Tag: kirtan

bhakti required

by L. Valdez Karl

I find that the longer I practice, the longer I teach, and the more I meditate, the more I am drawn to bhakti yoga. maybe I should say that because of all of the above, my own bhakti has grown exponentially. I call myself Kali’s girl and when I was at a Krishna Das kirtan, he chanted the word “Kali” in a Durga mantra and at that moment it literally felt like I was hit right between my eyebrows and the tears started to flow. that’s bhakti. mantra chanting and kirtan are forms of bhakti yoga. I know a devout American Murugan bhakta who has never done one asana in his life, but he is a bhakti yogi.

I believe that bhakti, for the most part, is missing in Americanized yoga, at least in most of the classes I attend. I know that even chanting the single sound of OM can scare some people away from yoga — I’ve seen students leave classes if the teacher chants. I always open and close my classes with meditation and at the end recite the Four Immeasurables and chant OM MANI PEDME HUM. I would not be true to my heart if I did not teach this way.

So I give you the website Bhakti Collective. The Bhakti Collective is “composed of persons of various backgrounds with a common interest in bhakti, India’s tradition of devotional yoga. It is a non-profit organization based in New York, which serves as a medium for the exploration and sharing of the culture, philosophy and practice of bhakti.”

The Bhakti Collective has many interesting articles including this one, a critique on a Yoga Journal article about bhakti. in it, Kaustubha Das quotes Dr. Robert Svoboda’s feelings about bhakti in western yoga:

“Some Western yogis dabble in bhakti yoga through an occasional prayer or kirtan. But if you’re a serious practitioner looking to find union with the Divine, a more rigorous practice is in order.” Svoboda says the path of devotion involves total dedication and surrender.

Svoboda agrees that it’s good to sing bhajana (Sanskirt hymns) to get into a new space. But he cautions against thinking you can really engage in bhakti yoga by occasionally joining in a kirtan. “That in itself won’t be sufficient to have a transformative effect that will penetrate into the deepest and darkest parts of your being”, he says.

“I don’t think most people in the yoga community have a concept of the degree of emotional depth and intensity and texture that is necessary for bhakti yoga really to flower”.

Get out of your yoga body and get into some bhakti.

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my heart was torn open

by L. Valdez Karl


Hanuman

Last night I attended a kirtan by Krishna Das and my heart was torn open. I am still feeling the effects of the bhakti so excuse this writing as I am feeling a bit disjointed.

I sat listening with my eyes closed feeling the waves of his amazing voice pour over me. he sang a chant to Durga and when he chanted the word “Kali”, it felt like someone took their finger and hit me between my eyebrows, in my Third Eye, and tears started streaming down my face. immediately. uncontrollable. it is said that sometimes when a devotee merely sees a picture or hears the name of the Divine, the jolt is instantaneous. that is shakti.

When he chanted a mantra to Hanuman, all I saw in my mind was when I was in Rameswaram, India, standing on the roof of a small Kali temple, looking out into the ocean at sunset….

As I stood staring out into that ocean, I thought about Hanuman, the Monkey God, leaping across the ocean to rescue Sita in Lanka. I believed it was possible. pure compassion and love for Sita and for his lord, Rama.

I returned last week from sitting four days with the Dalai Lama in his teachings in Madison, Wisconsin. my heart was torn open by his compassion for a woman who discovered a lump in her breast on the last morning of his teachings.

During the afternoon sessions His Holiness took questions from the audience. his translator said that a woman wanted to ask a personal question. she said she had discovered a lump while bathing that morning and wondered whether she should tell her husband. she said her husband was a non-believer in anything and that two women in his family died of breast cancer. she wondered whether she should tell her husband because that would only create much suffering for him. she also said they had no health insurance.

His Holiness was visibly shaken. his concern was palpable, I could feel it from where I sat. he placed his hands together in the “namaste” gesture and said he was touched that the woman would ask him such a personal question. His Holiness said he did not know whether she should tell her husband, that it was her decision. he wondered if she could get government assistance. then he went back to the text he was teaching from, but I could tell that he was thinking about the question. he seemed distracted.

He stopped teaching and said, “about the woman with the lump….” and said that a doctor of Tibetan medicine was traveling with them for this trip. he said Tibetan medicine is very powerful and has been known to cure serious illnesses. he announced that if the woman was in the audience, that she should contact the doctor that is with His Holiness. pure compassion and love. the tears started streaming down my face. immediately. uncontrollable.

and my heart was torn open.

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