Laraaji: Harmonizing the Now through Music and Meditation

00:00
Joe Patitucci
This episode is brought to you by PlantWave. PlantWave turns a plant's biorhythms into music. You just attach two sensors to a plant's leaves. PlantWave connects wirelessly to a mobile device running the PlantWave app. And the app has instruments on it that are built for plants to play. Check it out plantwave.com and share it with your friends. Welcome to the Nature of now. Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Patitucci, and joining me today is one of my favorite human beings on the planet. He is a pioneer of ambient electronic music. He teaches laughter, meditation. He is an all around cosmic being. You might know him. He wears orange head toe all the time. He is just a radiant, amazing beam of wisdom. 

00:50
Joe Patitucci
His name is Laraaji, and I had the pleasure of collaborating with Laraaji at South by Southwest in 2023, and we will have a video of that for you to check out. But we collaborated in this huge church. Playing music with plants is a complete dream come true. And this conversation takes place in my backyard the day after that show. Laraaji is somebody I've known for probably about seven years, has been a huge part in my kind of personal growth and spiritual growth just through his music and then also getting to know him as a human being. He just walks with so much wisdom, and every time I have a conversation with him, I learn something new about myself. And I feel like just cosmic things come from interacting with Laraaji. 

01:48
Joe Patitucci
One of those things that came from this episode for me is this concept of moving as rather than moving towards. It's something I've been integrating ever since we had this conversation. So let's dive into it. Let's jump into a conversation with Laraaji on The Nature of now podcast. Laraaji, welcome. 

02:13
Laraaji
Hey, Joe. 

02:16
Joe Patitucci
Here we are. 

02:17
Laraaji
Yes. Texas. Texas Austin. 

02:20
Joe Patitucci
Yes. Is this what you expected Texas to be? 

02:23
Laraaji
Yes. I'm expecting a little bit more centigrades, but here's the sun, here's the warm people. Here's the ground. 

02:31
Joe Patitucci
Feels good to be here. 

02:33
Laraaji
Does. Yeah, here is a good place. 

02:36
Joe Patitucci
Thanks for coming down. So I just started this podcast. A lot of this is about creativity, artistry, craft, universe, flow. 

02:49
Laraaji
Join the podcast party. Yeah. Share the information. 

02:54
Joe Patitucci
Exactly. So last night we made music with plants, and we kind of interweaved a lot of beauty, and it was very touching. 

03:07
Laraaji
Yes. Tonal improvisation, honoring the frequency of plants through sound. 

03:17
Joe Patitucci
And one of the things that got me into making plant music is this idea of seeing that I was always influenced by nature to create music. And I felt in a certain way, nature was expressing itself through me, like the creative force of the universe was coming out in me. And I see that big time in you, the way that you channel, and you do that very live, and you do that through music and then also through kind of toning and kind of light language. 

03:58
Laraaji
Yes, there's not a whole lot of thinking that goes into it, but you're probably right. So nature is an interesting word. So when the nature of space, the nature of timelessness, the nature of the moment, the nature of now, that in contemplation or in meditation or deep witnessing, I'm drawn out of this sense of local time and local body and sensing myself as a presence, as a field of unlimited presence. And this is like a lead sheet. So I'm in it, and it generates my ideas or my inspiration for spontaneous music. So I'm reading the now, and the idea is, in reading the now, I'm celebrating because there's so much freedom, so much non anxiety and so much joy. So the now is a very potent place to it's good medicine. Medicine. 

05:16
Laraaji
And so the nature of the now for me, if I had to put it into words, it's always here, always accessible, and it doesn't put any rules on me. I mean, if I'm in the now and express openly and share my sounds, the sounds tend to be what you call light language. And light also can be interchanged with the term lightness. Lightness to be in the now, to me, extended present time, nonlinear. It's void of third dimensional claustrophobia, third dimensional debris. So in that aspect, it's light that it's not carrying heaviness. So it's the lightness of present time. The nature of now is lightness. And in musical expression, I enjoy the idea of space or sparse notes to sculpt or point to the lightness and the emptiness and the non congestion of nowness. 

06:24
Laraaji
And this was an experiment until people like you commented that they were getting it, they were getting lightness, they were getting expansiveness, they were getting freed up from their dense identity so that they could experience a lighter sense of connection with the cosmos. 

06:44
Joe Patitucci
What started you on that journey of exploring this lightness? 

06:51
Laraaji
Consciously, I could say being in the Baptist church and having my mother insist that we go to church and Christianity, baptism, being baptized, being exposed to the person called Jesus the Christ at an early age without fully understanding at all, but knowing that was something awesome. Jesus, hey, I want to do that. Wow, that is cool. 

07:17
Joe Patitucci
Yeah. 

07:19
Laraaji
And so not knowing how I was going to do it because I was getting mixed messages that only Jesus could do it, but yet Jesus was saying, you can do it too. And so I did my further research in later years. Well, as a result of following the image that I have of Jesus in my imagination, praying to Jesus was good psychotherapy, and it kept the doors open for me to invite in metaphysics in later life because metaphysics seems and Eastern philosophy seems to point in the direction of the mystery that Jesus seemed to represent. If you want to do it, then here are some ways that you can do it. And what I found out is that the way to do it is to switch your idea of your potentiality. 

08:11
Laraaji
There's more to you than human incarnation and human muscles that with the mind and the imagination. Even Einstein supported this. You can create, I call it. You can intuit or you can create your present moment according to the vibration of your mind and the thoughts you think help to establish the vibration of that mind. So when I began exploring mind science and meditation, I found out I was directly altering the frequency of my mental state. And what followed was that I changed the aperture or the lens through which I was perceiving life. And the idea of the prosperity and perfection and eternity became more accessible to my sense of what is real. That through meditation, long hours of meditation, I was able to access the place beyond the titles. 

09:15
Laraaji
In my earlier forms of meditation, I would sit in an easy chair, do deep breathing, and then mentally take off all titles and names and classifications. And what was left is this lightness of just. I am. I am without any titles, without any bone structure, without any ethnic identity, super lightness. And I could stay in that meditative place for hours because there was no anxiety, no fear as this lightness and a very yummy lightness. And I got to thinking, wow, this is better than chunking down one $200 to fly off to India and try to find a guru that right here inside the moment. If the devotion, if your devotion and my devotion allows it, I can access this lightness. And in this lightness, I feel less separate from everything. 

