Radhika Vekaria ~ How Yoga, Music, and Spirituality Can Transform Your Life

Radhika Vekaria is an accomplished musician and vocalist specializing in sacred music influenced by ancient Vedic sciences. She recently garnered a Grammy nomination for her groundbreaking album, "Warriors of Light." Growing up in Britain with Indian roots, Radhika's musical journey began at a young age, inspired by the blend of Western music and traditional Indian mantras. A classically trained pianist and a passionate yoga practitioner, her work spans various languages including Sanskrit, Tamil, and Avadi. Radhika's musical compositions aim to explore cultural diversity and spiritual depth, making her a unique voice in the world of devotional music.

Visit Radhika here: https://www.radhikavekaria.com/

Key Takeaways:

• Cultural Fusion in Music: Radhika Vekaria’s album, "Warriors of Light," is a rich blend of Western and traditional Indian music, featuring diverse languages and instruments like the hammered dulcimer and sarood.
• Sacred Sound and Healing: The episode highlights the transformative power of sacred music and chanting, demonstrating how these practices can heal and nurture spiritual growth.
• Humility and Mastery in Art: Radhika emphasizes the importance of continual learning and humility in the pursuit of mastering music and spiritual practices.

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Chapters

• 0:04 Radhika Vekaria's Grammy Nomination for Warriors of Light
• 4:32 Creating a Global Album with Diverse Instruments and Voices
• 9:04 he Intersection of Ashtanga Yoga and Musical Practice
• 19:18 The Transformative Power of Sound and Vocal Expression
• 28:07 Radhika Vekaria's Musical Journey Through Languages and Devotion
• 40:48 he Humility and Responsibility in Teaching and Practicing Arts
• 45:28 Overcoming Adversity Through Music and Community Support
• 51:26 Exploring Differences Between Vedic Mantras and Bhakti Practices
• 57:58 The Power and Caution of Using Mantras
• 1:01:31 The Transformative Power and Responsibility of Sound
• 1:06:08 Radhika Vekaria's Journey to Empowerment Through Music

Transcript

0:33

Welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast, so happy you are here. My goal with this channel is to bring inspirational speakers to the mic in the field of yoga, massage, body work and beyond. Follow us at Native yoga and check us out at Native yoga center.com. All right, let's begin. Welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast, and yes, the universe delivers, yet again, an incredible guest to the show. Today, I'm so pleased and so grateful to introduce you to Radhika Vekaria. She is the Grammy nominee for her new album, Warriors of Light, and this album was created for this moment to inspire individuals to find their inner strength amidst chaos and uncertainty. And so thank you, Radhika, so much for sharing your wisdom and your insights into the power of sound, sound vibration here during this podcast, please go follow Radhika on her website, https://www.radhikavekaria.com the link is in the description. Click it. You're going to find all of her social channels, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram. You can follow her and send her a message and let her know how you think about this episode, what you thought about or what you feel about. She says, I feel so empowered. I feel so grateful to have this opportunity, and I'm really grateful for you being here, listening and sharing your support. So with that being said, well, let's begin. I'm so happy to have this chance and opportunity to meet and speak with Radhika Vekaria, Radhika, how are you feeling today? How's your day going? I'm good. It's good to be with you. Thank you so much. I'm so excited because you're, first of all, congratulations. I heard you are a nominee, Grammy nominee, for an album that you have released called Warriors of Light. Congratulations. That's a big deal. Thank you. Yes, yes, it is. It's a bit surreal. It's still not sunk in. It's taking its time to really sink in. When did you submit and or receive nomination? Oh, nominations came out November 8. Oh, wow. It's been a bit of a whirlwind since then. And I think just it's, it's a big it's a big thing, and especially for sacred music, music that is, you know, derived from sacred music and the ancient Vedic sciences. It's, it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's a wonderful thing, but it is a bit surreal. That's so cool. When did you first fall in love with music and or start playing music? My goodness, I was. I was singing pretty much coming out the womb my mother, my mom and dad were very big fans of music, so I was, I was very exposed to music from a very, very young age. And I used to growing up as an Indian kid in Britain. You know, I grew up with the Western influence and society background, which is wonderful, but I also had the traditions and the rituals at home. So when I would hear mantras and shlokas and devotional songs, I would just naturally go to them. So as a baby I was already, before I could speak English, I was singing mantras and devotional melodies. Nice, nice, very neutral for me. Yeah. And is there one that stands out in your mind? That was that you remember of a devotional song? Yeah, so my Oh, that's that's a really good question. There was a devotional song called kala, kala Ban suriwala, and it's apparent, it's a very traditional devotional song to Krishna, to Lord Krishna. And my father would sing that song, and I would love singing that song. Nice. That's cool. That's awesome. Are you a Krishna devotee? I would say, I'm just I love all of them. Good answer. I wouldn't say I'm particularly devoted to one that there is one that my heart is really with, but you keep that relationship. Very intimate and sacred. So I don't share that, yeah, but I would say that. I mean, Krishna is the play of the universe, right? The player the flute, like the stories that you hear about the flute of Krishna, is that it's when something has holes in it that you can play a play, a melody, you know? And that's the most. That's the most. That's the beautiful thing about Krishna flute, saying that the whole of existence came to be through the tune of His flute, through his breath, nice way of consciousness. What is your instrument of choice? Well, it was its voice primarily. Yeah, that's what I came out doing, and then I trained in classical piano since I was six years old, but that was much more of a Western leaning. You know, I trained in classical. It was all Western music on the on the piano. Yes, singing was a fluid kind of flex and and dance between Eastern music and western music. You know, I had the best of all the worlds growing up in the UK. Nice. Is this the first album that you've released? No, no, I have a previous album called Sapta in seven ways. And those are more kind of meditative channels, like Om Namah Shivaya, Om Namo bhagavativa. So there were guru mantras on there. You know? Those are more kind of traditionally drawn, whereas this album is definitely an exploration out of the box of mixing and blending, you know, songwriting formats and a bit of English and Sanskrit, Tamir and Avadi. There's more languages on this. There's more of a spread of instruments on here. You have hammer dulcimer, you have the flute, you have the Saud. You have brilliant forms of percussion, even African percussion. I brought in because my parents were born in Africa, in East Africa, so I always like to bring in more and more of that, because it's a part of my heritage and culture. Amazing. How many people contributed to the playing and production? Oh, okay, that's a good question. There's George landress, Dave Donnelly, Dennis, moody kit weekly. Chris Prather, Pratik, Srivastava, shashankacharya, alakavarma, Isaiah, Gage, Roger montajano, MB gordi, 11, wow, yeah, well done. Clearly, you look worked closely with everybody to be able to pull all those names out like that. Well, they're all just so such stellar, stellar people. I mean, you know what, what we did on this album? Because each song in