Sara: Wah, I found you and found your music not really that long ago, maybe about six months ago when I was at Whole Foods and I was looking at their music section and I saw your latest one out, a compilation of many different songs. I just fell in love with that CD. It was just so so beautiful, all of it. I started playing it for my clients, and one client in particular, Harlan, who I have the business with. I started playing it for him and he was like, “This is great!” So he started buying up all your albums. I just want to say your music is a blessing, and who you are, your essence and your heart and your spirit, it comes through your voice so it's a real strong gift that I think you've been blessed with.

Wah: Thank you. I guess I needed to hear that this morning.

Sara: Good. You know another really beautiful moment I remember too is I recently was at Kripalu studying with Shiva Rea for the week. On the last day, there were about 100 of us and we all had our mats in a mandala, facing the center. She said, “I'm going to play Wah's song. She's a friend of mine and she's an amazing woman and very dedicated to her spiritual path and to yoga,” so she put on Bolo Ram, one of my favorite songs. I was like, “Oh, this is so perfect.” It was so beautiful to be in a room with that many people practicing yoga, and then to hear your music, it just added that extra energy that everybody needed.

Wah: Thank you for sharing that.

Sara: Yeah, it was really neat. So I've done a bit of background stuff on you because I didn't know a lot about you. I read some of your interviews and what not. You've had a very interesting life.

Wah: That's not my doing. [laughing]

Sara: [laughing] I wanted to ask you about all of your childhood, because you moved around so much with your father and his work. Do you think that by you moving around and living in so many different cities with different experiences around you and being that transient, do you think a lot of what you learned growing up and having to deal with that sort of inconsistency in your life, do you feel that that has added to you as an artist and helped develop more of your music?

Wah: Well, I think that we select our lives before we come in, based on the work that we want to accomplish. I think that the constant moving gave me an experience of the world as transient and impermanent. The idea of spiritual work is that you're in the world but you're not of it, so not being able to establish roots anywhere caused me to find music, and hopefully find some roots within myself.

Sara: When did you first feel or know that you had some sort of psychic intuition or ability within you? Maybe ability isn't the right word, but when was that experience first sort of revealed to you, where you said, “Ok, I think I'm able to feel or see…”

Wah: I don't think it was really obvious to me until my 20's, when I was meditating a lot, and then I realized I could read people. I realized I could take their thoughts out of their mind. As my meditation practice continued I was able to kind of explore it. It's really crystallized over the last ten years.

Sara: I bet, because you're totally embedded in a spiritual path.

Wah: Well I think the crystallization happened when I realized that I could take on the whole audience, or that I was already doing it. I could extend my aura over the audience and take what was in their hearts and talk about it.

Sara: Do you use some of that, like extending your energy out psychically to draw the audience more into the chanting and the vibration of the music and the sound? Like if the audience is maybe not into it...

Wah: Yeah, that's a great question. I don't relate to the audience as my primary purpose. My primary connection is with the deities - whatever angels and teachers and evolved beings are connected with me - I'm pulling them in, and they're really the ones that are helping me do any kind of work with the audience. As a performer, if you relate only to the audience, then good days are good and bad days are really bad. But if you relate to your higher self and relate to the experience as expanded light, then the good days will be pretty nice and the bad days will be interesting. That is probably important to have as a performer, because otherwise you'll be affected by your reviews. My primary purpose in doing music is to connect to self and to connect into an extended consciousness. That's my refuge, my food.

Sara: Beautifully said. I like the way you said that's your food. In an interview a long time ago you mentioned that chanting is a technique to help people to anchor into themselves. I wonder if you could elaborate on how chanting can enhance somebody's teaching or even their own personal yoga practice, especially for people who have never even considered doing it because they don't like their voice or they're intimidated to use their voice, or it's just too new to them and they don't really understand it.

