Again I am struck by another of Snatam Kaur’s rendition of a spiritual prayer. The beauty of her voice as well as the musical arrangement truly convey the peaceful message of acceptance.

The words, “Aakhan Jor”, come from the first line of the prayer, and mean “no power in speaking”. It echos the message contained in the rest of the prayer – that we have no power inherent within us. All power comes from God, the Most High, the Creator, the Source. Anything that we accomplish we should credit to Him who watches over all and who has power over all. All that remains is for us to accept that fact, and in doing so work with the source of all power instead of against it.

How can we have no power and yet think that we can ever accomplish anything?

The key to understanding this paradox is to realize that the “we” who has no power is actually our ego, our separation from the source. The true Source of power is always moving towards creating, so we just need to realize our true connection with that Source and then, free from ego, accomplish what we wish without struggle.

• The entire prayer
• Preview the MP3:

Start with a classical guitar set to an up beat with a European Spanish feel, then add words of the spiritual ideals from the Sikh faith sung by the angelic voice of Snatam Kaur, and you have her rendition of the Mul Mantra .

This is sung at a faster pace than other favorites of mine, and it always seems to bring me back to the performance I saw two years ago. Not that she sang it then, but in that performance she took a break from singing and engaged the audience in some kundalini yoga exercises. This song reminds me of the pace of the exercises, and I can imagine taking complete in-and-out breaths with each beat of the song.

I mentioned that these were words of the Sikh faith, but they really reflect basic truths underlying all spirituality.

Here’s a Youtube video of corresponding inspirational images set to Snatam Kaur’s Mul Mantra.

Listening to good music – relaxing – chanting – laughing – singing – practicing a few yogic breathing exercises – sharing with others an experience of peace … I experienced all these in one evening a few weekends ago at a concert performed by Snatam Kaur.

And it was awesome!

Snatam Kaur came to Palo Alto as part of her Celebrate Peace tour, “a global effort to bring peace to the hearts and minds of individuals everywhere” according to the Celebrate Peace web site. I’ve written about how much I enjoy some of her music in this post and this post, so I was prepared for an enjoyable evening. I wasn’t disappointed.

She walked to the stage with the other performers, dressed in pure white Sikh garb, and after seating herself by her harmonium, right away conveyed a connection with the audience – a sincere desire for all to experience peace that evening. I’m sure the high-tech sound system as well as the good acoustics in the church didn’t hurt any, but from the moment she opened her mouth to sing, her – dare I say angelic – voice seemed to pierce the air and directly enter the hearts of everyone there.

She was accompanied by some excellent musicians. On guitar was GuruGanesha Singh, Snatam Kaur’s producer and founder of Spirit Voyage Music, Manish Vyas, renown musician and master of the tabla, and Ram Dass Khalsa on keyboards and clarinet, an inspiring example of a young person developing his talents and spiritual devotion.

The Music

Like other kirtans that I have participated in, this one involved a lot of audience participation. That’s all part of the experience for the audience as well as the performer. But whereas traditional kirtans primarily involve call and response chanting, in this concert she had everyone singing/chanting along with her. It deeply contributed to the sense of union between everyone there in the church. There were a few English songs as well, and though not quite as repetitive, the words were still easy to pick up and follow along with.

Cool Breathing Exercises

At one point, she had the audience participate in a few Kundalini Yoga breathing exercises. You might imagine that this would have involved a break from the concert experience – a sort of time-out for some mechanical activity before getting back to the music. At least that’s what I expected – but I was wrong.

With tabla and guitar keeping a steady rhythm, Snatam demonstrated the first technique and had the audience follow along. The first exercise involved holding your hands up by your shoulders, palms facing up, and then twisting your wrists while breathing out. OK, this is easy, I thought. But once everyone understood what to do, she would say “Now catch the breath” – which meant that the breathing would take off in earnest at about twice the pace! Whoaah. And all the while GuruGanesh kept playing this jazzy-Indian guitar riff to keep everyone on track.

She repeated the process for the other exercises – the demonstration and audience follow-along, then “catch the breath” and off we went. Each exercise lasted awhile, and the ironic thing was that, instead of this being a break from the rhythm of the concert, the breathing exercise actually fell into the natural flow of the evening. And the end of it I was even more energized than I was just from the music alone.

Sikh-based, Yet Universal

No surprising, there were several people of the Sikh tradition there. To be honest, I don’t remember seeing any Sikhs at any other kirtan that I’ve attended. How could I tell? Well, for those unfamiliar with this spiritual tradition, Sikh men wear the turbans and usually have long beards. These are Sikhs – not Arabs, and not Muslims. The turban and beard are worn as a reminder to live according to the spiritual principles to which they are dedicated.

But even with this background, the concert was actually a very interfaith-type experience. All were made to feel welcome, regardless of religious beliefs. One thing that she did that made me feel more connected was to explain the meaning of the chants. It emphasized ideas that are universal across all faiths. The following are a sample of common phrases that were incorporated in several of the chants/songs.

Ek Ong Kar: The Creator is one
Sat Nam: Truth is God’s Name
Siri: Great (used as a title)
Waheguru: Praise to the Divine here and now, which brings you from darkness to light

The Audience Experiences Peace

This concert touched me emotionally more than any other that I had been to. You could feel the love radiating from the stage, vibrating within the music, and filling everyone as they chanted in unison. There are many avenues to take to pursue peace in this world, and Snatam Kaur is definitely pursuing an effective route by sharing her music in a way that allows everyone to experience a taste of the peace and unity that can transcend cultural differences. At the end of the concert, it was difficult not to feel motivated to pursue peace in our hearts, in our homes, and in the world.