10:15
Laraaji
I feel that I don't need to rush off to a future or rush off to change the past. And I find that my relationship with people shifts too big time. That although I see people in bodies, bone structures, noses and eyes colors, I'm getting to know that we are all a field, a common field, and starting to look at people from inside, look out through people's eyes and feel them more cosmically, intimately, so that there isn't a sense of I'll lose you if you go far away in terms of miles. I feel that we are interpenetrating one another in the perfect present time on all of this understanding came to me through reading and through the practice of silent meditation. So much comes through in meditation called nonverbal information. And that's what I feel I was looking for when I was younger. 

11:21
Laraaji
I was looking for answers, but I thought they would come in terms of words. But I'm discovering that there's transverbal or there is data that doesn't register in the linear condition mind. And whether you call it spirit or the way or Allah or God and whatever you call it, if you're feeling it while you're calling it, then that's the right language for you. 

11:55
Joe Patitucci
Can you give an example of experiencing that feeling? Or do you remember the first time you had that feeling? 

12:09
Laraaji
What feeling? What feeling were Doug? 

12:11
Joe Patitucci
Or the experience of knowing without the words or the experience of receiving the information without it being words? 

12:27
Laraaji
Yes, I think consciously because unconsciously I was receiving guidance into following it. I think that's one thing that prayer does, praying just opens me up to trusting the invisible, the impersonal. And so in my early music improvisation, I feel I was following guidance without saying that I'm following guidance. Just jump on a piano and spontaneous music would happen. But after exploring meditation, mind science and yoga, I learned that by being cultivating an inner stillness, a deeper inner stillness, I could receive guidance from a higher source. And when I say higher, I mean more present. That's where the higher is in the more present. And when we're not digging the higher it's because our focus is somewhere removed from the present and we're into linear time space. 

13:28
Laraaji
But times when I learned how to be in perfect present time, one moment was of that was during the 5 hours of meditation in the early 70s, mid seventy s. One night before settling the meditation I had attracted this sound. At first I called it a sound hearing experience. But later on I realized it wasn't done through these ears. I was aware inside an ocean of musical sound current. And the sound simultaneously was triggering cosmic memory of how it is that I am eternal. How it is that I am a field in which all things are one. And so I didn't make the connection at that time. But one of the sayings from the Bible jesus was I and my father are one. And I thought that was a hip statement. 

14:32
Laraaji
And it was during meditation I began to unravel my understanding behind those mystical sayings. So this sound current that's like activated or either was simultaneous with the activation of unknowingness how it is that everything is one now and that now is eternal. This is where eternity is. I used to think you had to wait to the end of time to know what eternity was. So that kind of knowingness was activated in the moment of deep meditative awareness. But I must say that particular moment I had some help. That was I was probably months into exploring, experimenting with deep meditation, relaxing the identity with the body through the thoughts, deep breathing. And also I found that guidance guided me to the mindful offering of cannabis to the meditation experience. 

15:44
Laraaji
And the first time I felt guided I questioned it because of course it was sort of underground and taboo. Until one evening I was watching a television show and the show was a live theater piece based in the East Village, New York and it was about these detectives going underground to investigate Beatnik community. And one of the sergeants was instructing another police officer how to fake smoking a joint. And I saw it. And this guidance is you got to check that out. Just like that. Check what out? Check that out. Though it wasn't until years later in college that I was offered an opportunity to explore cannabis, and college mates offered me a few toques. And I felt nothing. And the college mates were sitting in the room laughing at me, saying, you're high and don't know it. And still I hadn't gotten it. 

16:52
Laraaji
So years later, fast forward, I was given another opportunity. Okay, I'm going to do ten sessions of marijuana, and if I get nothing from it, I'm just going to chalk up that guidance. So after about four or five experiments with cannabis laying in my room in Harlem, just one day, I was laying in my bed an afternoon, staring out across the courtyard at the window seal across me, which had, I think, tropicana orange juice carton and another with maybe a milk carton standing next to each other. And I remember after ingesting cannabis, I'm staring at these cartons, saying to myself, I wonder how many times I'm going to have to really do this to find a meaning. 

17:46
Laraaji
Then I notice the two cartons were doing one was a penguin, and there were two penguins, and they were doing a soft shoe dance on the ceiling on the window seal. And I'm saying, okay, I'm thinking. So learning getting high was about learning how to focus at the frequency where it's going on, because I was too busy focusing in a familiar terrain. So cannabis and psychedelics, I believe, show us another terrain within our consciousness and imagination that can be explored. So there I am listening to this music, this one night inside my head, and it's calling me to be aware that my heart was cracking open for the universe. It made me how much in love I am with this universe. And I don't know if I cried, but it was like one of those real excruciatingly beautiful experience of family reunion. 

18:52
Laraaji
Maybe you can imagine seeing your grandmother, great grandfather, all at a family reunion and seeing faces that you vaguely remember. And that feeling, this was like, the whole universe is in reunion right here and right now. And as I, over the years tried to relate that experience, I became aware of different aspects of that experience. That I was not only experiencing the music, but I was experiencing, we call it transcendental consciousness that's transcended the body, and that I was the field. I was being aware of another dimension other than third dimension. It might be called the fifth dimension. It might be called the cosmic field or the void. So that experience was groundbreaking for me because a few days after that, I went to Lincoln Center Library music library to start research to find anything that pointed to that musical hearing experience. 

20:03
Laraaji
And there was several religious traditions on the planet honor that sound, including Christianity, but it was kind of covered over in the beginning was the word. The word is that sound. And the more I talk about that experience, the more I have to remember that it never happened. 

20:27
Joe Patitucci
Tell me about what you the teaching. 

20:29
Laraaji
Is that there is no past for it to have happened in that God did not create the universe because God doesn't operate in past tense. So it's all going on now. And because of the way we are linked into this form of creation, it appears and we use language of linear time space, but stepping out of it, going back across the veil into zero point, we see that there's the I am within which all of this is taking place and unfolding. And that in absolute present time. Linear time is you could call it hallucination or illusion, but it's a story within an imaginary realm. But if we're in that realm, it seems real, but beyond that realm, there is just continuous now. 

