KIRTAN 101: Śrīla Prabhupāda’s style of kirtan–the magic is in the mantra

Śrīla Prabhupāda’s kirtan leading was always very meditative, deep, and focused.   He would often end in a crescendo but it was steady, long, and unrushed. 

“Gaura Gopala: I was right next to Prabhupada through the whole ceremony, playing the drum. He particularly liked to sing one tune through the whole time. He put his hands up in the air. He was dancing.” Ref. VedaBase => SPL 44: Let There Be a Temple

”It was clanging and banging. Kīrtana should be sweet and melodious.”

We had a kīrtana at the Rāma-līlā grounds, 1976 March, and Dīnanātha was leading, and tens
of thousands were attending and chanting. After the program Śrīla Prabhupāda and I were alone
in the back tent waiting for his servant and the car. As you know, he would often ask rhetorical
questions, and he asked me, “So, what did you think of the kīrtana?” Understanding this was
just a lead-in to his giving me an instruction, I answered with a bland “It was OK.”
Śrīla Prabhupāda’s definition to me then was as follows: “No, it was not nice. It was clanging
and banging. Kīrtana should be sweet and melodious. Come let us go to the ashram and have
kīrtana.”
And so we went — Śrīla Prabhupāda, his servant, Baradrāj, and myself. Except for his servant,
the three of us sat in his room and Baradrāj played harmonium on the request of Śrīla
Prabhupāda, and we had a long kīrtana. . . . On Śrīla Prabhupāda’s signal, the kīrtana ended. He
looked at me, smiling, shaking his head a little, and said, “So . . . sweet and melodious.” And
then he moved on with the rest of preaching and hearing. I had heard him say, and heard that
he also said, sometimes stopping kīrtana, “No screaming and shouting.” [remembrance by
Tejiyas dāsa, 12 Nov 2002]

I personally feel that if one becomes more focused on the Holy Name of Krishna with love and worry less on changing the melody their leading of kirtan will become more and more ecstatic.   This is especially in the case of those who are new to leading kirtan or who are not regular kirtan leaders.  In their nervousness or anxiety, they change the melody, perhaps thinking that others are bored.  This changing of melody may happen over 6 times in just a 15 minute period.  (BTW I not talking about the different parts of a melody but rather changing to completely different melodies)  Whereas kirtan stalwarts such as Indradyumna Swami, BB Govinda Swami, Madhava Prabhu and others keep it very steady and focused.  

Once I noticed a devotee chant Hare Krishna for the 30 minute Sandhya Ārati for a total of 2 minutes.  First he sang the standard Gaura Arati song and then the Hare Krishna Mantra for 2 minutes. (he also completely changed to different melodies within that 2 minute period)  Then he stopped chanting the Hare Krishna Maha Mantra because he wanted to leave enough room for Jāya’ing at the end of the kirtan.   Śrīla Prabhupāda never was Jāya’er himself, so it is not actually necessary to do a Jāya session at the end of kirtan.  But the main thing is not to Jāya at the expensive of the Hare Krishna Maha Mantra.   It is called the Maha Mantra for a reason, it is the greatest mantra.   So my basic advice to new kirtan leaders is to keep steady the melody, even the parts of the melody should be steady, don’t shift it back and forth every few mantras and then run out tricks 2 minutes later.  

In the past I have given advice to new kirtan leaders for the arati as follows.  Chant the first part of the melody at least 10 times, then second at least 10 times.  Then you can go back to the first part and pick up the tempo.  The rest is up to you but starting if off like this is a good foundation. 

So all the best to you.  One simple item to test the efficacy of the one’s kirtan is to see if it creates smaraṇaṁ, even on a material level.  Will those who have heard it have it dancing through their minds throughout the rest of the day?  From śravaṇaṁ & kīrtanam comes smaraṇaṁ, rememberance. 

BTW here is a link to the Harinama Sankirtan Handbook by Indradyumna Swami

Woodrow Dance Party and AZITIZ

Woodrow High School came to the temple today for a field trip. Woodrow is a local public school about 5 minutes from Kalachandji's Some of the devotees go to the school as well.

First we gave them a very short introduction to Srila Prabhupada and the temple. Then Haridas started it off with a short bhajan. After that bhajan we taught them the Maha Mantra so that they could sing along. After everyone was singing we then had some dance lessons, Swami Step, then as the kirtan progressed we all just went wild.

