Raghunath Cappo (shelter) interview

December 8, 2002

The zen of punk: an interview with Ray Cappo (Raghunath), Shelter

Paris, august 15th.

News/ projects?

-touching water: it's a new record I'm writing, I'll sing on it, hopefully we'll have something done before the end of the year.

-the zen of punk: it's finished, I'll don't know yet who will publish it. It's a short story, kind of a fiction, like the Little Prince. It's the story of a guy who moves to the streets of NY to start a punk band. He meets this homeless man who is a sadhu, and they become friends. This guy's distressed, so the sadhu gives him these magical glasses in which he can see the world as it really is. Then begin some adventures in NY, he travels around… It's written like a comedy but there are a lot of spirituals ideas in it.

-Youth of Today tour diaries: I'm still working on it but something happened: I've become involved into a film. This one is a documentary of the 80's punk scene in NY and it should be finished in October.

Supersoul Camp: I had to sell it. It was not like I was thinking. I think I'm gonna keep doing something like this, but maybe in something like 8 years from now. The concept is that people come and take a vacation from their life, their jobs, their families…come and concentrate, think about their priorities in life. It's sort of what I did with my spoken words CD.

-teaching yoga: I study and I teach yoga and I also started Ju Jitsu. These are my 2 passions. I also do American boxing, kick boxing.

Connexion between spirituality and martial arts ?

Spirituality can be everywhere, everything have its mundane side. Martial arts can be macho, but I'm searching for the spiritual side of it. You know I love Krishna Consciousness, and I don't do martial arts and think: "this is my body, what a beautiful body!" I see it as a gift. It's like your mother give you a car, and you can drive it hard, knock the car, but it's not the proper way to appreciate the gift. A body's just something special, so in the same sense, when I was into the ashram, devotees overlooked it, but body and mind are working together.

"Face reality, reality means I'm small, not big."

Krishna Consciousness and brahmanical standards ?

I don't have the standards of a brahman, that's for sure, you can see it I'm eating a salad at a club !! My goal's not to be a brahman, my goal's to be a devotee of Krishna my whole life. I keep contact with my spiritual master, just today I did. I got through different stages in my life, some years ago I was a monk. I'm definitely not a monk anymore. Some people think when you're not a monk you're disqualified from being spiritual. Prabhupad was never a monk his whole life. I like to use the example of a sailboat: when you're focused, you go where you wanna go, you keep your true north, even if the boat doesn't go straight, sometimes you're just cruising around but keep the direction. It's natural. You just have to be focused on what you wanna do, what you wanna be. You get into different things in your life, some are much spiritual, some are less, you just have to think of what you want to become. I think I'm lucky, devotees are always encouraging me, and I'm still popular to the Vaisnavas.

Sexual problems in spiritual life ?

Child abuse… these problems are everywhere. If you drawn a circle around50 people sitting out there, I'm sure you can find at least 10 girls that where molested, not by priests, not by Hare Krishnas, not by Catholics, just by people and you know why? Because things like pedophilia, molestation, beating up your wife exists in human society. And it's horrible, even worse when it exists within a church 'cause there you're looking to trust somebody. The problem is that a lot of times people get into religion, not because they want to molest children, but because they have problems sexually. You guys know anorexia ? I think sometimes people have been so hurt sexually that they are sexual anorexics, and I think some people join churches because they're scared of sex: "they don't do sex here, I'm so scared of sex, I've had so many hard times through sex, here, they don't even talk about it!" Sometimes they join religions, not just Krishna religion, many religions, because they don't want to deal with it. But the thing is that it's a real problem. Sexual anorexia is unhealthy too. It's like anything, if you indulge too much or refrain… If I eat too much that I throw up, that's not good, if I never eat food that's not good even. So I think what happen that people are joining religion because of wrong reasons because they're running away from sexual problems. In the name of being celibate, peaceful (but they're not peaceful), they keep it behind and one day when they're not ready, they abuse someone because they've been abused. In the sastras they talk about eating, sleeping, mating and defending. These are the 4 things that human beings do. When you become over indulged in, it destroys who you really are, when it become totally neglected in an unhealthy way, that's not good also. The idea is that things have to be regulated. What Prabhupad tried to do, from what I understand, is to institute a religion. But when you institute anything, it's pretty much impossible. Why ? because everyone's different. My parents could have beaten me, your parents could have loved you, you could be an orphelin, you all come from different backgrounds, with different desires, so why join a club ? In my book In Defense of Reality I did with Satyaraj, he points out different classes of people according to the Vedas, some people are 1st class, 2nd class, 3 th class 4th class. That's not in Prabhupad's books, Satyaraj knows that 'cause he has studied Indian literature, and he know that there are people who have a lot of sex, and they're devotees of Krishna. Like Chintamani, she was a prostitute, but she was a devotee of Krishna, she was a guru to Bilvamangala Thakur. Sometimes people are dealing with different things: some have bigger eating appetites, bigger sexual appetites, some are very violent, you know what I mean ? None of these things are great, but it is the things related to the karma they have to deal with.

