FULL INTERVIEW - UNCUT WITH SRIDHAR SILBERFEIN
FOUNDER, BHAKTIFEST
September 2017
Meredith Sasseen: Welcome to Bhakti Fest 2017. We're right here with the founder, Sridhar Silberfein, it's so great to be with you today. It's a lovely Saturday on the day of your ninth festival.
Sridhar Silberfein: Thank you so much for coming. Sorry I couldn't bring sunny weather all day long, but oh boy, it's been really crazy for us today.
Meredith Sasseen: Well, it's actually really nice. The atmosphere today has been actually filled with some ... I would imagine, some trials and tribulations because there's been some hail and some rain, but I must say compared to 98 degrees on Thursday, this is quite pleasurable. How are you doing with some of the challenges here at the festival related to the weather? There's been some flood warnings.
Sridhar Silberfein: Everybody knows that if you're in the festival business, you can't be worried about the weather or you can't worried about the crowds. They come and they come, because weather is really extraordinary. It's hard to pick and choose. We've never had weather like this in the history of Joshua Tree at this time of year.
Meredith Sasseen: If you can't be worried about the weather, if you know festivals and you can't be worried about the weather, what can you be worried about?
Sridhar Silberfein: You got to be worried about the staff that's gonna take care of the situation when it develops.
Meredith Sasseen: One of the things that I know about you is you hand pick the musicians, and you have a lot of attention to details on the personalities and the integrity of the performers, the teachers, the musicians, the vendors get vetted. Can you talk a little bit more about why this festival is different and your specific handprint on it?
Sridhar Silberfein: Well, I really want to find the best of the best of the best, you know and the people that are really doing service not our ego, and chanting not out of ego. They're teaching yoga not of ego, they're really doing it to help other human beings. You can tell by the way that you walk into someone's class, you sit down, we get submissions all the time from artists and yoga teachers, and I do look at everybody, and I might be very quick and I might overlook something, but I just look at initial ... Send me a video, I'll look at it for like 30 seconds and then I'll know, oh, I want to watch this for a couple of minutes or something like that.
We curate new groups, new acts, on this other stage, plus we do other extraordinary things. Today, we brought like 40 innocent kids from downtown LA. They're having a blast, they're running around having a great time. You just saw the interview I had with Chase] from the Lakota pipeline. Great feeling and emotions, he had such wonderful things to talk about. He just came on two weeks ago. We got a letter from a friend of mine, it said we're working with Chase right now, and I said bring him down because we want to present those causes and concerns that we all should be having.
We put him on the stage. Everybody loved him yesterday, he's got his own workshop today. It just fit because we get cancellations and things happen, you have to just change your [plan.]. Today was a difficult day for rain and stuff like that, so we were trying to cover up with ... I was out there 5 o'clock in the morning when I heard the raindrops, pulling tops over the audience so that they wouldn't come to a wet scene.
The extra thought, getting back to what you were talking about, is the concerns that we have for people that are our guests. Everybody that comes down to the sacred lands is our guest. We invited you, so therefore, you're coming into my home, I'm gonna take care of you.
Meredith Sasseen: It's the Disneyland of the future.
Sridhar Silberfein: I want to feed you, I want to keep you warm, I want to keep you not wet. That's when I talk to the volunteers and the staff, I said, "These people are guests in our home, treat it like you would anybody coming into your home, but you need to be sincere about it. It's not just a job. Sure, everybody's getting paid, but you have to go above and beyond." There's certain things that are not influenced by money, and that's compassion and love and service, and that's really, for the last over 50 years, that's really been my creed. Who got up this morning to take care of the tops? It was me. Everybody else slept. If I can get up at 5 o'clock, because my guru always said, I always used to go every year when she comes, [inaudible 00:04:51]. However you say it. I said, "Amma, I read so much trouble translating my needs or what I think is the right thing to people to have and perfect their work, to do better work," and she says, "Set by example."
I said, "Okay, Amma," I said, "By example," I go back next year and said, "I'm whole year along, I'm setting by example, but it's hardly ever working. What can I do?" Set by ... Go back and set by example again. I can't change you and you can't change me. We have to change ourselves, and change is really good. It is good.
Meredith Sasseen: It's constant.
Sridhar Silberfein: If you have an opportunity to change anything in your life, you jump on it. You just go for it. Why wouldn't you? Why would you want to stay in the box? We wake up in the morning, we're in the box. We get into our car, we're in our box. We go to work in our box, we come home, we're in our box, we go to sleep, we're in our box. That's it, that's what our whole lives are. So many people have come over to me since Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Oh, this festival has changed my life. I know it does, I don't even say I know, because when they come to me, they come and look at me with their eyes open, the tears, I know what they're gonna say to me, because we're all feeling that. You know, when we talked before about building spiritual community is so important because it's so rough out there. Nobody's nice to anybody. Nobody cares about anything. Nobody I mean in the general terms of things, of course people do. We're gonna have to continue to take care of each other.
Meredith Sasseen: You've been taking care of each other, I can put that kind of in quotes, for a very, very long time. I want to take us back on your timeline to 1988. First, I just want to welcome those of you who might've just joined us. If you weren't aware of that. Our goal today is to give you a little sense of the energy that has led up and initiated and evoked this night Bhakti Fest, because the person that I'm interviewing here, the man I'm sitting in front of, this isn't anything new. This is a vision that really has already been made in your mind's eye, and now the players are just acting out the parts, right? I think a really key piece that reminds me of what Bhakti Fest is now, is when we go back to 1988 and we're at your home in Topanga Canyon, and you have how many is it, four acres of land?
Sridhar Silberfein: Seven.
Meredith Sasseen: Seven acres of land. Seven acres of land in Topanga Canyon in California. You're aware of this jolly woman and they're about a little less than 30 people in your house and you've told people hey, I want you to come and meet this lovely woman. I'd like you to take us to the moment when you notice that the 30 people or 27 is starting to dwindle. People are starting to leave. I want you to set the stage for us. Bring us back in time, if you would.
Sridhar Silberfein: Good, perfect, because this is a beautiful story. Somebody told me about this woman saint from India, but I didn't really learn how to ... I was always involved with male ... My image was always male gurus. [inaudible 00:08:35] is my Adhi yoga teacher. That's where I learned Adhi yoga, and I received Shaktipat from [inaudible 00:08:43] in 1970. That really changed my life to a huge extent. Amma came to Berkeley, and somebody told me about it, I said I don't really want to go ... I don't want. But I flew up, and I walk into the universal church, there's 150 people in Berkeley. At the end, I found myself just walking next to her out to her car.
Meredith Sasseen: Wow.
Sridhar Silberfein: What did I see in the car was a beat up blue minivan with dented doors and headlights, and there's like ... The doors open in the back. Between the curb and the door was a puddle. I take my jacket off, and I lay it down on top of the puddle and she steps on the jacket, steps in the car, turns around and looks at me right in the eye and says, "What's your name?" And I said, "Sridhar," and she says, "We've been together for a long time," and the door slams. She didn't slam it, one of her assistants slams it, and they pull off. I'm standing there, the jacket's on the floor soaking wet, but I didn't care. I just took it and that was it. Then the next night, I invited to come to LA-
Meredith Sasseen: The next night?
Sridhar Silberfein: Yeah.
Meredith Sasseen: How did that go? How'd the interaction?
Sridhar Silberfein: I just said, "Amma, we receive a lot of spiritual people at our center for spiritual studies in Topanga"-
Meredith Sasseen: Which is a non profit 501 C3 status.
Sridhar Silberfein: Correct, that runs Bhaktifest], but we'd really like you to come and my house is yours, and I hope you do whatever I want, whatever you want. She came and that first day she came, I invited about 27 friends. I didn't even know her schedule and her ways or anything at that time. She came down in that same-
Meredith Sasseen: I want to jump in. You had just seen her, I just want to repeat this to make sure I've got this right. Literally, you heard she was coming, you flew to Berkeley, so that's your first interaction.
Sridhar Silberfein: Correct. I know what a powerful great saint she is. I invited her, and she came, and she rolled up into the driveway, and everybody was with her, her entourage so to speak, and came in and I had prepared this beautiful bedroom for her and a private bathroom, everything like that. They gave me a list of how to do it because all the windows have to be darkened because she sleeps during the day when she's not working. There can't even be a slight little anything coming in. Of course, totally clean and stuff like that. She doesn't even sleep on the bed, I didn't know that til afterwards. They just roll out a pad for her on the floor. I was wondering how come my beds are never touched? She walks in, everybody's sitting there, everybody's really excited, and she just walks past everybody and goes into the bedroom, and we don't hear from her for-
Meredith Sasseen: These are your local friends at this point.
Sridhar Silberfein: These are my friends. Some influences.
Meredith Sasseen: The times are quite different. You've made a real personal invitation to people who haven't heard of her before, so they're going on your word that something exciting is happening.
Sridhar Silberfein: They knew when I say that, because we've had everybody at the house before that. We were around [inaudible 00:12:19] enjoying the town or all the musicians, they always know that there's a big music scene at my place, spiritual music scene, lot of yoga, and we hosted a lot of people and produced events and concerts and lectures all over the place, and retreats. So they came, and she walked in, went into the bedroom and that's it, and we're all sitting and waiting an hour or two, three, four hours. They say, I got to go, I got to ... What's going on? I said, "I have no idea about her schedule, I don't know how she moves about, I'm not familiar with her comings and goings, I'm just here and whenever she comes out, she comes out."
I'm not gonna knock on someone's door and tell them they got to come out now. She doesn't work that day and I knew right away that there's nothing you could tell this great saint that she's gonna listen to, because she knows what your intentions are. Her intentions are not totally pure, she's not gonna respond like that. She would teach her to listen, and I'll give you an example of that. One time, I had a cosmetic company at that time called Desert Essence, and we talked about the tea tree oil.
