In 1967, Shyam Bhatnagar brought tapes of Indian vocalist Pandit Pran Nath to New York and played them for his friends La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and others. These early recordings had an immediate impact on a handful of composers who would become the singer’s disciples and shape the course of 20th century music.

Bhatnagar, born in the city of Mardan in Pakistan in 1935, has devoted his life to an oral tradition of sacred sounds (Nada yoga) and the science of breath (Svara yoga), enabling him to discover a sophisticated system of microchakras. In 1966, while visiting Bareilly in India, he started Satyam Shivam Sundaram (Truth, Goodness, And Beauty) with Harish Johari, which would ultimately become the Chakra Institute [chakrainstitute.com]. “We were training children to get out of their messy conditioning,” says Bhatnagar. “I'm still doing that with adults.” It was during that trip that Bhatnagar made the first recordings of Pandit Pran Nath to be heard in the West, released by Douglas Records in 1968 as the LP Earth Groove. Tom Welsh visited him in Pennsylvania to hear about how he connected Pran Nath with some of the major names of US minimalist music.

When did you come to the United States?

1960. I came to America because a psychiatrist in Bareilly Mental Hospital found me very talented in talking to inmates. In my free time, I would go to this mental hospital which was right opposite my college. I just wanted to see why people get mentally ill. There was one guy that I liked a lot, and he made such dramatic improvements that the psychiatrist of the hospital at the time, he gave me the permission officially to come and talk to other inmates. Which I did. I went through a lot of difficulties with them. One of them bit me on my head. One of them spat on my face. But I still kept on kind of pursuing why were they there. And in about six or seven months’ time, the other inmates, too – these were the guys who were behind bars, they were not like free-floating working in the fields. That psychiatrist had given me an extraordinary letter that I attached to my resume, which was to be sent to the American Consulate in Delhi. And that letter was the one that caught the attention of the American Consular. And on the spot, he said, “You can go to America any time you want.” And as soon as I came to Idlewild Airport, which is now Kennedy Airport, in 1960, they gave me a green card.

You came to New York, then, for the purpose of working with mentally ill people?

No, I had no job. It was just that they allowed me to come to America, and they knew that I will find my way. And that was a time when the psychedelic revolution was going on. There were teenagers and kids who were, you know, getting drugged out and sexed out and you name it. And so I had a lot of practice working with the youth.

I didn't like it in New York. It was too cold. There was an Englishman who was driving to San Francisco and needed somebody to share driving, so I drove with him. I think it was probably early January 1961. There I was in the Fillmore district with my suitcase on the sidewalk.

How long did you live in San Francisco?

From 1961–65. I was living in San Francisco at the time where I organised a concert for Ravi Shankar. I took a chance and I rented Masonic Auditorium on Nob Hill that could hold over 3000 people. I arranged that concert for him [in 23 January 1965], and the hall was overfull. And he was absolutely mesmerised, because it was the first concert he had played outside of India where there were thousands of people.

Were you performing Indian classical music when you lived in San Francisco?

No. I am not a musician, actually. Tamboura I use for my own personal mantra chanting which I do every morning as my spiritual work. It just so happens that one morning Ravi Shankar was staying with me and they had to catch a flight the next day, and they didn't want to stay in the hotel for five or six hours so I took them to my house. In the morning he was asking me, “I heard some sounds in the early morning. What were they?”. I said I was chanting mantras. “Wow. What instrument were you using?” And I said, "A tamboura." [Shankar said] “A tamboura doesn't sound like that!” Ravi said to me, “You know, the way you organized this concert, I wish you would travel with me around the world because you have a talent.” I said, “Yeah, I got a couple other talents, too.” [laughs]

In 1965, you left San Francisco. Did you go to India at that point?

No, at that point I went to New York to play with him [Shankar]. And then I just didn’t know whether to go back to San Francisco. I had already sold everything and given everything away. And I knew I will not come back. But I did not know where to go, either. That's when I met Ralph Metzner in one of the concerts. And he said, “Why don't you come to the Castalia Foundation and stay there for a while and see what you want to do.” So there I was conducting weekend workshops, playing tamboura. Don Snyder used to show psychedelic slides. One weekend people will have sound and visual workshop, and the following weekend they would have psychedelics. There were scientists who were interviewing people, what were the difference in their experience without psychedelics with sounds and visuals, versus with psychedelics. This went on for some weeks, I think.

I lived at the Castalia Foundation which was run by Timothy Leary, Dr Richard Alpert, and Ralph Metzner. In the end of the year, I then went to India. I spent the whole year of 1966 in India. I was doing a workshop called Journey To The Source. Harish [Johari] and I sometimes together would do the teachings, and then we would hire other people. Jagdish Mohan, [and] another astrologer who travelled with us all the way from everywhere to everywhere in India. It was so much fun.

Is that the occasion where you ran into Pran Nath and recorded him in Bareilly?

Yes. I was 12, nearly 13 when I met Pandit Pran Nath. He used to be called Pran Nath. I gave him the title Pandit when he came to America, when I brought him here.

You met him when you were 13? Under what circumstances?