Wah: For personal practice people may feel uncomfortable using their voices; however, I find most people are even more uncomfortable sitting in silence. When people sit down to meditate in silence, their minds start jumping like crazy, “Am I supposed to be feeling something? This isn't working. How long is this going on? It's kind of hot in here.” They're shocked by the unending stream of thoughts. One technique is to concentrate on the breath. However, if that doesn't work, they might sit in silence and just never get comfortable with it. In chanting all those same thoughts exist, but you are simultaneously making a sound vibration of light and love. Which means, while you're thinking whatever you're thinking, your body is vibrating with an affirmation. Your body is vibrating with an infinite thought, so who's going to win? Well, the words that you're speaking are going to win. So eventually it's [Sita Ram] and your thoughts …then after awhile the other thoughts slip away and there's only [Sita Ram], so you're left in a place of silence that is more like tangible bliss and less like emptiness.

Sara: Nicely said, more like tangible bliss...

Wah: The idea of silence often means emptiness. People feel like they have to empty their minds of thought, and they're so disappointed when the mind never gets emptied. My teacher says that when you're in meditation, two things happen. Sound disappears and thought disappears. So after chanting the sound will disappear and the thoughts will also disappear. You'll be in silence but it won't feel like emptiness. We make a lot of noise when we chant, and the idea is just to get as many cells vibrating as possible, to get as many cells just singing out and calling out and reaching out for something infinite. The more of all of you vibrates on a higher level, the less you're going to notice your thoughts. They just kind of dissolve all by themselves. That's why they say it's the path of the heart, because you don't have to use your mind to do it. You don't have to go in and say, “Ah, there's a thought. I want to release that thought.”

Sara: You don't have to consciously think or worry about your thoughts thinking because you'll be in that state that it'll just cancel out all that chatter of the mind...

Wah: Correct. So Tibetan practices and Zen Buddhism might be a good match for someone who can use their mind to battle their mind. With me, it never worked. I had to use my heart in order to deal with my mind, and that's what the chanting does. It puts me on a wave of bhakti or wave of devotion or a wave of heart-centered expansion, and then that takes over, and then I don't have to deal with my mind. I just bypass it.

Sara: So Wah if you're new to chanting and you've never chanted before, you choose something simple to start with, is that correct?

Wah: The best thing you can do is go to a concert and go chant with someone. Direct experience is the best, you get the vibe.

Sara: Or what about buying a CD...

Wah: Yes you can check out a couple CDs and find a track that you like. Find a track that you're just kind of naturally attracted to, and when you're in the car, not sitting down in front of an altar, nothing like that, but when you're in the car or when you're walking or jogging or listening on your iPod, just sing along with the music like you would sing along to any pop song. Then see what your experience is. Just try it on, not as a practice but as “I like this song.” Just start that way. If it's working for you, then you'll want to do more. Then you might hear a different chant that you like. If you want to do it in a more formalized way, then you can select a specific mantra Om Nama Shivaya or something like that and say, “I'm going to do this every day for a month” and see what happens. That track is 10 minutes long, so you say, “I'm just going to see what happens if I chant for 10 minutes every day for a month, how will I feel after that:?”

Your question about how to incorporate it in your yoga class... most people are comfortable chanting Om and creating a sound just as a way of activating the cells and making yourself vibrate from the inside is enough justification for singing. Most people will want and be willing to do it. Chanting Om three times is something that a lot of people do in the beginning of class. The Anusara people, they have an invocation and people enjoy doing that. During the yoga practice, sometimes mantras can be helpful. If the yoga teacher needs to impart wisdom and make corrections, then maybe silence is better, and music can be played during Savasana. If you're doing a practice or leading a practice and not much needs to be said, then the mantras can carry you in a certain way. When you're listening it's like you sing along to the lyrics. That's just what we do. You'll notice that your mind gets engaged by the mantra. It's just something to notice. You may find after practice that a certain song sticks in your head, and that's also good to notice. You want the music to play all day for you, internally. You want to go into the bliss so that the bliss feeds you all day.