Meredith Sasseen: I want to tell just everybody about that role. If you've ever used tea tree oil, one of the great stories that I love of yours is that he actually jumped into it ... Was it a lake? A river?
Sridhar Silberfein: It was a small pond surrounded by bushes.
Meredith Sasseen: You got immersed in the tea tree oil, and it healed your wounds and all the different scratches on your body from the branches, and you're like, I must bring this to the United States, and you started bringing it through your company into the US. That's one of the ways that one of the ways that a lot of people were exposed to the medicinal powers of tea tree oil.
Sridhar Silberfein: I had always left in her bathroom at my home, my various products, right? One time we were talking and driving, I always drove her to the programs. I said, "Amma, maybe one time you'll just hold up a bottle of the hand and body lotion," because I knew she liked it so much, "And maybe you'll just say something."
Meredith Sasseen: Promote your company, right?
Sridhar Silberfein: Never looked at the products. Never touched them again. Never even said anything about it, and I said to myself, what kind of dope are you? How do you dare say something like that to somebody like this? That was a big lesson. I loved those lessons, you know what? Because they come like that as a knife comes out, slices, finished, you're never gonna do that one again, right?
Meredith Sasseen: That’s right.
Sridhar Silberfein: As opposed to belaboring, and belaboring a point in a lesson because our ego things we're right all the time or we do stupid things. I'd rather you tell me that's a stupid thing, get on with your life, and I'd rather tell you the same thing, and we need to have this permission amongst ourselves. If I'm out of line, please tell me. If you're out of line, I'll tell you. That's how we have to go on through life, having these permissions, honoring these permissions. Because we can't let each other just ... We're not changing each other, but we're not gonna let each other drown either.
Meredith Sasseen: Right, we'll help each other rise.
Sridhar Silberfein: That's it.
Meredith Sasseen: Yes. Then it's been four hours, you're not gonna knock on her door to have Amma come out.
Sridhar Silberfein: By that time, the crowd's down to like 15, 16, 17. I'm saying, okay-
Meredith Sasseen: Do you care?
Sridhar Silberfein: ... I'm saying, okay, if she just comes out and I'm there myself and my family, we'll take it.
Meredith Sasseen: Do you mind though? Is there any part of you that feels, a little embarrassed?
Sridhar Silberfein: What I said when she came out finally, I said, "Oh Amma, I'm so sorry, I didn't bring enough people. There's not a lot of people here," because there was a first program, but it was a private event. Amma doesn't concern herself with how many people there are. If one person comes and they hear what I have to say, that's wonderful. I don't care about anything else. She says, "Besides, there's gonna be millions and millions of people coming to see Amma soon, so what difference does it make?" Then I knew she was from India. She wasn't attached to any of that. She keeps driving that home, not to be attached to numbers or any of that kind of stuff. Just do your work, do the best you can. But she's very strict. People come for [inaudible 00:16:51], if they're weak minded or weak, nerdy kind of thing, not nerdy is bad, but that kind of thing, she'll shake you and she said, "Okay, you're doing great work but you gotta be strong. You can't be out in the world unless you're strong. Not strong in an ego way, strong in a compassionate way, strong in a service way, taking care of people."
So then, segways into what we're doing here. I want everybody to be strong, to be able to think on their feet. If there's an emergency, do it, get it done. I didn't invent the festival business. I didn't invent scheduling and this. It takes me one year to work on the schedule, year to year. It's very complicated because we have three yoga halls going all day long, three workshop halls going all day long, two music stages, a woman's dome, a men's dome, and then all the other periphery little villages that pop up after ... Right before we're ready to go.
Meredith Sasseen: We're gonna make a transition. I want to let you to know what's ahead. Hopefully we'll be able to open a special moment in your life in just a few moments. A connection that you had with your father in Spain is where I'd like to go next. Before we do that, I just want to give you a couple quick samples to reflect some of the things that Sridhar just said. If you're just joining us, Sridhar is the founder of Bhakti Fest, if you were unaware of that. We were just talking bat Chase, and last night one of the beautiful things at the concert was everybody shouted out "water for life," after his presentation onstage. It was just really beautiful to feel everybody awake, alert, and alive.
I think that that's one of the things that's just palpably different about this festival, is because there aren't any drugs and alcohol on the grounds, the atmosphere is a very real and palpable connection that I would say is almost can be where you want to draw back because the love is so grand that for me there's been a couple times I've had to actually open and expand my heart, because I noticed a shudder start to happen. It wasn't necessary, there was no reason, but it just was like, whoa, that's a lot of love.
Sridhar Silberfein: Right, and then we go back to our old tapes. We always fall back to our old tapes, which are why are they feeling so much love towards me? We start to doubt, instead of saying okay, give it to me, because it's only gonna be a minute or two and then I'm moving on, so why not take it all. Give it to me, give me as much as you want, I'll take it.
Meredith Sasseen: Yeah, those beautiful eye connections that happen in the kirtans with this really ... It, simply said, if you haven't experienced it, I would say it is an experience. The connection that happens in eye gazing, the connection that happens between two people can really fill in different holes in one's being, permanently, that can be really filled. I want to transition to the eye gaze between you and your father.
Sridhar Silberfein: Boy you remember this stuff?
Meredith Sasseen: Yes. Just to set the stage for our listening audience, and then please correct me if there's anything that I need to be corrected with here. So Sridhar's in Spain, and he's been in prison for three weeks for smuggling marijuana, is that right?
Sridhar Silberfein: No actually, at that point, it was more like almost three months.
Meredith Sasseen: Oh really, almost three months at that point?
Sridhar Silberfein: Five different prisons.
Meredith Sasseen: Three months and five different prisons. The reason that the story becomes really what I feel is an important arc is because it's a moment where being alone with yourself is a place where you had to dig really really deep and get really really real.
Sridhar Silberfein: Life or death.
Meredith Sasseen: Yeah, and the second reason I think it's important for you as the listening audience is I think many people have a point of shame or a skeleton or something that they feel vibrant and alive, and look at all the things that you have created. How could this possibly in your history? Right? It's only been in the last few years where this story is something that has just been something you're willing to say, you know what? Yeah, I have this whole list of beautiful successes, and I have ushered so many saints and so many wise, spiritual leaders and musicians into the world. I also have had my own trials and tribulations.
Sridhar Silberfein: Absolutely.
Meredith Sasseen: I want to honor you first for that, and thank you, because we need people who are in a position of leadership to do that. It's been three months, and you're in Spain, five different prisons, you smuggled marijuana, and you got to escape.
Sridhar Silberfein: Well, I didn't know we had an escape at that point.
Meredith Sasseen: Alright. So tell.
Sridhar Silberfein: My father's a New York businessman, and they read about it in the paper. A friend of my mother's read about me in the daily news in New York City. We live on the [inaudible 00:22:06] but the paper comes out, and reading this article and said, this person [inaudible 00:22:10] arrested in Spain. They didn't even know about it, I was already in there for a couple of months.
Meredith Sasseen: What year was this?
Sridhar Silberfein: 1964.
Meredith Sasseen: Okay. And you got your spiritual name, Sridhar in 1968.
Sridhar Silberfein: This country of Spain was run by a very, very fascist dictator, Francisco Franco, who was with Mussolini and Hitler as the axis of evil. That's where the original axis of evil came from. That's where most of the Nazi Germans fled after the war, so that they can escape. They came by rail or however from Germany through [inaudible 00:22:55] got to Spain, and then from Spain, they were dispersed to all those South American countries where they found them. Just a small percentage of these people that were bad people so to speak were put on trial at Nuremberg, just a small portion of them. The majority had escaped and changed their names, and became very successful people all over the world and lived out their lives with their skeletons, and nobody ever found them.
I knew that was happening. In fact, one of the prisons that I got to, the one at Madrid, they were holding a very famous Nazi general at that prison. Somehow his exit was being blocked, and they couldn't have him in the general public. They didn't know what to expect so they kept him. When the prisons of main ... Madrid's main prison, and he had to run to the prison, but he head that this Weston White dude was coming in there and probably checked my last name. He came, he wanted to have a confrontation with me.
He stood in front of me, there's the bars between us, because he was in a different section, but we just had this moment, a very intense moment because I knew somebody told me who he was. I didn't know. All of the sudden, everybody parted the ways, and there, hidden, I was standing there looking at [inaudible 00:24:25], and I felt his really intense anger and I felt fear for one of the first times then. Not to say I didn't feel fear in these other prisons that I was, because there were brutal prison wardens that were beating people next to me, and you would hear torture going on in the middle of the night, and so you would, in my mind, when is my turn gonna come over with people like that?
I would befriend some of the criminals that they would collect. One time I knew this tough guy, this killer guy, who it turned out that he was in there for killing. They were playing cards. The way everybody got high in prison there, they would drink hair tonic. They would get a bottle of hair tonic because that was allowed in the prison and they would drink it, because there's something in hair tonic is alcohol tonic. They passed me the bottle, and I knew that I had to display my macho-ness, right?
Sridhar Silberfein: This killer passes me the bottle, and they're all looking at me, right? I took my big swig, and that alone should've killed me right then and there. I knew it didn't so I had some hope.
Meredith Sasseen: What did the deck of cards look like? Do you remember?
Sridhar Silberfein: Ripped up, folded things, you couldn't even tell what the numbers were, right? They were playing cards, and then this guy accuses of some other guy cheating and he takes the big jug, ceramic jug of water, and cracks him over the head. Splits open his head. The blood is flowing, I'm there, it was my turn for the cards, and now we were drinking this ... Okay fine, he's my best friend. He's now my BFF, the killer.
Meredith Sasseen: Do you remember the image on the back of the cards?
Sridhar Silberfein: No.
Meredith Sasseen: Could there have been one?
