Spirit Voyage Blog

Sat Kartar has been teaching , recording, and performing chant and devotional kirtan for over 30 years. Her personal journey with these potent spiritual tools was initiated in 1971 when she stumbled upon Kundalini Yoga and Sikhism, and became a student of her spiritual teacher, Yogi Bhajan.

During her first trip to India, in 1974, while on tour, Sat Kartar began what would be a life long study of North Indian Classical kirtan with numerous Sikh ragis. ”My first real vocal training was with my kirtan teacher, Amarjit Kaur, who schooled me in voice practice, tabla rhythms, and Eastern raga scales and the exquisite subleties of singing Sikh hymns.” She has been recording and performing ever since, from the early days of the Khalsa String Band to her popular solo releases, Flow and Listen.

Spirit Voyage: How has music been a part of your yogic practice?

Sat Kartar: I began doing yoga because I was attempting to write songs about the spirituality of the 60s and early 70s. I thought yoga would either relax me to let the songs come, or discipline me to just write. It actually opened a whole new door of music—chanting. Chanting to Guru Ram Das, in sadhana, at Winter Solstice in 1971, was the turning point when I knew this was my path. Chanting meditations for 40 day blocks or longer have been the big milestones or breakthroughs in my journey in consciousness. Mantra music, or Shabd Kirtan, totally energizes and charges me. The greatest joy in my life is singing for and with people.

SV: What can you share about the experience of singing in front of an audience?

SK: I chant “Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo” (the Adi Mantra which teachers use to start a yoga class) before every concert because I consider singing for people a form of teaching. I sense what I can from the group, listen to my intuition, open to the flow of the energy that comes from the Adi Mantra, and attempt to share simply and clearly, from my heart. To sing this divine music is a great honor to me. I see it as a way of being of service to the time, space and the souls of the people I am in front of. Kirtan and chanting is a transparent music form, so I feel an inherent responsibility to work on my self through our practices in order to be as clear a channel and catalyst as I can be for this sound current.

SV: Sharing music is a form of service or seva. In what other ways is seva a part of your life?

SK: I enjoy working with new students, teacher trainees, and young people on this path. When I began this path, talking with people helped me integrate these practices into my “real life”. I love taking this music to new groups of people. One year after 9/11, I was asked to chant at a memorial service where firemen in our city were being honored. A friend of mine who worked in their office told me that the firemen were quietly groaning in disgust when they read the program, “Chanting?, oh pulease, no!” Later, after the ceremony, she heard them saying, “ That chanting was the best thing on the whole program!!” There is a beautiful reward in these activities that is not measurable in money, but deeply satisfying in their impact.

SV: Can you share a meditation that you have used? Do you have a personal story of using it that you can share?

SK: The prosperity meditation I have most often used, has been the Subagh Kryia version of chanting “HAR” where the hands move back and forth lightly hitting the inner and outside ridge of the hands. I use the TANTRIC HAR recording to practice this meditation, or just chant it acapella, and it has been a powerful tool in my raising funds to make my last 3 CDs, Daily Practice, Flow, and Listen. I’m still amazed at how the money, work opportunities, and support and donations from friends and people I didn’t even know, came seemingly from nowhere, in ways I would never have imagined.

SV: What mantra music are you listening to these days?

SK:

The version of “Dharti Hay” on Miracle Mantra by Guru Sangat and Gurcharan Singh. It sounds like Gregorian chanting and instantly mesmerizes me.

I love Shabds Para a Paz,by Renato Motha and Patricia Lobato—soo beautiful, simple, subtle, sophisticated, especially their version of “Guru Ram Das”.

Both Ocean and Flores by Mirabai Ceiba. Their music just melts my heart.

Fave Sadhana CDs : Cherdi Kalah Jatha (they rev me up!) and Guru Trang’s Yoga Morning.

I love music remixes, and what MC Yogi has been doing with chant artists’ tracks, on the CD Elephant Power. I think he’s got a gift in writing lyrics that talk about spiritual concepts in a way that might be accessible for people beyond the yoga community.

I like the Yogi Lounge CD tracks from the Yoga Living series a lot.

I keep Singh Kaur’s “Guru Ram Das” from the Crimson Series, playing 24/7 in my house, sometimes audible, sometimes below hearing, but always as my vibratory environment.

Ocean by Mirabai Ceiba

Flores by Mirabai Ceiba

Miracle Mantra

Shabds para a paz - Motha & Lobato