Music Monday - Incredible India

India´s Sweetest Rose

India is the one country which has impacted me the most besides Germany, the country of my birth.
When I went there for the first time in 1992 I fell in love.
Nothing can describe its onslaught on all senses.
They say there is no middle ground, you either love it or hate it and fortunately I love it.

Every morning, in the ISKCON temples of the world, the day starts with Govinda Adi Purusham (George Harrison´s version).
The doors and /or curtains to the main altar area open, you greet the deities Radha and Krishna, dressed differently every morning, you listen to and sing along.
Whenever I stayed at the ISKCON temple, in East of Kailash, Delhi, that was exactly what I did.
Not a bad way to start the day.
When it comes to Bhakti and food, ISKCON truly shines.

Master and disciple


In my almost ten years in the ashram in Germany and during all my visits to India I never met a guru who was a bigger diva than Yogi Hari.
But I like him. What´s not to like in a guy, who, when asked what he thought about Krishnadas, the darling of the Western Kirtan circus, killed it with just three words. “Bubble gum mantras!“
He used to come to our ashram in Germany once a year and one year I did a TTC (Teacher´s Training Course) with him, of course a guy like Yogi Hari had to create his own Yoga style (Sampoorna Yoga).
Normally all the students taking courses would go to the main satsang of the ashram, but he liked to do his own satsang for his students and I was glad he did, so every day I sat in his satsang.
We would sit in silent meditation first and then he would grab his harmonium and say “Now we continue meditation with music!“ And that´s exactly what it was! Nada Yoga at its finest!
Of course that´s the kind of stuff you would expect from a direct disciple of Swami Nadabrahmananda, a Nada Yoga master who once played tablas for forty minutes in an air-tight glass container out of which some mad scientists had pumped out all the air. As true scientists, they had two more containers for control. One with a candle and one with a monkey. The candle passed out after three minutes, the monkey after fifteen minutes.

While I agree with Yogi Hari´s criticism of Krishnadas, I am a total purist when it comes to Sanskrit mantras and basically think there should be a law against Americans ruining mantras with their twang, there is one American kirtan singer I totally love, the “Wild Man of Kirtan“, Bhagavan Das.
There is a great power in his chanting, pure shakti, acquired in years of hanging out with masters like Karol Neem Baba and Anandamayi Ma, with mystics and tantrics of all sorts, of total immersion into the wonder that is India.
If you want to listen to more of Bhagavan Das, I recommend The Sunset Kirtan Concert- Volumes One, Two & Three (recorded live, NYC).
I used to have all three on my PC but the bugger flaked out years ago and I threw it into the recycling bin.
Admittedly, this is quite a long kirtan, maybe too long for the attention span of today´s kids, but that´s what real kirtan is all about, getting into another state by chanting the name of God and that takes time for most people, no shortcuts.

And finally, as an added bonus, an educational video about the Indian nod.