Sridhar Silberfein: It could've been naked girls. I wouldn't even remember.
Meredith Sasseen: But old and ripped. They were used a lot.
Sridhar Silberfein: Then when I got to my final prison, which I don't even remember what the name of it was.
Meredith Sasseen: In Madrid?
Sridhar Silberfein: No, it was closer to the coast. They had a system there where they were all [inaudible 00:26:50] smokers, and the anarchists to this one prison. When I arrived at this final prison, I met anarchists, but I never knew what an anarchist was. They had some of the Irish anarchists there. One famous guy that was there was on the cover of a big article from Time Magazine at that time, which he showed me. He was a young guy, he was the guy that was blowing up places in Ireland and somehow he got to Spain and he was helping the Basque, is it Basque? B-A-S-Q-U-E Separatist movement in Catalonia and northern Spain. Still going on today, now they're trying to vote to secede from the Spanish government. That's how strong they are. This Irish guy was there, trying to help them blow up buildings and stuff like that. He got caught.
Meredith Sasseen: I'm trying to picture you in this scene because you're young and kind of naïve, right? This is sort of an accident of sorts, right?
Sridhar Silberfein: I can't say that I was too naïve, because I knew what I was doing, so how naïve could I be? Because I was doing something that was supposedly illegal so I knew that if I got into trouble, I would have to honor that. I got a word that my father was coming, and he came to the prison, the last prison. By that time, they hired lawyers and what turned out to be is my uncle in New York was partners with Emmanuel Sellers. Emmanuel Sellers was the most powerful congressman on the east coast. He must've been 40 years a congressman. He was head of the armed services committee, which is the most powerful committee in Congress, because they appropriate moneys to all these militaries all over the countries. He knew the marquee devout was the ambassador from Spain to America through his dealings with the committee. My uncles, my father's ... My mother went to my uncle [Shridhar’s Dad’s sister’s husband], a very famous lawyer, and he was partners with Emmanuel Sellers, and they said, Manny, he used to be called, "Manny, this kid didn't know what he was doing, speak to your friend," and he didn't do it. He went to speak to Marquis de [inaudible 00:29:33] and they got me out on a ... They decided to get me out on bail, but they never knew what bail was because they never had a bail system. When you go to jail in Spain before 1964, that was it. Same thing now with a lot of the other countries. They throw you into jail, that's it. Nobody ever hears from you again. Iran, they're all the same. You just go and you become an innocent person, they actually kill you. They pushed and pushed and pushed and they decided, okay we'll let him out on bail, $182. Where did the number come from? Don't ask me, because they never had it, right? My father came and he comes to the prison and they call me and we get to see each other after all this time. I'd been gone for 6 months.
Meredith Sasseen: This is face to face?
Sridhar Silberfein: This is face to face, but there is bars between us. He sees me, kind of emaciated at that point. Disheveled.
Meredith Sasseen: What's your emotional status?
Sridhar Silberfein: Not good. Very weak. You know, some mistreatment in the prisons and stuff like that, that part I'd rather not get into, but you know I was at the lowest part of my life, right? He comes and he's standing there and I'm standing on the other side, and here's a really well respected businessperson. Middle class America, [inaudible 00:31:08], he's coming to see his young child in prison there in Spain of all places, not even in America. It's like an extreme version of this, right? We stopped ... He starts to cry, I start to cry. It's very [inaudible 00:31:30]. He said, "I'm gonna get you out on bail," and I said, "Okay, and when will that be?" And he said, "Anytime in a couple of days. I'm gonna go back to Madrid" he said, and I'll just wait for you, and when you get out there will be a taxi, and you just take the taxi.
He did, he went to Madrid and checked into the Hilton hotel, which is one of the only hotels in Madrid at that point. They came and they said, "It's time for you to go," three, four days later. They give me an envelope. When you go into a prison they take your rings and your watches and your money. They gave me all of this back in an envelope. I jumped into this taxi that was waiting for me. I got to the Hilton and then Madrid and I spend a couple of days there, and then I said, "Dad, I'm just really, I'm so exhausted and drained. I'm gonna fly down to the Canary Islands and I'm gonna lay on their beaches for a couple of days," and he said, "Be careful," and I said, "Okay."
Canary Islands were a part of Spain, so I didn't need anything. I jumped on a plane, I flew down there, I just was going from island to island, exploring and doing my own thing by myself. Met some new friends on the beach one day, hanging out, smoking some pot, and then in the distance, everyone's in their bathing suits. In the distance, we see this guy walking down the beach in a suit and a tie, and I start laughing, look at that guy. What's he thinking? They get closer and closer, it's my father. I went down to the shoreline, I said, "Dad? What are you doing here?" I just left you three days ago. He said, "We just got worried that they're gonna give you six years and one month and one year sentencing to make an example of you so nobody would come and do this again, let's go, we have to escape." My father is saying to me, we have to escape the country.
Meredith Sasseen: He's probably, this is a guy with a real moral background I would imagine, right?
Sridhar Silberfein: Very straight. Right.
Meredith Sasseen: He's breaking all his internal rules.
Sridhar Silberfein: Very straight guy, more so than I explain to you, but very, very intensely straight. We go back to my hotel, I throw my things in the bag, and we go to the airport. We take the next flight to Lisbon. The Canary Islands to Lisbon. From Lisbon to the Azores, and the Azores on Pan Am to JFK. Then people would ask me, how did you even get out? You didn't have a passport. Well, when they got me out of jail for 182,000 bail, in that envelope was my passport.
Meredith Sasseen: Aha.
Sridhar Silberfein: And all my things that I walked in there with. They gave me back the whole thing. They didn't know, because nobody ever knew about bail. They assumed this is what you came in, that's what you went out with. That's how I get out. That's how we escaped, that's how we got back to the country.
Meredith Sasseen: It's an incredible story of perseverance and ... The reason I asked Sridhar about ... Sridhar's the founder of Bhakti Fest, so if you're just joining us, we're right in the middle of a real pivotal story that took place very early in his life, that I wanted to pull and engage with you on, because I feel like if there was a gift that Bhakti Fest as a festival, current day, this ninth festival was given to people, it is illuminating the dark places that people have been hiding. Whether it's shame or a skeleton, or you're not like me or how could I possibly succeed with this scared alone hidden place in my background? You're an amazing example. I just want to honor you for everything that you've done for spiritual leaders and musicians to spread the word throughout the world and specifically in our area.
The piece that I want to wrap this story with and kind of go just a level deeper if you're willing, is the connection between your dad and you. I'm wondering what happened within you, what got filled? What pieces of your energetic anatomy you might say were shifted and changed due to this experience, where you felt one way prior, and you felt different from that day forward? Related to your relationship with your dad?
Sridhar Silberfein: I have to point out that it wasn't very great after that. I think he held a lot against me for that. I felt, you know, I never felt that marijuana was any problem for anybody. Now of course it's turning out to be ... It's not. Again, here's another thing that government and corporations keep the people down with opioids and pills and the alcohol, this is what they want to do. Because they make money off of you. They want you to be sedated. They don't want you to open up your mouth and be forward, or be forward thinker, or think anything. This sedates, sit in front of your TV, drink your drinks or beer or wine, or whatever you want to do. Eat your food and just be quiet and we don't want to hear from you. Just go through life. We'll tell you what we're gonna do for you, which is nothing. I knew that, at an early age, I didn't want to be a part of that.
Meredith Sasseen: The reason I thought this story was also important was I really wanted to bring honor to the global father, and to your father, because what I witness in this story is I see you as a young man, having this experience with your father, and then I look at this entire lineage of teachers of men, of great wise men, who influenced you so greatly. You were able to use your spiritual skill of connection and community and organization, to awaken people through this paternal lineage, and then also moving forward with Amma and the maternal lineage. Do you see that?
Sridhar Silberfein: Yes. Absolutely. One of the things I realized from this was when you're at your lowest level, whatever that is, and when you feel downtrodden, and no place to go, you just get up and you get going and you forget about all of this ego related stuff and stop crying in your beer and just ... Nobody has an exclusive on pain. We all have relationship break ups, we all have problems with our kids, we all have problems with our parents. We all have business situations. We have everything. There's just a list of stuff that we go through, all of us, every single day. It's the same list. What you're doing, what I'm doing, it's the same list. How much do we attach ourselves to that list instead of ... Okay, yep, I see that. I'm not gonna go that road again, I've been down that 10 times already. The voice is telling ... We do have a voice. That voice is the internal voice from the divine. If you sit quietly in your meditation, whatever you do, that voice will tell you exactly the right and the wrong, whatever that means, to do. Either you listen to the voice or you just continue perpetrating fraudulent activities in your mind because your ego voice is more powerful than your true divine voice.
Meredith Sasseen: That's one of the things that Bhakti Fest is so great at, is that through all the mantra and the yoga and the meditation and the workshops to help really awaken and make that voice louder. We're gonna change channels and shift just a little bit, and I'm wondering if you'll play another little game with me. We've played some sentence games. You can go to YogaNews.TV and check out a little sentence game that the two of us played in the past. This one is using is a specific moment in time that is live in your memory that has a whole storyline around it, but we want to go specifically to the frame, both for speed and also for intensity. What I'd love to do is we're on the, this is the ninth annual Bhakti Fest, and I'd love to have some snapshots, of whether it's this year or in years past, doesn't matter, of moments for you. I'm gonna share some sentences and I'm looking for a favorite frame.
Meredith Sasseen: I was on stage, and the mantra that touched my heart most was ...
Sridhar Silberfein: The harikrushna maharaj mantra.
Meredith Sasseen: And that person singing it, or people singing it were ...
Sridhar Silberfein: Shyamdas.
Meredith Sasseen: My position on the stage was …
Sridhar Silberfein: Producing the closing ceremony, which we do every Sunday night.