21:29
Laraaji
And when that music, that experience that didn't happen, it reminds me when I try to talk about it, we didn't happen, we're happening now. It's a story and it's an encouragement to clear out my nowness so that I can have this experience more expansively that the now is where it's going on. And if I don't know it and I don't see it means I've got stuff in my nowness that's obstructing my direct experience of a higher frequency. 

22:07
Joe Patitucci
Yeah, I feel that. I love the way you kind of explain higher frequency too, because I think sometimes I hear people talk about high frequency, low frequency, like high vibe, low vibe or things like that. And I tend to think of it almost like bitrate. 

22:27
Laraaji
Like what? 

22:27
Joe Patitucci
Like bitrate or sample rate. 

22:31
Laraaji
Oh, yeah. 

22:32
Joe Patitucci
How many samples per second you're running? So the higher the sample rate, the more you're connected to the present moment. Whereas the lower the sample rate, the bigger there are gaps between moments. 

22:47
Laraaji
And those gaps we don't see. We look a certain way or we use our faculties a certain way. Like I said, there's big gaps. We overstep the present moment. We see linear activity and unless we're mindful or been trained or thoughtful, we exclude our presence, that this presence, the witness, and getting in touch with ourself as a silent witness, I find is a way of reinhabiting present time. 

23:29
Joe Patitucci
Definitely. Yeah. I feel that I had an experience where I did a plant medicine journey and I was so in that witness state that it was interesting. At one point, I had to get up and go use the restroom and I was out on a farm in Central America and in the bathroom they had a fluorescent light. And because I was in the witness mind and I felt like I was so in the present and that sample rate was so high, the kind of light flashing of a bulb that you would detect as just constant light in normal life. You might feel a little bit definitely feel it. It was like a strobe light. 

24:23
Laraaji
You could it was like a notice that you had. 

24:28
Joe Patitucci
And I was like, I see. Okay, you can run this hardware at different rates. 

24:39
Laraaji
Yes, indeed. And one thing I always felt in talking about this is that I never know how much the same other person already knows. The whole world may be enlightened to the max, waiting for me to catch up. 

25:03
Joe Patitucci
I feel like the whole world is enlightened, waiting to be invited to witness its own enlightenment. 

25:16
Laraaji
The thing I have about that is there's one of two things or both things are happening right now. Either there is this happening all by itself, or I'm creating it. And if I'm creating it moment to moment, then the only way to change anything is to change the whole creation or let the whole creation shift in a way that it includes my prosperity or includes my health. Or I can go out into this and put bandaids on what seems to be a boo, or go help a friend correct their behavior. If I think they're acting out of place, either I go around and manipulate this, which seems to be the physical world, or I stay in the witness mode, and if I just tune into Perfection Completion wholeness, then I won't be so caught up in trying to fix things. 

26:25
Laraaji
And you fix a hole in that dike, and another hole leaks over there that if you try to fix things in this perceptual realm, you may get temporary joy, but eventually I feel we'll get pooped out. And I had a question about being a bodhisattva. Bodhisattva keeps coming back until everyone's I'm saying, what if the bodhisattva satva is creating the need for himself to come back? What if the bodhisattva could create a perfection feel and intuit a world that never needed and never will need healing or enlightenment? Or does the bodhisattva come into a realm where we do need to tinker with things? What is our responsibility to tinker with what we think or step back and let creation nature present the universe in its own way? 

27:25
Joe Patitucci
Yeah, definitely. It definitely could get exhausting going about trying to fix everything all the time. And I wonder too, because you kind of contrast this nowness with the polarity, which might be anxiety if you're looking towards the future or maybe depression if you're looking if you're looking at the past with or regret or something like that. And I'm wondering, was there a time where you were kind of oscillating out of the now as, like, a normal part of your life when you. 

28:08
Laraaji
Say oscillating outside of the now, or using the now as my base, oscillating. 

28:14
Joe Patitucci
Outside of the now. So was there a time when you were I mean, were you always in this now or was it? 

28:22
Laraaji
I was but didn't know it, of course. No, there were times of attachment and you say addiction to outcomes, dependence upon otherness relating to otherness, putting investing my total emotional, psychological balance and equilibrium into my relationship with otherness. And I found that they were like roller coaster rides. And though it wasn't a dependable happiness it's happiness, then there's happiness. 

29:05
Joe Patitucci
Sure. 

29:07
Laraaji
Then I began hearing these messages, especially from Eastern philosophy, that suffering is due to attachment. I said, oh, wait a minute. There must be some things I can be attached to that are going to have continuous joy. But when I think of things that I'm attached to, I might come to a midway point of contentment. But continuous happiness and joy in an attachment situation, even especially if you really love something, if it moves outside of your field of vision and takes a trip to Chicago, you might have a little anxiety about what if a terrorist, what if the plane go down? What if she chokes on a hickory nut? What if a lion leaps over the cage at the zoo and runs palmel through the city and grabs her? 

30:06
Laraaji
So there's anxiety comes know what if when you're attached to otherness and things outside, though, the happiness I'm so happy I got a grandchild. I'm so happy I got this new car and you go to sleep at night. Did I park it in the right place? I don't know. These gas prices are out of sight. You jump in the car and you enjoy the ride. It's driving down highway 101. So there's ups and downs. At some point, is there a road or a path that's in constant equilibrium and that's where the Bible, the word or nadam or the inner sound current comes in. For me, it represents the sound, the frequency of the nervous system, cosmic nervous system in continuous equilibrium. That's why you have nada yoga, the yoga that's built on finding your inner peace by contemplating the cosmic sound current. 

31:10
Laraaji
So that's probably one of the main stays in the practice I do is tuning into this sound current. And it has shown me how to sustain a place of balance and equilibrium. If I step outside of it, I can find myself getting grumpy groggy pissed off. And I'm saying, why am I getting pissed off? It's because I'm attaching too much of the outcome in the physical dimension. I can come back into the witness place and watch those things without being attached. Of course, I give up maybe the joy of saying, that's mine but then I also give up the work of taking responsibility, emotional responsibility for it. That's one thing about possession. I say instead of deciding what I want in life, decide what it is I'd like to take responsibility for. 

