Kirtan...is a Sanskrit word for devotional singing or chanting. Songs, hymns, chants and mantras are put to music known in India as Bhajans. They come in a variety of forms and languages including Hindi, Bengali, Sanskrit, Pali and English. Many are ancient chants and mantras given to us by saints, sages, yogis and great masters from long ago and hard to date. Journey To Awaken Kirtan honors the light of spiritual wisdom, rays from the One Light, expressed in its infinite forms, according to the needs of particular times and places and covers various forms of chanting in Buddhist, Hindu, and Christian traditions.
"Few will hear the secrets hidden within the notes."
Rumi
Journey To Awaken Kirtan is devotional Kirtan chanting as taught by Paramhansa Yogananda, sharing techniques he taught and educated the west to as a practice in becoming closer to the divine. He was the first Eastern teacher to make the West his home arriving in 1920 and as Yogananda himself said he did not come to "Indianize" or "dogmatize" the west but to share techniques in which all may develop a personal relationship with the divine.
Many of the Hindu chants were "spiritualized" by Yogananda himself, chanting them again and again until he had achieved direct union with the divine from each chant. That vibration was infused into each of his chants to be passed on to all who chant them and focus on the universal acceptance of all true paths to the divine. He profoundly encouraged the chanter to go inward with the chant, to focus with deep concentration and clarity at the point between the eyebrows, the spiritual eye, when chanting.
Journey To Awaken Kirtan is directed by Michael Halfhill and consists of various artists, musicians, special guests and longtime chanters.
Buddhist chanting has been influenced as far back as Michael sitting and chanting with Ram Dass to working with Tibetan monks for many years as well as travels to Thailand, Tibet, Nepal, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and especially India...whose great religious/spiritual richness and diversity has influenced all his chanting.
It is with great joy we share in this sacred practice of honoring the one true light and its many forms together and hope you find it to be an uplifting and rewarding experience in your life.