Meredith Sasseen: Where were you standing on the stage?
Sridhar Silberfein: Stage right.
Meredith Sasseen: As I look out my eyes, what I see is …
Sridhar Silberfein: I see these thousands of people in total bliss and love and I knew that what we're doing is right.
Meredith Sasseen: What I feel in my heart ...
Sridhar Silberfein: More than that.
Meredith Sasseen: This yoga teacher asked if she could teach yoga, and when I met her, I felt ...
Sridhar Silberfein: An immediate understanding that she knows what she's doing.
Meredith Sasseen: Who was that?
Sridhar Silberfein: Shiva Rea
Meredith Sasseen: What was it like in the moment that you had that conversation?
Sridhar Silberfein: I saw a great person that was a great teacher that really was doing service work, and was not coming from an ego place.
Meredith Sasseen: One of my most memorable volunteers was ...
Sridhar Silberfein: There's been so many, we couldn't do this festival without these fantastic ... We have a regular volunteer, we have seva volunteers, they just work all the time. They're fantastic. I can't really put a name to that.
Meredith Sasseen: One of my favorite green room memories is ...
Sridhar Silberfein: Oh god. So many. Running out of food, running out of water, leaks coming from the ceilings. Have you been in our green room?
Meredith Sasseen: Yes!
Sridhar Silberfein: It's fantastic. We feed everybody. All the artists that come off the stage get food, and we have pizza at night. We have our own massage team, just dealing with the artists and the staff there. We have two tables set up, the artists comes off his set, her set, they want massages, that's free.
Meredith Sasseen: When I was creating this schedule of teachers, I saw this slot open and thought ...
Sridhar Silberfein: Maybe I could give this to some new person, and it was really sincere, that really wants to set up and open up and bring what they have to teach to the people.
Meredith Sasseen: Name someone who's quite famous now that you gave a seat to on the schedule. I know there's many, but can you name one, and their story?
Sridhar Silberfein: I'm pretty much all the [crosstalk 00:43:39] got their beginnings and middles and endings here at Bhakti Fest. Even the big name people, they weren't big name people until 2009, when we really got the word out for everybody. [inaudible 00:44:00], all the yoga teachers. They saw [inaudible 00:44:03]. He never played music before, he was just a yoga teacher until he came here, and then he started chanting and [inaudible 00:44:10] as well.
Meredith Sasseen: And Adam Baur, Krishna Das’s bass man just released a new album.
Sridhar Silberfein: He was never even interested in doing music.
Meredith Sasseen: That album is called Wonderville, it gets released on equinox, so if you download, pre order it before September 21st, then you get some world music charts influencing, which is pretty nice. Lots of musicians, that's ... I didn't realize it was that many.
Sridhar Silberfein: A lot of musicians, and all the musicians and yoga teachers love to come here every year, because they get a chance to hang out with themselves. They're all on their own schedule, they're all traveling, they never have a gathering point. They love coming here, I see them schmoozing it up in the green room and having lunch together, just hanging out and really bringing up to date, because everybody travels so much. It's one, two years out of ... I'm booking 2019 now for certain people.
Meredith Sasseen: Since you made that transition, next year there's a lot of talk about Bhakti Fest. If you haven't been, you'll have the opportunity next year for the tenth anniversary. I hear there's a lot of special surprises being done, is that so?
Sridhar Silberfein: Well, you know ... Yeah- I really want ... I have a wishlist, and a lot of those people on that wishlist, are not from the kirtan world. You want me to share?
Meredith Sasseen: Of course I do!
Sridhar Silberfein: I'm going to invite certain people, I'm not saying that those people are coming.
Meredith Sasseen: Yes,, these are just invited people. This is not advertising, this isn't promotion, we're sitting having a conversation about what inspires you and what you'd like to see.
Sridhar Silberfein: I'm going to invite Tina Turner, because she did a mantra video because she's a Buddhist studier, practitioner. She came out with, you see this on YouTube, and I just said, oh my God, wouldn't that be great to have Tina Turner come out and do this song, right? And Donovan. These people are real, these are the real spiritual people. Van Morrison. Harry Belafonte. I'm gonna invite all these people.
Sridhar Silberfein: And Nahko and Medicine For the People, Xavier Rudd, Trevor Hall is coming back. I actually just got confirmation that Deepak is definitely coming next year. Deepak is leading a meditation class and giving a talk on the main stage.
Meredith Sasseen: Wow. This was very, very fun. I want to bring your attention, we're gonna wrap up in just a few minutes here, but I want to bring your attention to the listening audience. Those of you who weren't able to come here. I want to talk about what is available, whether it's through social media and YouTube channels for you, but throughout the whole year. I'd like you to do it in the way of promotion, informing. Let everybody know, if this is really turning you on and you have friends here and you're excited or you're interested, how can people participate? How can they get their hearts opened?
Sridhar Silberfein: I'm not really good on promoting. I have the concepts of what should be and should be done, but I'm not a self promoter. That's why you don't hear me talking about these stories. I'm talking about certain stories with you today because you bring that out. You're a great interviewer, and I really appreciate your sincerity and your compassion, and I wouldn't be giving you these storylines because if I didn't feel that way from you. Very rarely do I even open up to this ... It's an important thing because you're bringing it to light in an important way to show that no matter what our failures are, where we're downtrodden, our lowest point of our lives, we just get up, we get busy, and we get going again and again and again, and stop crying in your beer, and everything is fine. It's not knocking your head against the wall. It's all fine. We have enough bigger problems. Let's get out of it.
Meredith Sasseen: First, thank you for the acknowledgement. It's a huge pleasure getting to know you and I love the stories and I'm so glad we get to share them with you. What the question was, was how can people get involved, and I wanted you to do it through the lens of promotion. The reason this is important is because I have a sense that there are people in the listening audience that can choose from festival A, B, and C, maybe they can't ... They don't know mantras...
Sridhar Silberfein: They don't have to.
Meredith Sasseen: I want people to have the ability to participate and get involved with you and all the different pieces because it's so clear to me that the gift that you hold is illuminating other people's gifts. That's what I really see in you. How do people choose?
Sridhar Silberfein: I just discovered two old relatives of mine in their 70s. This woman just found me by seeing my name on some advertisement. She called up and wanted to know if I was related to Stephen Silberfein, I said I am Stephen Silberfein, and she proceeds to tell me that her grandfather and my grandmother were brothers and sisters. I invited them to [a prior] event and then she came now, she's here now this weekend with her brother. Her brother just had a triple bypass surgery thing, and he came to me yesterday, we just met each other, and he just melted.
He said, "Oh, who's this [inaudible 00:50:22]? What is this meditation?" He says, my life is full of stress, and I feel so nice and peaceful here. What kind of food is this? I've never had any vegetarian food. I said, "That's now, after your heart attack, and all the stuff that you've been eating, now you have to change your life," and we sat and we talked, and we're gonna go sit again tonight. Because he's sitting here waiting to go and see [inaudible 00:50:47]. Right? His sister, the one I originally met, she's in her 70s, she wants to go to India next year and go to our orphanage and bring Donovan and work with the girls for a month. She says, "Oh, I'll go for six months," I said, "Just go for a month and see how you do."
That's it. You just come here and just open up. I'm working with a lot of young people as well, in their early 20s, because they come and they still want to ... They think, they have a different concept of what's going on here. Mostly people go to festivals for a much different reasons than they come here. People go to festivals to get drunk, and they get high on substances and dance all night long and fool around with each other, do whatever, and then leave as dissatisfied as they were when they got there. What you're coming here is you're coming here to really go deeper and open up and honor your true spirit and your true self. Come empty, leave full. Come full, leave empty. Which is a motto I made a up awhile ago.
Meredith Sasseen: Thank you. I feel like I'm leaving full, and I think our audience is too. The last place that I want to leave you with is one of the things that I learned about Sridhar in a prior interview that you'll be able to find online is the backbone to all of your success ... What I heard you say was that the backbone to everything you've been doing since your spiritual path really got ignited was down to practice.
Sridhar Silberfein: Absolutely. You can't run away. We're basically lazy when it concerns our own development, and that's how it is. I still get in the morning, meditate. I still get up in the morning, do my yoga, and stand on my head. Not might be for a huge amount of time, but it's a couple minutes at least, and then I start my day with two big glasses of water.
Meredith Sasseen: Makes a huge difference, it really does. What I want to leave you with today is first, I just want to thank you for your viewing attention and time and I want to also thank our behind the scenes ... Bonnie, thank you from behind the scenes, and Julia, and all the people that made this possible. It's just not the two of us sitting here, there's so many people that schedule and make things happen and do all the promotion behind the scenes. Thank you for your time and thanks for listening. I just want to leave you with the anchor to this whole festival, the anchor to everything you're seeing in social media related to Bhakti Fest boils down to the power of personal practice. You heard Sridhar talk about that.
I would encourage you, as tempting as it is to keep surfing Facebook and find all the little treasures that you might find to take a moment to create or engage in the practice that you may have, even if it's just for a minute so that you get a chance just to be with yourself. We're gonna do that here. Will you join me in a minute of silence to end?
Sridhar Silberfein: Yes. I just want to mention that everything is transitory. Everything that comes our way every day is transitory. It comes and it goes. It's very fleeting. There's nothing you have to grab onto other than your own self.
Meredith Sasseen: Thank you so much. We'll be with you for a minute here. You're welcome to stay with us. We'll take a minute here and Bonnie, if you'd be so kind to let us know when that's up, and then we'll say goodbye to everybody.
Speaker 1: Inhale. Exhale.
Meredith Sasseen: Thank you.
Sridhar Silberfein: Thank you.
Meredith Sasseen: Namaste.
Sridhar Silberfein: Namaste to you. Thank you.
Meredith Sasseen: Namaste.