32:11
Laraaji
What is it that I would have a lot of joy taking responsibility for. And so if you answer that correctly, you come oh, I wouldn't mind having three children, I take responsibility. That would be fun. Or having a Shetland pony. That would be fun. Or having an airplane pilot's license. That should be fun. I wouldn't mind taking responsibility for that. So in wisdom, if I ask, what is it I like to take responsibility for? My early one was, I'd like to take responsibility for doing what Jesus did. That seemed like a hip place to be. I don't know about the cross scene. I don't know. I guess the cross, if it had to be the cross. I think I've been nailed to the cross already, though. 

33:05
Joe Patitucci
Yeah. We all kind of bear our own cross in our own way. I think we have to be who we are, right? 

33:14
Laraaji
Yes. You do it. And you said oops. Okay. That's into that chapter, you realize how committed you are to following whatever you're following. And so what falls away is the self was faking, like it was following other paths. 

33:33
Joe Patitucci
Yeah. That's so good. What crosses have you born willingly? They might not seem like crosses to you right. Because they were part of a process. 

33:49
Laraaji
But guess one cross getting nailed means having your total current portfolio shifted. It's also in the song Young At Heart, you know. But it's Frank Sinatra Young at Heart. 

34:10
Joe Patitucci
Okay. Yeah. 

34:10
Laraaji
There's one phrase in there. You can go to extremes with the possible schemes. You can laugh when your dreams fall apart at the seams. That's getting nailed to the cross. And one time that happened is living in Park Slope, Brooklyn, working in exchange for at a coffee house, aquarium coffee house, having a free room in the basement of what is now in the Park Slope Food Co op. But anyhow part of my responsibility was to help the man of this loft, who was an ex Marine, prepare the loft for parties now and then. And on this one particular day, I had committed to being up 09:00 in the morning to help him prepare the loft. And about 09:00, I came up to start helping him. There was a lot of work that had to be done. 

35:07
Laraaji
I got this clear signal go downstairs and get your auto harp and go to Central Park and play. And I was so clear. It's one of those clear signals that, you know, if you don't ignore it, you're like you're punching God in the nose. Get out of here. It was clear that I had to follow it, follow the rabbit hole up. So I went downstairs and got my gear, and as I was leaving, he said, Where are you going? I said, I just got a message. Central park. And I left knowing I could feel that I was getting nailed to the cross back there. 

35:48
Laraaji
Because after I got to the Central Park playing at the zoo outside the zoo about 10:00 in the morning, hardly anybody's there, and I'm saying, oh, did I hear the voice right and I'm playing for maybe a half an hour, and I'm noticing only people. There are these two pair of feet standing there for a long time, male and female. And I opened my eyes, clearly stopped playing, and I feel that I had booed. I misheard. And these two people came over to me. One was a gentleman, the other was a lady. And she stooped down to me and smiled, you're psychic, aren't you? And I said, oh, here it comes. 

36:32
Laraaji
And she introduced me to the man she was with, who was a psychic, religious person who was about to launch this Twelve Rays cassette album, and he needed music, and they said my music was just right. And he hired me on the spot to come up a few days later to New England at a house where they were and record all this music. Now back on the ground, I returned to the loft, and part of the loft had gotten completed, and my friend, or my questionable friend said, Where were you? And I says I had the voice told. I don't want to hear any of your muck amuck. And he pushed me across the loft with a force that said, I don't want to counter that. And so I went downstairs and got what I could and left and never returned. 

37:37
Laraaji
And that push was getting nailed. It's just saying, whatever you believe in, whatever you are following, doesn't fly here, doesn't go over here, and it's not recognized here, it will not be honored here, it will be violently opposed here. 

37:56
Joe Patitucci
And so allowing that so that you can go and be where your soul. 

38:04
Laraaji
Is meant to be yes, that taking responsibility for your actions. And I'm saying, I no longer want to take responsibilities for misleading to somebody about my undercover Jesus Freakness. 

38:20
Joe Patitucci
And it turns out that the next place for you to go is somewhere else on Earth and not like, ascending to heaven in that moment. So that works out. 

38:28
Laraaji
Choose your path more. Mindfully. If you know you're committed to this, why are you getting into that relationship? If you know you're committed to running to The Voice, why are you committing your time and energy nine to five to that job, to that kind of job? If you know you're committed to waking up, if you've seen the light and you know you're returning into the next dimension of your evolution, why are you putting all your time and energy in that direction? 

38:57
Joe Patitucci
Yeah, super important, I'm sure that yeah, absolutely. And so you had an arrangement where you're kind of working there and you were a musician. When did you kind of rewinding back? When did you start making music? Or did you do that in the church? Like, growing up, was it a big part of your life? 

39:25
Laraaji
Earliest part of music. Listening to my mother, Mary Alice, humming church songs around the house when she was doing housework, that's music. So I was introduced to the open, uninhibited use of the voice. She didn't scream or nothing like that, but she voice. And then church listening to the gospel choir then in our school system in Perth Amor, New Jersey, was very up on getting children connected to musical instruments very early. I think it was the second or third grade, a little tonet, a flute kind of instrument. Around the fourth or fifth grade I began violin. And my mother also saw that I was interested in the piano and so she had a piano put in the house. 

40:19
Laraaji
So there I was learning piano and violin, singing in the church choir, playing in the high school and the grade school orchestra and choir and listening to a lot of music on the radio. So performing music, I had a lot of inspiration. People like Earl Gardner, Oscar Peterson, AMA Jamal, Frankie Lyman and the teenagers, the Beatles, all of these musical people helped me to feel as how important music is, to be able to access our transverbal state of awareness, to live where we're not thinking linear thoughts, like you said, being in the present moment. And so that musical teachings, education just blossomed. But a funny thing, I hadn't thought that I'd become make it a profession because I liked it so much. 

41:23
Laraaji
I thought I wanted to become an engineer or an architect, but I was following a daydream, I thought being a chemical engineer, I could work for Dupont. I'd have a white coat and I have a Mercedes Benz in the parking lot and I'd be somebody. But somewhere around second year of high school, somebody helped me to realize that my heart was really in music and that being an architect or chemical engineer was not the best use of my creative journey. So I applied to Howard University and I no longer applied to MIT or Renzeler Paulnitech. And I got accepted at Howard, got some scholarships and went for music. And that validated my ability to attract a musical scholarship. And my idea was to go to college for two years and get past the feeling being a trespasser in the field of music. 

