what is kirtan?

(From RaganiWorld.com)

"Kirtan (yoga chant) is a participatory, cross-cultural music experience that incorporates the audience right into the performance.

Featured in Time Magazine (Oct 2003), this call-and-response sacred experience gained popularity throughout the U.S. following on the heels of the yoga movement. All ages and cultural backgrounds are welcome to the event--there are no prerequisites for participation.

"Though it involves music, the practice of kirtan is not about musical ability or training, it is about the heart. These ancient chants contain powerful healing and transformational energies that serve to reconnect us to the Ever-present and Eternal Being that lies within us all. All the mantras, melodies, and instruments are designed to lead us toward this meditative state. 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 the different names and aspects of the divine, by calling out to the divine, we naturally reflect upon and call forth that divinity that exists within us all. Indeed, this call-response style chanting (kirtan) is a means of finding our way back to the core of our being, to our heart, and to our connection to each other."


Related files:

Discover the instruments used in kirtan.