On Leonard Cohen and "Depression"

Leonard has a taste for irony and for the beyond.

From "It Seemed the Better Way" (2016):

I wonder what it was
I wonder what it meant
First he touched on love
Then he touched on death

Sounded like the truth
Seemed the better way

Sounded like the truth
But it's not the truth today

I better hold my tongue.
I better take my place.
Lift this glass of blood.
Try to say the grace.

-Leonard Cohen

The rare wit was ever-present with Leonard: Take for example when Fredrik Skavlan asks Leonard this question on the Norwegian-Swedish talk show (2007): "Do you think that dramatic changes in your life... do you think human beings do that out of free will or must it be forced upon us?"

Leonard responded: "Well, I think free will is exaggerated." The audience laughs.

He continues: "I think most of the time we are compelled to do the things we do, and I think that um - What was the question?"
"If a change has to be forced upon us," the interviewer says.
"I think it has to. It's clear that it is only catastrophe that encourages people to make a change."

"I became ordained as a monk." Asked why, Leonard responds: "I'd always studied with my old teacher who is going to be 100 in a couple of days. After I finished a particular tour, I felt very dislocated and had an appetite for some kind of structure, so I formalized my relationship with this teacher. If he'd have been a Professor of Physics at Heidelberg I would have learned German and studied Physics. He happened to be a zen monk, so in order to participate in his world I had to shave my head and put on robes - and I was very happy to do so because it was clear to me from the beginning that he knew a lot more than I did. It's for that reason that I wanted to spend time with him."

"What kind of life did you live in there?" Skavlan asks.

"Well, I ended up as a cook," Leonard says - laughter from the audience.

The interviewer grapples with the fact that Leonard spent five years in a Zen monastery: "But could you go outside, could you see people, could you have a glass of red wine??"

Leonard responded, "I tried to introduce him to red wine, but he was devoted to sake - which is not quite the same kind of thing. He believed that raw fish and sake doth a dinner make."

But he adds: "He did eventually develop a taste for chicken soup that my mother taught me how to make, and some other Jewish dishes."

My photos (at the top) of Leonard in concert are my own, but they do not convey the feeling one has at the great occasion of the great poet there before you, kneeling on the stage, moving his mouth to form the words you have memorized and hear a voice held in a vault in your chest since you were an adolescent. 

The concert photos are from his show at Madison Square Garden in 2012. Seeing him at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas in 2009 is the more delightful memory. I remember tears dropping from my eyes, falling directly onto my cheeks, signifying for me the immediacy of his wonderful presence as he took his place on the stage - and he did so very humbly. On each side of my face, the tears skipped the normal "preambule" of rolling down. These tears were waiting for years for this moment. They were heavy and they surprised me as they fell with the weight of a crocodile. The tears fell simultaneously with his voice in a chamber of golds and reds at Caesar's Palace. I had no time to expect them or to conceive of their imminence. They bore witness to this deeply inspiring soul and voice.

Speaking on the power of language and rituals, Leonard reflects on the synagogue's influence over him: "I think I was touched as a child by the music and the kind of charged speech I heard in the synagogue, where everything is important. I always feel that the world was created through words – through speech in our tradition – and I've always seen the enormous light in charged speech and that's what I've tried to get to." He didn't set out to be a singer; he wanted to be a writer like those he admired: Fernando Garcia Lorca, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and W.B. Yeats.

Almost thirty years ago, I fell in love with him first via "Everybody Knows" - so arousing in terms of looking blank-faced at reality. I appreciated how Leonard's lyrics are the truest and most honest - and perhaps this is why his music is accused of being "depressing." However, as Douglas Hesselgrave points out in his Leonard Cohen: You Want It Darker Review, some of Leonard's audiences may not have understood that "if you write about a razor blade, it doesn't necessarily mean that you want to harm yourself." From my own perspective, even as an adolescent, I knew that this man's poetry was urging everyone to think differently, find meaning, laugh at the irony - as we defog our lenses.

In another interview (Los Angeles, 1990s), the topic was to be about his 5 years in Zen monastery, yet the interviewer steered the questions towards depression, and perhaps feeling put on the spot, Leonard graciously answers: "Yes, I feel like I'm coming out of the closet, but depression has certainly been an element that I've had to work with all through my life." As he is poked and prodded about "depression" and asked if he dealt with it with travel, drugs, and scotch, he delves deeper and speaks from his level: "What happened was that I understood that I had to deal with this question at the fundamental level of consciousness."

Leonard was given the name "Ordinary Silence" at the
Mount Baldy Zen Center

The interviewer attempts to connect Leonard's artistic success to depression and, perhaps because he picks up on her inability to relate, he elucidates the very real experience of depression, saying: "I think that's a popular notion - that it is exclusively suffering that produces good work or insightful work." He asserts: "I think good work is produced in spite of suffering, and as a victory over suffering."