42:33
Laraaji
But four years happened. After two years, I did get that sense of ability to compose and data. But I went for four years at Howard and it affirmed my devotion to creating and composing new music, that sound. And that to me, turned out to be the best way I could do what Jesus did. Use sound to get people's spirit into soaring, lifting out of no longer necessary frequencies of self awareness. Using sound to introduce people to their capacity to embrace a meditative moment, a sustained silence for 30 minutes at the end of a performance, and to really get to see the self that sees itself when it's not looking through outer lens. 

43:34
Joe Patitucci
Yeah, you said silence for 30 minutes after a performance. Does that happen? 

43:41
Laraaji
That has happened. Last night it was about five minutes. 

43:45
Joe Patitucci
It's probably about five minutes. 

43:46
Laraaji
Yes. 

43:47
Joe Patitucci
I probably ended it by hugging you guys, but it probably could have gone longer. 

43:52
Laraaji
And there's a little anxiety there because when it's happening, hey, this is happening. It happened in Paris after a concert, and afterwards, people comment and says, never have we been in Paris in a room full of these many people, this quiet for so long. 

44:10
Joe Patitucci
There wasn't a sneeze, there wasn't anything. 

44:15
Laraaji
My sense is that certain kind of music can help one relax into what we call shavasana, the corpse pose, where the corpse without a linear agenda does not interfere with the witnesses witnessing. The witnessing. The witnessing. 

44:37
Joe Patitucci
Oh, yeah. 

44:38
Laraaji
Yes. That your sense of the blue light, the flashing, the strobe light of seeing, getting more data. There's lots of data here, like you call data garden. 

44:50
Joe Patitucci
Yeah. 

44:51
Laraaji
This is a data garden, this moment, and depends on what lens you're wearing or your aperture. You read into data, new data, old data, your data. 

45:06
Joe Patitucci
Yeah. And there's a lot of space between the bits, right? 

45:15
Laraaji
Yes. Lots of it. That's what they say. The body's made up of atoms, but there's more space here than solid matter. 

45:25
Joe Patitucci
Yeah. 

45:28
Laraaji
So where is this all going? 

45:31
Joe Patitucci
This is going on. 

45:33
Laraaji
I don't mean that. I mean where is this going? What are we doing here? 

45:39
Joe Patitucci
What are we doing? We're doing this. 

45:41
Laraaji
Yes. Why? Are there others that need to hear this? Or are we just creating this whole present moment scenario because we want to feel ourselves doing something? 

45:53
Joe Patitucci
Yeah, that's a great question. It actually brings a question up. I think I'll answer the question with a question or raise the question that raises for me, which is yeah, what attachments do you enjoy witnessing yourself attached to just for fun? Or like, you know, it's kind of like, well, there's we're human beings on Earth, so I can do a thing and I can will, or maybe it's not even willing, but I can put my energy in the direction of doing something, and that doing doesn't have to have attachment to it. I guess you don't need the attachment, but the fact that you're doing it means that you have enough. Okay. So at that point, it's either something's moving you to do it. Right. So right now, then, we are wind chimes with mouths and different biology. 

47:11
Laraaji
So in your earlier vision, if you can stay present with whatever you're doing, you're not so attached to the outcome that you're enjoying the infinitude of the moment, the sense of connectedness to everything, your sense of health being identified with the wholeness of the field, and that you're not attached to winning this poker game. You're not attached to this or that coming out that particular way, because however it comes out, you'll still be in touch with your inner harmony and peace. So not being attached if you're attached to wow. If that doesn't happen, I'm screwed. That kind of attachment could be the roller coaster ride, but you could say, if that happens, I will still be connected to my sense of longevity, and I will still have a sense of connections to my source of creativity. 

48:10
Laraaji
So that has happened in times when equipment has failed during a concert performance, and I could just smile at it and pick up, go, another way to present this concert. Yeah. So being attached to a specific outcome is probably and then sometimes I say, Am I attached? Or I just appreciate it. Am I attached to that flower? Or am I appreciating that flower? Yeah. 

48:40
Joe Patitucci
And what's the difference for you between being attached? What's a way that you can tell. 

48:44
Laraaji
Attached is a little anxiety. If I'm attached to that flower, what if that chipmunks around here, come and eat that flower, and it won't be here tomorrow? If it's I'm appreciating, I say, look at the form of that flower. Look. Wow. We're on the earth together. And if a chipmunk wants to eat it, that chipmunk should enjoy it. 

49:09
Joe Patitucci
Yeah, totally. On the note of you went to school for music. Did you identify as an artist in high school? 

49:23
Laraaji
The term artist, I think I observed myself taking responsibility for that when I was having to start signing contracts, music contracts. But did I think of an artist or a musician? That's a good question, because you ask your question when you go to get in your car, how do you talk to yourself? Who are you? Do you say, hey, yo, get the car. Hey, artist, go get the car. Hey, human being, brush your teeth. What is this? No, there's a transverbal. I have a transverbal connection or association here. So if you stripped away the body and was left in zero point void, I'm imagining I would be recognizing the inner sound. 

50:23
Laraaji
And because I've learned how to be comfortable with the sound, I would have something dependably, familiar during the transition, during the Bardo or whatever they call it, to the next dimension that focusing on Nadam is like investing in my eternalness I call it a necessary step in smart evolution. You got to get on board with this inner sound current because it's like a navigation it's cosmic positioning signal. 

51:00
Joe Patitucci
Sure. 

51:00
Laraaji
If you're going to be a cosmic traveler, which I believe we all are, we have no beginning and no end. If we don't know it, we're going to be really pleasantly surprised when we do know it. 

51:12
Joe Patitucci
Yeah. Some people love that moment. 

51:16
Laraaji
Yes. 

51:16
Joe Patitucci
And repeat it over and over again. 

