We are invited by Deva Premal and Miten to welcome the New Year by chanting the Gayatri Mantra live with them, on Facebook and Instagram, from 1-7 January 2019.
Our journey with the Gayatri Mantra began in 1997 at Osho Leela in England where we heard for the first time some musicians chanting it. Deva recognised it as the chant she’d sung at bedtime as a child. It was the mantra her father chanted at her birth and throughout the pregnancy. She had no idea at the time just how powerful the Gayatri is. Neither did I!
We took the mantra and made it our own – it wasn’t difficult, although the time signature was not usual 4/4 – it was still easy to chant and of course, for Deva, a kind of reconnection with her childhood and her parents. She took sannyas at age 11 – which was when she dropped chanting mantras and became focused on Osho and her personal growth, learning his meditation techniques, which she loved from the first.
When we met in the ashram, she was age 20, studying bodywork techniques and had plans to become a therapist. She was studying with Prashantam, Abhiyana, Sudip Bharti, Satya Puja, Bhadrena and Nirvesha: reflexology, shiatsu, cranio-sacral therapy and massage.
Since those days we have chanted the Gayatri practically every day of our lives. We have flown around the planet year after year after year, on the wings of the Gayatri Mantra, to faraway places (even Siberia!) – and whenever we begin the opening invocation, a sense of deep wonder fills the room and voices and spirits are raised.
Sometimes friends – usually sannyasins – ask us why we chant mantras when Osho was so ‘against’ them. This is a misconception, of course. Osho was not against mantras per se – he just didn’t want us to fall asleep as we chant. There is a world of difference between sleepiness and relaxed awareness.
I always felt Osho wanted us to be ourselves, and to reflect this quality in the music we played (hence the reggae, the jazz, the African, and Sufi influences…). The potential to fall ‘asleep’ is there with chanting, of course, as with every other undertaking in life, but due to our ‘training’ at the feet of the Master, we were given an apprenticeship that inspires us to play music that is never sleepy, always vibrant.
The Gayatri is as deep and as dark as blood… when we chant it, it opens the door to that depth of sitting silently with the Master. No other music I have heard – or played – does this. We have the Oshoba for the wild dance, Music Group for the heart space and Satsang for the meditation music, but I never found a way to express that sheer depth of silence that emanated from the Master until I began playing and chanting the Gayatri.
For us – and for the thousands of people we have shared it with – it is an experience that is impossible to articulate. It has to be experienced, and only something as ancient and as powerful and as potent as the Gayatri can do this.
With this in mind, we decided to invite our global chant sangha to join us in welcoming the New Year by chanting the Gayatri live, on Facebook and Instagram from January 1st til January 7th.
Our intention is to create a mala of positivity around the world and raise the vibration of peace, love and understanding. Please join us in this unique moment of global meditation. We will be sharing the Master’s grace through the blessed Gayatri with kindred spirits around the world. Bring your mala!
Miten
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Related articles on Osho News
Gayatri Mantra – Deva Premal spreads the Gayatri Mantra around the world….
Miten on Deva Premal, Manose and Osho – Miten is interviewed in Corfu where he held a concert and the singing workshop together with Deva Premal and Manose
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