Gurunam Singh puts his whole heart into kirtan
Gurunam Singh is a kirtan scientist. He travels the country playing devotional chant music that can leave a listener feeling warm and fuzzy, fired up or weepy.The white turbaned musician performed at Marmalade at Smokebrush on a summer night in June. He arrived still bathed in the afterglow of leading kirtan at the Summer Solstice Sadhana Celebration in New Mexico, where two thousand people practiced yoga, meditated and listened to sacred music.
Listen and watch here.
How Kirtan Works
During kirtan, a leader will sing or call out mantras, a Hindu word or phrase chanted or sung as an incantation or prayer. The audience repeats them back, and the song will continue in this call and response fashion, increasing in intensity and volume, and then gradually dying away.
The idea of kirtan might be an acquired taste, but once sampled, the music and whole body feeling is hard to forget. The practice of call and response chanting can literally make a person vibrate. Why does it feel so good? Simple. It’s yogic science, Singh said.
“Just like yoga of the body, there’s yoga of the sound current,” he said. “Each mantra has its own vibration. Each mantra opens up different places in the psyche and consciousness.”
Singh believes specific mantras can help ease depression, make you more intuitive or confident.
“People like the warrior chant,” he said. “It stirs up the heat inside of you, and gives you the courage to face adversity.”
Unlike most musicians who pen new lyrics and create new tunes, kirtan singers don’t invent new chants. They rely on the inherent wisdom and mechanics of ancient mantra.
“Most don’t make up mantras,” Singh said. “If you do, you’re stepping out of the benefits. Just like a yoga pose gives you benefits, mantras do, too.”
Once you learn the Sanskrit words and melodies of the chants, you can attend any kirtan and glide right in, like you’ve been chanting your whole life.
There is much more to kirtan than meets the larynx. Yes, the lush music is both a pleasure to listen to and to sing, but it affects your body in ways you don’t even realize.
“Every word you chant or speak, the tongue touches the upper palate. There are 84 meridians in the upper palate and each one stimulates a different place in the hypothalamus. In return, the hypothalamus opens the pituitary and pineal glands. Where you hit your upper palate, it’s going to open up different places in the mind,” he said.
Singh’s Path to Kirtan
Singh started to sing in high school, taking on roles in musicals like “The Fantasticks” and “Oklahoma!” His mom gifted him with a guitar for high school graduation and he taught himself to play, paving the way for his musical path. During his first year of college, he began writing poetry that overwhelmed him with a divine feeling, the same kind of feeling he achieved through prayer. But because he was “really disconnected at that point,” and didn’t know how to deal with all the indescribable feelings, he just went back to his regular life.
Singh’s slow transition into kirtan appears to be a foregone conclusion in hindsight. Everything that happened in his life was a precursor for the next stage of learning and growth. He spent his early 20s reading spiritual books like the Bhagavad Gita, the Koran and the Bible, putting his personal poetry to music and listening to music by Derek Trucks, Richie Havens and Paul Simon, musicians who would later influence his own music. Eventually, he was introduced to kundalini yoga by a chiropractor he worked for. She continuously played music while adjusting clients.
“They had you breathe and they were always listening to mantras,” Singh said. “A lot of deep releases started happening just from hearing the music.”
Shortly after, Singh found a job doing grounds work on the property of Yogi Bhajan, a master kundalini yoga teacher. Bhajan called him “singer boy,” and gave him advice, Singh said. He would also, “yell at me, whatever a master does to a student, he did to me.”
He did his spiritual practice in the mornings, attracting more and more people to his music, and eventually doing morning chants for listeners to sing along with. Years passed, Yogi Bhajan passed away and Singh began working for Spirit Voyage Music. He continued to play his music in the mornings and soon the owners of the company decided he should relinquish his job as a salesperson and become a full-fledged musician and make a cd. It was a success and Singh now has five cds out, with another on the way.
How Kirtan Works
During kirtan, a leader will sing or call out mantras, a Hindu word or phrase chanted or sung as an incantation or prayer. The audience repeats them back, and the song will continue in this call and response fashion, increasing in intensity and volume, and then gradually dying away.
The idea of kirtan might be an acquired taste, but once sampled, the music and whole body feeling is hard to forget. The practice of call and response chanting can literally make a person vibrate. Why does it feel so good? Simple. It’s yogic science, Singh said.
“Just like yoga of the body, there’s yoga of the sound current,” he said. “Each mantra has its own vibration. Each mantra opens up different places in the psyche and consciousness.”
Singh believes specific mantras can help ease depression, make you more intuitive or confident.
“People like the warrior chant,” he said. “It stirs up the heat inside of you, and gives you the courage to face adversity.”
Unlike most musicians who pen new lyrics and create new tunes, kirtan singers don’t invent new chants. They rely on the inherent wisdom and mechanics of ancient mantra.
