When I seriously considered meditating roughly five years ago, I really had no idea how to begin a practice.  I had heard about the importance of meditation but for me it just didn’t seem practical.  I tried meditating when I was 25 years old and my idea at the time was that meditation meant going into a dark space and quieting the mind.  I literally got into a dark closet, sat down, and tried to quiet my mind—it didn’t work.  My mind only became more active and disturbed and it wasn’t long before I got up from the closet and said, “Meditation is good for most people, but my mind just isn’t wired that way.”  I’m sure many of you may have uttered this similar sentiment.  In a way, I was right.  It is next to impossible to ever quiet the mind.  In a more important way, I was wrong.  Almost 25 years later, enter Kirtan Kriya.

Kirtan Kriya is a meditation that can be done almost anywhere and it’s relatively simple to physically practice.  Emotionally and mentally, it can be more challenging because we are essentially facing our neurosis for healing, and this can always be a difficult proposition.  When I began this practice five years ago, I found that my mind would resist it, trying its best to convince me that the whole exercise in mindfulness was pointless.  I stuck with it nonetheless and the benefits have become ever so apparent in the ensuing years.  While I watched other struggle during these quickly changing and challenging times, Kirtan Kriya gives me the mental fortitude to move forward with trust, love and strength in my heart.

Let’s talk a little bit about Kirtan Kriya.  Kirtan Kriya (which is pronounced KEER-tun KREE-a) is a type of meditation from the Kundalini Yoga tradition, which has been practiced for thousands of years. This meditation is sometimes called a singing exercise, as it involves singing the sounds, Saa Taa Naa Maa along with repetitive finger movements, or mudras to accompany the sounds. This can be practiced for 6 minutes, 12 minutes, 31 minutes, 62 minutes or the Holy Grail, 2.5 hours (Adi and I have done this on three occasions together).  Although 2.5 hours is said to allow the practitioner to “know the unknowable and see the unseeable”, practicing Kirtan Kriya for just 12 minutes a day has been shown to reduce stress levels and increase activity in areas of the brain that are central to memory.

In fact, the Alzheimer’s Research and Prevention Foundation recommends this to Alzheimer’s patients to improve their mental capabilities and for families of patients to prevent future Alzheimer’s diagnosis.  Alzheimer’s Research and Prevention Foundation has seen vast improvements in patients which has led the facility to highly recommend starting a practice for everyone.  This is how powerful this meditation is.  Instead of being in a state a fear around Alzheimer’s, now we are seeing how using these tools gives us the ability to keep the disease at bay.

Many of you may ask:  What does Kirtan Kriya mean?  In Sanskrit, kirtan is a type of music or song, while kriya means action.  It is an action that leads to a complete manifestation like a seed leads to a bloom, a thought into actuality, a desire to commitment.  In Kundalini Yoga, a kriya is a series of postures, breath, and sound that work toward a specific outcome.

In the Eastern tradition, kriyas are used to help bring the body, mind, and emotions into balance to enable healing.  Therefore, when we combine the sounds Saa Taa Naa Maa along with the mudra (repetitive finger movements), we create a recipe that initiates a sequence of physical and mental changes that affect the body, mind, and spirit simultaneously. There are kriyas that support the liver, balance the glandular system, make you radiant, stimulate the pituitary, increase the flexibility of the spine, and many more.

Kirtan Kriya brings a total mental balance to the individual psyche. Vibrating on each fingertip alternates the electrical polarities. The index and ring fingers are electrically negative, relative to the other fingers. This causes a balance in the electromagnetic projection of the aura. Practicing this meditation is both a science and an art. It is an art in the way it molds consciousness and in the refinement of sensation and insight it produces. It is a science in the tested certainty of the results each technique produces thus the Alzheimer’s Research and Prevention Foundation’s recommendation to begin a practice.

For me, it goes even deeper than all of this.  The essence of the mantra has transformed the way I view life.  Where for much of my life, I believed that we live one life and then die; now I have come to understand how truly timeless we are all.  I realize that we are Infinite Spirit and this kriya brought me to this threshold of understanding.

Saa Taa Naa Maa is a bij or seed mantra of Sat Nam.  Sat Nam means “my true essence”.  When we say “Sat Nam” we are calling for the Truth of our Soul to arise and to move us out of egoic thinking.  Each of us has traveled on this journey in the hopes of connecting to our Soul’s purpose.  By chanting or saying “Sat Nam” we are asking that our Soul’s truth to be revealed.  When we look at the “seeds” of the mantra this takes us even deeper into that truth.

Saa means “birth”.  We are born on to this plane to experience consciousness.  We are simply a point of perception traveling through this Holographic Universe and experiencing the effects of Karma on our Soul.

Taa means “life”.  Each of our thoughts, actions and desires activate a reciprocal response; actions performed in love return love, actions performed in fear and separation return fear and separation.  There is no judgement of either, it is simply cause and effect.

Naa means “death”.  At the time of our passing, we move out of the physical space and into our “True Essence” which is timeless and interdimensional.  We are able to witness the decisions and choices that we made in life and get to experience how our actions affected those around us.  Again, there is no judgement, it is only the opportunity to get to see how our actions created the circumstances of our life.

Maa means “rebirth”.  We are reborn to our spiritual essence and truth.  We remember once again that we are “One With God” and always have been.  When the shackles of the physical body, mind and egoic thought constructs are no longer with us we once again experience our truth.

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Saa means “birth”.  We start once again to experience our choices on the Earth plane.

This is a truly wonderful meditation that can bring you so many benefits once you commit to a daily practice.  Try it for 40 days (and download our free printout coloring sheet to keep track of your days, like below), journal your experience, and see if meditation is for you; I have a suspicion it might be just the thing that can give you strength during these ever-changing times.

(Yes & Yoga and Spotify links provided below to help you learn Kirtan Kriya.)

Kirtan Kriya: Step by Step

How to Practice Kirtan Kriya:

1. Begin seated with a straight spine. Your eyes are closed while you imagine a light in the form of the letter L coming from above the head and out your Third Eye.  Begin chanting/singing the Saa Taa Naa Maa sounds (or mantra) with your normal speaking voice.  With each syllable, imagine the sound flowing in through the top of your head and out the middle of your forehead (your third eye point or brow point).
2. When you say “Saa” your pointer finger and thumb connect, “Taa” your middle finger and thumb connect, “Naa” your ring finger and thumb connect, “Maa” your pinky finger and thumb connect.
3. For two minutes, sing in your normal voice which is the voice we use when we speak with the world.
4. For the next two minutes, sing in a whisper as we would our beloved.
5. For the next four minutes, say the sound silently to yourself while speaking to the Divine.
6. Then reverse the order, whispering for two minutes, and then out loud for two minutes, for a total of twelve minutes.
7. To come out of the exercise, inhale very deeply, stretch your hands above your head, and then bring them down slowly in a sweeping motion as you exhale.

The mudras, or finger positions, are very important in this kriya (see illustration below).

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Tool Kit For Your Own Personal Practice:

Kirtan Kriya soundtrack on Spotify (click below):

Kirtan Kriya

For full explanation of Kirtan Kriya check out Season One of Yes & Yoga (Episode 4):

Watch Yes, And Yoga!

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