the album is an entire universe of its own. You know, each song is really, most of the songs are an ode to a manifestation of the Divine, which really is an entire portal of creation. So we wanted to, instead of having, you know, featured instrumentalist play on all of the songs, many of the kind of main songs have one instrument that is kind of featured unique from the other tracks. Nice. So no, like, oh and Max zt, sorry, Max, Max the hammer dulcimer player, like I was thinking of so the aganita Tara, the dance of countless stars, features Max zt on Hamad dulcimer. Because I particularly felt that Hama dassama for the the Para Shakti, for this kind of power and gravitas of this divine feminine force, all the forms of the divine feminine, culminating in this one para Shakti, the sound of the Hamad dolsama really had that kind of piercing beauty. It's piercing beauty that instrument for me. So that's the reason why I really wanted that on on that particular track. So each of the songs has an instrument that really kind of is a kind of conversation between the voice and the instrument during that piece and that song to bring that story to life. Amazing. So cool. Where did you record it? So it was recorded in different scenarios, because it took about four years to make this album. So it was, you know, some of it was in the studio here in the CO producer that I worked with, George landress, has his home studio here, not far from me, in Los Angeles. And so the vocals and a lot of the programming and all of the kind of construct of the pieces was done there. But, you know, Max, for instance, lives in New York, and the percussionist who played lives in LA, but we went to his studio on the other side of LA to record all the percussion. The flout is Shashank is in India. So he recorded it there and sent it here. The sorority player is in India. He recorded it there and sent it here. And then one of the percussionists in England. So it's really quite a global album in terms of the locations of the parts, but everything was put together here in LA amazing if you do a live performance. I saw your website, which is beautiful, by the way, and I saw a really neat looking live performance set up where it looked really intimate. And. Mall, how, how do you do you have other musicians come in and learn all the parts and play? Or how is that working in terms of your live performance currently? So live performance right now, you know, it's, it's a, it's a combination of just instruments or instruments we track. So it's nice to have the fullness of the sound of the album when you're playing live. But what I like to do is I like to pull out some of the instruments from the mix, like you can have the stems of the of the actual tracks, and you can kind of pull down some of the instruments that you want to play live with you, and then I have the people come and play on top. Or some of the pieces actually work really well, just vocal and piano, or just vocal and, you know, another instrument, it's nice to play with. How you can express these pieces. I don't, I don't do it the same each time. It depends on which instruments are at, which instrumentalist musicians are available. Yeah, on the day, and I can't, but I just believe that, you know music, music knows how to express itself. You really don't need to do much. The more you think about it, you'll kind of just get in the way. So whatever just naturally unfolds, and whoever's available, I always feel like it turns out the best nice I agree. Have you, what is your yoga like? Hatha yoga practice background? So I started practicing yoga pretty early on, in my teens and and then I did just, you know, Hatha Yoga, just vinyasa yoga, but I discovered Ashtanga Yoga about, I would say, about 10 years ago, 12 years ago, and I really it, it changed so much for me. Actually healed me in many, many ways. I had some physical ailments, and I did a Shanga yoga, and I didn't actually realize that it was going to have that profound effect. I mean, it actually did, and in many different ways, physically, emotionally, life wise, and it actually led me to meet Manju Joyce, actually. Yeah, I've got to do training with Manju Joyce for the first and second series with him, nice. Be able to learn with his European Academy of shittanga yoga. And he's just so brilliant because he teaches in the traditional way, like his father used to teach so very just easygoing, very natural, you know, laughing a lot, not taking it so seriously, you know, like, I feel like, like, you know, he says something really beautiful. He's like, if you're stressed while doing yoga, if you're so serious, it can't, can't do its thing, and you have to be in a naturalness of of the practice. So I really like that. And Manju really emphasizes chanting. He really focuses on the chanting. You know? He says that, you know? He says that like the his father said that, look, if it's a choice between chanting an Asana chanting here every time. Nice. And I really that. That's why I sought Manju out, because I was practicing ashtanga yoga before in LA, and I was asking around and saying, you know, I really want to go deeper, deeper into the study of it. Someone said to me, seek out Manju, you know? And he's quite elusive. He's not easy to not easy to find because he's kind of a bit reclusive, and kind of does his own thing, and he's not and he doesn't really want to do a lot, but he wants to work with particular people to keep the tradition alive. So it took a while to hunt him down, and I love that he focuses on the chanting, which is really what I gravitated to as a child. It was a happy place for me. Oh, that's cool. Do you still maintain an ashtanga yoga practice? Yes, somewhat, you know, it's kind of a bit of a flex and a flow, especially since the pandemic happened, it's been difficult to be physically with your teachers. And have been like my soul practice kind of fell away and it, you know, I have to admit, it was very, very hard, but Ashtanga always calls me back. Or if I do a, if I do like a Vinyasa practice, or I'm even teaching, I'll bring in some of the ashtangi style into it, and kind of incorporate it in. I never forget, my stronger always makes its way back into the back into the practice. I hear, yeah, one once you're doing those, you know, jump throughs and jump backs, you kind of always want to maintain that in some way. I hear you right. Like, once you have that feeling of like, okay, I have this ability to work my body in this way, when you start sliding a little, you think, oh my gosh, I probably should get back to it here. Try to maintain my edge a little bit. Yeah, and the Ashtanga practice, you know. I think one of the things that we don't often talk about in this, in this day with Ashtanga, is that it's meant to give you lightness, lightness in life, you know. So in that seriousness, it's like even in that we have to remind ourselves not to be so serious, you know, and that the jump throughs and the jump back, the playfulness of Ashtanga is really. What grab made me go to it. I had a great initial first teacher here in LA and I remember her saying, it's playful, you know, when you're on the ground and you're doing all of that in Ashtanga, you're kind of like a child. You're rolling about, you're going forward and back, and you're moving your body in a way that's almost like, you know, baby, you remember what it's like to be a child. And I think that that's what keeps you youthful. I think that's what is. The kind of key to life is to is to be childlike. Ashtanga has a lot of that. I agree. Radhika, I've Ashtanga is challenging. And often when students will come in, we I teach my source style Ashtanga every day here at our studio. And sometimes people will say, Well, isn't that? Don't you get bored doing the same thing over and over again. I'll often liken it to the fact that, like, if, if I want to learn music, I would, I would need to learn scales and learn chords and and actually study notes and how to read. And then once I do the classical learning, then I could potentially compose and create something. And