instrument that
0:08:54 was chosen for me, for me.
0:08:55 Fair enough.
0:09:02 I would not have chosen the instrument except for a mystical communication event in a pawn
0:09:05 shop in Queens, New York, 1974.
0:09:07 Tell me more about that.
0:09:08 Yes.
0:09:15 It was at a time that I was married, child, and we were living with my in-laws.
0:09:20 And I was playing jazz rock piano with a group called Winds of Change.
0:09:29 And on one particular day, I felt like my finances were low and I had a good Yamaha
0:09:33 steel string guitar that I wasn’t using it, although I loved it.
0:09:38 I decided to take it into town, South Ozone Park Queens, and pawn it.
0:09:45 And as I was going into the store, I noticed in the window, right-hand side, an auto harp.
0:09:50 And I remember thinking to myself, there’s that chunky looking instrument I used to see
0:09:52 in the village when I did stand-up comedy.
0:09:59 So I go into the pawn shop, I’m ready to exchange my guitar and a Martin’s fiberglass case
0:10:00 for $175.
0:10:05 And the clerk on the offer me $25.
0:10:08 And I said, whoa, that’s not going to work.
0:10:14 And just about then, the clerk and I were the only one in the store, so it was very quiet.
0:10:19 And there was this moment of, am I going to really settle for $25?
0:10:26 And this very clear, distinctive directive came through, says, don’t take money, swap
0:10:30 it for the instrument in the window.
0:10:34 And so here was something trying to help me make a choice.
0:10:36 And I thought it was way out.
0:10:38 How was this voice appearing?
0:10:43 And I heard it so clear, there was so much love and so much wisdom that I just had to
0:10:45 see where this was going to go.
0:10:58 So I left that pawn shop with $5 on the auto harp.
0:11:06 So when you said instrument of choice, something in that, it’s also my life of choice, something
0:11:11 has impacted me in such a ways to make choices that are more aligned with, I would say, a
0:11:22 higher intelligence.
0:11:27 You also sing, not always, but the singing, it feels part of the music.
0:11:33 There’s little distinction between the instruments you’re playing and what’s coming from your
0:11:34 voice.
0:11:35 Do you think of it that way?
0:11:38 Your voice is just another instrument, not something separate?
0:11:39 Yes.
0:11:48 I do like doing everything at the same time, spontaneous, unified flow, create a flow with
0:11:56 several instruments at the same time, using the voice without calling the mental process
0:12:12 into linear thinking.
0:12:19 Using the voice as an emotional, expressional instrument is what I’ve been exploring, especially
0:12:25 with meditation or deep contemplation of contacting altered planes of conscious present
0:12:26 time.
0:12:35 So to talk about it is to take the mind out of it.
0:12:40 Then there’s sounds of passion, passionate immersion.
0:12:48 The voice can be used to express witnessing inside of an awe-inspiring perception, just
0:12:55 to be in the passionate emotional moment and to let it speak through and use the body,
0:12:56 not just the voice.
0:13:03 So the whole body becomes the voice and the breath and the movement and become a conduit.
0:13:12 And so invented or improvisational language can be the evidence of a person or a practitioner
0:13:19 in total immersion, total submission, getting involved with a total perception that’s beyond
0:13:29 linear description.
0:13:36 I also consider that if you can use gibberish, if I’m called gibberish or glossillaria or
0:13:46 talking in tongues, to relax the mind from its conditioning into gathering linear information.
0:13:50 So the mind is given or the brain is given a vacation.
0:13:58 And in that vacation place, it might be freed up to have an alternative space-time experience.
0:14:03 And that might be the message the artist wants to convey that there is an alternative way
0:14:05 of being conscious here and now.
0:14:13 I’ve heard you talk about music as a tool for total presence, like a way, I think the
0:14:16 way you put it is, it’s a way of dropping into the now.
0:14:17 And I like that.
0:14:21 Why do you think music has that kind of effect on us?
