Spirituality and Health
Issue: September/October 2003
Chanting with 1,000+
Betsy Robinson

S&H associate editor Betsy Robinson loves chanting but dislikes crowds — being touched and jostled gives her an uncomfortable "them versus me" feeling. She wondered how things might be different if she attended a kirtan (chanting program) under the rubric of reporter. To her delight, she found herself writing this report in the first person plural.

It was billed as "A Kirtan Under the Stars," New York City's largest-ever outdoor gathering of people chanting the Sanskrit names of God, a call-and- response practice of devotional yoga. One thousand tickets were pre-sold.

"We just never counted on rain," says Swami Ramananda, president of the Integral Yoga Institute, the event's sponsor. And rain it did — in sheets, in buckets, rain so heavy that the event was canceled due to safety concerns for the 4,000 expected on Hudson River Park's Pier 54.

But three weeks later, on a blistering June evening, the thousand ticket- holders plus a hundred or so more converge on the upper west side of Manhattan at the Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew, known for its commitment to justice and reconciliation. We are young, middle-aged, and old. We are men in business suits and kids with pierced navels and eyebrows. We are lean yogis and overweight people in bermudas who have never exercised in our lives. We are aging hippies ready for a love-in and testy urbanites complaining about the lack of air conditioning. Black, white, Indian, Hispanic, and Asian, we dress in high-fashion silk pajamas, T-shirts and dirty jeans, Indian cottons, and colorful African head wraps. We are men with ponytails, boys with crew cuts, and babies with soft, bald heads and big, goopy smiles swinging in snugglies on our parents' chests.

"How good it is when brothers and sisters dwell together in harmony" (Psalm 133), says the banner over the stage. The sweet smell of champa incense fills the air, and the Latin twang of the Buena Vista Social Club blasts over the sound system. We fill the pews and balcony, eager for kirtan with Krishna Das, the 50-something rock star of chanting, who over the last six years has gone from anonymity to drawing standing-room-only crowds like ours all over the world.

"Most people think yoga is asanas [postures to purify the body]," said Swami Ramananda in an interview. "Kirtan gives people a powerful experience, and whether you understand it or not, the energy of the group pulls you in, keeps you focused. Everyone has a longing for connection, a need to belong, and kirtan allows you to lose yourself in belonging to something bigger than yourself."

This Thursday evening, we mishmash of sweat-drenched city folk fan ourselves with chanting sheets and promotional flyers for the plethora of upcoming kirtans all over the city. Bottled water is a dollar. Cell phones ring — one last business call before bliss. As our numbers grow, our talk rises to a cacophonous roar. We are New York.

"We're out of the rain," announces Swami Ramananda from the stage. "And the hand of God is touching us now through tapasya, spiritual heat." We laugh. "For the last decade, the flame of kirtan has spread like wildfire," he continues. "And it is especially important in this time of violence and fear.

Kirtan can bring our true nature out into the world. And Krishna Das inspires us to open our hearts and experience the truth."

Then the unassuming guy in wire-rims and a red T-shirt who sits behind a harmonium takes control. "In the next moments we'll be making a lot of noise," says Krishna Das dryly. "And one thing is for certain — no problems will be solved. So don't think. Let's sing." We sing three "oms" punctuated by a baby's squall. The 13 backup singers and musicians breathe, and then comes that voice — that gutsy, soulful, masculine sound; that deep tone filled with gentle kindness, tenderness. "Shree Raam Jaya Raam Jaya Jaya Raam," sings Krishna Das, and we sing back. And slowly the New York stress dissolves.

Every line is a musical improvisation. Schooled by Krishna Das' CDs, we try to sing what we sing at home, but it's useless. Syncopated, unpredictable, Krishna Das sings from his heart. There is no preprogramming possible, so finally we just sing, losing ourselves in the ocean of sound. The cello sings our souls, the drums our life force. The chants speed up. We scream, whoop, clap, stomp.

The church is literally pulsating — the floor, the walls, the pews. And that voice cuts through us — sometimes a growl, sometimes soaring to the rafters, sometimes a barely audible mumble on a pitch, sometimes a raspy wail piercing our hearts and filling us with fire. Some of us dance, some don't. Some clap, some don't. Some sway with eyes closed; some scan the crowd. A baby plays with the long pink hair of the woman beside her. This is not a homogenous congregation. But we have one thing in common: We are Home.

"I never meant to find a practice," says Krishna Das in a break. "All I wanted was to stare at my guru, but he had other ideas." In 1969 Krishna Das met his guru, Maharaj-ji, in India. When one of the hired Indian singers tried to seduce a visiting Westerner, Maharaj-ji kicked all the singers out of the ashram and ordered Krishna Das and several others to sing "Hare Krishna" around the clock. "It was like watching the shopping channel four days in a row," says Krishna Das. "After a while you get so bored that your mind turns inside. And suddenly I was seeing new things inside of me. The stuff worked! Who knew?"

This crowd of a thousand-plus knows. Two hours ago we were strangers. Now we sit here in a sweet pool of sweat, and we don't care. We are happy. We are One.

Krishna Das grins. "Namaste," he says. "That's Hindi for 'See ya later.'"