Then we had a great lunch in the restaurant with questions and answers. This was followed by a photo shoot outside in front of Tamal Krishna Goswami's Samadhi
As the students got on the bus they all remarked about how much fun that they had.  One girl said, "I going to be singing that song (Hare Krishna Maha Mantra) all day long." another student wrote me this, "i liked it. it was the best part of the field trip"



After the school visit I was pleasantly surprised to see Lalita Garrett, hip hop star of AZITIZ. http://www.myspace.com/spiritsoulja  She was on tour in Dallas for hip hop shows.  She lead a wonderful kirtan accompanied by Sri Rupa who originally learned mrdanga from her.  She said it was her first time playing harimonium in 4 years. 
Kalachandji Kirtan

AZITIZ -X2U

AZITIZ - Aishman Baba

Halloween Block Party Maha Harinam Kirtan 2009

(led by Caitanya Chandra Das, and HH Giriraja Swami)

(led by Nityananda Chandra Das)

About 100,000 people every year attend this event in Oak Lawn, the gay & lesbian district of Dallas Texas.   Each year thousands upon thousands of Martians, animals, zombies, presidents, popes, cartoon characters, seasons, babies, and so on joined in singing and dancing in the kirtan.  


His Holiness Giriraj Swami, who drove in from Houston to attend this event, remarked in the Sunday feast class that everyone is getting Krishna mercy through the Holy Names.  That the souls of the ancient Romans, and Vikings and so many other types of beings are out there now in so many new bodies.   They are now appreciating the holy name. 

His Grace Mishra Bhagavan said,  "I heard in a class that Srila Prabhupada gave in New York 1976 that once someone dances in the harinam sankirtan Krishna takes note of it and makes sure that person soon goes back home, back to Godhead."


I had to leave at midnight but the rest of the devotees stayed to 2:30 am.  Haridas took the kirtan to another level after we had left.  He gave out several dance orders of "throw your hands in the air"  "squat of the ground," "Now jump up high" and several others that the crowd obediently followed. At this time the crowd dancing with the devotees was in the hundreds.  The police at that time asked the devotees to stop, telling them that the festival is supposed to end at 2am and that if the devotees did not stop their kirtan no one would leave.  


One of the dancers, Frankie Hart, took the following photos.

, originally uploaded by frankie hart.

, originally uploaded by frankie hart.

, originally uploaded by frankie hart.

, originally uploaded by frankie hart.

, originally uploaded by frankie hart.

Originally uploaded by frankie hart

, originally uploaded by frankie hart.

, originally uploaded by frankie hart.

Your humble servant,
Nityananda Chandra Das

Here is a video that an onlooker caught on camera last year.

Valentine's Day - the day I became a monk

In 1999 on Valentine's Day I decided to join the temple as a full time brahmacari, a full time monk. So actually Valentine's day is one the most important day of my life.

This years Valentine's Day was also a great blessing. Our temple was blessed with association of His Holiness Indradyumna Swami as well as his famous disciple Sri Prahlad Prabhu. They were both guests of honor at our TKG Academy fundraiser. This event was wonderful. It first began with an amazing play by the youth of the gurukula. This play, His Holiness Bhaktimarga Swami is called "The Witness", it is the story of Lord Sakshi Gopal who is portrayed very nicely by Sakshi Gopal Das

This was followed by a great mrdanga presentation by Virabhadra, Sri Rupa, Haridas, and Kapil. This is the first time that had ever even done such a presentation.

Then His Holiness Indradyumna Swami spoke for about 15 minutes about the significance of gurukula, Krishna Conscious schooling which was then followed by amazing feast featuring foods from six different international festivals, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanuka, Diwali, Ramadan, and Chinese New Year.

This dinner was made more delightful by the wonderful kirtan led by Sri Prahlad Prabhu which is found on the on the top of the blog. Enjoy! Anandam buddhi vardanam!
Hare Krishna
Your humble servant,
Nityananda Chandra Das
ps. If anyone would like to see more videos or get DVD it can found here http://Rupa.com also to learn more about His Holiness Indradyumna Swami and his transcentental adventures please see http://www.traveling-preacher.com

ps.s see Benloka's new Valentine's video about "What is Love" an interview with His Holiness Jayadvaita Swami

Commercial about Chanting Hare Krishna

Coming Full Circle at Arlington Yoga Center

In 1969, when Marinda Hollar first moved to Dallas from small-town west Texas, she remembers seeing a Hare Krishna on the street, which made her happy and realize she had moved into a "real city." Little did she know then that almost 40 years later, she would own a yoga center and host a Hare Krishna kirtan there.