0:14:29 I think generated or channeled by the right musician or artist, the artist is in a state
0:14:37 of contemplation or meditation or a suspended time awareness.
0:14:42 And the languaging that occurs with their instrument, their interaction with their instrument
0:14:49 and with their voice can convey this repurposing of the human instrument, repurposing it from
0:14:57 a conveyor of local human-based emotion to a conduit of exalted emotion.
0:15:04 Direct perception inside this timeless present moment is always available.
0:15:11 Certain sounds, drones can do that, music that’s very spontaneous, that can pull the
0:15:18 mind out of linear thought, could allow the perceiver, the listener to subtly, directly
0:15:24 notice the reality of eternal time and the infinite space.
0:15:32 Sound works primarily as a suggestion, through suggestion, and it can point to the invisible.
0:15:39 And sound can suggest the flowing of energy, the flowing of blood, the flowing of breath.
0:15:47 It can suggest the integration of seemingly separate and discordant aspects of anything.
0:15:54 It can provide a model of an all-pervading unity and harmony, in the case of a harp where
0:16:00 all 36 strings are vibrating at the same time and producing this synergetic tonal event.
0:16:06 So as to say that sound can, through suggestion, it can point to the invisible, it can point
0:16:15 to the transcendent, it can direct the emotional body out of heaviness so that lightness, a
0:16:19 more ethereal resonance, can be directly witnessed.
0:16:22 That is so damn interesting to me, you know.
0:16:27 And you know, there’s that laugh, we’re going to talk more about that briefly, but you talk
0:16:32 about talking and how that kind of gets us stuck in linear time in our heads, and you
0:16:39 know, once we start using words, we’re already in the world of ideas and abstractions, but
0:16:41 music is more primary than that, right?
0:16:46 It touches something in us that existed before we invented words.
0:16:50 It’s primal, I guess, in that way.
0:17:07 Yes, I agree with that, Shawn.
0:17:15 Music might be able to say more than what speech can say in the case of getting an audience
0:17:22 to drop into deep relaxation without using words, but using sound, or to get a group
0:17:30 of people roused up in a noble pursuit of an ideal vision.
0:17:37 My general mode of operation is to prepare before performance or recording through just
0:17:44 dropping into a refined sense of the meditative field, do some yoga postures, some breathing
0:17:51 exercises, some positive affirmations, and then to sculpt this field or point to this
0:18:00 transcendental field and letting it transmit itself into a sound reposition through me.
0:18:06 And this happens, I tend to call it sound bath, celestial sound bath, though it’s for
0:18:11 immersing the immersion experience, and once again here, we’re away from the words and
0:18:16 we’re into the pure, impacting force of sound.
0:18:21 You do sing, though, and you do have lyrics on occasion, and one of your earliest recordings
0:18:23 is called “All of a Sudden”.
0:18:24 Yes.
0:18:53 And, you know, “All of a Sudden” is this refrain about the spiritual awakening, and
0:18:57 is that how you experienced your musical or spiritual epiphany?
0:19:02 As in, you know, it was just sudden like that, does a song correspond with the time when
0:19:03 you felt that shift?
0:19:04 Yes, very much.
0:19:12 I was visiting Florida at the time on a tour of doing inspirational music and songs.
0:19:17 I was interfacing with several spiritual communities that practiced meditation and I would join
0:19:18 them.
0:19:24 And what I observed in meditation experience is that I may have forgotten why I’m meditating
0:19:28 until, boom, all of a sudden I realized while I’m meditating, this is to contact a different
0:19:30 version of present time.
0:19:35 All of a sudden it’s a different sky, it’s a different reason, it’s a different world.
0:19:41 I discovered that earlier in long hours of sitting meditation that a different version
0:19:45 of the universe slips into view, something that’s always been here.
0:19:50 So actually when I say “All of a Sudden” it’s really “All of a Sudden” I’m ready to have
0:19:51 this experience.
