Yoga with chanting in Florianópolis
Mantra and voice to open the heart.
Chanting classes use your voice: repeating mantras, singing kirtan in call and response, or sounding a long Om together. Some yoga styles weave chanting into every class, others hold whole evenings of kirtan with musicians. You do not need to sing well, or at all.
No classes scheduled in the next two weeks.
What Chanting does for you
You feel your own voice vibrate in your chest and skull, and the sound of a group singing together carries you along. Repetition gives a busy mind something simple to hold. Many people leave feeling lighter, connected to the others in the space and a bit surprised at how much they sang. It is meditation for people who find sitting in silence hard.
It suits you if
- you find silent meditation hard and like having something to do
- you love singing but do not want to perform
- you want a group experience that feels warm and shared
- you are curious about mantras and want to learn the words and meanings
Read the full guide to ChantingWhat a class is like, your first time, history and the words you will hear
What a class is like
In a yoga class with chanting, expect an Om or a short mantra at the beginning and end, sometimes with a lyrics sheet. Kirtan evenings run 60 to 120 minutes: a lead singer with harmonium, guitar or drums sings a line, the group sings it back, and the tempo often builds before falling into silence. Words are mostly Sanskrit, sometimes Gurmukhi in Kundalini classes, or English. Mantra meditation is quieter, repeating a phrase softly or silently, sometimes counting on mala beads. You sit on a cushion or chair, sweat little and sing as much or as little as you like.
Your first time
- Ask for a lyrics sheet or the meaning of the mantra if none is offered.
- Sit where you feel comfortable: near the musicians is louder, further back makes quiet joining in easier.
- Bring water, since singing dries the throat.
- Let the facilitator know you are new; they will often explain how call and response works.
Good to know
- Most mantras come from Hindu, Sikh or Buddhist devotional traditions and often name deities; facilitators usually explain meanings, and you can listen without joining in.
- Kirtan can get loud and emotional, which surprises some people the first time.
Where it comes from
Mantra, a sound, word or phrase repeated as a focus for practice, goes back to the Vedas, India's oldest religious texts, composed in Sanskrit from the second millennium BCE and passed down orally with great precision. UNESCO recognized the tradition of Vedic chanting as intangible cultural heritage in 2003. Om, which appears across Hindu, Buddhist, Jain and Sikh traditions, is the most widely known mantra.
Kirtan, group devotional singing, grew out of the bhakti movements of medieval India, which favored personal devotion over ritual. In 16th century Bengal, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu made ecstatic public singing of Krishna's names central to his movement. In Sikhism, kirtan is the singing of scripture set to raga.
Chanting reached the West in the 1960s through groups such as ISKCON, whose Hare Krishna singing became a familiar sight on city streets, and Kundalini Yoga's 3HO community. From the 1990s, singers such as Krishna Das and Jai Uttal brought kirtan into yoga studios, and Deva Premal, born in Nuremberg in 1970, recorded mantra albums still played in classes worldwide. Jivamukti and Sivananda yoga build chanting into regular classes.
In Berlin, chanting shows up inside Jivamukti, Sivananda and Kundalini classes, at kirtan evenings with live musicians and in German and English mantra singing circles.
Words you will hear
- Mantra
- A sound, word or phrase repeated as a focus; from Sanskrit, roughly 'tool of the mind'.
- Om
- A single syllable chanted at the start and end of many classes, held sacred in several Indian traditions.
- Kirtan
- Call and response singing of mantras or divine names with musicians.
- Mala
- A string of 108 beads used to count mantra repetitions.
- Shanti
- Peace; often chanted three times at the end of a class.