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The Spiritual Journey of Navasha Daya:
The Navasha Daya Interview
Written by: luminoUS
Photography by: Edith Williams of Diamond Digital Photography
Everyone enters your life with purpose and had you have told me about 8 years ago that my interactions with Navasha Daya would go beyond me listening to her soulful voice, beyond the range of my car speakers or earbuds, I simply wouldn’t have believed you. Years later, I can affectionately refer to her as “Sensei” as she has become my Reiki teacher and practitioner. So, I was totally amped and eXcited when I was given the opportunity to sit down and interview her in efforts of telling the world about another piece of her beautifully bound being. Unable to attend the outing scheduled with photographer Edith Williams and ETM founder Raven Ekundayo, Navasha Daya and I met in her “healing space” and embarked on our intimate interview session, which was full of laughs and random conversation. The interview began with me asking Navasha what other titles she held besides being a singer. She, in turn, switched up her voice and jokingly started off by saying, “Oh, wow. Umm. I’m the heavy weight…” We both laughed and with that the interview officially began. An ordained Interfaith Minister, an initiated traditional healer and a Reiki teacher, which is called “Shihan” or “Sensei”, below is a glimpse of the spiritual journey of Navasha Daya…
When you say traditional healer…?
Navasha Daya: Indigenous practice like West African traditional healer and priest. I’m initiated to do healing work with other people.
Ok, cool. Where exactly, or when did your spiritual journey start? What was the catalyst to get you moving in this direction?
Navasha Daya: Good question. I started when I was a child. My parents are very spiritually-based and I understand why I chose them. They are like really cool, a nice combination, especially with guidance and their influence from ancestry line and stuff. I remember meditating at age 3 and chanting “Om”. It was kind of interesting because the way that I was raised was like a mixture of Afro-centric, vegetarian, chanting “Om”; real different than my other friends. I don’t think I had any friend like me and I’m from Cleveland, Ohio. It was nobody like my family eXactly. There were people in “The Village, our community, I call it “The Village”, who were kind of like that, as well, but there would be something different. Like, maybe they didn’t meditate, but they did understand their African history. But, as far as that combination, not in Cleveland, Ohio. So, I grew up feeling kind of different and, even with the vegetarianism, you had people making fun of you. People questioning your spirituality because you weren’t necessarily saying that you were a Christian, but we did go to church. I remember going to church and my father sang in the choir. I never been to a mosque when I was little, but my mother is Muslim now and my father did study Islam. I remember being around devotees of Krishna and them coming to speak at our house. I remember meeting one of the Guru’s, Swami Maharaja, also affectionately known as “Srila Prabhupada”, when I was 1. I remember seeing spirits and being kind of spooked out, but my mother still sees. So, I come from a family where they are open and they never pressured us to choose this tradition. They just tried to give us an array of choices because they believed our souls would naturally be inclined to choose based upon our incarnation and our destiny. I was raised to be open and be non-judgmental about any tradition and it’s very interesting because, in my orientation now, most traditions—religions, I’ll say—think theirs is the best. My understanding at this point is that each path takes you to a certain goal, so then it goes to: what is your goal? Then, you chose your path based upon that. I don’t have a judgment; I just know that each path has a different orientation, a different language, and a different goal. My orientation was meditating. I totally went off of the point and chanting “Om” and understanding energy, really loving God, talking about serving God, and serving good and fighting for the light and things like that. That was my orientation, so it didn’t feel spooky or strange to talk about energy or spirit and discipline.
So, I heard you say that you chose your parents. That stood out to me because I feel that we do choose, but a lot of people don’t feel the same. They don’t agree. I don’t know what point I’m making…
Navasha Daya: Different traditions believe different things, but for my orientation and my studies, you choose your parents based upon the certain karmic desire of the things that you want to learn and things that you have to complete for your soul’s journey. So, it’s definitely a different kind of scientific concept in regards to spirituality because everyone believes different things, but a lot of different traditions do believe that. It’s not un-normal. There are different cultures in the world that believe the same thing. It’s interesting because there is some mystery in the brain, and we imitate a little bit with the computer, but it’s so much mystery in God and mystery in spirit, so just being open to the possibilities that we may not know everything that we think we know is very healthy, I think.