0:19:56 All of a sudden it’s a different game, it’s a different place, it’s a different state
0:19:57 of mind.
0:20:15 All of a sudden it’s a different world, it’s a different rate of vibration, clearly.
0:20:21 It’s a shift in perception, it’s a shift in the way that I am gathering information.
0:20:27 And it’s a beautiful experience too because the tendency is to search along the plane
0:20:33 of the linear that I’ll get there one day, I’ll get there tomorrow, I’ll find it in somebody
0:20:38 else’s yoga session or in somebody else’s religious manual.
0:20:42 But the preparation for yoga is to be ready now.
0:20:49 Learn how to relax and stay relaxed when there is a divine epiphany or divine intervention.
0:20:55 How not to block it, not to over intellectualize it with words.
0:21:01 But how to be ready for this sudden emergence or the sudden revelation or the sudden opening
0:21:03 of the doors of perception.
0:21:09 And then being ready means how not to freak out.
0:21:14 And that’s usually called a bad trip, a bad psychedelic trip.
0:21:17 When all of a sudden is too much, all of a sudden I don’t have a body.
0:21:18 What is this?
0:21:19 All of a sudden…
0:21:20 Oh yeah.
0:21:21 I’ve been there.
0:21:22 It’s rough.
0:21:29 You just gotta hold on for dear life until you come out the other side.
0:21:33 Do you actually find a meaningful distinction between music and meditation or is it all
0:21:36 just different manifestations of the same practice?
0:21:42 Well, that is a super dandy question because my ultimate answer is that they’re one and
0:21:49 the same, meaning that in the moment of deepest meditation, I consider meditation to be the
0:21:53 highest romance and that romance is the highest meditation.
0:22:02 My experience of a very high, if not the highest, romantic meditation is and was during listening
0:22:08 to a cosmic sound current going on where I am, pervading all that I am and pointing
0:22:11 to a self that is beyond the body.
0:22:17 So this meditation is simultaneous with music that couldn’t be separated.
0:22:25 So to answer your question, yes, in the deepest and fullest experience that I call meditation,
0:22:30 there is a musical event when we can debate what is music.
0:22:34 It doesn’t have to be the top 40 Grammy Award-winning hit.
0:22:43 It can be the movement of energy and consciousness in such a way that has balance, form, aesthetic
0:22:54 quality and has equilibrium and mystically it has a very clear mathematical character.
0:22:57 Why can’t I hear the cosmic sound current, Leraji?
0:23:01 When I sit on the cushion and meditate, I find myself just sitting there thinking about
0:23:02 meditating.
0:23:03 Really?
0:23:05 Which seems to not be the idea.
0:23:11 My answer is that you are aware of the inner sound current and that you are not aware of
0:23:14 the you that is aware.
0:23:15 That’s my answer.
0:23:23 You are aware right now, but there is a you that you’re involved with that is not allowing
0:23:28 the you that is aware to be your dominant present-time experience.
0:23:33 So once again, I’m saying everything everywhere is permeated by a cosmic music.
0:23:36 So to answer your question, why don’t you hear it?
0:23:41 My refraining of the question is why aren’t you aware of yourself hearing it?
0:23:42 I don’t know.
0:23:45 I don’t know.
0:23:47 I don’t know.
0:23:53 What is the most glorious awe of lifting sound listening experience you can remember?
0:23:57 The sound of my infant child laughing.
0:24:01 Most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.
0:24:02 Yes.
0:24:12 No doubt that’s beauty, that’s music.
0:24:17 When we get back from the break, we talk about Leraji’s development as an artist and a chance
0:24:21 collaboration with one of the world’s most revered producers.
0:24:35 Stay with us.
0:24:38 Your name, Leraji, where did that come from?
0:24:46 Leraji as a name came out of an association with a spiritual community here in Harlem,
0:24:53 which centered around a bookstore on the corner of Lenox Avenue and 125th Street.