51:20
Laraaji
And that's why, I think, have outer teachers and outer gurus to help turn our focus inward. What you're looking for is you. What you're looking for is right here. And those who are looking for outer teachers, the ways inward are really looking for some event or somebody who can sculpt the proper event for internal something like you've heard of Goanka vapassana? 

51:50
Joe Patitucci
Oh, yeah, I've done one. 

51:51
Laraaji
You have? I think that's wonderful. Free offering on the planet, things like that, when people are given the opportunity to be quiet for seven or eight days and have an expanded AHA. 

52:07
Joe Patitucci
Oh, yeah, that's actually when I came to my kind of theory on that bitrate analogy or the sample rate analogy. 

52:19
Laraaji
Yeah, I think that is very contemporarily. Correct. I'm thinking that computer digital language is probably the right language for helping us to make the next leap forward. You got to find the language. You find the language for it, our consciousness of it will expand. And I think the digital world is giving us a language to help access and expand in nearer dimensions. Downloads uploads delete bulk dump. 

52:49
Joe Patitucci
Yeah, because there's that part where the polarity in it is what? The attachment or aversion. Right. And when I was scanning my body, I noticed you're supposed to scan your body and feel you might notice pain in some areas. You might notice areas where there's no feeling. And then you also might notice a subtle vibration. So I was almost thinking of the pain as almost like if I'm thinking of all of everything as an oscillation of awareness is this oscillation between maybe attachment and aversion. It's like the pain is like the top of the wave, like stuck on. And then the lack of feeling was like stuck off and identifying with it instead of recognizing it as change. And once I recognized it all as change, then I got that subtle vibration feeling and I was like, oh, I'm just turning an oscillator. 

53:58
Joe Patitucci
That's all I'm doing. I'm playing with an oscillator. Which is like love. 

54:04
Laraaji
An interesting thing to do, I find now and then as a creative yogic exercise is think of the ways that you are in pain right now, but you've transcended calling it pain. I could think of this situation that I'm in right now would be painful for somebody else because you wouldn't know what to do with themselves if they don't have that. Well, think of the ways that this could be called pain, but that I'm not calling it painful. 

54:34
Joe Patitucci
Yeah, totally. Or when I rollerblade or something, sometimes I think about rollerblading at like 28 miles an hour and I'm like, just on 1ft playing. That would be really terrifying for somebody if they didn't know. You kind of create the lane for yourself through your own being. 

55:01
Laraaji
Yeah, exactly what I'm talking about. 

55:03
Joe Patitucci
Yeah. So what I'm hearing from you then is that your transpersonal view of yourself kind of maybe makes a word or an identity like artist unnecessary or something that you didn't necessarily it sounds almost like the path you followed was finding the inner being and the inner sense of now and then. That is what you are. You're in this constant co creation or you're in this constant mode of creation I'm saying this. 

55:49
Laraaji
Yes. And also, who is not an artist? 

55:52
Joe Patitucci
Exactly. 

55:53
Laraaji
Yes, exactly. The art of rolling a joint, the art of avoiding rolling your own joint, the art of mothering, the art of parenting. Sometimes you don't understand what that art is until you become a parent. Whoa. What Mommy and Daddy had to put up with. 

56:16
Joe Patitucci
Yeah, of course. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So that's how I think about it a lot too. It's just that we're always co creating this moment, right? Yeah. I find that the term artist an interesting one because yeah, who isn't want to accept that? 

56:39
Laraaji
Yes. I believe an artist is a channel of meditative focus or meditative connection to whatever and their work shines a light on something that allows others to see this area more clearly. Where this emotional possibilities or emotional ability of us to enter a new realm of beauty and balance or whatever. Artists can show us how to feel more deeply about something maybe we even thought we could feel about. 

57:16
Joe Patitucci
Sure. Yeah. Well, I can say you're doing that quite well. And yeah, I may have told you, but I met you after meditating to your music every day for about nine months. 

57:38
Laraaji
That was the same music. It was variety of music in that area. 

57:42
Joe Patitucci
I listened to a lot of like I had a playlist, so unicorns in paradise. Yes. Vision Song suite and connecting with the inner Healer. So I listened to those almost every day. I think I would do yoga to Connecting with the Inner Healer every day. And then randomly I was contacted by someone at SUNY Purchase who was putting this show together with you and was like, oh, we'd love for you to collaborate with Laraaji. And I was like, what? Okay. And then I found that you had going into your archive and found the song Cosmic Joe, which my dad's nickname was Cosmic Joe. 

58:35
Laraaji
Really? 

58:35
Joe Patitucci
And I didn't know this until I started making Plant Music. And my parents friends came down from the East Village. They've been living in the same apartment since the 60s. Came down and saw the Plant music stuff. And my dad's friend Norman goes up to my dad, he's like, hey Cosmo, little Joe's a Cosmic Joe too. And I was like, wait, you call my dad Cosmic Joe? And my friends called me Cosmic Joe because I would just always talk about how everything's like meta and an infinite torsion field. 

59:10
Laraaji
Yeah. 

59:11
Joe Patitucci
And so I was like, Wait, my dad's? And then so eight years later, I find your music and I'm meditating all the time with it. And then I see the song Cosmic Joe. And I was like, what? Where did that song come from? Can you tell me about that? 

59:30
Laraaji
Well, in the mid 80s, throughout the my summer spring gigs was playing music for various consciousness conferences. And around America they would run for anywhere from four days to seven days, usually on college campuses. And this one particular annual conference was called the Southeast Spiritual Conference, held on Guilford College campus in Greensboro, North Carolina. And at this conference there were people from all over the United States and some of the world and teachers in various subjects. And one of the teachers there was a man called Joe Tucker, colonel Joe Tucker. He was a colonel in the air force, colonel in the war, talked about his flights. Anyhow, he described himself as a member of the Great White brotherhood, and I wasn't sure what that was supposed to mean, but I think it was an esoteric occult group, but a great white brotherhood. 

01:00:34
Laraaji
And he had a southern accent voice, and he seemed to have after hearing my music, he was a teacher there, amongst other teachers, and I was a presenter and a teacher. He would engage me and walk across the campus and talk about metaphysical things and try to explain to me that the 8th chakra is above the head and you access it. And he would mentor me right there on the campus. And I thought, wow, he's unloading some heavy data. And then I started making the connection. The great white brotherhood probably has some kind of like, masons, you're committed to going out and helping the world become a better place, help humanity evolve, and probably something like that. But anyhow, whenever he had a chance to talk, he would talk about this higher dimension and accessing it. 