I had met a spiritual teacher on 12 May 1948. In June it was very hot, and I would drive to the Tapkeshwar Temple, which was like a four or five mile drive on bicycle. And when it gets hot, you know, you want to take a break. There was a temple in the main market, and I would just go in the temple, in a cool place, and sit. And Pran Nath used to just come there and that was his hangout place in Dehradun. So that’s where I met him. And he took a liking for me, and then I started to go and sit when he was doing his riyaz in the morning. And gradually he let me play his tamboura. He taught me how to play tamboura. We did that for a few years, actually. Until I was nearly 16.

My father thought that I should go to live with my brother where we were given some compensation for the property we left behind in Pakistan. Like one half of one percent [laughs]. Bareilly is where we were given the house, but we were given the land first, near Pilibhit – I did my high school there, and then I moved to Bareilly, where we got a very nice four-bedroom house. That's where I met Jagdish Mohan, very beautiful singer. I did not know that he was a disciple of Pran Nath, because we never talked about that. It never came up. But a couple of years later, Pran Nath was visiting, and [Mohan] organised a concert for him. People in the neighborhood, they all came, and I came, and he looked very familiar – it had been some years, you know? And he of course recognised me right away. And I said, “Oh my God, how are you here?” He said, “Jagdish Mohan is my disciple.”

Was Pran Nath living in Bareilly at that time?

No. He was visiting from Delhi. He was singing at the radio station in Delhi, and he was teaching in the university. I was in Delhi quite frequently because my brother was a professor of ophthalmology in All India Institute of Medical Sciences, [and] I would live with him for months. So my contact with Pran Nath was natural.

Would you also sing with Pran Nath?

No, no, no. I never took a lesson in singing ever. From anybody. Because the style of mantra chanting that I learned from my Guruji was adequate for me. I loved hearing music, but I am not a musician. Even though I play tamboura, but anybody can play tamboura. You don't need to be a musician to play tamboura.

The “Raaga Bhoopali” from Earth Groove was recorded at your home in Bareilly?

That happened because when Pran Nath came to Jagdish Mohan’s house to sing a concert, then I wanted my friends and other people who were not able to hear him in Jagdish Mohan's house. And for the second trip when he came back to Bareilly, I arranged a concert in my house. It was only for like a few people, but that's where he sang “Bhoopali”. That was my favourite recording.

I came back the the US in January 1967. I went back to the Castalia Foundation because that was the only place I knew. I rented an apartment on West 10th Street, which was around the corner from the LSD Center, where I was lecturing. It was affiliated with the Castalia Foundation, in Millbrook, New York.

You lived for four or five years in San Francisco. Around that same time, Terry Riley was living in San Francisco. Did you know him there?

I met Terry through La Monte Young in New York. La Monte had heard about me because he had come to Ravi Shankar’s concert. He had heard about me or he heard the concert, but we didn’t have a chance to meet. I think he might have come to one of my lectures in the LSD Center. We became very good friends. And then I introduced him with Indian vocal music. So gradually I would play different singers that I had the recordings of, and I kind of helped him train his ear to appreciate Indian music. And then one day Terry Riley was there, who was his friend.

La Monte has said that it was at a Bismillah Khan concert where you had said to him, “If you like this, then I have something else you really must hear.” [just to confirm, what was this? Pran Nath’s music? Or something else]

Yeah, because he played saxophone himself, so I thought I can start with that kind of a thing that his ears will permit him.

At some point when you introduced him to Indian classical music, he takes it very seriously.

Classical singing. Well, it started with the music, you’re right. Bismillah Khan was the first one, because he could relate to that sound, you know. The piercing sound of his shehnai [laughs]. You can hear that in the next village.

And Harish Johari came to New York?

Yeah. I had organised a course with him and I was teaching in New York at the New School for Social Research. I was teaching there from before, and I also arranged a course there with Pran Nath. In fact, it was Jagdish Mohan who was supposed to come to America by my invitation to teach a course in the New School. And his wife won’t let him come. Overnight I got the news that he’s not coming. So, I asked Pran Nath if he will come, and he said yes. Immediately I went to New School and I said, “Please withdraw the name of Jagdish Mohan and add Pran Nath.” So that's how he came to America.

When Pran Nath came to New York, did he live with you?

Yes, of course. In August 1968, I moved to Princeton. Bernie Aronson, a psychologist at the Carrier Clinic, was running experiments on how to treat people alternatively to just a drug therapy, and he heard about me. I was doing private consultations and he started bringing people to New York for a consultation. And then he said, “You know, maybe we should do some research together as to why your sounds are so effective in reflecting upon the mental conditions.” So Elaine Minto, she was my student in New York. English lady. She would come in the morning and go back in the evening and all day I would be recording sounds and he had electrodes on his patients and inmates and everybody. That went on for about eight, ten months. And then he said, “Why don't you move to Princeton”, because the lab was there. I wanted to get out of New York anyway because it was just too much noise for my taste.

Were you back and forth between New York City and Princeton?

I was coming to New York all the time. Every week. Sometimes two days a week. I had a centre in New York. So Wednesday night I would spend there, all day Thursday I would work, and take the bus back. I know when Pran Nath lived with me in Princeton, we had a concert in the church in the Princeton University. That’s where he sang Bageshwari. Beautiful. Pran Nath’s style is how to awaken the notes from Sa to Re. From Re to Ga. I mean, it's just magic.

Pandit Pran Nath’s Earth Groove is reissued on Elision Fields. Shyam Bhatnagar’s Microchakras: Techniques For Inner Tuning is published by Inner Traditions and available through chakrainstitute.com