"resentment is a poison we take to kill other people"

Kids considering you as their guru ?

You know what ? I think a lot of people say: "Prabhupad is the only guru", stuff like that… It's a nice sentiment but basically everyone you learn from is a guru, a teacher. If people learn from me, does it mean I'm a pure devotee ? Does it mean I'm a guru ? No ! Chintamani was a prostitute, she was a guru for Bilvamangala. I'm not telling the whole story but it's about one guy who's coming to see her and she tell him: "you worship me like I'm God, but if you just worship Krishna like the way you do with me you'll go right back to the spiritual world." If people learn from me that's great, if people learn from you, that's great. In your mind you might think: "I'm the guruuuu !!!" but you gotta just think :"I'm the servant of the servant of the servant" of the gopis. You learn from other people and you spread it around. I might know something for only one week, I can tell it to other persons. I do it as the singer of a band. Think about what some other bands say, it's unbelievable. So if I can teach the knowledge of the Bhagavad-Gita that's wonderful, that's a great thing.

About these words: " I care about hardcore but I hate the scene" (ignite)?

The scene is a scene, like any other scene. I don't like to see myself as "hardcore". I just look myself as a soul, and I play music… There are many different communities, like martial arts community, punk community, Krishna community and it's all the same in the sense that there are heroes, enemies, love affairs going on, good and bad people… Just do your best and deal with it. I think all the problems start when I begin worrying about your problems. When I become obsessive with you problems, then I become co-dependant and irresponsible with my own life. That's why in all the spiritual teaching they say things like :"don't fight with another people". Why? Because part of spirituality is to become responsible for who we are: in relationships to my wife, to my brothers, to my family… I know my father beaten me, I know my mother have been bad to me, I know my brother always have been abusive to me,…, but where was my role, where did I go wrong ? It starts with becoming responsible, not blaming everybody. That's why they say that resentment is a poison we take to kill other people. So the first thing to do is to find who we are resentful for and ask ourselves where we are responsible: how can I rectify the picture ?

My face on a T-shirt?

You just have to think :"I'm a servant", not: "I'm a cool guy" because it destroys you. Face reality, reality means I'm small, not big.

In 20 years from now ?

Close to Krishna, close to the devotees. Hope I'll be an artistic and spiritual person, that I'll write poems, other things.

Something more ?

There's a greater plan.

Thanks Ray, this is a time I'll remember…

Gauracandra · December 9, 2002

How big is this “Straight Edge” punk rock movement? I never really knew much about it, but I guess for a while it was really big. The followers basically followed all the four regulative principles (I think). Is this true? And I guess this Raghunath was a big star on the Straight Edge scene. Anyone know much about this?

December 10, 2002

haribol!

i'm straight edge and also a devotee, i knew KC thanx to Shelter and i know a lot about Ray Cappo, so feel free to write at

silvertouch108@.fr

silvère

Gauracandra · December 12, 2002

I’m curious about its origins. Why did a punk-rock style that emphasizes vegetarianism, no drugs, no illicit sex get started? I hadn’t realized it was in Europe. I thought it was just a U.S. thing. Also, are there any websites out there you’d recommend (perhaps with samples). I’m not even sure what Straight Edge sounds like.