FOUNDER, BHAKTIFEST
September 2017
Meredith Sasseen: Welcome to Bhakti Fest 2017. We're right here with the founder, Sridhar Silberfein, it's so great to be with you today. It's a lovely Saturday on the day of your ninth festival.
Sridhar Silberfein: Thank you so much for coming. Sorry I couldn't bring sunny weather all day long, but oh boy, it's been really crazy for us today.
Meredith Sasseen: Well, it's actually really nice. The atmosphere today has been actually filled with some ... I would imagine, some trials and tribulations because there's been some hail and some rain, but I must say compared to 98 degrees on Thursday, this is quite pleasurable. How are you doing with some of the challenges here at the festival related to the weather? There's been some flood warnings.
Sridhar Silberfein: Everybody knows that if you're in the festival business, you can't be worried about the weather or you can't worried about the crowds. They come and they come, because weather is really extraordinary. It's hard to pick and choose. We've never had weather like this in the history of Joshua Tree at this time of year.
Meredith Sasseen: If you can't be worried about the weather, if you know festivals and you can't be worried about the weather, what can you be worried about?
Sridhar Silberfein: You got to be worried about the staff that's gonna take care of the situation when it develops.
Meredith Sasseen: One of the things that I know about you is you hand pick the musicians, and you have a lot of attention to details on the personalities and the integrity of the performers, the teachers, the musicians, the vendors get vetted. Can you talk a little bit more about why this festival is different and your specific handprint on it?
Sridhar Silberfein: Well, I really want to find the best of the best of the best, you know and the people that are really doing service not our ego, and chanting not out of ego. They're teaching yoga not of ego, they're really doing it to help other human beings. You can tell by the way that you walk into someone's class, you sit down, we get submissions all the time from artists and yoga teachers, and I do look at everybody, and I might be very quick and I might overlook something, but I just look at initial ... Send me a video, I'll look at it for like 30 seconds and then I'll know, oh, I want to watch this for a couple of minutes or something like that.
We curate new groups, new acts, on this other stage, plus we do other extraordinary things. Today, we brought like 40 innocent kids from downtown LA. They're having a blast, they're running around having a great time. You just saw the interview I had with Chase] from the Lakota pipeline. Great feeling and emotions, he had such wonderful things to talk about. He just came on two weeks ago. We got a letter from a friend of mine, it said we're working with Chase right now, and I said bring him down because we want to present those causes and concerns that we all should be having.
We put him on the stage. Everybody loved him yesterday, he's got his own workshop today. It just fit because we get cancellations and things happen, you have to just change your [plan.]. Today was a difficult day for rain and stuff like that, so we were trying to cover up with ... I was out there 5 o'clock in the morning when I heard the raindrops, pulling tops over the audience so that they wouldn't come to a wet scene.
The extra thought, getting back to what you were talking about, is the concerns that we have for people that are our guests. Everybody that comes down to the sacred lands is our guest. We invited you, so therefore, you're coming into my home, I'm gonna take care of you.
Meredith Sasseen: It's the Disneyland of the future.
Sridhar Silberfein: I want to feed you, I want to keep you warm, I want to keep you not wet. That's when I talk to the volunteers and the staff, I said, "These people are guests in our home, treat it like you would anybody coming into your home, but you need to be sincere about it. It's not just a job. Sure, everybody's getting paid, but you have to go above and beyond." There's certain things that are not influenced by money, and that's compassion and love and service, and that's really, for the last over 50 years, that's really been my creed. Who got up this morning to take care of the tops? It was me. Everybody else slept. If I can get up at 5 o'clock, because my guru always said, I always used to go every year when she comes, [inaudible 00:04:51]. However you say it. I said, "Amma, I read so much trouble translating my needs or what I think is the right thing to people to have and perfect their work, to do better work," and she says, "Set by example."
I said, "Okay, Amma," I said, "By example," I go back next year and said, "I'm whole year along, I'm setting by example, but it's hardly ever working. What can I do?" Set by ... Go back and set by example again. I can't change you and you can't change me. We have to change ourselves, and change is really good. It is good.
Meredith Sasseen: It's constant.
Sridhar Silberfein: If you have an opportunity to change anything in your life, you jump on it. You just go for it. Why wouldn't you? Why would you want to stay in the box? We wake up in the morning, we're in the box. We get into our car, we're in our box. We go to work in our box, we come home, we're in our box, we go to sleep, we're in our box. That's it, that's what our whole lives are. So many people have come over to me since Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Oh, this festival has changed my life. I know it does, I don't even say I know, because when they come to me, they come and look at me with their eyes open, the tears, I know what they're gonna say to me, because we're all feeling that. You know, when we talked before about building spiritual community is so important because it's so rough out there. Nobody's nice to anybody. Nobody cares about anything. Nobody I mean in the general terms of things, of course people do. We're gonna have to continue to take care of each other.
Meredith Sasseen: You've been taking care of each other, I can put that kind of in quotes, for a very, very long time. I want to take us back on your timeline to 1988. First, I just want to welcome those of you who might've just joined us. If you weren't aware of that. Our goal today is to give you a little sense of the energy that has led up and initiated and evoked this night Bhakti Fest, because the person that I'm interviewing here, the man I'm sitting in front of, this isn't anything new. This is a vision that really has already been made in your mind's eye, and now the players are just acting out the parts, right? I think a really key piece that reminds me of what Bhakti Fest is now, is when we go back to 1988 and we're at your home in Topanga Canyon, and you have how many is it, four acres of land?
Sridhar Silberfein: Seven.
Meredith Sasseen: Seven acres of land. Seven acres of land in Topanga Canyon in California. You're aware of this jolly woman and they're about a little less than 30 people in your house and you've told people hey, I want you to come and meet this lovely woman. I'd like you to take us to the moment when you notice that the 30 people or 27 is starting to dwindle. People are starting to leave. I want you to set the stage for us. Bring us back in time, if you would.
Sridhar Silberfein: Good, perfect, because this is a beautiful story. Somebody told me about this woman saint from India, but I didn't really learn how to ... I was always involved with male ... My image was always male gurus. [inaudible 00:08:35] is my Adhi yoga teacher. That's where I learned Adhi yoga, and I received Shaktipat from [inaudible 00:08:43] in 1970. That really changed my life to a huge extent. Amma came to Berkeley, and somebody told me about it, I said I don't really want to go ... I don't want. But I flew up, and I walk into the universal church, there's 150 people in Berkeley. At the end, I found myself just walking next to her out to her car.
Meredith Sasseen: Wow.
Sridhar Silberfein: What did I see in the car was a beat up blue minivan with dented doors and headlights, and there's like ... The doors open in the back. Between the curb and the door was a puddle. I take my jacket off, and I lay it down on top of the puddle and she steps on the jacket, steps in the car, turns around and looks at me right in the eye and says, "What's your name?" And I said, "Sridhar," and she says, "We've been together for a long time," and the door slams. She didn't slam it, one of her assistants slams it, and they pull off. I'm standing there, the jacket's on the floor soaking wet, but I didn't care. I just took it and that was it. Then the next night, I invited to come to LA-
Meredith Sasseen: The next night?
Sridhar Silberfein: Yeah.
Meredith Sasseen: How did that go? How'd the interaction?
Sridhar Silberfein: I just said, "Amma, we receive a lot of spiritual people at our center for spiritual studies in Topanga"-
Meredith Sasseen: Which is a non profit 501 C3 status.
Sridhar Silberfein: Correct, that runs Bhaktifest], but we'd really like you to come and my house is yours, and I hope you do whatever I want, whatever you want. She came and that first day she came, I invited about 27 friends. I didn't even know her schedule and her ways or anything at that time. She came down in that same-
Meredith Sasseen: I want to jump in. You had just seen her, I just want to repeat this to make sure I've got this right. Literally, you heard she was coming, you flew to Berkeley, so that's your first interaction.
Sridhar Silberfein: Correct. I know what a powerful great saint she is. I invited her, and she came, and she rolled up into the driveway, and everybody was with her, her entourage so to speak, and came in and I had prepared this beautiful bedroom for her and a private bathroom, everything like that. They gave me a list of how to do it because all the windows have to be darkened because she sleeps during the day when she's not working. There can't even be a slight little anything coming in. Of course, totally clean and stuff like that. She doesn't even sleep on the bed, I didn't know that til afterwards. They just roll out a pad for her on the floor. I was wondering how come my beds are never touched? She walks in, everybody's sitting there, everybody's really excited, and she just walks past everybody and goes into the bedroom, and we don't hear from her for-
Meredith Sasseen: These are your local friends at this point.
Sridhar Silberfein: These are my friends. Some influences.
Meredith Sasseen: The times are quite different. You've made a real personal invitation to people who haven't heard of her before, so they're going on your word that something exciting is happening.
Sridhar Silberfein: They knew when I say that, because we've had everybody at the house before that. We were around [inaudible 00:12:19] enjoying the town or all the musicians, they always know that there's a big music scene at my place, spiritual music scene, lot of yoga, and we hosted a lot of people and produced events and concerts and lectures all over the place, and retreats. So they came, and she walked in, went into the bedroom and that's it, and we're all sitting and waiting an hour or two, three, four hours. They say, I got to go, I got to ... What's going on? I said, "I have no idea about her schedule, I don't know how she moves about, I'm not familiar with her comings and goings, I'm just here and whenever she comes out, she comes out."
I'm not gonna knock on someone's door and tell them they got to come out now. She doesn't work that day and I knew right away that there's nothing you could tell this great saint that she's gonna listen to, because she knows what your intentions are. Her intentions are not totally pure, she's not gonna respond like that. She would teach her to listen, and I'll give you an example of that. One time, I had a cosmetic company at that time called Desert Essence, and we talked about the tea tree oil.