“Most don’t make up mantras,” Singh said. “If you do, you’re stepping out of the benefits. Just like a yoga pose gives you benefits, mantras do, too.”
Once you learn the Sanskrit words and melodies of the chants, you can attend any kirtan and glide right in, like you’ve been chanting your whole life.
There is much more to kirtan than meets the larynx. Yes, the lush music is both a pleasure to listen to and to sing, but it affects your body in ways you don’t even realize.
“Every word you chant or speak, the tongue touches the upper palate. There are 84 meridians in the upper palate and each one stimulates a different place in the hypothalamus. In return, the hypothalamus opens the pituitary and pineal glands. Where you hit your upper palate, it’s going to open up different places in the mind,” he said.
Singh’s Path to Kirtan
Singh started to sing in high school, taking on roles in musicals like “The Fantasticks” and “Oklahoma!” His mom gifted him with a guitar for high school graduation and he taught himself to play, paving the way for his musical path. During his first year of college, he began writing poetry that overwhelmed him with a divine feeling, the same kind of feeling he achieved through prayer. But because he was “really disconnected at that point,” and didn’t know how to deal with all the indescribable feelings, he just went back to his regular life.
Singh’s slow transition into kirtan appears to be a foregone conclusion in hindsight. Everything that happened in his life was a precursor for the next stage of learning and growth. He spent his early 20s reading spiritual books like the Bhagavad Gita, the Koran and the Bible, putting his personal poetry to music and listening to music by Derek Trucks, Richie Havens and Paul Simon, musicians who would later influence his own music. Eventually, he was introduced to kundalini yoga by a chiropractor he worked for. She continuously played music while adjusting clients.
“They had you breathe and they were always listening to mantras,” Singh said. “A lot of deep releases started happening just from hearing the music.”
Shortly after, Singh found a job doing grounds work on the property of Yogi Bhajan, a master kundalini yoga teacher. Bhajan called him “singer boy,” and gave him advice, Singh said. He would also, “yell at me, whatever a master does to a student, he did to me.”
He did his spiritual practice in the mornings, attracting more and more people to his music, and eventually doing morning chants for listeners to sing along with. Years passed, Yogi Bhajan passed away and Singh began working for Spirit Voyage Music. He continued to play his music in the mornings and soon the owners of the company decided he should relinquish his job as a salesperson and become a full-fledged musician and make a cd. It was a success and Singh now has five cds out, with another on the way.Kirtan and Religion
The power of kirtan keeps Singh on the road, traveling and performing at both small venues and big festivals. If the idea of chanting appeals to something deep inside you, he urges you to follow it. However, he is well aware of the conflict of interest some people might have about their religious beliefs and chanting to Hindu gods.
“The way one chooses to worship is their own personal path,” he said. “I would never tell somebody to do something that conflicted with their beliefs. But if you’re stuck, in whatever tradition you’re in, and you can’t open and feel the divine, what good is any practice at that point? If somebody can get an experience, it doesn’t matter what path they’re on.”
It is all too easy in our modern day society to become complacent about feeding your own spiritual growth and staying in tune with body, mind and spirit. With a wealth of daily distractions, people blow it off, but Singh cautions us to fight that impulse.
Kirtan can be one avenue toward that higher vibration. The power of a group coming together to chant can, perhaps, save you.
“Nowadays if you sit around and get lazy, there are too many negative vibrations. You have to avoid them or you’ll get stuck in the mire,” he said. “You have to do things so you can make it so your energy stays raised up.”
Jennifer Mulson is the managing editor of Marmapoints. She also teaches yoga at CorePower Yoga in Colorado Springs.
The power of kirtan keeps Singh on the road, traveling and performing at both small venues and big festivals. If the idea of chanting appeals to something deep inside you, he urges you to follow it. However, he is well aware of the conflict of interest some people might have about their religious beliefs and chanting to Hindu gods.
“The way one chooses to worship is their own personal path,” he said. “I would never tell somebody to do something that conflicted with their beliefs. But if you’re stuck, in whatever tradition you’re in, and you can’t open and feel the divine, what good is any practice at that point? If somebody can get an experience, it doesn’t matter what path they’re on.”
It is all too easy in our modern day society to become complacent about feeding your own spiritual growth and staying in tune with body, mind and spirit. With a wealth of daily distractions, people blow it off, but Singh cautions us to fight that impulse.
Kirtan can be one avenue toward that higher vibration. The power of a group coming together to chant can, perhaps, save you.
“Nowadays if you sit around and get lazy, there are too many negative vibrations. You have to avoid them or you’ll get stuck in the mire,” he said. “You have to do things so you can make it so your energy stays raised up.”
Jennifer Mulson is the managing editor of Marmapoints. She also teaches yoga at CorePower Yoga in Colorado Springs.