I feel like Ashtanga has this very kind of fundamental aspect to it that then, like when we go down the vinyasa flow track, potentially we could then draw from our classical training and move forward. Do you think that's a reasonable analogy as a musician? I do. I do because Ashtanga, when you're when you're doing the same sequence over and over again, you're kind of deepening the groove, right? You're kind of carving that and you're going deeper and deeper and deeper. You can't dig in different you know, you'll have heard this so many times. You can't dig in different spots and hope to find gold. You have to keep going down the same spot right in order to discover something. And it's the same with the music. I mean, growing up, when I played classical music, I remember the scales. You know, you just have to do the scales over and over and over and over and over again. And that's where you it becomes like second nature. And when that, when the when the structure of something becomes second nature, then the flow can the flow can feel safe to do what it wants, but the structure has to be solid, right? So it's the same thing with Indian classical practices. You know, I was very lucky to connect with the ALI at prakaan College of Music, and through my friend Ranjana gatak, who has learned from the khayal tradition of Indian singing from Pandit Chakrabarti. That's him. He's amazing. And you know, it's that, it's the it's the constant going over. If you can find the joy doing the same thing, if you can go beyond, like at first, when we're learning something, and you'll find this with a stronger yoga you're your students. They'll come in, they'll learn that, they'll learn the primary series, or they'll be learning it, and it's, it feels really good for a while, and then you inevitably hit that plateau where people feel, Oh, this is like the same thing. And you kind of, you have to go past that plateau of that board, that kind of perceived boredom. And I would say it's perceived boredom, yeah, because it's a kind of this idea of, as you're discovering something, it's exciting. Anything is exciting as you're discovering something, and then it's this kind of, this, almost, this, you're not able to be present with it any. We're not able to be present with it because there's nothing new. And that's a real shame, because you go, Oh, am I only present with something because it's new, or can I be present with something that I've done over and over and over again, and find the elixir in the sameness? Great point. Right? Correct? Elixir in the sameness. I feel like you're you're impenetrable. You are like nothing will shake you. And that's, that's the thing about Ashtanga. That's the thing about that's, that's the thing about musical practice. It's one thing to perform. If you meet musicians who are successful, they will say that they often don't even sing their songs that much, but they practice scales a lot. In Indian classical singing, especially, you don't sit there and perform a rag. You don't sit there and do that as a practice, really that much you do the scaling practices. And it's the same with yoga. It's the same with Asana. It's the same with pranayama. It's the same with all of these, these pillars of the of the yoga practice, really is you do them over and over and over again, so you have that foundation. So when you go in life, life is an improvisation based on based on patterns. The whole of life has patterns. That's what it is. Well, improvisation upon patterns. Yeah, that's a great point. I love that viewpoint, and that's music, and that's yoga. So there's a I love that you brought that up. I love that are you practicing scales every day? Still like, what is your music? Practice, look and feel like currently on a are you doing a daily thing? Do you have any sort of, like, just free flow, or is it like regimented, like schedule, like at Monday, at nine o'clock, I wake up and I do. I am, I am not a yogi that way. Well, because my schedule is so because I work with people overseas and as well as here, so the time zones can it makes it a little difficult. But, you know, I'm kind of forgiving of myself where I say, look, I want to find that moment of that space with myself, and I want to feel, I want to experience that space of devotion in a clarified and anchor way. So I do find some time every day to sit, even if it's for a few minutes, I will sit and just connect with the voice. I'm also, you know, my, my, my, I'd say, let's say spiritual practice. It's kind of feels like, feels like everybody, it feels like, I think life is a spiritual practice to be honest. Yes, yes. The older I get, I realize that there's no such thing as a spiritual practice. It is just life, and we're all just stumbling upon that way. But, you know, part of my devotional expression and my prayer is singing, so I get to exercise that. And you know, even with something like Nadi Shodhana, like, that's the preparation for meditation, or, you know that is part of what prepares the voice. It's amazing how much of an effect even alternate nostril breathing can have on your vocal. Mm, on your breath. If I do that, you know, with regularity, the voice is entirely different. It changed. Pranayama changes your voice. It changes your ability to articulate. It really does. It frees you. It's quite profound. So all of the spiritual practices also are part of my sadhana for voice, but the sadhana for voice is my spiritual practice. So it's kind of lucky that they both. They just feed into each other. I get it. Do you ever try to engage public groups to do a call and response singing with you. Do do you engage with yoga students on that level of chanting mantra together? And what sort of tips and tricks do you have for getting people to move out of their fear and embarrassment, to be vocally, you know, to vocalize to. And do you have any tricks that you could, you could share with us? Well, I tell them a story of when they were born, you know, like they scream when they come out. Yeah, yes, exactly, yeah. You know, you come out, you you're in a mother's cocoon, and you're nice and safe for nine months, and then you struggle through this little canal, and you're thinking, What is going on? What's happening here? I was safe. Why didn't you leave me in there? And then you come out into the world, and what's the first thing that happens to you? Get hit, and you make a sound. And, you know, it's funny, I've often thought about this Todd. And everybody says it begins with breath, but I don't, I don't think so. I think it begins with sound, mm. I mean, they say in our Vedic scripture, you know that the beginning came from, all right? Yeah, say, you know, even in, even in other faiths, they talk about, and then in the beginning there was a word, and the Word was God, right? So, and you make that sound in order to breathe, so that begins with the sound. So always tell people that is that you began your life making a sound who made you think you shouldn't? Well, that's a great question. Yes, so it is your natural place to declare yourself here. Why not do it with Melody? You know, life is melody. Life is just a series of notes and the events and the memories. Melody really the memory in between those things happening is Melody, you know, so and to, you know, it's, it's amazing the transformation that happens with people, even if you're just getting them to do sadagam, which is the sadhaga Nisa, you know, you just get people, it's amazing how naturally and easily they pick it up, you know, because the way that the notes are positioned in how you move through the sequence, is a natural way for the mouth to actually move. We're not used to even moving our mouths much when we speak. We talk like this because we're so stressed. We hold everything so tightly because we think we're in control. When you're helping people make sound, you know, I say people when you when you make the sound, ah, open your mouth. Open your mouth. Like when you were a child and you used to scream, you know, let it out. You know. You have such a universe of sound within you, you