Question of the Moment
what the question is,
but I do know that
the answer is Yes.
- Leonard Bernstein
From time to time, Dean responds to a question on meditation, awareness practice, spiritual books and concepts, or any other topic related to the attempt to live a more enlightened life. Please submit your question to deansluyter@gmail.com with "Question of the Moment" in the Subject line.
Answer:
First of all, I like the way you've recognized what works for you and are pursuing it.
There are lots of great kirtan albums. I love Greatest Hits of the Kali Yuga by Krishna Das, which, if you buy the physical CD, also includes a cool DVD of live kirtan and a documentary about his life (hanging out with Ram Dass and Neem Karoli Baba, etc.). I also like his All One, which is all one mantra (Hare Krishna) played in four different styles, including one that seriously rocks out (featuring Def Leopard drummer Rick Allen), one in village Afro-Pop style, etc. A truly sublime album is Gathering in the Light, by Prana, featuring Krishna Das, which gives the mantras some amazing cosmic a capella treatments with Mongolian-style throat-singing thrown in for good measure. KD also has a new one, Heart as Wide as the World, which is excellent: if you can get through the title track without crying, you're made of stronger stuff than I am.
I love Jai Uttal's albums. Whereas KD is a resonant bass-baritone, kind of a kirtan Elvis, Jai is a passionate tenor a la Roy Orbison. He's also an amazing polyinstrumentalist, with a strong background in folk, rock, jazz, and classical Indian music, which is reflected not only in his playing but in his singing, which bends notes in fluid ways that Westerners don't usually know about. If you didn't think the banjo could be a deeply spiritual instrument, wait till you hear Jai play it.
An excellent double Jai Uttal album is called Kirtan: The Art & Practice of Ecstatic Chant. Jai's live sessions are like nobody else's. Nectar features live tracks, some of them then remixed in some surprising ways. One of my very favorite albums — really, one of the two or three I'd take with me to a desert island — is one by Jai with Ben Leinbach called Music for Yoga and Other Joys. It has kirtan elements mixed with rock and electronica, and it's just sublime for doing yoga or dancing or almost anything contemplative and/or ecstatic. They also have a great new one, Bhakti Bazaar, that is much in the same vein.
If you get seriously into kirtan, or want to, consider attending one of Jai's kirtan camps. I've been to two of them, and they were incredible experiences. Info is available here.
Also check out Elephant Power, by MC Yogi. It's kirtan hip-hop — totally fun and funny, and 100% spiritually for real. And Ten Million Moons by Gaura Vani and As Kindred Spirits is one of the most exciting and beautiful kirtan albums around.
One of the loveliest female voices in kirtan is Omkara; check out her album From the Silence. She's also a highly trained musician and composer. Like me, she's a student of Mooji, and in her original songs she beautifully expresses in musical form the liberating clarity of Self-awareness that Mooji teaching points people toward. On From the Silence, the track "Remember" brings the teachings home to me on a very powerful heart level.
There's a whole world of this music out there, and it's growing all the time, especially here in America, where it's being creatively mixed with all kinds of influences. If you start exploring around online, you'll start finding the music that talks to you.