01:01:39
Laraaji
And one summer, I came to this conference and he was there. And before the conference started, there's this teachers get together in the auditorium and get to know each other, and teachers were asked to stand up and say, what is it you're going to teach this week? And the teachers would get up and I'm so I'm from Illinois, I'm going to teach curling photography, and y'all come and enjoy the class. And after about five teachers, I felt like, gosh, I don't feel like I don't know what I'm going to do. So I got up and I just ran. Light language gauze on adribiko aguanasi sik shino koho NoHo toho NoHo. And of course, in the moment I'm feeling it and I'm thinking, yo, I think I crossed the line here, but I'm feeling it's real for me. 

01:02:32
Laraaji
And the only other person that got it was Joe Tucker. He just cracked up and laughed like he was on the same frequency. And so after that week, I returned home, and maybe within a week I heard that Joe Tucker had crossed over and the song came together of cosmic joe met Holy Moe in locked embrace, and suddenly they were united. So that was his crossing over. And so there was a joke. Colonel Joe Tucker, and he talked of cosmic things. 

01:03:07
Joe Patitucci
Right on. Beautiful. Thanks for that story. 

01:03:13
Laraaji
Yes, stories are good, aren't they? 

01:03:17
Joe Patitucci
They're fun. As long as they're fun to access in the present moment. 

01:03:24
Laraaji
Yes. Holy mo. There's a holy momentum, which is a sound current. Demonstrate vertical field momentum. It's always in place. There's a holy momentum, holy moment. The instant then Holy Mo is we just call it a place. 

01:03:44
Joe Patitucci
Yeah, right on. 

01:03:48
Laraaji
Then there's Holy Molly. 

01:03:50
Joe Patitucci
Holy molly holly molly. Molly is here. She's transformed there. She loves the song. 

01:04:00
Laraaji
Amazing. This is super duper deep meditation. And I say anyone who gets into meditation are in for a big treat because nothing gets us. We don't get bent out of shape so easily. If we can feel our grounding in a transpersonal place, a place that isn't going to get disturbed by what's going on here, if we can at least feel it, connect with it, and maybe circulate, maybe an hour a day accumulate in that place, we start balancing so we don't feel out of balance. You feel in this place and, whoa, what if that happens? I got no grounding. So through meditation, you can ground in a higher dimension, a higher foundation. And so that when you walk in this world, you say, oh, that's happening over there. But I know I'm anchored in the way I feel the spirit. 

01:05:03
Laraaji
But if you got that much passion because you're feeling it, you're walking it. It's in your prayers, it's in your affirmations. And if it's in your language, I say the only way to arrive is through your language. You got to have the language of where you want to be, and you've got to just de access the language that's where you don't want to be. 

01:05:20
Joe Patitucci
Yeah, absolutely. I look at it as if I was climbing a ladder that was 100 stories high. A dream, just a situation. I look at it. If you're climbing a ladder that is 100 stories high, why would it ever be in service for you to look down? I would not want to just keep going. This is the direction we're going. We're going this way and yeah, we can put our. 

01:05:55
Laraaji
I would look down to see if anybody with pizza is following me. 

01:06:00
Joe Patitucci
There you go. 

01:06:02
Laraaji
The idea of keep looking up or keep looking as I say, as I feel is an important language shift for us to look as. Instead of going to the future, go as the future, instead of going toward the light, go as the light somehow collapse. The sense of being separate from where you want to be. 

01:06:24
Joe Patitucci
Yeah. 

01:06:24
Laraaji
So Asness seems to work. If I think in still linear or I'm going into that or I'm going toward it, I find when I start playing with Asness, the brain starts get what's on here, but I'm learning that it's trippy, but I feel it's crucial to smart evolution for myself. 

01:06:50
Joe Patitucci
That makes sense because to me, because you're melding with where you're melding. 

01:07:02
Laraaji
Absolutely. Ramana Maharshi. What did he say? 

01:07:08
Joe Patitucci
I don't know. 

01:07:09
Laraaji
He didn't say that. He said, Be as you are as. Which means the ultimate place is you're going to be as everything you think there is Asness. And so therefore, I don't look outside of myself. I look as myself. And I cultivating, I say, a clear sense of your as. So really so that in meditation, you drop all the titles. So when you get into that place of clear center, then you can start creating your personal future. I'm, as a well sought after architect, start thinking of not going to be a great architect. I'm going as a great architect, as this great architect. This is what I would be reading right now in my formative years as a great architect. This is what these are the friends I'd be hanging about. Rob as. 

01:08:06
Laraaji
When I think as, I see clearly as wherever you go, take your as with you so that you go where you are. I am as. So that we get to a place that there's no separation and start living in anxiety, a reduced anxiety. Real estate. You are it so it can be taken from you. 

01:08:35
Joe Patitucci
Yeah, I feel that. I love that moving as. 

01:08:40
Laraaji
Yes, I am as. Don't go toward the party. Go as the party. 

01:08:47
Joe Patitucci
Yeah. 

01:08:48
Laraaji
I'm here as Go, trying to become a great pianist. Go as the great pianist. Right now, instead of feeling away, they say the sculpture looks at a block of marble and chips away anything that isn't the elephant. So the elephant appears so in Asness I'm chipping away everything that isn't as, my being there. Now, that sounds trippy, but it sounds trippy to someone who is just waking up to their capacity for trippy. 

01:09:28
Joe Patitucci
Yeah, I mean, if it's the way things work already, it's not really that trippy. It's just kind of the mechanics of it. And I think as an artist for myself, I see that because the way I create is always to just create. And then I find out what the name of the song is later. I find out what the album is later. I find out what the feeling or theme is, because it's just I don't know. I never go like, I'm going to write a song about a cloud today. 

01:10:06
Laraaji
You're free channeling. Free channeling what comes through. Then you give a title for it later. 

01:10:12
Joe Patitucci
Yeah. 