“I feel like as a woman, I am more confident because of my spiritual study. Not just because I think I’m cute—because I know more of who I am…”
You are an ordained Interfaith Minister. When and where did you do your studies?
Navasha Daya: I studied at the Baltimore Spiritual Science Center in Baltimore, Maryland under my head teacher Sylvia Kalb and I started that in 2000. I studied my studies and I completed it in 2005. It was four years of study and the fifth year you could choose to get ordained, which involved an interview and some other stuff. I chose to get ordained; that just means that I am charged and I dedicate my life to being of a service to humanity, to do whatever it takes to assist people on a spiritual level. Of course, everything is spirit, so you assist them so that they can realize their soul and serving God on the emotional, mental, and physical realm. That is my destiny and my goal; however, the Interfaith part comes in where there is, once again, no judgment. You have basic understanding and possibly initiations because everyone from my school doesn’t necessarily have my background, but based upon my background, I have a varied understanding of different traditions. So, when it comes to ceremonies and rituals, because I know them, sometimes initiated to them, I can incorporate those things in someone’s ceremony. I find that now, kind of with the New Age Movement, that some people are non-traditional and they want to integrate their ancestral path in their weddings, in their birth and funeral rites, and they want to honor the traditions, not just their religious path that may not be from their lineage. So, I serve as a person that is flexible spiritually. I can assist. If it’s about God and love, I’m down. It’s cool and if I can’t do it, if I don’t know the rites, I’ll refer them to someone else.
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Reiki.
Navasha Daya: When did I start?
Yes. Elaborate.
Navasha Daya: Reiki was introduced to me in 2000 by one of my good friends, Michelle Greer. She looked at me and said, “You need to learn Reiki.” She had learned it and so I started my journey of studying and practicing it and then learning to teach it. That was Western Reiki. Then I met my new teacher, Reverend Adara Walton out of Columbia, Maryland, who’s like, just beautiful! She’s such a wonderful, disciplined elder. I swear, that’s my girl. Anyway, she just loves God. She just wants to be good and learns her stuff to assist and uplift humanity. She tickles me every time that I talk to her. She knows who she is, but she’s very humble at the same time. I love it. I heard about her ability and her teaching before because she has been teaching for a long time, but she told me about a new style that she learned called “Gendai”, which incorporates the modern and the traditional techniques that Usui Sensei, who was the founder and namer of Reiki, the tradition and healing path, and it incorporates both of them. I love Gendai and I teach that style now because it incorporates different Japanese terms and self-healing that was not necessarily in the Western style that came here through Takata Sensei to America through Usui Sensei and Hayasha. The line that I study now, Gendai, is from Doi Sensei from Japan getting permission straight to America. So, I like the lineage. I’m really into lineage. I think that it’s very important so that you can prove that you know what you say you know. I believe it’s very healthy. I mean, you can get spiritual inspiration from invisibles, but having a live-in teacher is always very important, so I really respect and honor lineage. The lineage that she eXplained and being so close to the root and understanding what Usui Sensei’s goal was and teaching and eXposing and opening himself up to share Reiki that he got from the great energy or the great Universe is beautiful. I feel very honored to be able to assist people in their journey and empower them with Reiki and teaching it and attuning them and then having clients to give Reiki. Reiki is no major obligation as far as the tradition eXcept to be balanced and to live in harmony. It is just our God-given right to be healers, so it’s nice. It’s like a charge as well; I’m a healer now! I’m going to be of assistance in that way!
[Laughs]
Navasha Daya: I really love Reiki.
Of course, I know what Reiki is, but for the people who don’t, how do you define Reiki? What is Reiki?