In the same vein, I also did not realize that when I first came to the Arlington Yoga Center in early 2000, I would be organizing the aforementioned kirtan at the center 8 years later.

When I walked in, I was looking for some relief. My mother had recently passed away from cancer, and it had been a stressful year taking care of her before she left her body. Treating my physical body by doing yoga and attending dance classes was just what I needed. Being a massage therapist always looking for a good barter, I convinced Marinda, the owner and main teacher, to exchange massage for classes. It was a situation that benefitted both of us, and we became good friends. I learned a lot from her, and eventually we realized that I had something I could teach her as well.

On the spiritual side, I was committed to no particular path at that time. Though I had been involved with Krishna Consciousness off and on to varying degrees for 15 years, it held no distinct attraction to me any more than any of the other spiritual paths I had been exploring. I didn't present myself or think of myself as being a devotee of Krishna. But of course, once you have tried Krishna, nothing else really satisfies, which I was about to learn.

After a few months, I became a part of the community that Marinda worked very hard at cultivating. In the spring, I learned about a national Yoga conference that Marinda was attending. She had received some promotional materials and posted them in the center. The theme of the conference was "Bhakti," and who was on the poster, none other than Lord Jagannatha Himself smiling away! I remember smiling back at Him, recognizing such a sweet and familiar face.

When Marinda returned, she was very fired up to share what she had learned. She had attended a workshop on "Sanskrit chanting," and told me how much she enjoyed it. Unfortunately she could hardly remember how to pronounce them, and handed me a paper with several chants on it. I told her I was familiar with Sanskrit, as I used to hang with the Hare Krishnas. I said I could help her out with pronounciation, and would try to find some recordings of the chants so she could learn them.

I can barely remember now what most of the chants were, except for "Sri Isopanishad." However, that was good enough to make me pull out my recording of "Radha Krishna Temple," which I hadn't listened to in years. It felt good to hear it after such a long time. Krishna was already starting to call me back to Him.

I brought the recording to the yoga center and went through Sri Isopanishad with Marinda and a few others. Marinda was always open to new classes, and always wanted to promote what she called "true yoga." The idea came to her that I "teach" a class in Sanskrit chanting. Eventually, I taught Sri Isopanishad to them, along with the Govindam prayers and part of the Guruvastakam. The class only lasted a few weeks, but more importantly, it started me seeking out recordings of chants, kirtans and bhajans. I wasn't particular about who was singing them, or to whom they were singing to, but it was all I listened to for a long time, and I know it purified me.

Time marches on, and things have to change. Eventually, I ended up leaving Arlington Yoga Center to do other things, but being there had changed me. Marinda's openness to exploring chanting at her center had re-kindled something inside me. Even though it took some time to come to fruition, I can now see a direct connection between seeing Lord Jagannatha's face on the yoga poster and my eventual open-hearted return to the Dallas Temple and to Sri Sri Radha Kalachandji in 2002.

It is now 2008, and things have changed even more. I am now an initiated devotee, and when possible, I like to arrange preaching programs. Through a so-called "chance" meeting with one of her students at the temple, I reconnected with Marinda in 2007. The Arlington Yoga Center is still going, and earlier this year, she brought a group of her students to the Sunday Feast. I brought up the possibility of bringing our Kalachandji's youth bhajan group to her center for a kirtan and she liked the idea.

So, a few weeks ago, that's what we did. Marinda's teacher, Guruji, was visting and holding yoga workshops, so we came to close the Saturday session. About 30 of her students stayed for the kirtan program, which in total lasted about an hour and a half.

Halfway through the first bhajan, led by Haridas, the devotees and most of the female yoga students, including Marinda, stood up and danced. Afterwards, Gopi Gita led another bhajan in which everyone was asked to chant one Hare Krishna mantra. Not one student refused to chant! It was very enthusing to see such participation from the students. I credit Marinda for that, as she keeps the feeling at her center very open-minded. She allows people to feel safe about exploring and expressing spiritual beliefs, even if they aren't totally the same as her own. I felt it when I first met her in 2000, and here again, in 2008, I felt it once more. Things had come full circle.

So, I want to thank her, as it was having that freedom of expression which was such an integral stepping stone on my path that eventually allowed me to come back to Krishna.