The interviewer looks a bit perplexed and says, "That is an interesting concept: victory over suffering?" And Leonard very pensively says: "If the level of the degree of the intensity of anybody's distress or disorder is sufficiently high - I mean - you can't move. And for people who have experienced acute clinical depression - I mean - the problem is getting to the next moment. You know, the room tilts, you lose your balance, and you're incapable of coherent thought."

She asks, "Have you been that bad?"
"Yes, yea, I - I've been there," he says.

The irony is that his way of seeing has inspired thousands of souls, in countless ways, to hear the poetic side of life. Regarding singing, Leonard would say that that is another irony perhaps. He says that his son, Adam, is the real thing - he has a beautiful voice and perfect pitch - but of himself he says, "I kind of croaked my way through the enterprise."

Listen to a song he produced with his son, Adam Cohen, from just before he passed away last year:

"It seemed the Better Way" 

2016

And a longtime favorite:

"Take this Waltz"

1986

Keli Lalita Makes Me Want to Learn More (as any good teacher does)

Keli Lalita Reddy, EYRT 500

On September 26, I met with Keli Lalita, a bhakta yogini who has been teaching yoga for over ten years. If you know Keli at all, you'll know that her name is very à propos, as it is a name for the Divine Feminine and means Beautifully playful. In addition to leading yoga practitioners in the deeply restorative practice of yin yoga, Keli is also training yoga teachers in the power of synchronicity of breath and movement, beautiful movement through mandalas, the breakdown and biomechanics of poses, and a repertoire of negativity-busting kriyas and mantras to teach trainees at Yoga Mandali in Saratoga Springs, NY. Keli is excited about the faculty team she teaches with, and appreciates how each faculty member brings a whole slew of talents and expertise to the program: Ann, Heather, Nini, and other special guests.

Guru Chants & Mantras
in the Tibetan Tradition

Besides designing teacher training programs, guiding practitioners into "juicy" poses, and leading yogis on retreats in Costa Rica or in India, Keli co-founded and owns a recording studio called Mantralogy (since 2008). In this way, Keli helps spread the joy and feels blessed to produce music from all over the world in the Bhakti tradition.  Bhakti music can be associated with kirtan, which is a moving practice of praising God, the divine, with song. Keli is excited to announce that Mantralogy recently released their first album in the Tibetan language, and it is called Guru Chants & Mantras (see Mantralogy's full listings).

This September, Mantralogy released a second (2nd) solo kirtan album with Adam Bauer called Wonderville. Adam Bauer has a particular sound to appreciate (if you don't know Adam Baeur or want to hear kirtan, you may click here to listen to his devotional voice). If you want a cool experience, you can join him in kirtan live at Yoga Mandali from time to time (follow their calendar or fb). 

Adam Bauer's second solo kirtan album

Adam Bauer's first album, Shyam Lila, includes deeply devotional songs to Krishna. His second album, Wonderville, is an East-West fusion that, à la différence de Shyam Lila, features mostly Shiva chants. This is exciting work to Keli – and there’s a Ganesh chant, Keli adds. The album was produced by Ben Leinbach, an award-winning producer, and Keli raves about how he is "a musical genius." She raves about how many instruments he plays and his work, saying Ben Leinbach is "probably the most famous producer of yoga music of all time – you just don’t know that you’re hearing his music all the time, but every chant you’ve heard, he probably has worked with those people."

Keli studied writing and literature at The New School in NYC and is the kind of person who never stops learning and deepening what she knows. She has been a reader for Edwin Bryant’s books, a brilliant scholar at Rutgers who translated the Yoga Sutras and recently published a book called Bhakti Yoga: Tales and Teachings from the Bhagavata Purana. Coincidentally, I had ordered the book the morning before I met with Keli at Professor Java café (vegan chocolate and tea - very good) - and it was fun to hear her talk about this book. Keli credits him as having taught her so much about the ancient texts. During training, I liked to hear Keli bring illumination to certain terms in Sanskrit as she discusses the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali or the Bhagavad Gita. When I asked her this day if she knows Sanskrit very well, she responded: "I’m just starting to learn Sanskrit for real." And I don’t know if she is just being modest, but I can tell you she knows a fair amount, and sings some truly inspiring, beautiful kirtan in Sanskrit herself. Her voice was truly a beautifully playful startup to our early mornings at Yoga Mandali.