know. And and you Oh, you don't know, a. Anything by being quiet. So move so much energy. You know, when I have students, you know, and they, they come for different reasons to do, you know, sound coaching, or I'll work with them on energetic things, and I always use sound and they, there's something, you know, sometimes they cry, or they just from the beginning of the hour to the end of the hour. The difference the stress that goes the joy in their face is just you move. Life moves with sound. Well said, I hear ya do you? Do you do a lot of call and response. Are you more performing? You know, just like having people listen and you sing. Well, when I sing my songs from my album, they are actual songs, performed pieces. But what I but what I do sometimes live, is I, I always love, but not sometimes I always engage the audience. So I always, you know, you know, because some of the parts of the songs I've created are chants and they're mantras. So I'll tell people beforehand. Okay, do you want to sing it with me? Let's learn it. And they always feel good learning something. Everybody feels good learning something. Yeah, and, and so I always involve them in the pieces. You know, even put the Ragam. It's a very, very well renowned song for peace and and unity in India. And, you know, I have a bit that says bull or Ram bularam. And I, I explained to people what that means in the beginning. So then in the song, I'll be, I'll be saying, Bula RAM, Bula RAM. And then I'll point to the audience, and they'll just naturally do it. These are not specifically kirtan audiences. My audiences tend to be a mix of people, most of who don't even practice yoga, don't even know what Sanskrit is, but they've come because they feel like there's, there's something accessible for them, and that's really what I want. I want to make chanting and mantra and these philosophies accessible to anybody? Yeah, that's so cool, because there's something resonant in there. We can all resonate with something, something profound, that's lying, that's dormant, waking to be accessed, waiting to be accessed there. So however I can it's my duty to make it easy, it's my duty to just there's a chance that a seed can get planted, then that's my job. Great point. Radhika, when you when you asked the question earlier, like, what is holding us back from using our vocal cords if we came in and right, when you said that, I my own personal answers. I remember one time I was sitting in the car with my friend, who's like, 10 years older than me, and I was just like, singing along, and he kind of got really stern with me, and was like, Why do you keep singing you have, you know, you don't sound good. Why do you keep doing, you know, just listen to the song and stop singing it. And I just had that feeling of, like, shut down, like, you know, like, the first time someone really kind of scolded me for just thinking free and just like going for it. Have you ever had any thing hold you back in your life from well, I well in terms of singing? No, my parents were, you know, loved music. I would belt at the top of my lungs all day, every day. I do not remember a time where they told me to be quiet. Yeah, amazing. First of all, I mean, it starts in the home, really, right? If your parents cultivate that, and they see you having joy from expressing something, even playing piano. My like, if the television was on and my father was watching TV, he would plug headphones into the TV, but never tell me to stop playing piano. It's really interesting, like he just didn't want to get in the way of that, which was very kind. But I have had so many people Todd say what you have just said to me, and oftentimes it's come from family members. Yeah. Is that interesting? Yeah, that they you know you you, you know when you're young, you trust your elders and you trust the people around you, and then when somebody says to you, you shouldn't do that, you don't sound good. You know that stays with you well into adulthood, and not everyone is meant to be a professional singer. And and if someone says to you, you know, I just really want to listen to the song. You know, there's a way of doing it, if that's what they want, but we must be mindful of squashing people's enthusiasm. Yeah, good point. Father said that to me once he said the worst thing the way you can, the way you can most hurt another human being, is to squash their enthusiasm. Great, great somebody, because you're actually hurting their heart. Because the enthusiasm and joy comes from the heart, doesn't come from the mind. So you. Hurting their heart. Yeah, good point because of everything. So you're kind of going to the well of that person and kind of trying to shut that down. And that has a profound effect on so many different aspects of their life. You have no idea what consequences they'll suffer for you doing that in the in the split moment, did your mom and dad move to Africa when they were children? No, they were actually born there. My mom and dad were actually born there. So my grandparents came from India, like a lot of Indians did, because it was British colonies. So they came there. And then my parents were born in Kenya, both of them, and then my dad moved to Uganda with his family when he was four. So my dad was Ugandan, and then they moved to England, and they met in England, and they fell in love. My dad was singing and my mom was dancing. They met in a show, a little show, how cool. And so I'm so curious. How many languages do you speak? Okay, so I speak Gujarati, which is my grandparents tongue. I understand a bit of Hindi. I would love to speak Hindi March. I think this is a confidence thing. I'm not around it as much, but I can understand a bit of Hindi, obviously, English. I try very well and speak a little bit of French, a bit of Spanish. I sing in Sanskrit, I would say, I'm still a student of Sanskrit, and I'm learning, very mildly, a bit of Swahili, because my parents would speak Swahili in the home. And I love Swahili. I love languages. I love picking up languages, singing in languages. I've sung a bit in Hebrew before, because I've been exposed to that, I just, I love different languages. You know, that's so cool. That's amazing. I'm always in awe of I had to learn phonetically Tamir for this album, because there was a song composed that was 3500 years old in Tamil by sage. Sage August. Here I wrote it 3500 years ago. So I had to learn, at least phonetically, how to how to say that composition in Tamil. How many different languages are using on the album? There's a body Sanskrit is that is the Abadi, because you do some like Hanuman, Chalisa, yes, nice, yeah. I didn't actually know for a long time that the Hanuman Chalisa was in over the I thought it was in Sanskrit because it's so close, but actually I found out. So then I went and I actually learned there's a beautiful there's also a beautiful course by Sharma Sangeeta. I can actually give you the link is by a beautiful singer called Naren K Shriner, who's an incredible, incredible, beautiful Bucha singer. His voice is, it's my favorite voices, him and his his friend Lopa, do this beautiful course on the hanwen Chalisa, and it's just donation based. They teach that. And then I got some extra I got some pointers from them, and I actually did some research as to how to actually pronounce it, because it makes a profound difference. It's slight the difference, but it makes a huge difference in how you feel and in the in the hanaman. Chalisa, Oh, that's amazing. I would love to get that link and try the course. I love chanting the HANA. Hana mancha Lisa, could you do like just the first two opening parts? You have it memorized? Yes. Would you be willing, whether chanting, singing or just saying, just so I can hear your pronunciation? Yeah. Do Shri guru, charana saroy ja nee ja Manu Mukuru, sudhari, vareno, Raghu, Bhairavi, Chai, buhe na Tanu, Johnny ke Oh, my gosh, oh, that's beautiful, amazing to see that. How lucky we are. It feels so good just to sing in the Doha, right? I was like, I should have to do that right away, just to get my my eyes watery, I