0:25:01 I would offer my music at that time by sitting outside of the store or in the vestibule,
0:25:07 and one of these occasions, two of the spiritual community members approached me and said,
0:25:12 “You know, we’ve done some research and we’ve taken your name, Edward Larry Gordon.
0:25:21 Edward Larry Gordon, Larry Gordon, Larry G, and we’ve morphed it into a name that includes
0:25:24 reference to the sun god, Ra.
0:25:28 These spiritual community members didn’t know that I was already looking for a name
0:25:32 and I intuitively suspected it would be three syllables and have something to do with the
0:25:33 sun.
0:25:35 So when they approached me, they said, “We have a name for you.
0:25:36 We want to suggest it.”
0:25:40 I said, “Well, well, I have a little concern because if I didn’t like the name, I would
0:25:41 embarrass somebody.”
0:25:47 I said, “Let’s meet in Central Park tomorrow and you can reveal the name to me.”
0:25:52 We get to Central Park, we found a place, and they revealed the name to me as Leraji,
0:26:01 which is a gentle transition from Larry Gordon to Leraji, but I was very impressed with this
0:26:07 synchronicity and I accepted the name there in Central Park.
0:26:09 My friends took it very easily.
0:26:14 My biological family members thought it was interesting.
0:26:18 They made a sincere attempt to use the name.
0:26:20 My mother was very polite.
0:26:28 She would make an attempt to use the name, but she reminded me that whatever you call
0:26:34 yourself, “I’m your mother.”
0:26:38 Her favorite words was, “Take care of yourself and you’re taking care of me.”
0:26:42 Was this around the time, as you mentioned earlier, you were busking, you were performing
0:26:46 music in the streets of New York, and that led to a fortuitous collision with the very
0:26:50 famous musician and producer Brian Eno.
0:26:51 How did that come about?
0:26:52 Yes.
0:26:58 It was playing music in the parks and the plazas of New York City and Brooklyn.
0:27:04 What I was doing was earning money while testing the idea of channeling or performing music
0:27:11 in altered states to see what could I bring any meaningful uplifting experience to New
0:27:13 Yorkers, random public audience.
0:27:18 It turned out to be so that the Museum of Natural History, Central Park, and one of
0:27:25 my favorite more constant places was the northeast corner of Washington Square Park.
0:27:31 One evening, I was performing with my eyes closed, as I usually do, cross-legged, sitting
0:27:39 on a carpet in one of the cobblestone circles there, and that’s where Brian Eno left me
0:27:47 a message in my zither case, introducing himself and an idea he was offering to listen
0:27:52 to a project he was working on, and he thought I would be interested.
0:27:56 So I call him up, and the next day I go to visit him, and we have this talk.
0:28:02 I’m still not clear who he is, I just know he’s a producer, and he worked for Frippanino.
0:28:11 But his energy was that he was an avenue to getting my music into a high-end recording
0:28:12 studio.
0:28:18 This was also the time during my spiritual practice to practice scientific praying.
0:28:23 What that is is affirmations, whatever you want, you act like you’ve got it, you think
0:28:29 like you’ve got it, and you develop a sense of emotional presence as if you’ve got it.
0:28:34 And since you don’t know what it is that you want, you don’t particularly give it a name,
0:28:37 you just use generally “right,” the word “right.”
0:28:43 So I remember praying for the right producer, and the right producer coming into my creative
0:28:49 life and the right producer finding it very inspiring to work with me.
0:28:55 So it turns out that the right producer was Brian Eno, and I never knew Brian Eno.
0:29:00 I didn’t know enough to know that that would be the right producer.
0:29:05 So there’s that meeting of Brian Eno and the Day of Radiance album.
0:29:28 It’s so good, my God.
0:29:34 I just felt an automatic shift of my attitude of being in a studio, of shifting to a very
0:29:42 high professional attitude, and a feeling that I was connected to a very classical inner
0:29:46 conduit that would come out as beautiful new music.
