Chatting About Chanting
with Benjy and Heather Werthheimer
As more and more people turn to yoga and the inspirations of Eastern wisdom in their quest for peace and understanding, the traditional Indian style of devotional chanting known as kirtan (pronounced “KEER-tun”) has been growing in popularity.
Notable among the talented musicians who are sharing this ancient art with modern day audiences are
I have been blessed to have attended a kirtan with Benjy and Heather and to have had the opportunity to learn more about their experiences of and insights into devotional chanting.
Heather: We often open our kirtans with a musical meditation before we start singing, which might involve Benjy singing an invocation in the classical Indian style or playing the esraj, which is like an Indian violin. Then the group sings
When we're chanting, we increase the tempo of many of the chants, and the energy of the group rises with it. Eventually, Benjy breaks out into a drum solo. When the chant ends, there is the most serene and delicious silence. The energy of the chant then moves deeper inside us. You can feel it in the room. Those are the sweetest moments.
Benjy: One short way I sometimes describe it is as the yogic equivalent of really rocking gospel music!
Heather: The chants, the mantras, we sing are praising the names of ancient deities. It is said that chanting these names evokes the qualities of the names themselves. People have been chanting these names for thousands of years. I believe that chanting them is like stepping into a river that's been flowing forever. We get taken along in the current. Whether or not you know exactly what they mean, chanting these sacred names is transforming. The practice leads to change, a heightened awareness of love, which can be either rapid or gradual.
The chants we know are in Sanskrit. The Sanskrit language is incredibly old and is made up of sounds that are considered to be sacred, primal sounds of the universe. The sounds themselves can have an energetic impact on the physical and spiritual levels.
Benjy: One of the functions of Sanskrit is to focus pranic energy, the central life energy that many people know as "chi" in the Chinese tradition. This approach to the spiritual sound of the mantras themselves joins with the beauty of the melodies and power of the rhythms. All together, it makes the practice of kirtan a unique and powerful expression of Bhakti yoga, the yoga of devotion.
Heather: I believe that kirtan is not at all limited to people who claim to be Hindu. Having knowledge of Hinduism could certainly add a lot of depth and richness to understanding the mantras, as would knowledge of Sanskrit. Yet most of the people I know who love to chant in the
Benjy: I struggled at first with chanting to Hindu deities because I identify as a Quaker. Even though it felt really good to me to do kirtan, I wasn't sure how they fit together. I eventually tuned more into the undercurrent of oneness that flows through all of it.
Heather: I see chanting as the yoga of devotion, or Bhakti yoga. There is a conscious intention to open the heart with the love of Spirit. Devotion is a path of immense joy. Our Anusara yoga philosophy teacher Douglas Brooks would say that the goal of yoga is to experience the beauty of embodiment. The goal and the practice are inseparable. The practice of kirtan creates a direct experience of incredible beauty. That's what happens when we praise the creator of the beauty.