Sara: That's great advice. I like to chant om in my classes with people. I have no problem chanting that, but I don't have a good voice or singing voice...

Wah: Well, it's a muscle like any other; the more you use it the more resilient it will be.

Sara: Thanks. And I want to ask you about your teacher. I've heard you mention her a lot in different interviews. How has that been for you, having her in your life and her influence on you?

Wah: Completely mind-blowing. She went into trance and elevated meditative states as a young child, so I can relate to her story. I'm nowhere near where she is, but the fact that she chose to come in without a lineage and chose to come in an elevated way and then be abused is inspiring to me. She was homeless for a time. There were a couple of cows that came and let her nurse and drink their milk. There were a couple of hawks apparently that caught fish for her and dropped it down into her lap.

Sara: Really?

Wah: So she was taken care of in a very amazing way, but she was abused. Her brother tried to kill her. There was a lot of fear from her family and from the village that she lives in. She has been true to herself and true to the work that she needs to do. She's come into full expansion in the biggest way anybody really can in a human incarnation. Her humanitarian efforts are large. She's been recognized by the U.N. Her relief efforts have been more extensive than the whole government of India . She really is quite tireless in her service to the poor. She is the Mother Theresa of this age. She is such an evolved soul that it's really almost difficult for me to comprehend. People who do have eyes to see auras, to see energetics, those types of things – what they describe, the amount of karma and the amount of darkness that she's just pulling out of people as a psychic healer - it's almost indescribable. She has increased her practice to such an extent that the voltage of what she's offering becomes more and more potent each year. She used to do programs from 10am-2pm, and 7pm-2am. and one all-night program per week. Now She does 9am-5pm, and 7pm-5am and several all-night programs per week ….and this is in addition to running all of the schools, the charities, the hospitals, all the relief efforts that she does. After She finishes Her public programs, she goes home and does her email, and runs several hundred businesses.

Sara: It's amazing that she has that much energy for all of that.

Wah: Yeah, the amount of virtual juice or Shakti that she has generated, and is generating, has increased to such a volume that is very rare. It's very rare to experience that on earth with any incarnation. So just to be able to go up against and touch it for a short time, for me, is a great privilege.

Sara: This is kind of a personal question, but what do you feel when she gives you a hug, or when you're in her presence, when you're with her?

Wah: She extends her energetic field over the whole room, so a lot of what happens is she's working through the people that you're talking to and working with within the room. One of the ways that she works energetically is by shifting things in the room. Like for example, one time she said she wanted 12” of space in between each chair. There were only 12,000 chairs in the room, and I was just like “Ok, whatever.”

Sara: [laughing] “We're going to take an hour and rearrange all these chairs.”

Wah: Yeah, it's just like you're not doing much anyway. You might as well move a few chairs. It's either that or sitting down and meditating, and there's not much difference after awhile. There's no difference between day and night. There's no difference between sleeping and waking. She takes away all the boundaries, so moving a few chairs – why not. So a bunch of us moved 12” of space in between all the chairs and it significantly changed the energy in the room. People started lounging in the chairs like it was a living room, instead of the rows of chairs that were more like pews. Once, she asked us to change the assistants near her chair– devotees go up there for five or ten minutes to help, and there are supervisors for that. Then she said, “Ok, the devotees should shift every minute and a half, and the supervisors should change every five minutes.” So there were people flying in and out of her chair. Not only that but it was like we needed to time it perfectly …because if it was a second over 1 minute and 30 seconds, she would know and glare in our direction. She wanted 1 minute and 30 seconds and that's what she wanted. And no one could repeat their service; it had to be all new people. What it meant was that instead of needing 50 supervisors, we needed 150. And they had to be trained - they had to know how toe help her, know what she wants. She's in physical pain all the time and she's just ignoring it, as a supervisor you're trying to prevent anything that inflicts more pain on her. You don't want her to twist or turn too much. You try not to hurt her hands or have someone accidentally step on her feet, all the things that just naturally happen when people come up to get a hug. So her request put us into complete mayhem. And this is how she works on us. It doesn't sound like much in itself, but when you've only slept for like an hour or two in the last five days because you're on her schedule, your mind is completely blown and you just look at it and you go, “What?”

