24 Hour Kirtan with the Hare Krishnas and the Unexpected Benefits

It was an irresistible invitation. Would I like to come to a 24 hour Kirtan with the Hare Krishnas who were at ProFestNZ??

Would I?

Hell yes!

I am a practice junkie, and whilst I’m dedicated to Tantra as my ‘path’, one of the beauties of Tantra is that it encompasses ALL practices, all paths, all religions, all approaches to the Divine.

Sutra 8 of The Pratyabhijñā-hṛdayam by Kṣhemarāja, a Tantrik text from around 1000CE, states that:

The positions held by all the philosophical views are its various roles, the levels of its expression. — Sutra 8, The Recognition Sutras translation by Christopher Wallis

‘It’ refers to the Goddess, that animating force that is the manifestation of all things. She is Christianity, She is Islam, She is Judaism, She is the Hare Krishnas. She is All.

And She is why I could easily go and join the Hare Krishnas and do a 24 hour kirtan with them.

Any practice, when done with Tantrik View Teachings, becomes a Tantrik Yoga practice.

So it was that I found myself sitting cross-legged on my yoga mat and cushions, in a Barn, in Ormondville, with a sawdust and hay floor, surrounded by Hare Krishnas and those there to practice with the Hare Krishnas.

The Barn was a large building with a high roof and completely open on one side. There was an entire side with tiered seats build from hay bales, trestle tables down the opposite side for serving food and a kiwifruit vine that wended its way up the wall and over the ceiling. In the middle sat a square, three-tiered concrete fire setting. The lip of each tier was covered in coloured rice and wood was stacked neatly beside.

Instruments adorned a table, there was a PA system, and an altar with images of Krishna and Radhe.

The chanting, led by Sitapati, began promptly at 12pm, with little fanfare.

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna
Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama
Hare Hare

I focused on finding a comfortable seat where the energy could flow unimpeded along the spine, kept my eyes closed, and dropped into the chant. Time moved.

Twenty minutes, half an hour, forty minutes… and still the same chant, Hare Krishna, over and over again.

Well, it made sense — we had 24 hours of chanting to do! Doing each chant for an hour would be wise.

1pm came and went, and a change of leader.

Someone else picked up the mic and the chant… and, what? Hare Krishna again?

It dawned on me.

This was a Hare Krishna Kirtan.

We were ONLY going to chant Hare Krishna for this 24 hour kirtan.

The one chant, over and over and over again… for 24 whole hours.

Holy fuck.

I love kirtan, adore it. However different chants have different flavours, invoke different energies and different fruit. I was looking forward to the variety. Now… only one chant?

I watched these thoughts, with attachment and aversion, arising within myself as I continued to chant, letting the fire of awareness burn them all up.

This was it. Nowhere to go, nothing to do, just this. Chant, and surrender. No variety. No other chants. Just… this.

And this — this was the practice. Chant, notice what arises, burn it up.

Two hours in, and lunch arrived. First to the trestle tables, and then it was individually served up on wooden trays, in paper plates and bowls. These wooden trays were brought around to each chanter, and people continued to chant, and eat, and chant, and clear away plates, and chant, and nip off to the bathroom, and chant, and chat a little, and chant.

The rhythm of each hour began to reveal itself. At the top of the hour, a new person took over, each person bringing their particular flavour to the chant. Over the hour, the chant would usually start slow and sweet, before eventually rising and becoming fast and furious, expansive and joyous, before dipping down again into slow and sweet.

The hours came and went, and still I sat. Years of facilitating retreats and knowing how to sit in a way that is nourishing for my body — and knowing which cushions to bring — meant that my body felt good, even after 9 hours of sitting on the ground.

At 7pm, a long-time friend, Billy, took the mic and began to chant. The audience was sparse and those in the space didn’t seem particularly engaged. I pulled my mat and cushions in closer, and focused all my energy and attention on Billy, and on the chant. I wanted to support him, and felt that desire to support improve my focus and concentration.

As we chanted, I began to feel the Goddess more strongly. My body was swaying, the chant was happening, and my arms wanted to move. Yet I was shy about allowing the free flow of sahaja (spontaneous movement) and so danced between containment (Shiva consciousness) and expression (Shakti — the Goddess.)

