Engaging your entire physical body in the chanting process through ecstatic dancing makes lasting positive mental impressions.

When you leave your ego aside and chant in a loving state of mind you can experience miracles in a kirtan, as you become connected along with everyone else in the room as a channel for the transmission and reception of spiritual energy. You tangibly feel your heart jumping with spiritual ecstasy.

The mantras you sing in kirtan are spiritual sound vibrations that are repeated over and over again as a meditation. The Sanskrit word mantra consists of two syllables: man ‘mind’ and tra ‘to free’.

Mantra meditation frees your mind of negative emotions such as fear, anxiety, hatred, envy and greed, which affect your health, relationships, and physical endeavours; and awaken awareness of your spiritual nature as an eternal being of peace, love, and bliss.

Not all mantras have the same potency. Many mantras are composed of the names of various deities, like Surya, the Lord of the sun, Chandra, the Lord of the moon and Durga, the personified material nature. Most often, chanters glorify these names for the fulfillment of various desires.

Other names are chanted for the attainment of release from material suffering – or for liberation from the cycle of repeated birth and death. Such mantras include the syllables Om, Brahman (all pervasive sprit), and Ishvara (supreme controller).

Caitanya emphasised chanting of the maha-mantra or the great mantra to free the mind, which is composed exclusively of names of the Supreme Absolute Truth. Caitanya explained that the maha-mantra, in its purest form, is the inner prayer of your soul crying out for its source – for loving union with God. It’s a prayer that basically means: ‘Oh, all attractive Lord, Oh, reservoir of all happiness, please let me love You; let me serve You’.

Caitanya taught that kirtan should be performed not for the fulfillment of any material aim or liberation, for these are insignificant side- benefits of the real benediction that the holy name can bestow; that is, pure love, or prema. Such kirtan reconnects you with the spiritual dimension, and is therefore the perfection of yoga – since yoga is ultimately about ‘re-linking’ with the Supreme.