get to even now, every time I do that, it's just so I had, it's amazing. My teacher, Tim Miller, he was a big time Hanuman devotee. So he got me inspired to learn the Hanuman Chalisa. And the last time we went to India, I was able to go to Hanuman. Temples and and chant, Hana much, Alisa, with, with the locals and and I had, I had the best experience ever, because I feel like they were just first of all shocked that I was there, and then I knew the words and there. And it really was the most culturally for me, like my experience in India. I feel like that was a real highlight to get some puja, go to the temple and then and have the locals in there. It was so amazing, I really but your voice is absolutely incredible. That was so good. Oh my gosh, thank you for that. Well, I will, I think you know, one of the things about going to India and being around it's so profound, because you're really in the cocoon of devotion, you know. And especially with Hanuman Ji, it's all about devotion, you know. And for me, it's just just the the love, it's just pure love. So when I sing, it's just like I go somewhere else, you know. It's, it's just I'm, I'm here, but not here. Like, it's, it's, it's so like, we're so lucky Todd, we're so fortunate to have had these things passed down by the sages and the seers and the saints, and we have this because of them and their love and devotion. It's carried on through the ages. I like the way that you paused right before you started. I've it looked to me as if you were like, getting this feeling of like, I'm about to chance something that's really important. So let me just like, center myself here first before I just like, go for it. And that's really amazing element. Do you is that something that you feel you cultivate con. You know, every time you start to sing, you take a moment and, like, get centered and focused, because it's not about me. Like, even if I'm chanting or singing, it's not about me, it's about it's about just being humble and giving yourself over, you know. And before you can do that, you have to, you know, it's one of the kind of central tenants of, like Vedic teachings, is humility, you know. And you're you're not going to receive that which you are meant to receive if you don't bow your head, you know, like, even in the the posture of bowing your head, like in an Indian culture, you touch the feet right of your elders, your teachers, right? The reason you do that is because you're prostrating. You're bringing your head lower than your heart. It's in that position where you can really, truly receive if your ego is, if your ego and your if your mind is higher than your heart, you're you're never you're going to think, you know everything. So taking that pause and that moment to just lower yourself, just lower yourself. It's not about being submissive, but it's about being reverent, you know, having that reverence to something and allowing it to pour. You can't pour into something if you're higher than that which you want to receive from, you have to be lower, right? Yeah, so you want to kind of put your hands up like this when you're singing, you know, understood well said and then, and I kind of interrupted you there. You started going on about your you first through the brought up the language of Avadi for the Hanuman Chalisa. Did I pronounce that properly? How do I say the name of the language? It's Awadhi. Awadhi. Awadhi. Yeah. And I'll let you finish explaining some of the other languages that you invoke for your album. So some of it is Sanskrit, which you're familiar with. So you know you have the Jay Jay Ma. You have the Muhammad trinjaya mantra in the song liberate. You have purification prayer at the beginning of Maya. So those are all in Sanskrit. There's a few peppered in then the Tamil language, like in aganita Tara, the dance of countless stars, that's in Tamil. When I came across that composition, it was a beautiful composition, introduced to me by my friend Vinita Menon, who learned it from her guru, who learnt it from their gurus, and passed down. I heard that composition, aganita Tara and something just, I just it. Couldn't it just, I couldn't let it go like I'm I'm not getting it's never happened to me this way before. And the Tamir language is, I feel an incredible connection to South India. My family's from Gujarat, but there is some phenomenal connection to the South Indian culture, you know, the kind of the purity of how they've held on to the Vedic teachings. It's, it's so profound and so deep. And for me, that particular language, when I when I heard it, I said, I took. Led even before. I didn't even, I wasn't even clear on the pronunciation, and something just came out of me and said, I need to record that song. Imagine a song in a different language, and you just say, I'm going to record this. I'm going to record a version of this. I love it because I just felt that I needed to express then it needed to be in the world today and and so I learned. And I learned through my friend. I learned through my other friend's mother, who is a teacher, a Sanskrit scholar. And I trained, I mean, a Tamir and Sanskrit scholar. And I learned the Tamir, the pronunciation of this particular song, because you have to if you say incorrectly. It's not like in English, where you pronounce a word slightly differently and it still has the same meaning within the context of the SEC of the song. In Sanskrit and Tamil, if you if you even accent something differently, or your tongue placement is slightly different, it changes not only the word, but it changes the entire context of the sentence and the meaning of the passage, so I tried my best to get as close to the original as possible before recording it. How long did that take you to practice that? That particular song I spent, I think it was between the time that I heard it and recorded it was a year, 12, about 1112, months. Wow, yeah, and the Hanuman Chali. So, you know, I thought, I thought I had that lockdown, because you hear other people doing it, you'll listen to different versions. You'll, you'll emulate it, and you'll, you'll sing it, since you were a kid, and even your family, you know, my parents came from, you know, my family's come from India to Africa to London. So, you know, the pronunciations may move and they may morph. And then I realized, Oh, hold on a minute, there's something that needs to be particular about this. So I had to unwind how I had known it to be. And I and I went and I studied, I again. You know, it's that, you know, going back to that conversation about music and practice, you must practice something before you come out and want to share it. It's very excitable to come out and want to share stuff, but you should understand it, at least have some humility. You know, I remember when someone said to me, oh, you know, I got asked to teach yoga for many years, and I said no, because I heard a great teacher. I can't remember who it was. Maybe it was Tim Miller. I can't remember, but there's a famous yoga teacher that said, if you feel the urge to teach yoga within the first 10 years of practicing, ignore it. It's an impulse. You know, you haven't lived with it enough, yeah, yeah, to do that. And I mean that, that's why the great gurus would say you want to learn this. Okay, come sit with me every day for 10 years, for eight to 10 hours a day, and then at the end of that, maybe we'll talk, because when you teach, you're a steward. I don't think people realize that when you when you begin to teach, you take on your shoulders the responsibility of bringing forward 1000s of years of knowledge, 1000s of years of knowledge, right? So if I'm honest, I resisted doing this for a very, very long time. I got asked to record mantra devotional music for a long, long time, a very long time, and I kept saying, No, I would sing it live, but I didn't want to record it, because I didn't feel I was ready, you know? And it's only when I started to get the blessings of certain teachers and the encouragement of certain people who had dedicated their entire lives to it that I knew that I was