Navasha Daya: Good question. Reiki is energy from the universe. It is universal life energy and it is used for the purpose of healing mind, body, and spiritual growth. It comes through the practitioner’s hands. If you were to ever identify a path it would be through the crown, down your arms to your hands, if I can say that. There is other energy that comes through your feet. I don’t want to say that that isn’t Reiki because I don’t know everything, but I will say that I was not taught that that is Reiki. It is basically hands on energy. Traditionally in Japan it was called “Teate”, which is anything dealing with hands on energy: energy that’s from somewhere else, energy that’s from the spirit world. It’s very shamanic—not promoted as that— but, it is very shamanic because when the person is lying down, there are certain hand positions that you are touching basically corresponding with the charkas. The client is fully clothed and the client may be coming for emotional imbalance because they are emotionally sad, or angry or frustrated or they want changes in their lives, or they are thinking a lot in their mind, they have headaches, migraines. Reiki helps with that. It helps with physical ailments like cancer. It helps to speed up the healing process. So, if you have surgery or if you know that you have a disease in your body or anything like that, Reiki helps speed it up. Reiki is an intelligent energy that is from the great Universe from God and I feel that God has a hierarchy. There are different energies and things that eXist to assist each other. We are all connected and, so, Reiki is one of those things. Mikao Usui, the man who named it was Japanese. Reiki traditionally was just hands-on energy and then it was specifically given the name by Mikao Usui to mean this specific line of energy and it comes through the hands. So, once again, it’s hands-on healing for a client to bring harmony and balance into their lives. If they’ve had abuse, anything, it moves the energy. It’s a very intelligent energy, so it goes where it needs to go. I guess that’s… Do you think? You know Reiki. Is that a good eXplanation?
Yes, it is.
Navasha Daya: Because when people know that it eXists it’s like, “Oh my God.” It helps so much. It helps shift your life. It shifts your consciousness. It’s like an eXtra boost of energy that God has given and so people have got initiated to assist humanity and to being balanced because, at every moment in our lives, something may shock us and bring us out of balance. So, Reiki serves as an energy that eXists to bring us into balance.
“Different traditions believe different things, but for my orientation and my studies, you choose your parents
based upon the certain karmic desire of the things that you want to learn and things that you have to complete
for your soul’s journey…”
As a performer, a singer, do you feel or do you see how your healing energy transitions over into what you do on stage?
Navasha Daya: I will say that explaining my healer’s journey, I know that everyone is spiritual. Some of us live a life where we are conscious of our spirituality and we apply and think about it and live in it more, but everyone, everything is spiritual. For me, I’m just conscious of it now and I see myself as a healer. I do healing work and music is no different, so when I’m on stage I’m praying. I am doing Reiki with the audience, the band and with myself. So, it’s not really separate and I will say that in my healer’s journey, in my priestly journey, you could say, there is so much work that you have to do on yourself, so much healing. And, so, I will say that in my self-healing, in the healing that I have from my wonderful teachers who check me and make sure that I am correct and in order and teach me what I need to know, what they are inspired to give me, I feel that it has helped me evolve in my womanhood. So, I feel like as a woman, I am more confident because of my spiritual study. Not just because I think I’m cute—because I know more of who I am. I am more integrated in this incarnation to know who I am and the service that I’m here to provide and being open to what God uses me for and moving my will out of the way as much as I can because, as humans, we are the species in creation that has free will, so I work very hard. That’s why religion is so important because it realigns you to serve God. In my traditions that I’m initiated to and practice, those techniques and things have helped me to move my will out of the way so that I can serve God. As an artist, I feel that I’ve grown as a woman and that growth as a woman and that confidence affects my performance. So, it allows me to be an eXample. It allows me to inspire others to be who they are, which has been my desire since I was a child: to show people their reflection. You are beautiful. You are a goddess. You are a man that’s balanced. You are a woman that’s balanced. You can be a healer. You are a healer. In my life as a healer, my life as an artist, my life as a teacher, I just try to inspire. Be who you are. What is your service to humanity? What do you do?
As you can tell, Navasha Daya was raised to be very serious about God and this can be noted in the fact that she was asked at a very young age if she was willing to die for the “light”. Navasha’s light radiates through, not only her smile, but her entire being and this in and of itself made this interview worthwhile. She loves the fact that she’s a non-judgmental option for people to come to for healing and she makes it a point to share everything that she learns. Navasha closes out the interview by stating, “What you put your attention to or what you focus on is what you bring to yourself...”
Much peace, love and light
