![]() Through ceaseless repetition of the Name. Will himself come to meet you on repeating the Name. Will find expression on repeating the Name,Īnd the One who could not be found before ![]() Will become visible by uttering the Name, What could not be understood in any other wayĬan be grasped by uttering the Lord’s Name, To meet this challenge, the chanting of the Name, which I see as a form of prayer, is where I can ask for help, I can cry, I can complain, I can give thanks, I can just Be. Seems simple, but we all know how challenging that is - this is a challenge I accept. We may find we have a growing awareness, a little more peace of mind, courage and strength to accept all that life brings, kindness and compassion for others and ourselves, and connection to and trust in our own hearts.Īddressing a group of school students, His Holiness the Dalai Lama said that the best spiritual goal they could strive for would be to be the best Friend possible to everyone. On the path to realizing who we truly are, it may seem there is no end in sight, but along the way it’s possible to sit a bit more comfortably in ourselves. We have so much emotional and psychological stuff that we are working through, we need help finding clarity, and with practice we can find a softening around the hard edges of life. The Names have the power to dissolve our sense of separateness so we can really understand the interconnectedness of All. The sacred texts say that chanting cleans the mirror of our hearts to clearly reflect our True Nature, and further that this True Nature is Love and Joy. My guru, Sri Siddhi Ma, encouraged me to take everything with me into the practice and bring it to the feet of That which surpasses understanding That which is unseen, and That with which we seek union. ![]() What I know now is that this practice has given me an unshakeable focus, has helped me live my life in a good way, and has become my refuge. All I knew then was that the chanting had resonated so strongly that it shook my very core. It was immediately clear that I wanted to be in that deep space as much as possible, and chanting became my core sādhana, or spiritual practice. Unexpectedly, it was re-awakened 23 years later at a retreat center in the Catskills in New York when I went to my first yoga retreat and heard Krishna Das sing Sri Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram. We never talked about that evening after I returned to my home abroad, but the deep and expansive feeling that came over me that night stayed quietly with me. It was a harmonious uplifting moment with everyone turned toward the altar in one sacred intention. That night, there was a gathering for the whole village where others from the community ranging in age from young kids to elders took turns leading the chants and everyone responded. My aunts, my mother, and cousins seemed to know this practice, and though my sisters and I didn’t know the meaning of the words we were singing, we quickly caught on. The family would gather around and follow his instructions by singing back the line that he chanted in response. It happened very naturally around my grandfather’s harmonium (a wind pumped reed organ). My first experience of kirtan, a form of call-and-response musical chanting, pronounced keer (sounds like peer) – thun (sounds like the first syllable of thun-der), was as a girl of 9 years on a summer vacation in my grandfather’s home in the south-western Indian coastal village of Bekal. The practice of chanting, or kirtan, is an exploration into understanding the answer to that very question.Ĭhanting and repetition of the Divine Name has been my practice and life Path since 1996, but as I trace this path back, I see where there have been signs pointing me in this direction earlier on…
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