Mantra and Kirtan: Here’s Why These Meditation Tools Belong In Your Practice
Mantras are a form of meditation that bring dramatic benefits to your health and wellbeing. If you start your day with a healing mantra, it can have a profoundly positive impact on how your day unfolds.
Music, mantras, and kirtan hold powerful vibrations. From North America to Europe to India, from temples to yoga studios, mantras are recited for presence, peace, and upping the vibration.
Mantras and kirtan are inherently interconnected. They are both tools to create balance.
In our fast-paced world, we sometimes go about our days on autopilot. By reciting healing mantras or attending a kirtan, we allow ourselves to come back to the present moment and, more importantly, back to ourselves.
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What Is a Mantra?
Mantras are invigorating words, mystical sounds, and ancient hymns that purify the mind. In Sanskrit, the word “mantra” is made up of two elements:
- Man, which means to “think”
- Tra, which is a tool or instrument
In essence, by chanting healing mantras, we alter the spirit and mind.
Each sound and word holds a powerful frequency that echoes into your entire being. Mantras can be recited silently or out loud. When you repeat a mantra, it permeates your entire being as you transcend into a hypnotized state. Repetition and chanting of healing mantras can hold you in a place of oneness, just like meditation.
“You are a cosmic flower. Om chanting is the process of opening the psychic petals of that flower.” – Amit Ray
Japa is the meditative repetition of a mantra to connect the body and mind. You can practice mantra japa by using mala beads (to count the repetitions as you chant).
For example, singing Om Mani Padme Hum (“hail to the jewel of the lotus”), Sat Nam (“truth is my identity”), or any other mantra repetitively would be a form of japa.
Mantras alter our consciousness and, by focusing on sacred mantras, we are brought closer to enlightened bliss! Likely the most common mantra you hear in your yoga practice is OM (or AUM): the infinite sound of oneness, expansion, and unity.
What Is Kirtan?
Kirtan is the practice of chanting mantras in a group. Individuals collectively come together in a community setting and sing hymns of devotion as a form of Bhakti Yoga (or the yogic path of love and devotion).
Kirtan hymns and mantras are sung in order to praise the divine and to bring communion with oneself. In comparison to the Western world, a kirtan is similar to a “choir.”
Chanting particular mantras creates peace of mind and showers the soul with elation. Essentially, when we recite Sanskrit mantras, we facilitate healing of the Throat Chakra and our entire internal system.
Kirtan allows us to feel at home internally and share the energy of our heart with others.
Want to learn more about these practices? Here’s Everything You Need to Know About Chanting and Kirtan
How Are Mantras and Kirtan Related?
Mantras and kirtan are inherently interconnected. They are both tools to create balance.
Music, harmony, and melody all create a higher state of awareness in your psyche. When you sing sacred hymns in Sanskrit, your spirit becomes tranquil and you stimulate your chakras. This feeling is similar to meditating as mantras and kirtan are both tools of meditation.
Mantras and kirtan are inherently interconnected. They are both tools to create balance.
Both mantras and kirtan are instrumental to balance the Throat Chakra. In both practices, ancient Sanskrit hymns invoke a healing effect on the spirit.
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When singing/chanting a mantra as a collective group, you feel connected to one another and create a wave of spiritual elation. All voices join together in unison. Everyone simultaneously feels a ripple effect of love and devotion.
Whether you are in yoga class chanting mantras or in the sacred space of a kirtan, these practices are highly effective to raise your spirit and heal your chakras.
Find Your Mantra and Connect With Kirtan
When you participate in your next yoga class, take notice to the music/mantras that are playing and see if one resonates with you. This could be your source pulling at your heart.
Mantras and kirtan not only change your inner world; they are similar to prayers and bestow blessings on both yourself and others. By practicing them, you may begin to connect with others in a very profound way.
Mantras and kirtan are like branches to a tree and yoga is the roots. It is all interconnected.
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