Ganesha Chant - Chanting for the Divine

"What an amazing fusion of celtic vocals and chants, with a superb Singaporean Chinese drummer in a Hindu temple. A true melting of cultures that reached the sublime" Kal Almkhlaafy. Kal was documenting the event on video and is a professor at a local college.

Sita's concert, produced by Studio Arul, was designed to pay homage to all the major deities in the venue of her performance - the Shiva temple in Singapore. The customary practice was to start with a Ganesha chant. And Sita faithfully followed this tradition after a brief invocatory offering to her guru. We also designed the concert to pay tribute to a great Indian poet - Tagore who had written beautiful poetry to the divine. Tagore was the first Indian to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913.

This kirtan is dedicated to Ganesha, the remover of obstacles. This first piece set the tone and vibration for the rest of the evening as Sita floated above the crowd like an angel with a powerful voice and presence. The audience slowly started to lose their inhibitions and towards the end of the evening were chanting in full swing with Sita. All inhibitions lost. Shiva's energy took over and any artificial divide between the artist, audience and the divine dissolved in a sea of chanting.

I was particularly touched to see that Sita placed the picture of her guru Neem Karoli Baba on the stage facing her in a small makeshift altar with some flowers and candle. She later shared with me that her spirit of her guru guided her throughout the concert and she always felt his presence with her. Beautiful. I think keeping a visual reminder of your guru not only inspires you but also reminds you of your sacred duty to carry forth the lineage with great respect.