A Brutal Beating Showed Raghunath Cappo a Spiritual Truth

Depending upon your actions, you reacted things differently depending upon your physical state. And that's one of the things that yoga really helps. One of the ways that yoga helps your karma is yoga relaxes you to consequences and to things that happen. Like, I remember I was driving on the highway and there was this kid behind me. He's an illegal alien and he was on his phone and he hit the brakes too late and he slammed into my Porsche. I have a rare Porsche. It's a very nice car and he fucked up my car and I got out and he didn't have a license. More insurance. He had insurance actually. I didn't think he did but it took down his information. I took a photo of his insurance car and I told him, I said, you should get out of here man. Like, you're going to get arrested. Like you slammed into me. You don't have a license. You're not even supposed to be driving. You're going to take your car. His car was fucked up. My car actually drove. I drove it to the comedy store. But I remember the way I reacted to him because I had done yoga three days in a row. Was cool and calm. Yeah. I was happy. I was okay because he slammed into me man. Bang. Like that fight story I told. I wasn't angry. Yeah. It changes how you react. First of all, it changes how you react in the moment when you're doing the ass in the class. Yeah. It has a secondary effect like you just said. And the third way it affects you is at the time of death. The idea, I've actually had almost a near-death experience with this too where you're focused. In the same way you're not angry, you're not freaking out, you become incredibly focused as if I'm about to leave my body. And you can say it once I was attacked and I had probably the most spiritual experience of my life. And it was- How are you attacked? It's such a story, but I was at a show. We were at the time of my life when I was monks. We were all monks. And we were traveling and we played in sort of a ghetto part of Buffalo at a big show. Materially speaking, it was great. We were big, people loved us, we sold merchandise. Which band was this? This was Shelter. And after the show, it was about two in the morning and everybody's getting out of the club. And I'm in the alley getting interviewed for some magazine. And our van is parked, you could drive the car in the van in the club and all the doors and windows are open and our guys were unloading all the gear. And basically only a few people left in the club breaking down the club. And I was outside getting interviewed. And all of a sudden this car pulls up with these massive dudes who weren't from the punk scene. They looked like just sort of ghetto dudes and they were ripped and they were big and they just grabbed one of the younger kids. I mean, our show is everyone was 17, 19, 20. They grabbed one kid and just beat the living crap out of them. And I was like, oh, I'm getting interviewed. So it's sort of awkward. And it's happening about 50 yards away from him. Just randomly started beating him up. Random active violence. Didn't talk to him. Picked him up, threw him down, beat him and then went to another kid and did that. By the time they got to the third kid, everybody just started running for their life. Here's like a, you know, you don't think of these things in times of great like fear and anxiety. Why don't you do this? Why don't you do that? All I did was I ran back in the club to get my band. I said, you guys got to get out of here. There's a bunch of crazy guys outside and all my roadies, we're all monks by the way, but all the guys who were my roadies said, we can't go anywhere. Like the equipment's half in the car. The t-shirts aren't loaded. And all of a sudden the bad guys, their car drives into the club and parks like a T blocking our vans so we couldn't get out of the club any longer. And they get out of the car. And there's not that many people. There's a couple of bands and sound men and stuff around the club. And the biggest guy gets out and he grabs a gun and he just goes in a really serious and unemotional way. I've got a gun and I'm going to kill everyone tonight. That was one of these like eerie sort of like eerie organ music he could hear. And I was like, it just felt like, oh, this is the day. You know the day you always talk about that death day where you don't expect it and you expect it and then you get the Aces of Spades? That's your day now. And I was like, oh shit. And I was the older devotee, Krishna devotee. These were Krishna devotee monks or Bhakti yoga monks. And so all the other guys in the band came up to me. What are we going to do? What are we going to do? Now they weren't right near us at the time. They were literally going around and beating people up. And all the other monks came up to me, you know, Raghu, what are we going to do? And I had already sort of given up on escaping or anything. I just looked, I don't know where I got this from because I'm definitely not an elevated soul. But I said, we're going to die tonight. And so we're going to chant. And I went into the, the, the, uh, Jesus Christ. I know. I, you know what, in retrospect, I don't know, but let me, let me, let me circle back with this. I grabbed the drum out. I play this Indian drum and we all started chanting these mantras to, to Nisringadeva who's an avatar of Vishnu. You usually chant for type of protection, but we all started really focusing and chanting this mantra. It's unbelievable story, but it's all true. And as they were beating up people, they finally came to us and all my guys ran for their life. Some guys were on under the van, in the van, above the van, and I'm surrounded by this gang. And the biggest guy