getting a blessing from something that was from something very, very time old. No? And I thought, okay, maybe. But still, I honestly, I feel like I know nothing. I hear you, yeah, and you feel the same. And just as, like a musician, is it similar, like, how I personally feel like, about like yoga practice, like, I feel like I don't think I'm ever going to be a yoga master. I'm never going to master this. I'm just practicing every day. Do you feel music is the same way that you still feel like I could learn so much more, I could be potentially so much better? Yes, yes, absolutely. I mean, even just the whole way that a musician has to move through the world now, we can't just focus on our craft. We have to do all of the social media and the this and the that and the I mean, this conversation is great because we're talking about it, but all of the extra stuff that we have to do, you know, I it is a struggle. It's very hard. I wish I could just be in a little mud hut with my teacher and learning for 10 hours. Hours a day and not having anything else to worry about. But it is the way. It is the it is the incarnation that we've been dropped into at this particular time in this realm, and we have to do our best. But you know, it is, there's a lot to contend with, for sure, in terms of, you know, staying close to practice. But you know, there's something about the idea of mastering, I think you when you watch the the great Indian musicians, like every time you see Pandit, Ajay Chakrabarti, come on stage, they touch the they touch the stage. You know, you see all of the Indian musicians, and they always open their concerts saying, you know, you know, you know, asking for blessings from the audience, and saying, I am still a student of this. And they are masters, but they, they call themselves students, and they say, I hope I can do this service, and I hope I can, you know, give you the best as where I am right now. That's an incredible amount of humility, and they have the voices of the gods. They have the ability of the gods in their hands. And you know that is that's just the most beautiful, beautiful aspect of practice, and aspect of having teachers. And I'm so lucky to have touched the feet of great masters. I feel so fortunate that I've had these people come into my life and and care and to be able to just and just observe them. You don't even have to take you don't even have to take a lesson from a true master. You don't even have to speak with them. Just observe them, watch them move through the world, and then understand why they carry that, you know. Yes, well said. Radhika, how have you been processing, if you're in Los Angeles, can you tell me a little bit about what sort of emotion and feeling you've had with the fires? Yes, it's been, it's been well. Thank you for asking. It's been very, very tough to see what's happened to this city. And you know, have many, many friends who have been not only displaced, but lost everything that they had musicians in our community who had instruments that were nearly 100 years old, who've, you know, got, you know, we've, we've not only lost people, have not only lost their homes, but they've lost ears and capsules of time, you know. And now it only stays within the memory and the stories that they can pass on, pass on to the next generations. It's been difficult. You know, the air was actually, it's actually been hard for some people to be outside. For me as a singer, I've had to have, like, extra, extra care. Here I am, you know, not as affected as as other people, but you really do feel it's going to take a long time. But on the flip side, you know, when something like this happens, it is a a chance to see the best of ourselves. You know, this is really where the best of ourselves comes through. And Los Angeles really has come through. The music community has really come through. Music cares has just it's an incredible organization is supporting a lot of artists, musicians, because this is their livelihoods that have gone it's not like, it's not like many of us go to a workplace every day. A lot of us create our love and our expression in our homes. But yeah, it's going to take a long time, and we can just take it one day at a time, but my heart really goes out that everyone affected. You can feel it. You can feel the heaviness in the air. Yeah, I bet, I bet. Thank you for sharing that. I appreciate that. Did you, did you have a speech impediment when you grew up? I read somewhere that you you overcame the challenge of having a speech challenge. Can you speak a little bit about that. Yes, I did. I developed a speech impediment around around, I think it was about six years old, which is when it typically emerges for people, and it's actually very common. Actually, having a speech impediment, a stammer, affects many of us, actually, and for some people, if they don't get help, then it actually can lock in to our adulthood. And for me, it was, it was very difficult, like music and singing was always very easy. You know, you must have seen the movie A King's Speech. That's a very real thing that a lot of a lot of singers actually may have had some form of a speech impediment growing up, it's where we found solace and freedom. But when I would try and speak, it would always there. There were obstacles and blockages in my voice, you know, and it was hard because that has repercussions as a kid. Can you imagine having a really bad speech impediment, being in school, having to battle. The human tendencies that may be around you. It has a psychological impact, not just a physical impact, but a psychological impact, an emotional impact, mental, you know, and even physical at times. And so it's something that can be embedded, and if you don't have, you know, I was very lucky. I had a very loving family who cultivated and encouraged so many other things in my life, like music and sport and art and all these different expressions and music is really what saved me and got me through, at least in terms of the mental and emotional impact of what that could have been and as I, you know, I had mantra and or music practices when I was very, very little. But as you're growing up in England, you know, you go to multiple Western things. You don't really anchor into your Eastern stuff as much. But there was something always missing. And, you know, the the stammer and speech impediment still followed me well into my adulthood, and when I, you know, started coming back to mantra and, you know, devotional music, through my sadhana, through meditation, I started to realize the profound effect in my ability to articulate myself. I I see it as a gift. In a way, because I was, I couldn't express myself freely when I spoke a lot, so I had time. In a way, it was a gift for me. It almost became like this. I was imprisoned by the obstacle. But in a way, it gave me time to think about, well, when I do have a chance to speak and I do have a chance to share what's inside of me, what will that be? Because I have to make it matter. You know, being forced to be in silence makes you think about that, you know. And what I realized is that the mantra, and coming back to Vedic sciences and philosophies and my, you know, I spiritual, all of these spiritual teachings, practicing devotional songs and mantra, especially Vedic recitation, it's like training. As you know, we talked about practice and training. It's creating a groove within you, and even chanting like, well, the difference between so one thing I want to actually clarify probably many people are, you know, the kinds of people that listen in your audience. The word chanting has been used by the West to describe Kirtan, or Mantra. Mantra is a little different to chanting. It's a chanting. When we think of chanting, we think of, you know, say Gregorian chanting and singing like that, right? There's a difference between recitation of mantra and Kirtan, there's a difference, like the way that we would the way we sing Om Namo Bhagavata in song form is devotional. But if you're if you're doing that as a month of sadhana practice, the recitation is