Sara: So how often do you make it a point to make sure that you see her or you're around her?

Wah: Whenever I can.

Sara: And if you were to give advice to people who don't yet have a guru or a spiritual teacher but they're searching for one, what do you feel are some qualities that you should look for when you're asking the universe to bring you a teacher?

Wah: If you don't have a guru, then you should know that the guru is your breath, and that's all.

Sara: Oh, that almost brought tears to my eyes. [laughing]

Wah: Because you can't find those beings. They won't reveal themselves to you.

Sara: They just come to you …

Wah: Well, you can go and see Amma, but if you're not at a period in your life where a teacher is necessary, you'll get a chocolate and that'll be enough.

Sara: I see what you're saying.

Wah: And that's cool. I mean everybody doesn't need a guru. The word Pranavayu or the carrier of the Prana is another name for Om. So the breath is your guru. If you don't have a mantra, just chant Om. Om contains everything that you're looking for, and the breath will guide you. The breath is something that you're given from the moment that you start this incarnation. The breath is your guru.

Sara: Yesterday as I was coming home, I was like, “Oh, I need some Wah.” So I put in Show Up and Be Heard . I just started singing it and dancing around in my car while I was driving. No matter what mood I'm in or how I'm feeling today or what's going on,if I play that song and I'm just like, “Hey, you know, everything's going to be ok. Just go with it. Everything's fine. Here it is. Just show up and be heard and be yourself and live your life and do good and love, and just have faith. Everything's ok.” I wanted to ask you about your inspiration for those particular songs, or is there one certain place that you find inspiration for your music or for how you tap into creating your music?

Wah: Hmm, you ask such good questions. I've been working on a CD with my partner, Paul Hollman for the last two years. That CD is due out in 2008. The songs go back and forth between Sanskrit and English - chanting, love song, chanting, love song, like that. That's really the experience that I'm exploring. I want to know if I can dial in the healing energy using English. If you feel it in Sanskrit, will you feel it in English? Is that what healing is, when you go to a heart-centered space and feel, “Everything's going to be ok.” What you described while listening to Show Up and Be Heard confirms my own exploration. The lyrics for this song were based on a conversation I had with a saint. His name is Shiva Bali Yogi. My composing songs is my exploration of how many different ways I you get to an expanded elevated energy. We've just talked about taking a mantra, putting it in your CD player in your car and singing along with it, and now we've also discussed what it's like to be in the presence of someone who is elevated like a guru or like a saint, and what happens to you. How does that happen? How does your energy get changed and elevated, and how exactly do you get cleansed? Is it in the hug? Are you feeling something in the hug? Is she doing something when you walk in the room? Is it something that you have to prepare for? What's the process of being a spiritual person? What does it involve? Is it ok to be angry or am I supposed to just release the things as they come along? Am I supposed to just surrender to the circumstances? Is this the will of God? I think it's not all about surrender. Get your fucking ass out there and start fighting and say that this is not what I want and that is unjust. Fight to right the wrong. The way you respond in your life, and coming from a clear place, makes the most difference.

Sara: Right, because you're coming from your heart.

Wah: Yeah, and no one gave me permission to do that. A lot of the English songs came from my exploration of how it feels to be a spiritual person. How does it feel when you go up for that hug, or how does it feel when your life falls away? It's like you work so hard to get to this certain point in your life and then all of a sudden the job loses its meaning, your relationship looks like it's over; what happens at that point and why does that happen so much on a spiritual path? You might wonder why you don't have a stable, conservative lifestyle anymore. It's like, “How come my life fell apart?” So the answer is, “Alright, let me sit you down, tell you about karma, tell you how the mantras kind of speed up your karma and you're going to have to go through it faster. That you may, instead of having one or two relationships in a lifetime, you may have five or six because you asked for more lessons.” It's just a completely different perspective. My English songs talk honestly about what I have experienced and as I share that with people they might feel like there's a different paradigm out there other than the Christian thing, which is be good and…

Sara: You'll to go heaven.