0:29:51 None of that was pre-arranged or written out or scored.
0:29:58 It was all in the moment after doing my usual preparation of centering and getting into
0:30:10 a flow state.
0:30:14 When did laughter become such an important thing for you?
0:30:20 It shifted the energies of the bullies in my neighborhood when I was young to use humor.
0:30:27 I would be so afraid of their presence when I could use humor, and in the church we’d
0:30:32 use humor when the church would get boring, and because I wasn’t the right place to use
0:30:38 it, we’d use it to get some of our other peers to laugh in the middle of a serious sermon.
0:30:46 But I noticed the power of laughter to alter, to break the sense of rigidity and separation.
0:30:54 I began writing scripts in high school and doing situation comedy for talent shows because
0:30:59 I enjoyed seeing people lose it to laughter.
0:31:05 The family I grew up in, the uncles, the aunts, the cousins, all were laughter friendly.
0:31:08 So laughter was always on the menu.
0:31:16 I can’t remember even a funeral where laughter was outlawed.
0:31:20 You really do see it as a transformative force, don’t you?
0:31:25 Well, after doing stand-up comedy and decided to let stand-up comedy go for a while and
0:31:32 just focus on music, it was a book by Raj Nish, Osho Raj Nish, to help me realize that
0:31:40 I could access the laughter experience without doing comedy and that I could guide other
0:31:49 people into the laughter zone and enjoy the deliciousness of laughter without using humor
0:31:56 and at the sacrifice of something, of human standards or a human character.
0:32:01 And now through laughter play shops, I call them, we use laughter to get people into the
0:32:06 play zone and to get them into contact with their inner child and to get them into deep
0:32:16 relaxation and I really enjoy laughter now because it can come up out of people without
0:32:18 it having to be nervous laughter.
0:32:23 The entire body can get involved, the entire breath can be open and it’s getting sweeter
0:32:29 and more delicious every time I do one of these.
0:32:32 You said it gets us to the play zone.
0:32:37 You really mean laughter is a way to transcend the thinking mind, just to get out of that?
0:32:38 Yes.
0:32:43 Someone put it into words, Raj Nish pointed out that when you’re laughing, really involved
0:32:49 with laughter, that you or us who are always laughing is not thinking, they’re not involved
0:32:51 in the thought process, linear thought.
0:32:58 That may be so if you’re into pure, open laughter, if it’s nervous laughter where you’re mindful
0:33:03 of a threatening situation, that would be a different situation.
0:33:09 But real full-bodied, cathartic laughter, you’re releasing faster than you can think.
0:33:14 So there’s no thought process, processing what it is that’s been released.
0:33:20 It’s just yummy, open, nurturing release.
0:33:24 Is that cathartic full-body laughter?
0:33:28 Is that an expression of bliss for you when it comes out?
0:33:34 It’s laughing openly can be bliss, but what I’m talking about is conscious bliss or mindful
0:33:35 bliss.
0:33:41 I’ve laughed for 70 minutes once, and the result was akin to breathwork.
0:33:45 And breathwork, if you’ve ever done it, can take you into bliss.
0:33:55 So on that level, mindful laughter and intentional laughter can bring us to the bliss zone very
0:34:04 easily.
0:34:08 When we get back from the break, Larajji tells us what he’s learned in his 80 years
0:34:10 on this planet.
0:34:23 Stay with us.
0:34:28 You’re obviously a musician, but also a spiritually serious person.
0:34:35 Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,
0:34:36 ha, I love it.
0:34:39 But that spirituality is so central to your life.
0:34:44 You’ve been a professional musician for decades, performing all over the world, you’re entangled
0:34:47 with the business and the commercial side of music.
0:34:52 I guess I just wonder how you navigate that element of being a professional musician and
0:34:55 being a spiritual person at the same time.
