This time I ask Miten …
“I’ve heard you talk about your connection with music as your master. Can you elaborate a bit ?
What is it with your music … and life and death?”

Miten:
What Deva and I do is not commercially driven. It is not a commercial enterprise. It may seem that way on the surface, but in fact, we never thought of chanting mantras as a career move. Who would?! It was just not in our minds. So, if you take finances out of the equation; what’s left?
 

 

Years ago .. Maybe through desperation, or guilt, or simply as a final straw (I was so hungry to know myself and osho’s words – which I’d read in a book on a series of he discourses on zen, offered me hope). Anyway, at this point I owed it to myself to find this man. And what I found transformed my existence entirely.

When I walked into osho’s world, i arrived at a place where everything was different. I was offered the chance to review my life and start over… a kind of identity makeover.

I was offered a new name. (osho never insisted…only suggested) Not just any name – it was a sanskrit word that resonated totally with me. I became prabhu miten , meaning ‘friend of god’ and he had no way of knowing i didn’t have a friend in the wold at that time. My first clue; be a friend unto yourself. Befriend your intrinsic authenticity.
 

 

I’d walked out on family, friends, managers, publishers, record company, band members… so to be reminded that my life-journey was all about befriending – and forgiving – myself, was where I began.

I threw out my wardrobe – no more denim, no more black t-shirts – it was all orange – or red – robes…with a mala around my neck, blessed by the master. I was in.
I’d caught the love, don’t ask me how – but it was no easy ride.i ‘d walked into a spiritual boot camp.
At last I could confront – and befriend – my demons … but it took some tough love and there were no two ways; you either dove into the mystery, or you got the hell out.

My way through the fear and loneliness? … Meditation.

The music that arises out of meditation is a service to the community – a seva – and through the songs and mantras I created a space to deepen meditation.
This is where Deva and I come from. We never came to entertain.

Our spiritual practice is a matter of life and death to us because we’ve been to the edge of the abyss and we‘ve looked over and eventually we jumped.
And we fly on the wings of mantra. This is our life … Every moment of it. It’s a 24/7 joyride to nowhere!

The people who come to chant with us are not ‘fans’.
Fans go to shows. How can a spiritual practice be a ‘show’?

In our sangha Deva and i have become spiritual signposts, and the signposts always point towards a life of meditation, truth, gratitude, compassion and celebration.
This is the essence.

In one way, it is so fragile…but on the other hand, it is a foundation built on solid ground – strong and firm. You can stand upon it in the wind and the rain.
Open to the healing power of the great spirit of music.

And as the song goes, ‘there is no goal but this’.