The Value of Kirtan

Kirtan (chanting) has been rapidly gaining popularity around the world, following on the heels of the yoga movement and celebrated interest in the sacred world traditions. This popular practice has been found to quiet the mind, relieve stress, and renew the spirit.

Kirtan is part of an ancient form of Yoga known as Bhakti, or the Yoga of Devotion. But in Bhakti we redefine “devotion”, we expand the meaning to include every shade of color in the palette of human emotion, turned towards God through song, dance, and worship.

 The tradition of kirtan goes beyond the texts of history. The threads of its origin can be found in India, though the concept of call-and-response singing is not new to the world. There is something unique that happens when we come together to sing sacred chants, and people have reported greater feelings of peace, lightness, community, and love after participating in a kirtan event.

 

Truly, kirtan is not about musical ability or training, it is about the heart. The ancient mantras (lyrics) contain powerful healing and transformational vibrations, and this is not just some new age hyperbole. The letters I've received from those who have participated in a kirtan event are beautiful (and bountiful) testimonies to the profound power of sacred chant.

Although the language of kirtan is often in Sanskrit, the true language of kirtan is universal, because it is a language of the heart. As part of bhakti yoga (the devotional path), kirtan also utilizes nada yoga, the yogic science of sound. Through absorption in the sound, the eternal love that lies within each of our hearts can awaken. By chanting and calling out to the different aspects of the divine, we naturally reflect upon and call forth that divinity that exists within us all. (from Ragani).

The kirtan that we do is for everyone—there are no prerequisites, no religious beliefs, and no cultural backgrounds that are needed to experience and participate in kirtan. The Hare Krishna chant that we have chosen for our first worldwide kirtan recording is one of sacred love; It is a chant for the transformation of consciousness. (www.RaganiWorld.com)

These chants have been sung for millennium by sages, sinners, devotees, and the great primordial yogi alchemists of old. And, as we sing, we touch the spirits of the millions of people across the centuries who have sung the same songs and cried the same tears. As we sing, we immerse ourselves in an endless river of prayer that has been flowing since the birth of the first human beings, longing to know their creator.

Kirtan is a vessel that can hold love, longing, union, separation, lust, despair, mourning, anger, hate, sadness, ecstasy, and oneness. Powered by the fire of these emotions, the chants of Bhakti become like a ship, singing us to the other shore. In lightness, in darkness, in despair, in joy we sing the names — The Name — and turn our human hearts toward the One, who is closer to us than our own breath. Kirtan is food for the spirit, a life raft of song.

Kirtan is for all people. There are no masters of kirtan, no experts, no teachers, no advanced students, no beginners. The practice itself is the teacher, guiding us to ourselves. Kirtan teaches itself by allowing us to enter into a mystery world — a world where all the logic of our minds, all the conditioning and learning are left outside — and we allow ourselves to expand into the mystery.

Krishna Das: Heart as Wide as the World