Bhagavan Das Now - by Bhagavan Das

Mike D of the Beastie Boys produced, arranged and co-wrote this album. Sanskrit and English chanting complimented by highly textured drum and bass programming and a host of modern and ancient instruments.
 

Tracks
• Ode to Ganesha
• Raghupati
• Jai Kali Ma
• Shiva Shambho
• Radhe Bolo
• Hanuman Chalisa
• Shiva Gospel
• Sri Krishna Arati

Mike D's yoga guru makes some funky chants. Others have mixed chillout and Indian Music but Now goes deeper than most. It's a serene spiritual album that also manages to belong to this time and space.

The depth and spiritual resonance of Bhagavan Das' vocals is very moving, and when combined with Mike D.'s mix chops, the result is truly mesmerizing music. ... a startling, ultimately wondrous East-meets-West vibe unique to this project.

is a world music album with all sorts of crossover potential.

This is a clever album - a unique contribution to the annals of devotional music and beat-driven rock, and a well constructed piece of entertainment for the devotee and rock 'n roll fan alike

Easily the most sophisticated fusion of chant and electronics to come down the mountain in many a moon

The Devotion rings through his performance

Michael "Mike D" Diamond has recorded an album with his spiritual guru. On

spiritualist and Nada Yoga instructor BHAGAVAN DAS chants ancient Sanskrit mantras over modern electronic beats produced by Diamond. A '60s and '70s countercultural darling, Das hung with Jerry Garcia and Monkee Mike Nesmith, and played San Francisco's Winterland Ballroom with a 20-piece band. Das hopes

will inspire "young kids to get into yoga and vegan diets, and realize how high they can get without drugs, by getting on a spiritual path."

A spiritual road warrior gets reincarnated. (Bhagavan Das) became a kind of spiritual Forrest Gump

Who is

?

Taken from the official Bhagavan Das website -

:

Bhagavan Das, of

fame (the best-selling spiritual journal by

), was born in Laguna Beach, California in 1945.

Seeking enlightenment and his life's purpose, he left home at age 18. His travels led him to India in 1963, where he became a Yogi and renounced the world. He now had a single purpose, to find and know God.

Bhagavan Das was the first American to live with the acknowledged saint

and was the catalyst for the many westerners that followed on a similar journey to the East in the late 60's and early 70's. He spent six continuous years in India and Nepal.

While there he studied Hinduism and Buddhism, living the life of a Sadhu (an ascetic renunciate). During those years, he received numerous initiations and teachings from living Masters including

,

,

,

, and

.

Back in America, Bhagavan Das met and began working with the likes of poet

and Zen spiritualist

among others. It was during this time that Bhagavan Das was introduced to Jimi Hendrix's manager Michael Jeffries who arranged for him to record in the legendary Electric Ladyland studios.

Those sessions led to his first album entitled

.

is one of the earliest recordings in what would be known as "world music". And today, Bhagavan Das is quoted as being "

."

As a devotee and scholar, Bhagavan Das offers an unparalleled perspective of blending Eastern consciousness into the spiritual whirlpool of modern Western life. He is an ecstatic devotional singer and master of Nada Yoga, the mystical practice that explores the nature of reality through sound.

He reaches out to his audiences through kirtan, an improvisational call/response form of chanting commonly practiced in India. Bhagavan Das serves as a guide to identify and celebrate the sacred in our own lives.

Bhagavan Das' first book,

, proved a success in the "Cultural Creative" community as well as among a new crop of youthful spiritual seekers who now stream to his kirtan performances.

Bhagavan Das' new recording,

, is the fruit of his collaboration with Mike D of the

. Now is a groundbreaking recording of Eastern devotional chanting brilliantly recast in a swirling amalgam of streetbeats, loops and sampling.

is as Bhagavan Das himself, a jewel in the lotus.