The combination of music as performance and as spiritual practice can be challenging. Navigating that challenge has created many conflicts among kirtan musicians. Everyone has a different idea about the right balance between striving and allowing. As much as we don’t conceive of our kirtans as concerts, the reality is that we are playing music in front of other people, which demands a certain amount of musicianship and professionalism. At the same time, the pursuit of musical perfection creates a contraction that can restrict the flow of energy we are accessing through our meditation. .

It’s a bit of a confounding conundrum. We definitely need to improve our musicianship because the music acts as a vehicle for our meditation. When we are musically tighter as a band, the energy has a clear conduit. However, there is a point beyond which, any attempt to refine the music takes us out of the open listening that helps make kirtan magical.

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Over the years, I’ve been learning that the pursuit of musical competence needs to be balanced with a healthy dose of trust and patience. I’ve gotten much better at trust but patience is still a challenge for me. The practice for me is about learning to love however I can play on any given day and showing up with my full love for singing the mantras. .

Ultimately, the perfect note can never be played. No sooner do we lock into one way of playing that we begin to see the next step. There’s no end to how the music could grow and refine. The only way to let go into the moment and allow the bhakti current to flow is to accept the beauty of how things are right now. When we manage to accept how things are musically, so much space opens energetically for our meditation. .

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