01:10:13
Laraaji
I find that liberates me much, not knowing what I'm going to do, but tune in or get into the state or the flow state and allow and provided that my medium is prepared. And of course, you see, in my business, they say your studio is your instrument. So you prepare the studio, loops your piano, whatever's available at the time, or you turn a record around and you play the studio and spontaneity, you channel it. You don't know what's going to happen. You experiment, you explore. And then three or four or five days later, you listen to what is and you see what inspires you. And you say, I think I'll call it this. Many of the albums. I didn't know what I was going to be calling it until it was done. Just like you said that you just feel and listen and guided. 

01:11:06
Joe Patitucci
Yeah. Mentioning the instrument as the Brian Eno talks about that a lot. Coming kind of from more art school and then going into seeing electronic music equipment and seeing that as like, okay, this is a way I can sculpt sound. This is the way I can kind of compose. I guess we can talk about Day of Radiance really quickly. Did Day of Radiance have a title before it was written? And were you using a lot of effects and things before working with Brian Eno or was that something that kind of came from there? 

01:11:54
Laraaji
I was using simple effects, maybe a phase shifter simple playing through a simple amplifier in Washington Square Park. So at that moment, it was just a sound of acoustic instrument blending in with electronic sound. 

01:12:11
Joe Patitucci
Cool. 

01:12:12
Laraaji
So Brian took the sound and put it in the studio and put great mics on it and then put high end, even tide effects on it subtly later. I think my phase shifter pedal maybe been too noisy at the time. Some recording situation, performance situation. I could get away with my low end pedals that was accepted or either the sound engineer knew how to compensate for it later. High end, traveling around the world. Some of my low end pedals could really create an issue. I can get away with it in some places and in others not. But anyhow, that was simple electronics on Day of Radiance and double tracking, going hammered, zither for maybe 20 minutes, 30 minutes, however, and then over it with complementary tuning. 

01:13:12
Laraaji
Sometimes the tuning be slightly different, but would create this otherworldly harmonic reality and double tracking and then usually picking the best two of the three to go on the album. But we discovered that one of the tracks, Meditative Side, was too meditative for that studio because the mics were allowing rumble from another part of the studio of the building there in Soho to get into the recording. Six months later, we recorded the quiet Meditative Side, which again was all new, being in the moment. And so both meditations and the dance side were spontaneous channelings without a title. The title really was hovering around in the air because my years in marriage, my wife at that time had quoted something the Day of Radiance, and it stuck with me, always stuck. Day of Radiance, she must have commented on my music. 

01:14:31
Laraaji
And so I thought that would be a great title for the album. And then the dance at that time, I was very impressed with Rajneesh Osho and his statement that where the dancer disappears and the dance remains. And so that side, the dance side of Day of Radiance was acknowledging that to allow the dancer to disappear and the dance remain. And then the meditation side was named after I felt like one of my desires to leave humanity is an expanded appreciation and opportunity to explore meditation. This was my contribution, and I deliberately left the liner notes of the album very sparse. So I didn't want to put much verbiage in there. So all of that came the titles came afterwards, and I used minimal effects on the album at that time. I'm surprised. I remembering your question. 

01:15:40
Joe Patitucci
Yeah. Because you're here, you're in it. Well, that's cool. I love that. I love the way you create. Thank you for creating as Laraaji. 

01:15:55
Laraaji
Yes. 

01:15:56
Joe Patitucci
Thank you for being as Laraaji. Yeah. It's a pleasure to be here as Joe with you and share this and yeah, thanks for sharing your time on this podcast and just this week. And I'm excited for well, I'm ready for more fun things that I'm feeling coming our way. 

01:16:28
Laraaji
I would say watch when you use your term, how often you can substitute the word as in places and watch the subtle anxiety or energy that happened in your body, in your brain. When I say I look forward to seeing you, and I say I look aswert seeing you, and I just noticed how awkward it feels to some other way of thinking, but how openly it's inviting me to be in present time. 

01:16:59
Joe Patitucci
Yeah, that's great. I love that because many times I use the conventional language or I'll use my own modification of the conventional language, but there's still more openness. I think there's infinite openness in the Asness. And just tweaking and play. There's a lot of play available. This is fun. 

01:17:34
Laraaji
I would choose to close with just a few seconds of a tone. 

01:17:37
Joe Patitucci
Yes, let's do that's. 

01:18:03
Laraaji
So it is. 

01:18:04
Joe Patitucci
Thank you, Laraaji. So it is. Thanks so much for dropping into the nature of now podcast. Lots of love and gratitude to Laraaji for joining us. What an amazing human being. I'm so grateful to have him as a friend. Please, I encourage you to check out his work. He has some amazing albums out there. Some songs I mentioned there will have in the show notes. And you can just search also on Spotify or Apple Music or wherever you get your music. Just look up, Laraaji. It's L-A-R-A-A-J-I You'll see an amazing, beautiful, smiling face there. And what a legend. So, so grateful. Thanks for tuning in and I'll catch you all soon. This episode is brought to you by PlantWave. A lot of people ask me, do plants really sound like the intro to Blade Runner? 

01:18:58
Joe Patitucci
And it's important to note they are not actually emitting sounds. We're not putting microphones on plants when we're listening with PlantWave. Listening to plants is a form of data, sonification. And because of that, we can select what instruments we want the plant to play. And that's important because that can help set the mood and the tone and the vibe that allows us to settle into. Some deeper listening. Now, the way PlantWave works, it's kind of similar to how a weather map works, right? So clouds aren't green, red, yellow. They are maybe different densities of air pressure and things. But color is used on a weather map to demonstrate these different properties of the clouds or the sky. Right. 

01:19:55
Joe Patitucci
And with PlantWave, we're using notes to represent these shifts in conductivity in a plant as it's moving water around, as it's moving chloroplasts around, as it's photosynthesizing, as it's having these electrical reactions within it. So in a similar way, yeah. PlantWave is this really cool way of tuning into what's going on the plants through music. And yeah, if you want it to sound like themed of Blade Runner, you can because we have this sound set called Theater Mode that's what we're listening to now. Could be a cool one for just kind of like, staring at stars or kind of dreaming about future realities that are nowhere near as apocalyptic as Blade Runner. That would be great. So thanks so much for tuning in to Plants with me. And if you want to learn more, check out Plantwave.com and get your own. Thanks.