What is Kirtan?

- Paramahansa Yogananda, author of Autobiography of a Yogi.

Sound or vibration is the most powerful force in the universe. Music is a divine art, to be used not only for pleasure but as a path to God-realization. Vibrations resulting from devotional singing lead to attunement with the Cosmic Vibration or the Word. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)" 

Kirtan is part of an ancient form of yoga known as bhakti, or the yoga of devotion. In Bhakti we experience the power of Love, we feel the extraordinary and transformative power of expressing our feelings and emotions through songs and mantras, and we are graced with the healing power of sacred sound. This practice of calling to the divine creates a bridge between the individual and the eternal, opening the heart and welcoming the spirit. Mysteriously, as we chant, this sonic medicine intertwines with molecules both near and far, and purifies all that it touches. By singing we became a reservoir of sacred sound and project healing energy throughout the world.

From Krishna Das:At first we feel our practice is about me, and my happiness, my calming down. But everything that we do affects everybody all the time, even people we see on the street. This is the essence of dedicating your practice for the benefit of all beings.” Kirtan, he adds, is one way of “extending loving kindness to the whole world.”Kirtan, he says, is a profound spiritual practice. As he once told the Washington Post: “When people come to sing for an evening of chanting, they’re not coming for entertainment. They’re coming to enter into this place in the heart…it’s participatory, and the motivation for doing it is to enter deeply into ourselves. So I’m entering into myself; they’re entering into their selves, but ultimately there’s only one of us.”