I know people within the Hare Krishna community look at pop music as secular, different, and something separate from spiritual music but for me, there's no difference.

Taraka Larson

Categorized in : People Spiritual Differences

I had this crazy, a bit of a near-death experience in Estonia. I had these visions of the future but I was in this state where I felt the past, the present, and the future were all happening at the same time.

visions-of-the-future crazy past

My parents joined in the 60s and at that time it was really important - there was a group mentality. I could be pulling this out of my ass, but I feel our generation approaches things on a more individual basis, like we're more personal and don't need to be a part of a group.

our-generation parent important

My parents both renounced their material lives and were living as monks at an ashram in L.A. when they met each other. So we were always raised in this environment and when we moved to the ashram in Florida it was just like, "Oh, wow, now all of a sudden there's more people like us," because we were growing up in the middle of Texas with our parents, always being the weirdos.

florida growing-up texas

When we moved to Florida we experienced it on a communal level, in a more structured religious setting, with temples and different worships. That sense of community is very much interconnected with music for us, and thinking of music as this living organism that offers a space of mystical participation with forces outside yourself.

space religious thinking

The way that music is approached in the temple is very call and response; it breaks down that barrier between performer and audience.

breaking-down temples way

I feel like with our shows it always feels weird to be performers on stage and not engaging in audience interaction in some way - that exchange of energy is very much a part of the sound.

energy sound way

We [with Nimai Larson] listened to hardly any music except Hare Krishna music growing up and the occasional Garth Brooks that our babysitter would play for us. From a very early age, we looked at music as mantra based, very cyclical, and having no linear time.

growing-up age play

If you repeat something enough it can literally physically change the air particles around you and it can infuse the air with this sacred sound vibration, or it can change your material body, like transform your flesh to spirit. These are all beliefs within the Hare Krishna philosophy we were brought up with.

air sound philosophy

There are a lot of unspoken things with me and Nimai [Larson]. We're very yin and yang, neither one of us really treads on each other's toes. She's this wizard of the rhythm world, and I know nothing about that, but I can dabble with melody and lyrics and that's something she doesn't really have any interest in. We complement each other in that way.

yang wizards world

I always look at that stuff as something that's not a separate entity from the music but a visual representation of the music. I feel like your external appearance should be in harmony with your internal appearance. That's mainly our approach to the visuals.

like-you stuff looks

Nimai [Larson] and I are very psychically connected to each other, I guess just being sisters, so as soon as we started watching sports videos we thought, "Oh yeah, we could totally get into this zone.

just-being video sports

I had writers block for months afterwards because I was just so taken aback by all of the sounds I was hearing. It's almost like hearing the most beautiful music you've ever heard, so you're like, "What's the point of me making anything?" It was this living sonic organism so the idea of recording something just seemed like taking this living thing and mummifying it.

block taken beautiful

I really feel like there's a void in this world for music that acknowledges that spiritual aspect of these activities as well as just the sheer physicality of them.

void spiritual world

I really wanted to be able to make the music that acknowledged the metaphysical aspect of extreme sports because when I started watching GoPro videos, the thing that struck me the most was that the sound seemed completely detached from the imagery.

video sound sports

Hopefully, with some years of practice and just getting to that state, I'll try extreme sports again.

practice sports years

One of the reasons why I chose to live in New York was that there is this sense of your environment constantly changing.

environment new-york reason-why

I feel like utopia is neither here nor there. It's in that sort of space where you feel the most present, and that can be on tour [or] at home. It's easier to get to that place on tour because your environment is constantly changing, and from a very primal, evolutionary perspective, you have heightened awareness when you're in an unfamiliar place, so it's easier to access that state.

perspective space home

I listen to pop music and it sounds like mantra to me, there's this power to it. There's also something to be said about how it reaches people on a mass level, there's some magic to that.

magic sound people