just grabs the gun and he goes to me, do you want some? I was like, it's like a fricking trick question. What am I supposed to say here? And so I just, you know, by the way, I didn't look like a monk. I had jeans on or I didn't, it's not like, let's beat up monks. It was just a random act of violence. And so I said, I just put my hands like an anamaste and said, Harry Krishna, I'm a devotee of Lord Krishna and I have no idea why you are angry. And then for the first time in my life, I felt completely helpless. I was just like repeatedly beaten and just punched. And it's just one of those things. It's not like you can even fight back. You are just getting pounded. But what happened was every time I got punched, I chanted a mantra. So it was sort of like Vishnu, Narayan, Chaitanya, Krishna, Govinda, Gopal. Every time I chanted to the point where I was like, oh, this is amazing. I'm actually chanting. I was actually stepping outside of myself saying, I'm actually in meditation on sacred names. And then all of a sudden my head was down and I looked behind me and there was these three girls coming to protect me and they had baseball bats. And then I realized, no, they're not. They're the girlfriends of these guys. And then I started getting hit by a baseball bat. Unbelievable. Three times in the head, one on the shoulder and two in the legs. And every time I... And this is a random thing. There's no reason. As far as I know it was random. I didn't know them. They didn't know me. They weren't from that scene. Our show was in a ghetto. There's always a cause of something, but I have no idea what the cause was. And so every time, but miraculously, and you read these stories in the Mahabhar, in the Ramayana, all these epics of India, the great sage leaves his body. He calls Lord Krishna's chariot in front of him. Then he chants these mantras. And I'm thinking, oh my God, I'm chanting these mantras at the time of death. I'm chanting at the time of death. This is the perfection of my life. That was what was going through my head. I kid you not. And I was like outside of my body and I wasn't fearful. And then all of a sudden, to wrap up the story, everything stopped. And I didn't really know what happened, but what was happening was all the guys in the band jumped in our car, our van, and plowed through their car and took off. And I can't remember how, but I ended up in the street, in some ghetto street, carrying this Indian clay drum. I look like, every since that movie Carrie, the girl is covered in blood. I was covered in blood, from my head all the way down, all over the drum. And I'm walking in the streets trying to flag down a car. The cars would slow down, see me, and then speed away because I looked like a zombie or something. And then I realized, oh man, something. And you know, you're running sort of high on adrenaline. I remember being very lucid and I went over to some light. I saw it look like a garage where they fixed cars or house buses or something. And it was open. And there was a man in a booth and I said, sir, you have to call the police. Because I thought my friends now were getting beat up or killed or whatever. And I said, you have to call the police. My friends are in trouble. And the guy literally looked at me and just said, I'm busy. And I said, listen, you got to call the police right now. And if you don't mind, I'm just going to hide in this booth because I think these guys might come back and kill me. And so I'm kneeling down in this dirty garage at two in the morning. And the first thing in my mind is no one knows where I am. My mother doesn't know where I am. Friends don't know where I am. My band members don't know where I am. They could be getting killed. And everything was so good today. Like I had a great day and now it's over like a dream. And I even have these lyrics that were like, this world's like a dream. It's not what it seems. We think it's solid, but it fades. I was like, I even sort of my self-talk became a prayer. And I started saying, I really wasn't expecting to die tonight. But that's what the dream is. It seems real. And now it's over. And I started to think like, oh my God, I was in, I was sort of like in a state of like Samadhi when I was getting beat up. I was focused. I was connected. And I was chanting at that time. I said, but now maybe my, if I got, I'm just trying to think my, my, you know, boy scout first aid is like, I might have a concussion. My brain's going to swell. I'm going to fall asleep. And then I won't be in meditation. And I started saying, I said, I said, I started praying sincerely Krishna. I wasn't expecting to die tonight. But you were so kind considering I'm not evolved to enter my lips so I could just chant. So please don't let me die with a concussion. If you want to take me, please take me right now. And with all sincerity, I started chanting these prayers that I had memorized, these very beautiful prayers from an ancient book, but there were prayers. I focused a picture of Krishna in my mind and I started chanting these prayers. And then unfortunately I lived. Unfortunately, because I was in such a perfect meaning. I was at a, that's how I would want to die. So there was no book, there's no teacher, there's no pilgrimage. There was no, that taught me more about my spiritual path and that, and that beat down day, because I felt like however, close to dying as you can get as so close to dying, but I felt like I was in such a perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect and you had accepted it. That, and I had been taken care of. Like in that time of great tragedy, I felt connected more than I'd ever been connected and I wouldn't wish it again. But I'm so happy it happened.