Ep. 626 – Mindrolling Revisited: The Magnitude of Melodies w/ Jai Uttal
Mindrolling with Raghu Markus
Be Here Now Network
4.7 • 543 Ratings
🗓️ 26 December 2025
⏱️ 92 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this music-filled re-release, Raghu Markus is joined by spiritual musician Jai Uttal to chat about opening our hearts through the magnitude of melodies.
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In this episode, Raghu and Jai Uttal discuss:
- The formation of melodic structures and how music is as boundless as an ocean
- Letting go of the idea that we must master an instrument in order to create music
- Getting into the flow of devotional music and honoring God through our presence rather than perfection
- The friendship between Jai Uttal and Ram Dass and Jai’s journey to India
- The Baul’s of Bengal and mystical, spontaneous verse
- Jai’s single, Holy Mad Men, inspired by Bengali-style music
- More Bengali-influenced music by The Band
- The dotara, an Indian folk instrument Jai frequently uses
- Musical creation as the legacy of satsang and a path to continued connection
Check out Ali Akbar Khan to hear some classical Indian Ragas and the sarod instrument that Raghu and Jai discuss.
About Jai Uttal:
Jai Uttal is a Grammy-nominated sacred music composer, recording artist, multi-instrumentalist, and ecstatic vocalist. Having traveled extensively in India, he met many great saints and singers and Bhakti Yoga became his personal path. Jai has been leading, teaching, and performing kirtan around the world for nearly 50 years. He creates a safe environment for people to open their hearts and voices.
“Music is way more vast than any one human person can understand.” –Jai Uttal
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey everyone, it's Ragu back with Mind Rolling. |
| 0:11.5 | This is a little introduction with a couple of announcements to this podcast that I did actually some time back with Jai Utah, who I believe is one |
| 0:27.0 | of our great musicians who was a student of Ali Akbar Khan. And he, so I thought of this because Jai does these Kirtan camps he's got one going |
| 0:41.3 | January 25th through April 5 online I'm pretty sure it's online this is a great way |
| 0:50.4 | if you're really interested in doing enchanting Eastern Hindu Kirtan. It's a great way to |
| 0:57.9 | this. So I love this podcast that I did and I hope you will love it as well. And at the same |
| 1:05.3 | time, connect you to the most a recent Ram Dass here and now podcast which is called where souls meet and the kirton |
| 1:16.5 | is also by jai utal so this is we're doing a little bit of a jai utal thing here okay and uh yeah |
| 1:24.5 | please tune into him He is just marvelous. |
| 1:28.7 | Absolutely fantastic. |
| 1:31.3 | What else I wanted to talk about? |
| 1:34.8 | Oh, how about Jack Cornfield? |
| 1:37.6 | He has this new book that is him recounting stories that were recorded and I guess transcribe. |
| 1:47.2 | All in this together, stories and teachings for loving each other in our world. |
| 1:54.2 | Okay, we all know that that's something important for us right now in terms of what we're going through and no one better elucidates, |
| 2:05.6 | shall we say, these kind of teachings around loving each other, particularly through a Buddhist lens, |
| 2:14.8 | and no one tells stories as well as Jack. He's so great. We just did a retreat with him in |
| 2:22.5 | Maui earlier in December. And last but not least, I mean, you know, aside from my podcasting role, I also have a role as director of Love Server Member Foundation. |
| 2:40.7 | And it's the end of the year, and we're doing a crowdfunding effort so that we can support all the activities that we do, everything that we share worldwide, |
| 2:54.5 | a lot of it for free. There's nothing that you can't get into because it would be a sliding scale |
| 3:01.3 | and to the in-person retreats, their scholarship. So all of this takes the support of everybody. And I urge you |
| 3:11.2 | to learn a little bit more about it. Go to ramdhas.org slash jewel. And you'll see a little |
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