0:35:05 Well, I did many years ago get it that unless I integrate my spiritual nature, I would never
0:35:10 be totally happy, content, or experience resolution, because I can’t get it from the
0:35:11 physical world.
0:35:17 I’m not hating the physical world, but things in the physical world are temporary.
0:35:23 And then constantly, we’re reminded things come, they stay, and then they leave.
0:35:28 And some things are just too beautiful for us to accept that they’re ever going to leave.
0:35:37 And I grew to understand that behind the world that is changing, there is this spiritual field
0:35:44 that if I learn how to embrace it constantly, even while I’m embracing my outer wealth,
0:35:50 that when the outer wealth shifts, I’m not bent out of shape because I’m still connected
0:35:54 to this inner spiritual platform that doesn’t get bent out of shape when the outer world
0:35:55 shifts.
0:36:03 So for me, staying constant and staying with my spiritual practice allows me to be more
0:36:09 playful and less fearful of the physical world and less fearful of change and less fearful
0:36:10 of losing.
0:36:17 And so I find that the spiritual side helps me to be more present, more experimental,
0:36:21 and more risk-taking with my music for expression.
0:36:25 Was there ever an opportunity you had that you couldn’t take or wouldn’t take because
0:36:29 it would have compromised you musically or spiritually?
0:36:38 There was one situation that I was hesitating to take, and a friend reminded me that I could
0:36:47 sublimate my spiritual message or spiritual energy and do the engagement, so I did it.
0:36:57 And I also was reminded spiritually that rather than curse the darkness, light a candle.
0:37:06 That shifted me from being gun-ho about resisting wrong assignments, that if I feel I can still
0:37:13 shine my light or let light shine or let joy prevail during that assignment or that gig
0:37:16 or project, I will tend to take it.
0:37:21 Any gig that I would not take would be if I thought there was not healthy, either for
0:37:27 pollution reasons or that the environmental setting is physically unsafe.
0:37:33 But for now, I’ve been guided to see that every opportunity is an opportunity to represent
0:37:36 the all-pervadingness of one spirit.
0:37:37 What do you mean by that?
0:37:45 I mean that right now, one all-pervading spirit, maybe you could call it bliss, love, or light,
0:37:50 is everywhere, not only in the universe, it’s creating the universe.
0:37:52 That all of spirit is everywhere.
0:37:58 I can perform anywhere, and knowing that all of spirit is there, and I can allow spirit’s
0:38:01 presence to receive reflection or representation in that place.
0:38:09 I think I’ve also heard you say that you think our core spiritual problem is our misidentification
0:38:10 with our bodies.
0:38:11 What does that mean?
0:38:12 I’m not going to ever do this.
0:38:14 I wouldn’t think of doing this to you, Sean.
0:38:15 To what?
0:38:17 What are you going to do to me?
0:38:23 I would amputate your leg, your feet, you’re still there, your torso, you’re still there,
0:38:26 your arms, your elbows, you’re still there.
0:38:27 That’s tough.
0:38:28 You’re just ahead, and you’re still there.
0:38:32 None of your ears and nose goes, you’re still there, your lips and tongue goes, you’re still
0:38:33 there.
0:38:38 Suddenly, your head disappears, but you’re still there, and you’re saying to yourself,
0:38:40 “Wait a minute.
0:38:42 I thought I was that body.
0:38:43 Look, I’m timeless.
0:38:44 I’m invisible.
0:38:45 I’m weightless.
0:38:48 What do I do with this?”
0:38:57 I believe that identification with the physical body, which is birth, that lives, that dies,
0:39:03 and we get attached to it, and we get sentimental with it, and we try to enjoy its five senses,
0:39:09 and we forget or we don’t access the joy that we can have, more expansive joy we can have
0:39:14 through the infinite self that is always here.
