Give Peace a Chant! Kirtan, Vancouver, BC

Give Peace a Chant! Kirtan officially began in the spirit of service as a weekly kirtan gathering in 2001 in Vancouver, BC. Founded by Sandra Leigh, Artistic Director and Kirtaniya, this weekly kirtan was inspired by The World Peace Flame, the power of love and yoga, and the events of Sept. 11, 2001. Give Peace a Chant! Kirtan continues to offer yogic chanting to an inter-spiritual community that uses sound and song to better the busy world.

A Worldwide Circle of Prayer

Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF), founded by Paramahansa Yogananda, holds a Worldwide Prayer Circle every week with hundreds of thousands of members around the world, open to all.

Each week, people gather at SRF temples and centers, but many also gather in their homes for private prayer services for healing. The Prayer Circle members gather to pray for healing: healing of the body, mind, soul ignorance, and of course world healing for world peace and harmony. Yogananda often stated that the highest service one could do was to pray for humanity.

Paramahansa Yogananda taught that true prayer is scientific — being based on precise laws that govern all creation — and is a daily necessity for harmonious living. He explained that our physical bodies and the material world we live in are condensations of invisible patterns of energy. That energy in turn is an expression of finer blueprints of thought — the subtlest vibration — which governs all manifestations of energy and matter.

Peace on Earth, Peace Within
Yoga2You Introduces News Category Dedicated to Peace

"Now think of this: everyday, every week, regularly and all around the world there are people, individuals and groups, praying, chanting, meditating in one form or another for Peace."

There is a saying in yoga that for there to be Peace on Earth, peace must exist within our own hearts. Which makes sense, really, when you think about this idea in physical terms. I know when I have a toothache, for example, I usually stay to myself because it's really hard when a tooth is throbbing to be pleasant with anyone. Pain makes most of us cranky. Likewise, it can be difficult (if not impossible) to be peaceful when we are in any kind of pain~whether physical, emotional, spiritual, or these days, for many of us, financial.

Along with physical pain, we generally feel out of sorts, abnormal. "Our nerves are on end" can be said of such instances, but the same can be said of other kinds of stressful times and other types of pain as well, right? I can recall having to deal with a flat on the Dan Ryan Expressway in the harsh Chicago winter winds. Nerves definetly on end. Or times when loved ones were injured, when loved ones died, of other losses, injuries, estrangements, miscommunications. Pain comes in many shapes, sizes, places and persuasions.

Nails scratching on a blackboard, a screeching cat, a disharmonious chord come to mind as sounds that would represent such discordant experiences. But what does sound have to do with Yoga or Peace? Well, in a word: Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm