Benefits of Spiritual Music Practice

Devotional singing is a participatory spiritual practice in which one is encouraged to sing and express their inner joy. It includes bhajans and kirtan. It helps to relax the mind so that the heart can open to the divine and the space can allow you to experience the blissful reality that is your true self. You can take devotional singing lessons to learn bhajans, a popular vocal form which originated in India in its modern form around 500 years ago.

A Brief History of Devotional Singing:

Earlier, sacred verses were largely confined to temples and taught to a limited audience. This changed in the 15^th century as the Bhakti movement spread far and wide. The bhakti movement made devotional singing popular. Often Sanskrit mantras were sung into simple melodies amongst the masses.

Today, spiritual music has become popular around the world. It is sung in a variety of styles and languages. These chants are often accompanied by Indian instruments like Harmonium, Tablas and Manjiras. In recent years, western instruments have also gained popularity in devotional singing.

Importance of Bhajans

Bhajans have been noted to have various benefits for individuals and communities. Some of the reasons bhajans are considered to be a good spiritual practice are as follows:

• Improved Concentration or Mindfulness – Participating in bhajans or Kritan is an easier way to gain concentration than meditation. By singing loudly, other distracting sounds and noise can be avoided.

• Constant Remembrance of God – Bhajan benefits the singer, the listener and also Mother Nature. It awakens and helps to expand the participants’ minds in due course.

• Detachment from the Material Reality and Expansion- During devotional singing lessons, you sing with concentration. It is a spiritual discipline aimed at focusing the mind on one’s beloved deity. As a result, you have to train yourself to withdraw from consuming thoughts of stress and negativity while singing. By freeing the mind and focusing on the divine, an individual can experience the bliss of one’s true divine nature.

Benefits of Bhajans

Bhajans have been associated closely with “Bhakti” meaning “loving devotion”. It involves people and their expression of their feeling for the divine. Several benefits of Bhajans that can be noticed easily are as follows:

• Destroys Negativity- Bhajans destroys diseases, procrastination, laziness, nervousness, doubt, lamentation and pain. It destroys the seed of negativity waiting to sprout as the result of negative karma from previous lifetimes. When an individual is free from the burden of negativity, peace and joy can be experienced.

• Easy to perform: Skanda Purana states that chanting the name of God Hari just once, guarantees liberation. Chanting the name of Hari devotedly is one of the easiest and most practical methods for attaining spiritual liberation.

• Creates Divine Connection: The divine connection transpires both as an experience of divine presence and as the awakening of love.

Devotional singing lessons offer wonderful material, emotional and spiritual benefits for body, mind and spirit.