In This Video:
This is not a spoken teaching, but a direct experience of Kirtan—devotional chanting. This live performance of 'Om Mata Kali' is an extract from an online Satsang, demonstrating how sacred sound can be used as a powerful tool for meditation. It bypasses the conceptual mind to facilitate a direct meeting with the presence and stillness that you are. It is an invitation to feel, rather than to think, and to dissolve into the heart-space opened by the chant.
- Can you listen to the chant without labelling or analysing the sound, simply allowing it to be present?
- What happens to the sense of a separate 'me' when you become fully absorbed in the act of listening or chanting?
- Can you notice the field of silence from which the sound arises and to which it returns?
TRANSCRIPT
(Live Kirtan Performance: Om Mata Kali)
GLOSSARY
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Kirtan
A form of devotional call-and-response chanting. It's a meditative practice that uses sacred sound and mantra to bypass the thinking mind and open the heart, leading to a state of direct presence. -
Satsang
Literally, 'meeting in truth'. It is being in the presence of a self-realised teacher to experientially discover our true, non-dual nature beyond the idea of a separate 'I'. -
Mantra
A sacred sound, word, or phrase repeated to aid concentration in meditation. The vibration of the mantra helps to quiet the mind's internal chatter (the Mitoté) and attune consciousness to a deeper reality. -
Kali
In the Hindu tradition, Kali is the goddess of time, creation, destruction, and power. She represents the fierce, compassionate energy that dissolves the ego and liberates the self from illusion. -
Non-Duality
The direct recognition that there is no fundamental separation between subject and object, self and other, or consciousness and the universe. It points to the underlying unity of all existence.
Q&A
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What is Kirtan?
Kirtan is a devotional practice of call-and-response chanting, often using mantras from Hindu traditions. It is a form of musical meditation designed to quiet the analytical mind and open the heart, allowing for a direct experience of presence and inner stillness. -
How is Kirtan used in Satsang?
In Satsang, Kirtan is used as a tool of 'Inward Engineering'. It helps participants move from thinking and conceptual understanding to direct feeling and being. The vibrations of the chant help to dissolve mental patterns and egoic structures, making it easier to rest in the non-dual truth. -
Who is the goddess Kali in the 'Om Mata Kali' mantra?
Kali is a powerful goddess in Hinduism representing the fierce, transformative energy that destroys the ego and illusions. Chanting to Kali is an invocation for the courage to face and dissolve the inner patterns that cause suffering, leading to liberation and freedom. -
Do I need to be religious to benefit from Kirtan?
No. While the mantras originate from spiritual traditions, the practice is about the direct experience of sound and vibration. It can be approached as a powerful meditation technique to quiet the mind, regardless of personal beliefs. The focus is on the energetic effect, not dogma.
“There’s nothing to add. What you are is prior to beliefs, thoughts and labels.
Here we explore and unveil the ultimate mystery of non-dual being.
Reality.”
