Why chanting Mantras?                What is Kirtan?

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"CHANTING IS LIKE ASANAS FOR THE MIND AND THE HEART!" - Krishna Das

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What is Bhakti?

"Real, unconditional love is our true nature. Ultimately, our hearts have to become as wide as the world.” - Krishna Das

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"Satsang is where people gather together to remember, to turn within and find their own inner path to the One. When we gather together to sing like this we are helping each other find our own paths. We all must travel this path by ourselves because each of us is our own path. All these paths wander on in their own way, but in truth we are all travelling together and until the last of us arrives we will all keep travelling.

So let's sing!" 

Krishna Das  - "The Chantmaster of American Yoga"

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"The words of these chants are called the divine names and they come from a place that's deeper than our hearts and our thoughts, deeper than the mind. And so as we sing them they turn us towards ourselves, into ourselves. They bring us in, and as we offer ourselves into the experience, the experience changes us. These chants have no meaning other than the experience that we have by doing them. They come from the Hindu tradition, but it's not about being a Hindu, or believing anything in advance. It's just about doing it, and experiencing. Nothing to join, you just sit down and sing."

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Source: "Pilgrim of the Heart" by Krishna Das

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"Kirtan cannot be understood through the intellect, because Kirtan is mainly concerned with the emotional personality of the individual. The emotions are a very powerful tool because with the intellect you cannot go very deep, you cannot realise consciousness. You can know about many things but you cannot experience them. It is the difference between knowledge and experience. Kirtan can lead the way." 

Paramahamsa Satyananda (Indischer Yoga-Meister, 1923 - 2009)

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