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by Pranada Comtois (Author)
Sacred sound is a substantial form of spiritual nourishment. Many cultures are rich with spiritual and religious music, but kirtan features ancient mantras - potent sound formulas of transformation and healing - that enrich and enlighten us in ways that other music or self-help methods such as therapy, affirmations, or mindfulness don't.
We're far more powerful than we've been led to believe; we're immeasurably more than what meets the eye. In choosing a mantra to dedicate ourselves to, we choose from a vast array of possibilities for the soul - more enchanting and enthralling than any possibility we've encountered in any wonderful dream or fictional world.
Due to its efficacy, mantra kirtan has been practiced for thousands of years. That so many are now embracing kirtan in the West demonstrates its universal appeal and its power to nourish us by fulfilling a deep spiritual hunger.
Many people describe how mantra meditation allows them to tap into a sacred space within themselves and connect with the Divine. In simple terms, kirtan is the joining of a mantra and the soul in song to establish a heart-connection with the Supreme.
Mantra group kirtan is also practiced as a personal daily meditation (japa). In addition to unique spiritual benefits, kirtan and japa offer all the psycho-physical benefits of other types of meditation but are much easier to perform than silent meditation or mindfulness.
Prema Kirtan takes us into the world of a specific type of kirtan known as prema-kirtan, or the kirtan that produces prema, divine love. We learn about the history, purpose, practice, and spiritual possibilities that prema-kirtan offers, as well as how the mantra heals psychologically and spiritually, freeing one from self-imposed limitations.
Kirtan is deceptively simple and enjoyable yet is deeply rooted in a sophisticated philosophy, which Prema Kirtan concisely covers in three thought-provoking chapters on the nature of Reality.
Pranada has studied and practiced bhakti for nearly fifty years. Her first two books, Wise-Love and Bhakti Shakti, won multiple awards. She takes us on a journey into the pragmatic and profound spiritual progression of one who takes up a mantra-meditation practice, and shows how kirtan ends the soul's dark night of material existence when the rising sun of prema, divine love, reveals the security and fullness of the soul's eternal, illuminated, unchanging nature and its relationship with its Supreme Source.
You'll learn that kirtan
- soars beyond ordinary music
- descends from a higher plane
- reveals the self, the nature of the world, and transcendental reality
- is the central practice of bhakti, the heart and soul of yoga
- bathes us in sacred mantras removes our karmic bond
- tunes the soul, calms the mind, releases the voice
- is the expression of the soul proper
- cultures prema, or divine love, the special liberation hidden in the ancient texts
