om spirit om spirit
Nikki Slade explains how this ancient practice has never been more powerful in
unearthing spiritual awareness and awakening than today
T
he beautiful truth about kirtan
(devotional chanting from the
heart) is that it is a practice for
all people irrespective of their
religion, background or culture.
It transports us directly to the pages of the
greatest scripture of all time, residing in
our very own body, the book of the heart.
Kirtan is the Sanskrit word for ‘praise’ or ‘to
glorify’ the divine consciousness within. Each
chanter has their own unique relationship to
the divine.
The origin of kirtan stems from the
Bhakti tradition in the 7-10th century AD in
southern India. At that time the commonTHE TRANSFORMATIVE
POWER OF KIRTAN
lower caste people were uneducated and
therefore unable to read sacred texts like
the Brahmin priests, scholars and upper
castes. In effect, the Brahmin priests
deprived the common people of a spiritual
education. It was during that time that the
first Bhakti (which means devotion worship
or longing for god) saints appeared namely,
Shaiva Nayanar and Vaisnava Alvar, who
travelled widely to bring the practice of
mystical devotion to the ordinary working
people. They inspired a culture among
common people of finding mystical union
with the beloved by simply chanting to
glorify and praise god. This practicetranscended the intellect and people
felt mystical experiences of the divine in
their own hearts. As the Bhakti movement
developed between the 11th -15th centuries
there were two pathways to experience
divine grace: one was through Nirgunabhakti,
the formless divine principle, and Saguna,
through worshiping a specific form by
chanting Nama kirtan which mean to chant
the name praising a specific incarnation of
the lord, such as Lord Krishna.Kirtan today
In the yoga world today kirtan is the yoga
of sound meditation where we use our voice