Interview with Wah! by Daniel Rechtschaffen
for Dragonfly Syndicated Press - January 23, 2004

Daniel: Firstly, what is your thinking on why chanting has become so popular?

WAH!: Chanting is one of many techniques available to people to help them anchor into Self. To understand why it has become popular, I think we need to go back to the 60s, when these techniques first started flooding the American psyche. The 60s were a social revolution, a time of social upheaval when the boundaries of society were questioned. Women's rights, organic farming, finding a Guru in India, eqaulity between blacks, whites and all races, all these boundaries were pushed. It was a social revolution - it changed how our society was structured. What's happening now is more of a spiritual revolution. Each person is working on themselves. The internet changed everything, in my opinion. It brought everything down to a single person. A single person can have an affect. A single person can put up a website and reach people all over the world. And in the same way that the internet can do that, I feel that consciousness can do that. Eckhart Tolle had a certain experience, a solitary experience, and now he goes around teaching that. A single person having an affect on the world. You know, there are 12-step programs, there's Buddhist meditation, there's yoga, there are so many techniques out there right now that if you haven't found one, you must be living in a room with no doors or windows.

Daniel: What are the strengths of chanting? My first time chanting, I was skeptical. I had trouble with the Sanskrit language. How can chanting specifically help people?

WAH!: Any technique you discover, you will feel uncomfortable with, at first. Even if it's silent meditation, your mind will do somersaults trying to figure it out the first time. That's natural. First time doing anything will be that way. The Sanskrit language is new to most people - it's a hurdle - once you feel reassured that no one is trying to brainwash you, you don't have to sign up anywhere, you can just relax and experience it. What we try to do is take the simplest mantras and introduce people to that. What we're doing is called japa. It's just a repetition of a mantra. Kirtan and sangeet are more elaborate musical styles; it's not what we do. I find personally that through the music and chanting, I myself am able to get to a more expanded place on a meditative level...

Daniel: Do these specific mantras help you get there?

WAH!: I started meditating at age 17 and I've done everything from silence to loud chanting. I think all the meditation techniques are powerful, it just so happens that chanting is what I was introduced to. So that's what I practice. Through the music, I am able to get beyond the lecturing, beyond the explaining, and just do it. And because the audience is required to do it with me, they come along. So I sing, Sita Ram and they sing Sita Ram and I sing Sita Ram Ram Ram and they sing Sita Ram Ram Ram... I am able to weave 300 people into my personal experience. Does that make sense?

Daniel: It does and with what you were saying about the internet, that every single person is having their own personal experience, it's not about your spiritual experience onstage, or a lecture where everybody is taking notes. Each person is having their own spiritual experience-

WAH!: Exactly.

Daniel: And do you feel that through that, since everyone is coming together, that chanting is a healing for communities and healing for people?

WAH!: I prefer the word "feeling" - chanting creates a feeling of community. Communities, organizations, corporations, all communities go through their stuff. But the feeling is there. Most of the chanting happens at yoga conferences, retreat centers or local yoga centers. They are already building a sense of community. Omega is trying to create a sense of community with their retreat centers. To answer your question, the chanting creates a feeling of community, and the healing is personal.

Daniel: How did you start chanting - you said you started at age 17 - usually people don't start that early-

WAH!: When did you start?

Daniel: I was born on a commune, born meditating and chanting and stuff-

WAH!: So I'm just saying, the work that you're going to do is the sprouting of the seeds from the 60s. I'm in my 40s, so I was too young to experience the 60s. But it affected me. I was on the fringes and was too young to experimint with drugs or go to Woodstock or anything. But it affected me. People like me are carrying the techniques that were born out of that time. And people of your generation are the ones who will integrate it within your lives. We have done that, and you will do it, but in a totally different way. I'm sorry, I forgot the question already-

Daniel: It's okay.

WAH!: I'm excited for you.

Daniel: I get that a lot from the teachers I have interviewed. What they keep coming back to is that they are excited for me, as a younger generation person who has grown up with this, figuring out now, with all these spiritual practices becoming more mainstream... Well how do you feel about that? For people in my generation, how should we take all these practices that have been handed down to us and help the world?

WAH!: That's a harder question than I thought. Yeah, that's a huge question. I think one of the differences is that you don't have to reject everything that your parents stood for, in order to embrace these techniques. Most of us that got involved with this had to sever ourselves from society, and join an ashram or go to India, in order to learn. Not only did we reject society, but society also rejected us. We were looked at as wierd. Wearing Indian clothes, and chanting strange mantras, all that stuff, we were really looked upon as cultish, "out there", sometimes in need of brainwashing. Your generation, because Hollywood has put a stamp of approval on it, has access to spiritual techniques. The advantage your generation has is that it's available to you. From here, it's a matter of whether you use it.

Daniel: That's true.

WAH!: Before I met Krishna Das, none of us had an idea where to chant. The yoga centers were just starting, there was no method or structure to it. I tried chanting in the Los Angeles nightclubs. We did some English stuff, some chanting, I opened for Courtney Love, we did a lot of different things to see how to get ourselves out there. One time at a bar in Santa Monica, when I finished, these two 70-year old guys were sitting at the bar, mouths agape, faces turned towards the stage. They weren't talking to each other, they were kind of stunned. I thought to myself, "Wow! I reached someone!" I had had an effect on two drunken gentlemen at a bar in Santa Monica! (laughs) But, elsewhere in the bar, were 20-somethings and people of various ages who were NOT affected by the music. So there you go - age has nothing to do with it.

Daniel: It's an interesting point. When I've been to India, people going into ecstatic states is commonplace. In America, it's not really expected. It's not culturally accepted to go into samadhi. But you see people start crying or open up in some way at your concerts-

WAH!: If someone went into samadhi at my concerts, I would think it was a scam and they were doing it just for attention. But who knows, it doesn't really matter. The practice is not about samadhi or even enlightenment. For me, it's about keeping myself clear of my own garbage, so I can fulfill my karmas and leave the earth happy. My goal is not to get into an ecstatic trance; I just want to clear my own personal energy and feel lighter when I'm done. I weave the audience into my experience and bring them up with me, and sometimes the opening involves tears or rushes or energy - have you ever seen the back of the hall during the concerts? just bouncing, everybody up and down, the whole back of the room pulsating - have you seen that?

Daniel: Yeah-

WAH!: -well, you know, sometimes it's that rush of energy. Occasionally it will be very meditative, but you know I'm not looking for it to be anything. I know what it feels like. I know the energy. I know where I am supposed to go; my years of practice have taught me that. I know when to make a left, when to make a right. I know the path to get there. So I just bring people on that path, with me. It's like an energy path. And whatever happens to people as a result of that process is OK. Tears, laughter, energy, sometimes they get pissed - like, who does she think SHE is? Who are HER teachers? - we all have a little resistance. That's OK. It's part of the process. Everybody gets clear.

Daniel: Thank you WAH! I think there are some gems in what you just said.

WAH!: Beautiful.