What I found curious was the way that my desire to be of service — to Billy as he chanted — had drastically increased the amount of Shakti available.

I contemplated that as I chanted — the relationship between service and access to the Goddess, or energy, or flow.

By 9.30 pm, I was tired though, and ready to lie flat. So I left, headed back to my tent, and immediately fell asleep. Just before 8 am, I was up again, and it was straight back to the Barn for more chanting.

Another four hours… and it was done! 24 hours of chanting! And I had done about 14 hours. What a trip! (Watch some of the videos here.)

Yet I was not done at all.

I still had a six-hour drive home, and I still needed to do my daily practice.

Both of these things unfolded with ease and grace — and with extraordinary beauty. I reached Taupō as the sun was beginning to set, and the cloudscape was a painting worth beholding. The light lasted all the way to Te Aroha, and never had I seen the land and the sky look more beautiful.

The chant had shifted my perspective on reality, and it was a delight.

Later, sitting in front of my altar in my bedroom, I prepared to do the Ancestral Karma Prostration Practice — Day 291. As I sat and began to drop into the visualisation, I felt the Hare Krishna chant pulsating in my body — it was still there, and it was alive.

Of course!

When we practice, over time, a practice comes alive and begins to do us. I’ve had this experience a few times with those practices I’ve committed to for more than a year or so. Doing so many hours in one short space of time had activated this chant. And so it was with that pulsation and feeling of Krishna that I bowed into prostrations and a different mantra.

Now, five days later, I’ve noticed subtle differences in my experience of reality.

Playfulness and lightness seem more accessible. I’ve experienced effortless flow all week. Mostly though, I feel leela — the dance and play of the universe — expressing through me.

This is Krishna.

As Sadhguru says, when he speaks of Krishna(edited for brevity):

If we want to taste an essence of what it means when we say Krishna, if we want to be touched by the consciousness that we refer to as Krishna, we need Leela. Leela… is the path of the playful — we explore the most profound and the most serious aspects of life, but playfully…

To explore this path playfully, you need a heart full of love, a joyful mind, and a vibrant body. Only then there is Leela. To explore the most profound dimensions of life in a playful way, you must be willing to play with your awareness, with your imagination, with your memory, with your life, with your death. If you are willing to play with everything, only then there is Leela. Leela … means you are willing to dance with life. You are willing to dance with your enemy, you are willing to dance with the one whom you love, you are willing to dance at the moment of your death. Only then there is Leela. — Sadhguru, Exploring Krishna’s Path of the Playful

Leela (or Līlā) is divine play or the recognition that all of creation is the dance of Shiva/Shakti — of consciousness and energy.

In the Tantrik traditions, Consciousness is personified by Shiva as Pure Awareness, whereas Krishna personifies Consciousness as Bliss/Love/Bhakti.

I didn’t know this intellectually until I did some research, however I’d already experienced it from chanting Krishna’s name for 24 hours.

I’d experienced an activation of bliss, love and bhakti. The chant had activated the playfulness within me, of the dance between Krishna and the world.

The fruits of this were revealed today when I received a call from Belinda in the physio department at Thames Hospital. When she introduced herself, I burst out laughing.

“I know…” she replied.

See, over a year ago, my son had issues with his knee and so I took him to the doctor, and he was referred to the physio. This was the referral finally coming to fruition — one year later!

Laughter was my spontaneous, playful response.

Rather than being angry or pissed off that it had taken a year to get an appointment, I was delighted to finally hear from her. I was delighted that my son would finally get support for his knee. I knew that the delays weren’t her fault, and if it was urgent I would have paid for private sessions.

“Thank for you laughing,” she said, relief in her voice. I was grateful that playfulness is so alive within me because it meant I could be light and playful with Belinda. In the past, a situation like that would have generated irritation or righteousness, or a power trip within me. I might not have acted it out, but it would have arisen within. This time, it wasn’t even there.

This is how I know a practice is working — when the fruits show up in day-to-day life.

If I ever get the opportunity to engage in practice like that again… well, I might have to explore doing the entire 24 hours of chanting with no sleep and see what results from that!