Wah: Well, you know, and I guess the yoga version of that is be good and you'll get good. But it's not always true. You may do good and get bad.

Sara: Yes.

Wah: And it's like, “Well, why did I get bad?” [laughing]

Sara: Yeah [laughing]. “Wait! I've been so good. I've been meditating and I'm spiritual and I'm on this path!”

Wah: Right, and how perplexing is that. I think that honest conversations are valuable. Not what should happen, but what actually did happen. So the English songs are trying to document some of those conversations that I have had with people. But in the new album I'm exploring just love, just unconditional love, what that feels like and what that leads to. What is unconditional love for someone else?. Is there a difference between divine love and personal love? I don't think so. I think that if you love someone in an unconditional way, that as they evolve and as they blossom that love will always stay the same, you know. So these are the explorations of what I want to know.

Sara: Do you have a name for your new album yet?

Wah: We are signing with Nettwerk Records and the CD is titled Love Holding Love.

Sara: Love Holding Love?

Wah: Yeah. It explores what happens when you hold love - both personal and universal - I think they are similar experiences for the Self. One lyric says, "If love is what you want and love is what you seek, then everything that's not love has got to leave." That is true in relationship with Self and with others. The CD will be released in late 2008, if all goes well! www.nettwerk.com

Sara: I wanted to ask you about your book. Could you give a little brief synopsis of your book?

Wah: The book is a collection of things that I have said over the last five years. It's four yoga classes, a bunch of magazine articles, interviews, concert talks. Many people responded to the concert talks with, “You spoke right into my heart tonight.” So we started taping them and transcribing them. There are lectures on sound, chanting, the science of sound, the whole yogic background of why chanting and mantras and all that. And then there's some life processing stuff like what we do in retreats - self-examination and processing. It's a collection of Wah experiences, from yoga to retreats to lectures to concert stuff, inspiring quotes, that kind of stuff. Paul calls it a cookbook. [laughing]

Sara: [laughing] Yeah, a mesh of everything.

Wah: Exactly. He says, “You know what, you can open it to any page and just sit with it.” It's not designed to be read like a novel.

Sara: Great. And is it available in bookstores or do people go to your website to buy it?

Wah: Not all bookstores carry it. Some do. You can get it off the website, if you go to www.WahMusic.com.

Sara: And who are some of your favorite musicians?

Wah: Well, let's see…Bob Marley is right up there.

Sara: I love Bob Marley...

Wah: Well, you know, he was living the life. He was really searching. Steel Pulse, Stan Goetz, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Phil Evans, Johnny Clegg and the Savuka, they're from Africa. There's a bunch of world artists from Senegal and Ghana that I've enjoyed. Ravi Shankar and his disciple that I studied with, Roop Verma for the classical Indian style. Kruder and Dorfmeister, Air – now we're going into the chill kind of lounge stuff.... Bebel Gilberto, Cold Play, Pink, Macy Gray...

Sara: Do you like Sarah McLachlan?

Wah: I do. I don't like piano that much, but boy she has done some amazing, some really amazing work.

Sara: Do you play piano?

Wah: I do. We mostly use harmonium and Paul plays Rhodes . When he plays the Rhodes it's all over. What he does is so beautiful.

Sara: Do you have a favorite city or country that you love going to?

Wah: I really enjoy New York City. The people there are hard-core. If it works, they like it. If you're talented, they recognize it. There's just something very no-nonsense about them and they don't wait to see if it's a trend. They're not hesitant. New Yorkers will try something and if they like it, they'll participate. If they don't, they go on to something else. The place just moves too fast to even bother with judgment or criticism.