Meredith Sasseen: I want to tell just everybody about that role. If you've ever used tea tree oil, one of the great stories that I love of yours is that he actually jumped into it ... Was it a lake? A river?
Sridhar Silberfein: It was a small pond surrounded by bushes.
Meredith Sasseen: You got immersed in the tea tree oil, and it healed your wounds and all the different scratches on your body from the branches, and you're like, I must bring this to the United States, and you started bringing it through your company into the US. That's one of the ways that one of the ways that a lot of people were exposed to the medicinal powers of tea tree oil.
Sridhar Silberfein: I had always left in her bathroom at my home, my various products, right? One time we were talking and driving, I always drove her to the programs. I said, "Amma, maybe one time you'll just hold up a bottle of the hand and body lotion," because I knew she liked it so much, "And maybe you'll just say something."
Meredith Sasseen: Promote your company, right?
Sridhar Silberfein: Never looked at the products. Never touched them again. Never even said anything about it, and I said to myself, what kind of dope are you? How do you dare say something like that to somebody like this? That was a big lesson. I loved those lessons, you know what? Because they come like that as a knife comes out, slices, finished, you're never gonna do that one again, right?
Meredith Sasseen: That’s right.
Sridhar Silberfein: As opposed to belaboring, and belaboring a point in a lesson because our ego things we're right all the time or we do stupid things. I'd rather you tell me that's a stupid thing, get on with your life, and I'd rather tell you the same thing, and we need to have this permission amongst ourselves. If I'm out of line, please tell me. If you're out of line, I'll tell you. That's how we have to go on through life, having these permissions, honoring these permissions. Because we can't let each other just ... We're not changing each other, but we're not gonna let each other drown either.
Meredith Sasseen: Right, we'll help each other rise.
Sridhar Silberfein: That's it.
Meredith Sasseen: Yes. Then it's been four hours, you're not gonna knock on her door to have Amma come out.
Sridhar Silberfein: By that time, the crowd's down to like 15, 16, 17. I'm saying, okay-
Meredith Sasseen: Do you care?
Sridhar Silberfein: ... I'm saying, okay, if she just comes out and I'm there myself and my family, we'll take it.
Meredith Sasseen: Do you mind though? Is there any part of you that feels, a little embarrassed?
Sridhar Silberfein: What I said when she came out finally, I said, "Oh Amma, I'm so sorry, I didn't bring enough people. There's not a lot of people here," because there was a first program, but it was a private event. Amma doesn't concern herself with how many people there are. If one person comes and they hear what I have to say, that's wonderful. I don't care about anything else. She says, "Besides, there's gonna be millions and millions of people coming to see Amma soon, so what difference does it make?" Then I knew she was from India. She wasn't attached to any of that. She keeps driving that home, not to be attached to numbers or any of that kind of stuff. Just do your work, do the best you can. But she's very strict. People come for [inaudible 00:16:51], if they're weak minded or weak, nerdy kind of thing, not nerdy is bad, but that kind of thing, she'll shake you and she said, "Okay, you're doing great work but you gotta be strong. You can't be out in the world unless you're strong. Not strong in an ego way, strong in a compassionate way, strong in a service way, taking care of people."
So then, segways into what we're doing here. I want everybody to be strong, to be able to think on their feet. If there's an emergency, do it, get it done. I didn't invent the festival business. I didn't invent scheduling and this. It takes me one year to work on the schedule, year to year. It's very complicated because we have three yoga halls going all day long, three workshop halls going all day long, two music stages, a woman's dome, a men's dome, and then all the other periphery little villages that pop up after ... Right before we're ready to go.
Meredith Sasseen: We're gonna make a transition. I want to let you to know what's ahead. Hopefully we'll be able to open a special moment in your life in just a few moments. A connection that you had with your father in Spain is where I'd like to go next. Before we do that, I just want to give you a couple quick samples to reflect some of the things that Sridhar just said. If you're just joining us, Sridhar is the founder of Bhakti Fest, if you were unaware of that. We were just talking bat Chase, and last night one of the beautiful things at the concert was everybody shouted out "water for life," after his presentation onstage. It was just really beautiful to feel everybody awake, alert, and alive.
I think that that's one of the things that's just palpably different about this festival, is because there aren't any drugs and alcohol on the grounds, the atmosphere is a very real and palpable connection that I would say is almost can be where you want to draw back because the love is so grand that for me there's been a couple times I've had to actually open and expand my heart, because I noticed a shudder start to happen. It wasn't necessary, there was no reason, but it just was like, whoa, that's a lot of love.
Sridhar Silberfein: Right, and then we go back to our old tapes. We always fall back to our old tapes, which are why are they feeling so much love towards me? We start to doubt, instead of saying okay, give it to me, because it's only gonna be a minute or two and then I'm moving on, so why not take it all. Give it to me, give me as much as you want, I'll take it.
Meredith Sasseen: Yeah, those beautiful eye connections that happen in the kirtans with this really ... It, simply said, if you haven't experienced it, I would say it is an experience. The connection that happens in eye gazing, the connection that happens between two people can really fill in different holes in one's being, permanently, that can be really filled. I want to transition to the eye gaze between you and your father.
Sridhar Silberfein: Boy you remember this stuff?
Meredith Sasseen: Yes. Just to set the stage for our listening audience, and then please correct me if there's anything that I need to be corrected with here. So Sridhar's in Spain, and he's been in prison for three weeks for smuggling marijuana, is that right?
Sridhar Silberfein: No actually, at that point, it was more like almost three months.
Meredith Sasseen: Oh really, almost three months at that point?
Sridhar Silberfein: Five different prisons.
Meredith Sasseen: Three months and five different prisons. The reason that the story becomes really what I feel is an important arc is because it's a moment where being alone with yourself is a place where you had to dig really really deep and get really really real.
Sridhar Silberfein: Life or death.
Meredith Sasseen: Yeah, and the second reason I think it's important for you as the listening audience is I think many people have a point of shame or a skeleton or something that they feel vibrant and alive, and look at all the things that you have created. How could this possibly in your history? Right? It's only been in the last few years where this story is something that has just been something you're willing to say, you know what? Yeah, I have this whole list of beautiful successes, and I have ushered so many saints and so many wise, spiritual leaders and musicians into the world. I also have had my own trials and tribulations.
Sridhar Silberfein: Absolutely.
Meredith Sasseen: I want to honor you first for that, and thank you, because we need people who are in a position of leadership to do that. It's been three months, and you're in Spain, five different prisons, you smuggled marijuana, and you got to escape.
Sridhar Silberfein: Well, I didn't know we had an escape at that point.
Meredith Sasseen: Alright. So tell.
Sridhar Silberfein: My father's a New York businessman, and they read about it in the paper. A friend of my mother's read about me in the daily news in New York City. We live on the [inaudible 00:22:06] but the paper comes out, and reading this article and said, this person [inaudible 00:22:10] arrested in Spain. They didn't even know about it, I was already in there for a couple of months.
Meredith Sasseen: What year was this?
Sridhar Silberfein: 1964.
Meredith Sasseen: Okay. And you got your spiritual name, Sridhar in 1968.
Sridhar Silberfein: This country of Spain was run by a very, very fascist dictator, Francisco Franco, who was with Mussolini and Hitler as the axis of evil. That's where the original axis of evil came from. That's where most of the Nazi Germans fled after the war, so that they can escape. They came by rail or however from Germany through [inaudible 00:22:55] got to Spain, and then from Spain, they were dispersed to all those South American countries where they found them. Just a small percentage of these people that were bad people so to speak were put on trial at Nuremberg, just a small portion of them. The majority had escaped and changed their names, and became very successful people all over the world and lived out their lives with their skeletons, and nobody ever found them.
I knew that was happening. In fact, one of the prisons that I got to, the one at Madrid, they were holding a very famous Nazi general at that prison. Somehow his exit was being blocked, and they couldn't have him in the general public. They didn't know what to expect so they kept him. When the prisons of main ... Madrid's main prison, and he had to run to the prison, but he head that this Weston White dude was coming in there and probably checked my last name. He came, he wanted to have a confrontation with me.
He stood in front of me, there's the bars between us, because he was in a different section, but we just had this moment, a very intense moment because I knew somebody told me who he was. I didn't know. All of the sudden, everybody parted the ways, and there, hidden, I was standing there looking at [inaudible 00:24:25], and I felt his really intense anger and I felt fear for one of the first times then. Not to say I didn't feel fear in these other prisons that I was, because there were brutal prison wardens that were beating people next to me, and you would hear torture going on in the middle of the night, and so you would, in my mind, when is my turn gonna come over with people like that?
I would befriend some of the criminals that they would collect. One time I knew this tough guy, this killer guy, who it turned out that he was in there for killing. They were playing cards. The way everybody got high in prison there, they would drink hair tonic. They would get a bottle of hair tonic because that was allowed in the prison and they would drink it, because there's something in hair tonic is alcohol tonic. They passed me the bottle, and I knew that I had to display my macho-ness, right?
Sridhar Silberfein: This killer passes me the bottle, and they're all looking at me, right? I took my big swig, and that alone should've killed me right then and there. I knew it didn't so I had some hope.
Meredith Sasseen: What did the deck of cards look like? Do you remember?
Sridhar Silberfein: Ripped up, folded things, you couldn't even tell what the numbers were, right? They were playing cards, and then this guy accuses of some other guy cheating and he takes the big jug, ceramic jug of water, and cracks him over the head. Splits open his head. The blood is flowing, I'm there, it was my turn for the cards, and now we were drinking this ... Okay fine, he's my best friend. He's now my BFF, the killer.
Meredith Sasseen: Do you remember the image on the back of the cards?
Sridhar Silberfein: No.
Meredith Sasseen: Could there have been one?
Sridhar Silberfein: It could've been naked girls. I wouldn't even remember.