0:39:21 You, perhaps your buddies, have had an epiphany through the use of certain ceremonies where
0:39:28 you’re suddenly in another sense of present time and space, a different sense of expansiveness,
0:39:36 a different sense of how time is unfolding, slower or not at all, and that to have this
0:39:44 experience is to be taking advantage of a different form of body.
0:39:51 The deepest sense of happiness and joy, I feel, comes from having an intimate communing
0:40:00 experience with my eternal present time self, the spiritual presence which is always here,
0:40:02 always everywhere.
0:40:08 It just needs to be totally present to dig it and to catch it and to wear it and to behold
0:40:10 it.
0:40:18 In all these years, playing music, experimenting, performing, composing, creating, what do you
0:40:24 know about music now that you didn’t know when you started?
0:40:33 Yes, because it’s such an international audience now, and it’s taught me that there is a universal
0:40:44 receptivity to emotional, sensual, ambient soundscapes.
0:40:51 There is an automatic acceptance of receptivity to beautiful music and to beauty being expressed
0:40:58 in music, into timelessness, into spiritual voicing through music.
0:41:03 That there is a receptive audience, it’s taught me that there is an audience here, that there
0:41:10 is an inner witness waiting to hear itself reflected in our music.
0:41:16 You’re 80 years old, you’ve been making music for over 40 years, you’ve lived such an interesting
0:41:20 life as an artist and a contemplative.
0:41:23 As you sit here now today, what is your spiritual mission?
0:41:32 What gets you out of bed every day?
0:41:37 What gets me out of the bed is mentally I’ll go through what I have to do the moment I
0:41:43 get out of bed, and I’ll visualize myself standing up, either electric toothbrush on
0:41:48 my teeth or preparing tea or doing some yoga exercise.
0:41:53 Usually what gets me up is a sense of a daily agenda, which is different every day, something
0:41:58 that I’m going to do the day that I’m going to really enjoy, whether it’s music, performance
0:42:04 or designing new tuning, or getting to know new pieces of equipment, or sitting for an
0:42:10 extra period of time in meditation either in lotus position in my house or I’m going
0:42:16 for a walk in Central Park or Riverside Park, and sitting on a bench in the sun and getting
0:42:18 into meditation.
0:42:25 What keeps me enthusiastically involved in life and passionately involved with life
0:42:32 is the sensation of an eternal non-human intelligence that’s generating this thing
0:42:38 called creation, and it’s allowing me to participate in it and to co-witness and to co-collaborate
0:42:47 with it, and that in the midst of this, it is remaining invisible, remaining infinite,
0:42:52 and I’m feeling it through my connection with it, and so it’s not the most what I’m getting
0:42:58 out of bed for, but what I’m getting out of bed as, I’m getting out of bed as this sense
0:43:06 of conscious improvisational collaboration within the divine, alternating intelligence.
0:43:13 But when I’m doing tours and I’m put in a nice, beautiful hotel, I’ll get out of bed
0:43:16 for the breakfast.
0:43:28 Well, what can I say, you are one of one, and it was lovely getting to know you a little
0:43:30 bit here.
0:43:31 Thank you, Sean.
0:43:47 I appreciate your calm, cool, collected style.
0:44:16 You know, I’m not sure I would have returned to this conversation if we weren’t doing
0:44:24 this series on creativity, but I’m so glad I did because listening to it with creativity
0:44:31 in mind allowed me to take so much more from it, things that I missed the first time.
0:44:37 But, of course, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the episode, so drop us a line at the grey
0:44:43 area at fox.com, and when you’re done with that, make sure you rate and review the pod.
0:44:44 Thank you.
0:44:45 .
0:44:52 Thank you.
0:44:54 (gentle music)
0:45:04 [BLANK_AUDIO]
Sean revisits his interview with musician Laraaji, a pioneer of new age music who has recorded more than 50 albums since he was discovered busking in a park by Brian Eno. Laraaji and Sean discuss inspiration, flow states, and what moves us to create.
This is the second conversation in our three shows in three days three-part series about creativity.
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