very different. There's a different approach, even in the way you sit, where you generate the sound of your voice from the throatiness of it, the intent and the focus of it. So it's it's a different practice. So the bhakti practice is different from the recitation practice. So I'm sure, I'm sure you know that, but maybe for people that might want to understand the difference, thank you, yeah, thank you for for flushing that out and giving the details I hear you. Yeah. Are you sitting down and chanting? I'm sorry, all right, let me use proper terminology. Are you doing a mantra practice and able to differentiate in between those two clearly you are yes, yes, yeah, all right, because, like, Vedic chanting, and that really has, like, very few notes that you're moving between, right? It's like three notes, really, and that's all you're doing. And you stay within that, because it's kind of like an Ashtanga practice. You stay within a structure, and you do it and you do it and you do it, and you, you bet you feel the vibration. You really are really in union with that vibration you're allowing every single sound and syllable. Every sound and syllable is an entire realm. It's an entire realm. So you really don't want to be moving around too much and rocking those realms, those worlds, right? You want to keep it contained and precise and concise. It's very scientific. The Vedic Science. They're called Vedic sciences for a reason. It's very particular. It's like arjun's arrow, right? The bhagava in the Maha in the Mahabharat, Arjun was the greatest archer. It's precise. So there's a precision that makes you be able to stand up and have courage. And this is what these mantras are doing. They're really cultivating that resilience and that strength from inside your soul. You know, that's what it's doing. So the precision is really important with the recitation, with the mantra, with devotional singing and bhakti. Bhakti is hot. Bhakti is like, you're just like, letting it unleash, you know, and you can take liberties and play. But bhakti came later. It came later than the metered recitation. And there's a different purpose for them. They're both they're both valid and they're both needed. But there's a time and a place and a particular application for the different, you know, the different usages of them. Thank you for explaining all that. You gave us an example of the bhakti devotional side from the hanamanchalisa. Do you feel comfortable doing a mantra so we can hear the difference? I completely understand if you decide not to no problem. No, I would say so. Just to clarify with the Hanuman Chalisa, I actually found out recently that that was a bit of a rebellion. The Awadhi language is like a folk language. And apparently that was a bit of a kind of rebellion against the strict, kind of metered stuff that wasn't being shared with everybody. Fascinating, fascinating. That's why the Hanuman Chalisa can have that melody. You don't really say it as a strict meter. You sing it right? And there's some rugs that you do it in that that kind of creates a sense or an emotion or a certain kind of strength. The way I did it on my album was more like a lullaby, and it was more kind of sweet, because that's what I feel with Hanuman. I feel like this incredible sweetness. I just want to kind of curl up, and that's my, but that's my relationship with it, right? So, but with the the recitation, you know, you have like, you know, for instance, the Mahamudra mantra, right? So you have like, different ways of even pronouncing that, because Sanskrit itself has evolved. There's Classical Sanskrit, there's Vedic Sanskrit. You know, India's very old place. There's very languages that go through very different iterations. So sometimes you will hear AUM, tram, Bucha, Sugan, them, Bucha, bandana, murita, right? But some places you will hear Om trayam, Bucha trayam, right? So the pronunciation can be a little bit different, depending on what your teacher and their lineages kind of come from. But they should tell you that look this is more classical, or this is more Vedic, just so you have that knowledge that it's not the the be all like it's not the one strict way. I think a lot of people get into this, almost this kind of fight about, no, this is the way. No, that is the way. No, you know. And it really does depend on the school, and it depends on the lineage of the teachings, and really, what is it that you're applying it for? What are you using the mantra for? For instance, I will say that the mahamri mantra should not just be picked up and done by anyone all the time. You know, it's a very powerful mantra, and if you're going to sit and recite that mantra, it's going to have an effect that you may not desire in your life. This is why picking up picking up mantras of the internet is not a very smart idea, because they hold such incredible power to change things in a very drastic way in your life. They're very powerful, you know, yes, so be prepared that, you know, I remember during the during the the pandemic, there was an app called clubhouse, and there was a room on there, an audio room on there, where they start, where they were doing the Mahamudra mantra every day, and and it's a lovely idea to do that, but for some people, and I did say to some people, I say, Look, just be mindful that if you do this, things could change in a very dramatic way in your life, maybe not in a way that you wanted them to. And it did happen to a few people that they said, Oh my God, my you know. And it's fine. It's moving things. But you you may not have desired things to kind of you may not be ready for it, is what I'm saying. Like you just you really, what? If you're doing mantra, sadhana, you're singing bhakti, that's fine. You can. That's fine, but if you're doing mantra sadhana, make sure you're getting that guidance from somebody who really is a master that knows you and says, Look, this would be good for you to do for this period of time, just like with Vedic Astrology. When you used to go to a Vedic astrologer, they may have said to you, you know, maybe do this particular mantra with this ritual for 40 days or for six months. Yes, they were often prescribed to you, just like yoga was in the past, yoga was prescribed to you. It wasn't often this 90 minute, two hour practice. It was when a doctor didn't know what else to try. You would go to a yoga master and they say, Sit and put your, you know, sit and do suresana, do you shasna for six months. Then tell me how you're hearing it, you know, it's like that, right? And it would maybe shift and change according to how you've changed. And so there'd be this, like, back forth, exactly, you know, they talk about, like, you know, mantras being medicine, or these, these things being medicine. But the thing is, is if, if, if you take medicine that is not meant for you, it actually becomes poison. Great point. Not good for you, right? Actually cause these health problems in that way. If you pick up, and I'm not talking about the general mantras, but if you pick up something, especially Beej mantras. Do not touch them without the initiation of a master. Do not touch them. Good advice. Good advice. Really important, please, yeah, yeah, please don't, because they are really powerful, and you have to, you have to be guided, not just whether they are for you, how to say them, when to say them, how to prepare and sit down to say them. You know, things that you do to you, you never just sit down and just do a mantra. It's not like that, because there's a preparation in how you approach it as well. You want you if you're going to use these things, you want to, you want to prepare in the best way, right? I'm so glad you're bringing that up, because it's interesting. Because in our culture, it's like, if we were to talk about, say, a weapon, someone could probably understand that, like, Hey, before you pick up this weapon and use it around somebody, this could be really dangerous, and so there's training that's involved. And I guess I don't know that in the West culture, there's a lot of appreciation for the power