Meredith Sasseen: But old and ripped. They were used a lot.
Sridhar Silberfein: Then when I got to my final prison, which I don't even remember what the name of it was.
Meredith Sasseen: In Madrid?
Sridhar Silberfein: No, it was closer to the coast. They had a system there where they were all [inaudible 00:26:50] smokers, and the anarchists to this one prison. When I arrived at this final prison, I met anarchists, but I never knew what an anarchist was. They had some of the Irish anarchists there. One famous guy that was there was on the cover of a big article from Time Magazine at that time, which he showed me. He was a young guy, he was the guy that was blowing up places in Ireland and somehow he got to Spain and he was helping the Basque, is it Basque? B-A-S-Q-U-E Separatist movement in Catalonia and northern Spain. Still going on today, now they're trying to vote to secede from the Spanish government. That's how strong they are. This Irish guy was there, trying to help them blow up buildings and stuff like that. He got caught.
Meredith Sasseen: I'm trying to picture you in this scene because you're young and kind of naïve, right? This is sort of an accident of sorts, right?
Sridhar Silberfein: I can't say that I was too naïve, because I knew what I was doing, so how naïve could I be? Because I was doing something that was supposedly illegal so I knew that if I got into trouble, I would have to honor that. I got a word that my father was coming, and he came to the prison, the last prison. By that time, they hired lawyers and what turned out to be is my uncle in New York was partners with Emmanuel Sellers. Emmanuel Sellers was the most powerful congressman on the east coast. He must've been 40 years a congressman. He was head of the armed services committee, which is the most powerful committee in Congress, because they appropriate moneys to all these militaries all over the countries. He knew the marquee devout was the ambassador from Spain to America through his dealings with the committee. My uncles, my father's ... My mother went to my uncle [Shridhar’s Dad’s sister’s husband], a very famous lawyer, and he was partners with Emmanuel Sellers, and they said, Manny, he used to be called, "Manny, this kid didn't know what he was doing, speak to your friend," and he didn't do it. He went to speak to Marquis de [inaudible 00:29:33] and they got me out on a ... They decided to get me out on bail, but they never knew what bail was because they never had a bail system. When you go to jail in Spain before 1964, that was it. Same thing now with a lot of the other countries. They throw you into jail, that's it. Nobody ever hears from you again. Iran, they're all the same. You just go and you become an innocent person, they actually kill you. They pushed and pushed and pushed and they decided, okay we'll let him out on bail, $182. Where did the number come from? Don't ask me, because they never had it, right? My father came and he comes to the prison and they call me and we get to see each other after all this time. I'd been gone for 6 months.
Meredith Sasseen: This is face to face?
Sridhar Silberfein: This is face to face, but there is bars between us. He sees me, kind of emaciated at that point. Disheveled.
Meredith Sasseen: What's your emotional status?
Sridhar Silberfein: Not good. Very weak. You know, some mistreatment in the prisons and stuff like that, that part I'd rather not get into, but you know I was at the lowest part of my life, right? He comes and he's standing there and I'm standing on the other side, and here's a really well respected businessperson. Middle class America, [inaudible 00:31:08], he's coming to see his young child in prison there in Spain of all places, not even in America. It's like an extreme version of this, right? We stopped ... He starts to cry, I start to cry. It's very [inaudible 00:31:30]. He said, "I'm gonna get you out on bail," and I said, "Okay, and when will that be?" And he said, "Anytime in a couple of days. I'm gonna go back to Madrid" he said, and I'll just wait for you, and when you get out there will be a taxi, and you just take the taxi.
He did, he went to Madrid and checked into the Hilton hotel, which is one of the only hotels in Madrid at that point. They came and they said, "It's time for you to go," three, four days later. They give me an envelope. When you go into a prison they take your rings and your watches and your money. They gave me all of this back in an envelope. I jumped into this taxi that was waiting for me. I got to the Hilton and then Madrid and I spend a couple of days there, and then I said, "Dad, I'm just really, I'm so exhausted and drained. I'm gonna fly down to the Canary Islands and I'm gonna lay on their beaches for a couple of days," and he said, "Be careful," and I said, "Okay."
Canary Islands were a part of Spain, so I didn't need anything. I jumped on a plane, I flew down there, I just was going from island to island, exploring and doing my own thing by myself. Met some new friends on the beach one day, hanging out, smoking some pot, and then in the distance, everyone's in their bathing suits. In the distance, we see this guy walking down the beach in a suit and a tie, and I start laughing, look at that guy. What's he thinking? They get closer and closer, it's my father. I went down to the shoreline, I said, "Dad? What are you doing here?" I just left you three days ago. He said, "We just got worried that they're gonna give you six years and one month and one year sentencing to make an example of you so nobody would come and do this again, let's go, we have to escape." My father is saying to me, we have to escape the country.
Meredith Sasseen: He's probably, this is a guy with a real moral background I would imagine, right?
Sridhar Silberfein: Very straight. Right.
Meredith Sasseen: He's breaking all his internal rules.
Sridhar Silberfein: Very straight guy, more so than I explain to you, but very, very intensely straight. We go back to my hotel, I throw my things in the bag, and we go to the airport. We take the next flight to Lisbon. The Canary Islands to Lisbon. From Lisbon to the Azores, and the Azores on Pan Am to JFK. Then people would ask me, how did you even get out? You didn't have a passport. Well, when they got me out of jail for 182,000 bail, in that envelope was my passport.
Meredith Sasseen: Aha.
Sridhar Silberfein: And all my things that I walked in there with. They gave me back the whole thing. They didn't know, because nobody ever knew about bail. They assumed this is what you came in, that's what you went out with. That's how I get out. That's how we escaped, that's how we got back to the country.
Meredith Sasseen: It's an incredible story of perseverance and ... The reason I asked Sridhar about ... Sridhar's the founder of Bhakti Fest, so if you're just joining us, we're right in the middle of a real pivotal story that took place very early in his life, that I wanted to pull and engage with you on, because I feel like if there was a gift that Bhakti Fest as a festival, current day, this ninth festival was given to people, it is illuminating the dark places that people have been hiding. Whether it's shame or a skeleton, or you're not like me or how could I possibly succeed with this scared alone hidden place in my background? You're an amazing example. I just want to honor you for everything that you've done for spiritual leaders and musicians to spread the word throughout the world and specifically in our area.
The piece that I want to wrap this story with and kind of go just a level deeper if you're willing, is the connection between your dad and you. I'm wondering what happened within you, what got filled? What pieces of your energetic anatomy you might say were shifted and changed due to this experience, where you felt one way prior, and you felt different from that day forward? Related to your relationship with your dad?
Sridhar Silberfein: I have to point out that it wasn't very great after that. I think he held a lot against me for that. I felt, you know, I never felt that marijuana was any problem for anybody. Now of course it's turning out to be ... It's not. Again, here's another thing that government and corporations keep the people down with opioids and pills and the alcohol, this is what they want to do. Because they make money off of you. They want you to be sedated. They don't want you to open up your mouth and be forward, or be forward thinker, or think anything. This sedates, sit in front of your TV, drink your drinks or beer or wine, or whatever you want to do. Eat your food and just be quiet and we don't want to hear from you. Just go through life. We'll tell you what we're gonna do for you, which is nothing. I knew that, at an early age, I didn't want to be a part of that.
Meredith Sasseen: The reason I thought this story was also important was I really wanted to bring honor to the global father, and to your father, because what I witness in this story is I see you as a young man, having this experience with your father, and then I look at this entire lineage of teachers of men, of great wise men, who influenced you so greatly. You were able to use your spiritual skill of connection and community and organization, to awaken people through this paternal lineage, and then also moving forward with Amma and the maternal lineage. Do you see that?
Sridhar Silberfein: Yes. Absolutely. One of the things I realized from this was when you're at your lowest level, whatever that is, and when you feel downtrodden, and no place to go, you just get up and you get going and you forget about all of this ego related stuff and stop crying in your beer and just ... Nobody has an exclusive on pain. We all have relationship break ups, we all have problems with our kids, we all have problems with our parents. We all have business situations. We have everything. There's just a list of stuff that we go through, all of us, every single day. It's the same list. What you're doing, what I'm doing, it's the same list. How much do we attach ourselves to that list instead of ... Okay, yep, I see that. I'm not gonna go that road again, I've been down that 10 times already. The voice is telling ... We do have a voice. That voice is the internal voice from the divine. If you sit quietly in your meditation, whatever you do, that voice will tell you exactly the right and the wrong, whatever that means, to do. Either you listen to the voice or you just continue perpetrating fraudulent activities in your mind because your ego voice is more powerful than your true divine voice.
Meredith Sasseen: That's one of the things that Bhakti Fest is so great at, is that through all the mantra and the yoga and the meditation and the workshops to help really awaken and make that voice louder. We're gonna change channels and shift just a little bit, and I'm wondering if you'll play another little game with me. We've played some sentence games. You can go to YogaNews.TV and check out a little sentence game that the two of us played in the past. This one is using is a specific moment in time that is live in your memory that has a whole storyline around it, but we want to go specifically to the frame, both for speed and also for intensity. What I'd love to do is we're on the, this is the ninth annual Bhakti Fest, and I'd love to have some snapshots, of whether it's this year or in years past, doesn't matter, of moments for you. I'm gonna share some sentences and I'm looking for a favorite frame.
Meredith Sasseen: I was on stage, and the mantra that touched my heart most was ...
Sridhar Silberfein: The harikrushna maharaj mantra.
Meredith Sasseen: And that person singing it, or people singing it were ...
Sridhar Silberfein: Shyamdas.
Meredith Sasseen: My position on the stage was …
Sridhar Silberfein: Producing the closing ceremony, which we do every Sunday night.
Meredith Sasseen: Where were you standing on the stage?