Sara: Well, they're very honest. They put it up there.

Wah: Yeah, yeah. We also liked Barcelona and I really like London .

Sara: Oh, Barcelona . What were the people like there?

Wah: They're very heart-centered. I haven't been to Brazil yet, but everybody says that there's a warmth within the people there, which I enjoy. London was exploding in the yoga scene when I was there, lots of perky students just finding out about yoga and health. There's a kind of quiet revolution going on there, and in Europe, but there's something about the London people that I found especially endearing.

Sara: In terms of your business and your marketing and your retreats and all your traveling, do you have somebody that works for you and arranges and organizes all that?

Wah: I do everything myself right now.

Sara: You do?

Wah: I do.

Sara: Wow, that's amazing.

Wah: Well, I was a booking agent for Krishna Das and his manager for three years.

Sara: Was that before you started going on the road a lot yourself?

Wah: No, it was kind of in the middle. And what I learned during that time was how to run my label better.

Sara: Because you produce all your own albums, right?

Wah: I do, but there's a lot more to running a label than just getting CDs out. I do employ freelance people. I have a digital agent. I have a website designer. I have associated partnerships with other labels like Sounds True.

Sara: Do you ever feel like that takes you away from your creative process?

Wah: I don't judge what I'm being asked to do. It's just do what I'm being asked to do.

Sara: But after you've gotten so much more popular and your music is really getting out there and you're touring around, you haven't been made offers? Or have you been made offers?

Wah: Well, right now I'm looking for…and you can help me pray for it…I'm looking for a booking agent for the larger festival circuit. I'd like to do a summer tour on the big stage. I'm happy to run my label up to a point, but I see that there's only so much I can do on my own.

Sara:What are some things you do for play in your life, other than your music and your yoga?

Wah: Hmm, that's fun. I hang out with people I love. You know, that cozy nurturing energy helps me tremendously. I'm around a lot of people, but I can't always relax. I have a couple people that I can really relax with, so that's nurturing. Paul and I often go to the beach or go for a hike in the mountains in nature. That's rejuvenating.

Sara: My last question for you is... through your music, through my conversation with you today and through reading past stuff and the way you respond to questions, you are so in your body and in your heart. It seems to me that you really come from a heart-centered place. That's very inspiring and consoling.. One gift that I feel my parents gave me growing up is they never pushed or forced me in any direction. They always said, “Sara, follow your heart and do what makes you happy. Don't do anything for money and don't do anything that you don't want to do or that you think that you're just supposed to do. Just really follow your heart and let that guide you.” So I wanted to ask you is this what you've done, do you live from this heart energetic place? And then I wanted you to say something in closing if you feel that becauseof where your music comes from and where you draw your energy from, if it has created more meaning in your life, or steered you in positive directions or led you to more doors opening for you?

Wah: I think what you feel from me is thirst or growth. It's led me to both the bad and the good, but I think we need both to have a complete experience. You attract experiences to open areas within yourself that you couldn't access any other way. “Follow your heart" to me sounds to me a little bit sappy because it can imply “Do what makes you feel good,” and therefore avoid the uncomfortable moments. I'd like to say that “Follow your heart” means go ahead and quench that thirst, that desire for growth that you want. Just know that the experiences coming to you, whether they're uncomfortable or blissful, are the best way to access energies inside you to help you explore what you want to learn. Does that make sense?

Sara: Oh yeah, that's beautifully said.

Wah: Sometimes I joke with Paul. He doesn't like to be mentioned in the interviews, but I usually say that he should have an automatic bounce back for me on his email. When he gets an email from me it should just automatically bounce back with the message, “Relax, it's all going to work out fine.” I am expanding on ‘follow your heart' a little bit more... Just know that your experiences are the experiences of a human incarnation and it's all going to work out. It's going to be ok. Things will open for you. The world is transient. You are here to learn...

Sara: Yeah and it always works out. Somehow it always does.

Wah: Yeah, ain't that the truth.