Keli Lalita leading kirtan at Kripalu

Keli was one of the first to introduce me to bhakti yoga, one of the greatest kinds of yoga. As I have been learning in reading Edwin Bryant’s book, bhakti yoga goes beyond just stilling the mind in order to find the peace of the Atman within, and opens up a devotional path and greater cause with yoga, as yoga means "union" and can be thought of as union with the divine. In bhakti yoga, you can meditate on God and find your practice leading to the contentment of loving Ishta Devata, that is, the God of your heart, in a more real and fulfilling way. In a personal regard, I can say that yoga has helped me connect to God, in a unique way, and to healing and to something greater, as I get in tune to my mind and body and appreciate how God has enabled me to live.

Regarding Adam Baeur’s two albums, one more of Krisha chants, and the other more of Shiva chants, I asked Keli about the difference between Krisha and Shiva chants, since I am unsure: “If you were talking to a beginner," I ask, "How would you describe the difference between someone who is more devoted to Krishna and someone who is more devoted to Shiva? Cuz in Hinduism, don’t they choose who they are devoted to?”

I was prepared for her response to be very elucidating, and as she answered, I remembered exactly why I liked training with her so much last year: "That’s a really good question," she replied. "I was at a Christian funeral yesterday, and I was talking with my stepmom who is Jewish (we are a Jewish family) and discussing how we kind of do the same things in the various religious traditions: At a funeral, you light a candle, you burn incense (for example, you burn frankincense in Catholic church and also in yin yoga), you have water, there’s some kind of song, and there’s some kind of food, and sometimes there’s dance. Those seem to be threaded throughout every religion. And so, if you were to see the people who were worshipping Lord Shiva, the average Shiva worshipper and the average Krishna worshipper would be really hard to tell apart because it’s about what’s really going on is in their heart. It’s not visible at an external level. So in the Hindu tradition there’s something called Ishta Devata, which means the God of your heart. So, if I were to see you with your son and a boy of the same age, they both look like little kids and you wouldn’t be treating them differently. You’d be feeding them both lunch or taking care of both of them, but obviously for you, your son is something different for you in your heart. So I think it is similar with those that are devoted to Shiva and to Krishna."

Little Krishnas: Celebrating Janmashtami in Vrindavan, India

She goes on with more interesting cultural examples, both from her travels to India and from the community in which she lives (in the Albany region): “You know in India you could say they wear different clothing. You can see the really extreme aesthetic Shivites carry tridents and cover their body with ashes. They are like, just your average Albany Hindu Temple Society guys – and everybody kind of hangs out together and no one minds. In fact, if you go to the Hindu temple here in Albany (you should go) there is every type of deity represented. They literally have every deity, including a very rare deity which is the child of Lord Shiva and Lord Vishnu when he assumes a female form called Mohini. If you go to this temple in Albany, all the way on the left there’s a hermaphroditic deity and there’s only a few of those peppered throughout the world. One of them is there."

Mohini distributing the Amrita to the Devas

"So there is a story where Shiva assumes the female form so he can enter the Rasa dance so they’re very connected. It’s utterly fascinating, I could think about it forever and still be fascinated. There’s even a recognized third gender that’s recognized. It should be recognized, because it exists. If you go to Vrindavan in Northern India, there are people that look like women but they are just much taller. They are men who take the form of a Gopi and that is one of the meditations actually. It’s a meditative path of taking the form of a woman, and they are called the Sahajas and they have an ashram. And if you go to Vrindavan with me, we’ll go to a temple called Gopeshwar Mahadev and there’s a statue of Shiva dressed as a Gopi. He basically wants to enjoy a pastime with Krishna and so he takes a female form to be in that intimate pastime with his beloved. So Shiva then protects the four corners of this Krishna town, so there are four Shiva temples in the four directions. So, these two are very closely connected."

Vrindavan

I was curious: “So city planning in India is very wrapped around religion?

Keli laughs melodiously in response, saying: "I think you would have a hard time calling it planning, but yes! Because there are temples everywhere. There are no plans. The plan is: Which place should we worship?!!"

As someone who has designed study abroad experiences for students as a professor, I hope to travel with Keli and help construct a beautiful voyage for a beautiful, in-depth yoga retreat in Italy next year. Together with other delightful souls, we could practice yoga by sea, Greek temples, and some good food. I don't believe we will have any problem looking around Rome, the Amalfi coast, or Sicily, and asking: "Which place should we worship?!!" In the meantime though, I may check out this Hindu temple in Albany. I don't want to miss out on an opportunity to experience diversity and to peer into and appreciate another culture and religion, set of values and self-expression.

Keli Lalita teaches yoga at Yoga Mandali, Saratoga, NY
and at Bodhi Holistic Yoga & Spa in Hudson, NY

Many thanks to Keli Lalita for the music, yoga, teachings, and light that she shares within the community. Thank you for always continuing to teach and inspire me. Namaste~