Tomorrow, I head off for a trip to upstate New York, where I'll be attending the Spring Ecstatic Chant at the Omega Institute. As a Kirtan enthusiast, I'm very excited about this event, which features a rotating array of different chant leaders throughout the weekend.
I attended the spring Chant last year and it was, in fact, my first actual Kirtan experience--and, as it turned out, a very powerful experience indeed. I had just completed a five-day workshop with David and Mira Newman designed to teach participants how to lead Kirtan, and the combination of the aptly-named Ecstatic Chant weekend and their excellent instruction launched me into a year in which I've now organized and started a Kirtan group at my yoga studio.
While I totally love leading Kirtan, I have to admit that it will be really nice to be just a member of the chorus for awhile. I tend to get swept away by some of the chants we have been doing, which occasionally makes my keyboard-playing, well, shall we say, "interesting"? So, I'm looking forward to being able to fully throw myself to the chant and not have to worry about whether my fingers are on the right part of the keyboard, which chant to lead next, or anything at all for awhile.
If I'm not totally in ecstasy all weekend, I will try to record a few videos to upload and share later. And, now: off to pack!
The last few weeks have brought a sharply increased level of activity in my yoga teacher training activities. I would like to have written more blog posts about all these activities, but this flurry of stuff has really kept me busy. Since the start of the year, I have been apprenticing in a beginner's class, have attended two weekend intensive sessions and, last but definitely not least, have prepared and am ready to launch my project: Sun & Moon Yoga Studio's first Kirtan Circle.
As readers of this blog know, I am passionate about Bhakti yoga, which involves a form of devotional chant known as Kirtan. I knew, even before I began yoga teacher training, that I wanted to share this powerful practice with others. Like everything in yoga, talking or writing about a yoga practice is no substitute for actual doing it, so I have been strongly motivated to find a way to share what I know about this practice and give others the opportunity to experience it.
All Sun & Moon teacher trainees are required to do a project as part of the training, so I chose to develop a Kirtan Circle where people who know nothing about devotional chant can come and try it out. Since early January, I have met with a small group of interested yogis at the studio, teaching them what I have learned in the few years I have been practicing Kirtan. We have met every week that we can, learning chants, singing together and having a wonderful time.
Although I knew, and could sing, many chants that I had learned "by heart," so to speak, I quickly realized that I needed to find a way to bring instrumental accompaniment into the mix. Our practice group chanted to CDs and MP3 files for awhile, and I slowly began to pick out some of the tunes on my portable keyboard. Others brought drums and shakers and bells and before too long, we were singing "Jai Ganesha" and "Hare Krishna" without even having to turn on a CD player.
This weekend we are ready to open our practice to all interested participants. Our first Kirtan Circle will occur Saturday, February 19, 2011 at 5:30 pm. The Sun & Moon studio has been wonderfully supportive of this project, and has listed our Kirtan Circle dates on the website where you can find directions to the studio. If you are close by and can join us, please do. We would love to chant with you!
I've just finished a weekend of kirtan, or ecstatic chant, and all I have to say right now is that this type of chant is very aptly named. In lieu of words, which I don't have very many of right now, I offer this short clip of one chant led by Jai Uttal: Radhe Govinda. In Hindu mythology, Radhe is the one who loves God, Govinda, with total purity of heart. In the chant, we repeat the names of the divine couple, Radhe and her beloved, Govinda.
Tomorrow I leave to attend the Omega Institute's Ecstatic Chant weekend where we will spend nearly every minute practicing the yoga of voice, also known as kirtana or, more commonly, kirtan. I discovered this remarkable practice a couple of years ago in a yoga class and was swept away. Things have not been the same for me since.
Kirtana is easy to describe and even easier to do. The leader chants one of the many divine names and the group copies what the leader has chanted. This is repeated -- over and over and over, sometimes for as much as thirty minutes. The tune can change, the tempo is often varied, but all that a participant has to do is follow the leader in a call and response fashion.
The result is remarkable and hard to describe -- this is one of those things where "you just have to be there" to really get it. In short, the practice of kirtan can lead the participant quite easily into a state of transcendence. The result is pure, sheer joy and there is nothing else like it.
I recorded a short bit of a kirtan session I attended this past May with Krishna Das, or KD as he is known by most of us, and I offer it here to give you a hint of what I'm expecting for this weekend. If you want to listen to more kirtan from KD, check out his YouTube channel.
There are many styles of yoga, although the different types known to most people in the west are all variations of Hatha yoga, concerned largely with asanas, or postures. The asanas are practiced to bring the body to a place where the mind can enter into meditation.
Georg Feuerstein likens the diversity of yoga styles to spokes on a wheel, each spoke a different form of yoga, all leading to the same hub, the ecstatic experience wherein the yoga practitioner transcends their own limited consciousness to experience transcendent Reality itself.
One of the spokes on the wheel of yoga is known as Bhakti yoga, the path of devotion. Bhakti practice can include listening to the many names of the Divine, chanting these names, with or without music, ceremonial worship, or other forms of devotion to God. The essential feature of Bhakti practice is that self-transcendence occurs when the heart opens in love.
About fifteen years ago, long before I had ever heard of Bhakti yoga, I went to an academic conference entitled "Teaching from Within." In one of the workshop sessions, the leader showed us how to get "within" by repeating a mantra. I had never done anything like that before, but the mantra stuck in my mind, like a catchy jingle on the radio. I got up the next morning and wrote the poem that I've copied below.
Even though I didn't understand much about the power of chant at the time I learned that first mantra, the chant taught me everything I needed to know. As Krishna Das, a master Bhakti teacher explains, you really don't need to understand chant to get the benefits. All you really need to do is chant.
The Sufi poet taught us to pray. Chant, he said. Chant this: All I want from you Is forever to remember me as loving you.
So, I chanted: All I want from You Is forever to remember me as loving You. And again: All I want from You Is forever to remember me as loving You.
I rise, Climb out the window, Hold tight to the rope. It is important I hold fast Since none will catch me if I fall. All I want from You…
I rise, Write my pages, Hold tight to the lines. It is important I write Since none will know me if I stop. All I want from You…
I rise, Practice yoga, Hold tight to the pose. It is important I move Since none will know I’m alive unless I do.
Round and round, the mantra of devotion revolves I hold tight to the song Tight to the line, the pose, the rope. I hold tight. And after a hundred chants A thousand chants A million We switched places, the chant and I.
And now the chant is singing me.
Each morning I rise And sing the song, Hold tight to the mantra. It is important I chant So that I will remember: I am the beloved And you—You—are the Song.