Sridhar Silberfein: Stage right.
Meredith Sasseen: As I look out my eyes, what I see is …
Sridhar Silberfein: I see these thousands of people in total bliss and love and I knew that what we're doing is right.
Meredith Sasseen: What I feel in my heart ...
Sridhar Silberfein: More than that.
Meredith Sasseen: This yoga teacher asked if she could teach yoga, and when I met her, I felt ...
Sridhar Silberfein: An immediate understanding that she knows what she's doing.
Meredith Sasseen: Who was that?
Sridhar Silberfein: Shiva Rea
Meredith Sasseen: What was it like in the moment that you had that conversation?
Sridhar Silberfein: I saw a great person that was a great teacher that really was doing service work, and was not coming from an ego place.
Meredith Sasseen: One of my most memorable volunteers was ...
Sridhar Silberfein: There's been so many, we couldn't do this festival without these fantastic ... We have a regular volunteer, we have seva volunteers, they just work all the time. They're fantastic. I can't really put a name to that.
Meredith Sasseen: One of my favorite green room memories is ...
Sridhar Silberfein: Oh god. So many. Running out of food, running out of water, leaks coming from the ceilings. Have you been in our green room?
Meredith Sasseen: Yes!
Sridhar Silberfein: It's fantastic. We feed everybody. All the artists that come off the stage get food, and we have pizza at night. We have our own massage team, just dealing with the artists and the staff there. We have two tables set up, the artists comes off his set, her set, they want massages, that's free.
Meredith Sasseen: When I was creating this schedule of teachers, I saw this slot open and thought ...
Sridhar Silberfein: Maybe I could give this to some new person, and it was really sincere, that really wants to set up and open up and bring what they have to teach to the people.
Meredith Sasseen: Name someone who's quite famous now that you gave a seat to on the schedule. I know there's many, but can you name one, and their story?
Sridhar Silberfein: I'm pretty much all the [crosstalk 00:43:39] got their beginnings and middles and endings here at Bhakti Fest. Even the big name people, they weren't big name people until 2009, when we really got the word out for everybody. [inaudible 00:44:00], all the yoga teachers. They saw [inaudible 00:44:03]. He never played music before, he was just a yoga teacher until he came here, and then he started chanting and [inaudible 00:44:10] as well.
Meredith Sasseen: And Adam Baur, Krishna Das’s bass man just released a new album.
Sridhar Silberfein: He was never even interested in doing music.
Meredith Sasseen: That album is called Wonderville, it gets released on equinox, so if you download, pre order it before September 21st, then you get some world music charts influencing, which is pretty nice. Lots of musicians, that's ... I didn't realize it was that many.
Sridhar Silberfein: A lot of musicians, and all the musicians and yoga teachers love to come here every year, because they get a chance to hang out with themselves. They're all on their own schedule, they're all traveling, they never have a gathering point. They love coming here, I see them schmoozing it up in the green room and having lunch together, just hanging out and really bringing up to date, because everybody travels so much. It's one, two years out of ... I'm booking 2019 now for certain people.
Meredith Sasseen: Since you made that transition, next year there's a lot of talk about Bhakti Fest. If you haven't been, you'll have the opportunity next year for the tenth anniversary. I hear there's a lot of special surprises being done, is that so?
Sridhar Silberfein: Well, you know ... Yeah- I really want ... I have a wishlist, and a lot of those people on that wishlist, are not from the kirtan world. You want me to share?
Meredith Sasseen: Of course I do!
Sridhar Silberfein: I'm going to invite certain people, I'm not saying that those people are coming.
Meredith Sasseen: Yes,, these are just invited people. This is not advertising, this isn't promotion, we're sitting having a conversation about what inspires you and what you'd like to see.
Sridhar Silberfein: I'm going to invite Tina Turner, because she did a mantra video because she's a Buddhist studier, practitioner. She came out with, you see this on YouTube, and I just said, oh my God, wouldn't that be great to have Tina Turner come out and do this song, right? And Donovan. These people are real, these are the real spiritual people. Van Morrison. Harry Belafonte. I'm gonna invite all these people.
Sridhar Silberfein: And Nahko and Medicine For the People, Xavier Rudd, Trevor Hall is coming back. I actually just got confirmation that Deepak is definitely coming next year. Deepak is leading a meditation class and giving a talk on the main stage.
Meredith Sasseen: Wow. This was very, very fun. I want to bring your attention, we're gonna wrap up in just a few minutes here, but I want to bring your attention to the listening audience. Those of you who weren't able to come here. I want to talk about what is available, whether it's through social media and YouTube channels for you, but throughout the whole year. I'd like you to do it in the way of promotion, informing. Let everybody know, if this is really turning you on and you have friends here and you're excited or you're interested, how can people participate? How can they get their hearts opened?
Sridhar Silberfein: I'm not really good on promoting. I have the concepts of what should be and should be done, but I'm not a self promoter. That's why you don't hear me talking about these stories. I'm talking about certain stories with you today because you bring that out. You're a great interviewer, and I really appreciate your sincerity and your compassion, and I wouldn't be giving you these storylines because if I didn't feel that way from you. Very rarely do I even open up to this ... It's an important thing because you're bringing it to light in an important way to show that no matter what our failures are, where we're downtrodden, our lowest point of our lives, we just get up, we get busy, and we get going again and again and again, and stop crying in your beer, and everything is fine. It's not knocking your head against the wall. It's all fine. We have enough bigger problems. Let's get out of it.
Meredith Sasseen: First, thank you for the acknowledgement. It's a huge pleasure getting to know you and I love the stories and I'm so glad we get to share them with you. What the question was, was how can people get involved, and I wanted you to do it through the lens of promotion. The reason this is important is because I have a sense that there are people in the listening audience that can choose from festival A, B, and C, maybe they can't ... They don't know mantras...
Sridhar Silberfein: They don't have to.
Meredith Sasseen: I want people to have the ability to participate and get involved with you and all the different pieces because it's so clear to me that the gift that you hold is illuminating other people's gifts. That's what I really see in you. How do people choose?
Sridhar Silberfein: I just discovered two old relatives of mine in their 70s. This woman just found me by seeing my name on some advertisement. She called up and wanted to know if I was related to Stephen Silberfein, I said I am Stephen Silberfein, and she proceeds to tell me that her grandfather and my grandmother were brothers and sisters. I invited them to [a prior] event and then she came now, she's here now this weekend with her brother. Her brother just had a triple bypass surgery thing, and he came to me yesterday, we just met each other, and he just melted.
He said, "Oh, who's this [inaudible 00:50:22]? What is this meditation?" He says, my life is full of stress, and I feel so nice and peaceful here. What kind of food is this? I've never had any vegetarian food. I said, "That's now, after your heart attack, and all the stuff that you've been eating, now you have to change your life," and we sat and we talked, and we're gonna go sit again tonight. Because he's sitting here waiting to go and see [inaudible 00:50:47]. Right? His sister, the one I originally met, she's in her 70s, she wants to go to India next year and go to our orphanage and bring Donovan and work with the girls for a month. She says, "Oh, I'll go for six months," I said, "Just go for a month and see how you do."
That's it. You just come here and just open up. I'm working with a lot of young people as well, in their early 20s, because they come and they still want to ... They think, they have a different concept of what's going on here. Mostly people go to festivals for a much different reasons than they come here. People go to festivals to get drunk, and they get high on substances and dance all night long and fool around with each other, do whatever, and then leave as dissatisfied as they were when they got there. What you're coming here is you're coming here to really go deeper and open up and honor your true spirit and your true self. Come empty, leave full. Come full, leave empty. Which is a motto I made a up awhile ago.
Meredith Sasseen: Thank you. I feel like I'm leaving full, and I think our audience is too. The last place that I want to leave you with is one of the things that I learned about Sridhar in a prior interview that you'll be able to find online is the backbone to all of your success ... What I heard you say was that the backbone to everything you've been doing since your spiritual path really got ignited was down to practice.
Sridhar Silberfein: Absolutely. You can't run away. We're basically lazy when it concerns our own development, and that's how it is. I still get in the morning, meditate. I still get up in the morning, do my yoga, and stand on my head. Not might be for a huge amount of time, but it's a couple minutes at least, and then I start my day with two big glasses of water.
Meredith Sasseen: Makes a huge difference, it really does. What I want to leave you with today is first, I just want to thank you for your viewing attention and time and I want to also thank our behind the scenes ... Bonnie, thank you from behind the scenes, and Julia, and all the people that made this possible. It's just not the two of us sitting here, there's so many people that schedule and make things happen and do all the promotion behind the scenes. Thank you for your time and thanks for listening. I just want to leave you with the anchor to this whole festival, the anchor to everything you're seeing in social media related to Bhakti Fest boils down to the power of personal practice. You heard Sridhar talk about that.
I would encourage you, as tempting as it is to keep surfing Facebook and find all the little treasures that you might find to take a moment to create or engage in the practice that you may have, even if it's just for a minute so that you get a chance just to be with yourself. We're gonna do that here. Will you join me in a minute of silence to end?
Sridhar Silberfein: Yes. I just want to mention that everything is transitory. Everything that comes our way every day is transitory. It comes and it goes. It's very fleeting. There's nothing you have to grab onto other than your own self.
Meredith Sasseen: Thank you so much. We'll be with you for a minute here. You're welcome to stay with us. We'll take a minute here and Bonnie, if you'd be so kind to let us know when that's up, and then we'll say goodbye to everybody.
Speaker 1: Inhale. Exhale.
Meredith Sasseen: Thank you.
Sridhar Silberfein: Thank you.
Meredith Sasseen: Namaste.
Sridhar Silberfein: Namaste to you. Thank you.
Meredith Sasseen: Namaste.
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Meredith and Shridhar play a fun communication game finishing sentences about some of his favorite things!