of sound. I think maybe we know it inherently, like if we go to a concert, we hear sound, we have emotion. We can feel that the music has some sort of power. But I feel like the level of care that you're instructing us with now is more of this, like reverence for sound, power for this sound, the power of sound that we have to treat it with deep respect and appreciation for what it can do. And I think that's something that's very unique about this, that that teaching, yeah? I mean, I you know, a sword can protect, but it can also kill. And I see sound as the same way. Sound is piercing, yeah, sound can heal you. It can also pierce you. If you, if you think about our universe, our world, all of it is sound. If, if somebody says something cruel to you in a moment that that, quite literally, can harm your mind. It's true. It hurts you. It's like someone's taken a sword and they've cut you. Right? We don't realize the power that we have when we utter and we speak. We don't realize what we're saying to each other. It's not just in music or concerts. How are we even speaking to each other? What are the words that we're using? What is the approach that we have to people? You know, I often say to, you know, students and say, it's not just generating the sound, it's how you approach a person. So even when we're doing like sarcom practice, you know, how you approach a human being before you even make a sound, say, say, you see someone in the street before you even make a sound, they're going to see the way you're approaching them, and they're going to get they're going to now respond, they're going to perceive you a certain way, without even knowing who you are, but they're going to see the way you're approaching them, and they're going to form An impression. And that relationship, that dialog that occurs is somewhat based on that first Springboard impression, before you've even said anything. It has a very, very big impact in how we use the sound, why we're using it. What is the intention? What is the utility? What is the power? What. The outcome, and where is love in that? And this is why Mantra sadna. This is why these Sanskrit and these sounds that are really they were experientially derived. They were they are actually the vibrations of creation when you say Akash, Akash, Akash, Akash, you're vibrationally beginning to resonate with the qualities of our gosh is that's what's happening. And it just, it just makes you realize that all of the noises and the sounds that we make, we can either create sounds that hurt or we can create sounds that nurture and I do see sound as a sword. And maybe it's the fact that I wanted to be a surgeon. I see sound as a like because some people say what I do is sound surgery. I wanted to be a surgeon. And people, yeah, that's what I do as a child. And I want to I want to just share with people in my humble way. Or what if you could wield that scalpel for yourself? What if you could remove your own blockages? What if you could generate the sounds and recite or sing use your voice and use your own tool that can cut away at the things that don't serve you anymore. You know that's the point. Wow, right? I am so grateful to have this chance to meet you. I'm so thankful this has been such a treat. I based off of the level of precision that I can feel that you're putting into your craft and your your art and your what you what you releasing with this album, regardless of whether or not you walk away with like a an award on stage. Do you have it based on everything you've said to me thus far, do you have a dream for what you have produced and created? On what kind of hope or dream Do you have that this music will will create or produce in the world? I simply want people to remember who they are, because that's the place of victory, you know, where we're in a time where a lot of us are battling something externally or internally. And I simply want this album, which is really a journey from purification to peace. It basically from the beginning, it embarks, bravely and courageously into that space of transformation and then finding your sovereignty. That is the journey of the album. It starts by going in the fire ASU Thomas, you know, it's literally saying, lead me from death to immortality. It's like, I'm ready. Come on, let's go. You know, I want for this album to help people feel courageous, resilient and know that they have everything inside of them, and ultimately, to be seated in their own sovereignty. That is the point, because we cannot have peace if everyone is not sovereign. If they have that self authority, it's so important to have that self, the self's authority there. I never said that before, not self authority, the self authority understood, you know, and when you remember who you are, that's when that can happen, and that's when we can really take care of each other. Well, I don't know what more I could say after that. I mean, that's the mark of a warrior, right? Is to take, is to protect, yes, and so, right? So unless you know who you are, you can't do that, right? So I want people to understand they have that warrior inside of themselves. It's time to be strong. So get your mind. I'll tell you just something quickly, just something that was at the beginning, the beginning of warriors of light. It was at the beginning of me making this album. I turned up at MUN juice place for an Ashtanga training, and I'd gone through something really tough, really hard, personally. And I went to him and I said, I don't know if I can do this training. You know, it was, it was really hard. Even after years of meditation and sadhana, you're still going to get knocked you're still still things are going to happen. And he said, tell me what's going on. And I told him what was going on. And he just turned to me and he said, very simply, he said, You've got to get your mind strong. You. Uh, let's go. And we did. And that's the like, I just, and it was, it was the greatest gift. Oh, wow. And that's when the album started, when someone said to me, you've got to get your mind strong. And how you get your mind strong? Well, this moves, this doesn't so you draw from here, and that's why Hanuman is in there, and that's why RAM is in there, right? Because that's where you end up here in RAM. It's the heart. Thank you, Radhika, thank you so much. I feel really just, I'm so appreciative that you took time for for us today and to share your story. I I'm really excited for you. And I think, um, your message is really powerful and really amazing. And, um, yeah, well, this was really lovely to speak to you. Really thank you. Thank you. Oh, man, well, I can't wait to release this, and I can't wait to hear the results. You said, Feb, Feb, second or third? Yeah, second and do you get you go to the ceremony and sit there and wait and have your palms sweat until they start calling people up, how many people were nominated for this award? Five. And I read that you would be the first the distinction, I believe, if you do win, would be the first person of Indian descent to win. Am I right here? First woman, yeah. First woman amazing. All right, well, I'll be rooting for you. I'll be rooting I'm rooting for you. We're all reading. We're rooting for you. Oh my gosh, that's gonna be so amazing I can't wait. All right, well, what a tree. I'm just, I'm just, I'm in awe. So thank you so much, Radhika, and I look forward to hopefully meeting you in person, or coming to one of your performances and or just enjoying your album. I know I can find it on all the listening platforms. I followed you on YouTube. You have a great YouTube following. Congratulations. Great job. I see you're on Instagram, your website. All the links are in the notes below so everybody can find everything that you have available very easily and just thank you so much, and I can't wait to continue following your journey and see what progresses. Thank you and thank you for doing such an amazing podcast. Native yoga. Todd cast is produced by myself. The theme music is dreamed up by Bryce Allen. 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