Krishna Das
b. 1947
“Maharaj-ji didn't teach us anything. He simply loved us, and in that love we slowly remembered who we were.”
Jeffrey Kagel was a young musician — once offered a place in the band that would become Blue Öyster Cult — when he gave it all up and travelled to India in 1970. At Maharaj-ji’s feet he found what music had only pointed toward, and was given the name Krishna Das.
The path of kirtan
After Maharaj-ji left his body in 1973, Krishna Das returned to the West carrying grief and a question: how do you stay close to a guru who is no longer physically here? The answer he found was kirtan — singing the names of God, over and over, until the names sing themselves.
Beginning quietly in yoga studios in the 1990s, his deep, unhurried call-and-response chanting grew into a worldwide practice. His album Live Ahimsa was even nominated for a Grammy. For countless people, a Krishna Das chant has been the first doorway into bhakti.
Why it matters here
Kirtan is the living heart of a satsang. When we gather on a Tuesday evening in Nashik and sing the Hanuman Chalisa or the divine names together, we are part of the same unbroken stream — the same simple medicine Maharaj-ji gave to all who came: repeat the name, and remember.