Below is video highlights from the program:

The Twelve Month Sandwich

In effort to compete with Sabjimata Mata and Kurma Prabhu's delicious prasadam blogs I hearby submit our twelve month sandwich. There are five main cooks who are always involved. The first one is Gaurachandra and on His right side stands Nitaichand and His left side stands Gadadhara. Nearby cooking is Advaita and Srinivas is holding the spatula. Sweet Mrdanga sauce is mixed in with spicy kartals accompanied with side orders of conch and bells. All the demigods headed by Lord Brahma line up to get an opportunity to relish this sandwich. In fact the flavor of this sandwich conquers the flavor of millions upon millions of curd sabjis. Lord Shiva, Sukadeva Goswami, and Narada Muni are all there and are choked in ecstacy to get but just a taste.

This sandwich is what we have had the pleasure to honor for the past twelve months. The ISKCON sandwich. During Srila Prabhupada's time he established a program of spiritual purification by which one can make steady progress in Krishna Consciousness. It was nicknamed the ISKCON sandwich, a Krishna Conscious Program of bhajan, kirtan, artik and class every morning and every evening. Many devotees eager to rapidly expand Krishna Consciousness asked Srila Prabhupada if it were ok to miss the evening program in the event of late evening book distribution and other such outreach functions. However when such late activities were decreased also the habit of returning back to regular programs in the evening waned. Instead of live chanting during the Gaura Artik more often it would be found that there was simply a tape playing. This one slice sandwich was not enough to fill up the spiritual staved soul therefore the devotees decided to return to the healthy diet of the double slice, Mangal mustard, Gaura Artik greens and a class ever few days for proper nutrition.

We have seen many health benefits to this diet given by Srila Prabhupada. Even our restaurant customers are finding new energy in their spiritual attraction. Before, in the evening, if they ventured into the temple they were greeted only by an electronic kirtan, hardly enough to encourage one to start singing with full lungs. But now we are serving the real organic kirtan, fresh from the hearts of the devotees. And as they say local is more healthy, these local lungs are inspiring to hear for all who enter. So whether you are at home, at the gym, watching TV, or out on book distribution make sure to get some daily doses of the ISKCON sandwich. Thank you
Hare Krishna
Your humble servant,
Nityananda Chandra Das

* for an actual translation of the Gaura Artik song click here.

Syamakrishna (2-1/2 yrs) plays for a bhajan RamaKrishna

Syamakrishna (2-1/2 yrs) plays for a bhajan RamaKrishna

Saint Patrick's Day Parade 100,000 People

100,000 cheer on the Hare Krishna devotees as we Parade down Greenville Ave. Our 3 year participation in Dallas’ annual St. Patrick’s day parade was fantastic. The amount of devotees participating had multiplied each year. This year by the grace of the Lord and many of his dear devotees, such as Chaitanya Chandra Prabhu every one was graced with a beautiful float of Lord Jagannatha.



All the youth headed by GopiKrishna’s crew baked up together about 4000 cookies to be distributed along with Gaura Purnima Flyers.
She also purchased 7000 Krishna.com St. Patrick’s Day magnets for distribution.

Here we see Gopal Prabhu with Mathuranatha carrying one the buckets of prasadam candy to be packaged and passed out.
As you can see Mathuranatha Prabhu is a real “Texas Krishna”


Meanwhile Dharma Prabhu fuels up for afternoon's event,

Dharma Prabhu every year organizes the devotees participation in this annual city parade.
Bhaktine Angela, Radha Kunda, and GopiKrishna along with many other ladies prepare their baskets of prasadam to be passed out.

and Sakshi Gopal warms up on his mridanga
Our party consists of 2 cars, our brand new rental truck which was decorated with an elephant by Bhaktine Heather Simpson.


which is to pull Caitanya Candra cart Followed by another truck and trailer, Ragava Caitanya Prabhu's, full of prasadam candy, Krishna.com magnets, and Gaura Purnima flyers.

But as per the theme of the morning class, Jagannatha is in control and if he likes, he sometimes makes it so that the cart will not budge.

Our new rental truck that has practically no milage on it would not start. This major problem for the parade was already on the move and we may not be even able to participate. Help comes as some other paraders drive over to give us a jump start, but no success. Caitanya Chandra Prabhu immediately organizes the removal of the truck and brings his van, attaches the float, and all are ready to go. Everyone saw that this turn of events only took place at the arrival of our two sanyassi guests, His Holiness Gunagrahi Das Goswami, and His Holiness Giriraja Swami.

