All My CDs, pt 32: All One

All One - Krishna Das

Several years after falling in love with the album Pilgrim Heart, I decided to see if the same artist had any other interesting albums, and on that basis I bought All One. I did not think much about the title, assuming it to be a reference to the monism of Hindu philosophy - the belief that all beings are one being, all different identities of the same all-encompassing divine spirit. This belief encourages compassion and nonviolence, since it’s hard to be cruel or uncaring to a fellow being when you believe that he is you, and that his pain is yours as well.

 When I first put it on, my impression of the first track that it was a bit slow-moving and monotonous, even compared to the repetitiveness I had appreciated in Pilgrim Heart. I found myself advancing to the next track before hearing all eighteen minutes of the first, and found it similarly boring. I took the CD out and don’t remember picking it back up again until now.

When I started listening this time, I committed to listening to the whole thing nonjudgmentally, even at the risk of some boredom. My reward was something of a revelation. Yes, the first track is even more repetitive and less variable than Pilgrim Heart. And yes, all the other tracks are just like it. In fact, the entire fifty-three minutes is all one song. The moment I realized that, I found myself murmering “I see what you did there.”

The song consists of four lines known as the Mahamantra, or “great mantra”:

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama Hare Hare

Even within the lines of the mantra there is simply a repetition of names of God, nothing more intricate than that. The music alternates between a very slow melody with minimal accompaniment and a more upbeat segment with more instruments and more energy. The instruments themselves are a combination of Eastern and Western, modern and traditional, including flutes and guitars and violins and mixed percussion, played in a variety of styles. The whole thing has a very improvised, spontaneous feel to it, and I cannot now think of any of it as boring.

And nor is the worldview that all beings are one being, that all things are expression of one divine love. Hinduism believes in oneness, but is also a massively polytheistic faith - the one contains many, varied and exciting and infinitely complex. Just as our world contains billions of unique and interesting people and hundreds of unique and beautiful cultures, but we all share one world and a common identity as human beings.

Peace.

Next: Born to Die