While no recording can really do justice to the live experience, here are a couple of videos (available for download from Snatam Kaur’s website) from her Celebrate Peace tours in Barcelona and Vancouver.

In the video from Barcelona the song is Aahkan Jor from her CD Shanti.
In the video from Vancouver is a song from GuruGanesha’s CD Pure Ganesh, called Ma.

Do a Google search for ‘raising vibration’ and there is no lack of information available. But in the spirit of the ‘high vibes game’ meme started at OptimistLab (I’ve just been tagged … twice), I’ll give my take on it as well as five things I do to ‘raise my vibration’.

But first, the following individuals with great websites tagged me within a day of each other, before I had the opportunity to work on this post:

Jonathan Bankert from JonathanBankert.com
Pamm from My Secret Spiritual Dance

Five Ways I Raise My Vibes

Raising your vibration means different things to different people. To some it means increasing your level of good feelings, to others it means increasing your level of spirituality. From my perspective:

The closer you are to who you want to be, the better you feel and the more things in life just seem to fall into place effortlessly. That said, these are the things that work to help me be in that place:

• Meditation/Breathing Exercises

  As a daily practice, I like to start the day with meditation and some Kriya Yoga pranayams, or breathing exercises. This puts me in a positive frame of mind for the day.

• Modified Five Tibetan Rites

  These exercises do not take much time to perform and are great for generating rejuvenating energy. There are plenty of instructions on the web, but I perform a modified version taken from the book Your Hands Can Heal You, by Master Steven Cho.

• Kirtan/Chanting

Whether with well-known Kirtan chanters such as Krishna Das, or with a local group which gets together once a month, an evening of Kirtan leaves me so hyped up with energy that I can be a bit overwhelming with my family after I get home.

• Listening to inspiring music

Krishna Das, Wah!, Jai Uttal, and Snatam Kaur are among the artists that I listen to. Their music always puts me in a peaceful, positive, mood.

• Unselfish acts

In an episode of Friends, Joey tells Phoebe that there is no such thing as an unselfish act. In a sense, I have to agree. While family and friends provide plenty of opportunities to do things for others that do not bring immediate benefit to myself, the mere fact that they benefit is meaningful. Why? Because we are all connected, and if something happens that makes another happy, why is it any different than if it were happening to me?

Spreading Good Vibes

As part of this meme, I’ve tagged and submitted the following posts to the website High Vibe It, which functions like the community-based Digg website for articles/posts/news, except that the intention of High Vibe It is to focus exclusively on positive-oriented content. Some of these writers might already have been tagged, but I felt it good to draw attention to these posts anyway.

• Are you Using the Language of Love?

  By Mark at The Naked Soul, this post is a good reminder about being aware of how we speak to those whom we love.

• Installing the Love Software

  By surjit at gurushabad, computer geeks (and others, too) will find humor and meaning in this post about the ingredients for love.

• A compass tells you what you want most

  JackDirt at excommunicate.net tells how to tap into your subconscious for answers.

• A Better Way to Unleash Your Potential

  Lee over at absolutelee.com shows why our failures are no reason for giving up on a dream.

• Gardening for Your Soul and Your Success

  Joseph Bernard at Explore Creating a Meaningful Life relates gardens to our current life and beyond.

The next time you find a particular piece of music very relaxing, there might be more to it than you realize.

The first time I heard Snatam Kaur’s Ray Man Shabad, I was instantly hooked, yet I failed to understand exactly why.

Now I’ve always been affected by music. All through high school and college I enjoyed the typical rock music that was played at the time – Led Zeppelin, Bad Company, Peter Frampton … the usual stuff. But I was particularly drawn to the long musical pieces of Yes, the atmospheric mood of Pink Floyd and Camel, and similar classical rock styles. I remember laying on the carpet just before bed time with headphones on and winding down the day with that music. Looking back, I now recognize it as a spiritual feeling that I enjoyed. But as my only structured spiritual history up to that point involved a Catholic upbringing, it was difficult to reconcile that with the rock culture. And so the experience was incomplete in a sense.

It wasn’t until my current enjoyment of (American-style) kirtan and other yoga-inspired music and chanting that I was finally able to bridge the gap. And now I find myself becoming just as immersed in this music as I was with the progressive rock of years ago – and this time the connection with the spiritual is direct.

But when I did a little research into Ray Man Shabad, I came to understand that there can be more than just an emotional reaction involved.

Ray Man Shabad is a hymn that was written by Guru Gobind Singh, the 10th Sikh guru. That wasn’t surprising because Sikh-based words are the focus of Snatam Kaur’s music. However, light bulbs came on as I read what the website Bound Lotus had to say about it:

“Shabads are sacred combinations of sounds that when recited bring a state of ecstasy, healing, and grace…

When you listen to and/or recite this Shabad, there is a sound current that has a subtle but profound effect on all levels of your being. This sound current travels through every cell of the body and adjusts your inner vibratory frequency to a happier, healthier, holier state. This has been described as a state of grace, the state of the Golden Buddha, and by many other terms in many spiritual traditions. ”

Ray Man Shabad, as performed by Snatam Kaur, is over 15 minutes long, and there is one part well into the song that just doesn’t quit. This was good because I remember the first time I heard it I didn’t want it to end, and so was really pleased when it kept going.

The song varies in mood, so I was surprised when I noticed that she’s repeating the same words throughout – just singing them differently. It’s not until later into the song that the melody becomes chant-like, with a soothing repetition that I find incredibly inspirational. Now I guess I know why.

Here’s a preview:

Ray Man Shabad appears on Snatam Kaur’s GraceCD.