Krishna would not allow the float to move without their arrival. We then quickly zoomed across the Sam's parking lot in our float. The crowd is great and early into the parade our elephante headed truck returns on the scene after getting TWO battery changes. We a very impressive party with 3 cars. Rupa with all the gurukulis of Dallas along with the gurukulis of Houston share a wonderful kirtan sung by His Grace Urjasvat and Edhani Prabhus, Then new and upcoming famous bhajaneer from Houston, Anish, lead some amazing bhajans (who by the way just came out a new CD with all the Dallas and Houston Kulis) followed by the standard ecstasy given His Holiness Gunagrahi Das Goswami.




As seen the video, the crowd chanted Hare Krishna along with the devotees, many whom were already familiar with the timeless mantra and while other who chanted "Jesus Christ" were enthusiastically surprised to be accompanied in their chanting with the devotees chanting "Jesus Christ" as well. His Holiness Giriraja Swami walked and danced most the way. At the end of the parade the kirtan did not stop for quite some time. Devotees were immersed in the ecstasy holy name and further enthused by the thousands of flyers, magnets, and cookies that were distributed

North American ISKCON Youth Conference???

400 Sari and Kurta clad youth all chanting the holy names of Krishna. With arms upraised with surcharged shouts of 'Haribol!!!', these youth beaconed the decent of Hari Nam Prabhu. Who are they? Reincarnations of great yogis, mystics, and bhaktas? Who is to say? But one thing we do know is that for these youth it was their first time doing this at least in this lifetime.

Professor Hill principle of Stonewall Elementary School had called me a week ago. He asked me if I could arrange a Vedic music performance and dance performance at his elementary school on Friday. He also asked if this could be done for free. I replied that I would be glad to help him out. I also mentioned that I may have some difficulty finding some Bharatnatyam dancers for most the ones I know charge some money. He mentioned that his concern was that they had also a good number of deaf students, so my reply was that we would make it interactive and fun.
This call and his second call took place while I was in the hospital tending to my wife who just gave birth and was recovering. Little overwhelmed with lack of sleep and lots of duties I did not notice that his email never made it to my inbox. I had several other letters from teachers, but none from his school. This was a problem for I could not remember his name, the name of his school, or where it was even. Krishna, being the source of memory(BG15.15 & 7.8) had mercy and therefore, not luckily but mercifully, my memory did not totally fail me. He received my contact info from a devotee who teaches sitar lessons. The devotee was also requested by him to perform and in response the devotee told him that he does not do live performances, he simply teaches. That devotee kindly gave the professor my number and in my time of trouble he also kindly looked through his caller ID to find the number that the principle called from.

The next challenge was our kirtan party was only two devotees, Bhakta Richie

and myself, due to this last minute arrangement. In a great search we became Harinam Hunters, strapped on our ecstasy detecting goggles, looking for the prospective devotees . Finally when we had given up and began driving towards the freeway we passed by Megharupa's house
who is usually accompanied by Kumari Devi dasi. Kartals in hand they both

enthusiastically agreed and hoped in car on the way Stonewall Elementary.
When we arrived we were pleasurably surprised to see all the kids wonderful dressed in Indian attire. Replete with elegant saris, punjabi suits, kurtas, and yogi pants.


All the teachers we as well dressed in eternal fashion.


We started with a bhajan with harmonium, introducing ourselves and the instruments. We asked the students to guess how long mrdangas have been in use, some said 60 years, some said 200, one soul said 1000. They were surprised when we told them that the mrdanga has been in use for at least 5000 years. We then asked them how many name are there for God in the Indian culture and again with great surprise we told them that the number was no less than 10,000. We then moved on to standing kirtan. We then asked if there were any brave souls in crowd who would like to participate in the dancing. About 40 kids ran up on stage to become the sankirtan party, including the deaf kids, which left a remaining 160 watching in the crowd.


We started with a dance lesson in Swami step and then call and response chanting. This can be seen in the video below. We then moved on to the Swami jump which they thoroughly enjoyed. After two sessions which make up a total of 400 participants we were then given a tour of their school. We were amazed with the decorations. They have been studying India for a week and had lined not just the hallways but the entire school with decorations of India heritage and culture.

We thoroughly enjoyed this event hope that you also enjoy this post as well.
Your humble servants,
Nityananda Chandra Das
Bhakta Richie
Megharupa DD
Kumari DD

also please see the 2 min video