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Dates
Saturday 11/16/2024 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Pricing
$45.00 Kirtan: The Songs of Yoga with Special Guest Jared Turner / Rudra Das
Kirtan is a musical community gathering of singing mantras in a call-and-response style. Accompanied by traditional Indian instruments, drumming, and the "cosmic orchestra" of our voices raised together, kirtan begins and ends in a quiet, meditative atmosphere while building in the middle to a joyful crescendo of singing, dancing, and celebrating community spirit.
While matras are often intended for personal use, kirtan is all about community. Singing these uplifting, heart-opening, joy-inspiring chants is a form of practicing bhakti yoga. One of the four types of yogas espoused in the Hindu scripture the Bhagavad Gita, bhakti is the process of uniting with the divine through love and devotion. This practice helps us see all aspects of existence as a direct reflection of divinity. Because music is a particularly potent vehicle for conveying one’s emotions, kirtan can evoke feelings of love for God by any name and from any tradition.
Derived from a Sanskrit root meaning to call, recite, praise, or glorify, kirtan's ultimate purpose is to facilitate the awakening and nurturing of one’s own heart and soul.
If you have a voice, you can sing the songs of yoga! It's not about making the perfect sound – it's about how you feel as you make it. Come help create this sacred space, open your heart, and surrender to the joy of universal consciousness as countless ones have done before.
Jared Turner
Jared was born in Dallas, Texas, in the summer of 1971 and grew up in a conservative Christian home. He was first introduced to devotional music as a small boy in a full-gospel church. His family were all musicians, and they recognized that music came very naturally to him from the time he was very small.
At the age of five he began playing the drums in the church services, and from then on was immersed in music singing praises to God. After many deep spiritual experiences as a young boy, Jared eventually grew to lose touch with this spiritual connection as he moved into adulthood. As the pain and loss of the mundane world took the place of the all-encompassing love he once had known in his childhood, his life fell into a hopeless spiral of depression and anguish.
In the fall of 2003, as a last hope, Jared accepted an invitation to a Pranayam (Yogic breathing exercise) class. It was during this class, through the breath, that Jared had what he would come to know later as a full kundalini release. This pivotal and profound moment instantly transformed this lost soul into a deep truth seeker, setting the stage for all that was to come. Jared began chanting and mantra (Japa Yoga) work almost immediately thereafter. In 2008, he was fortunate enough to spend nine days in an Ashram with renowned Kirtan leaders Baba Bhagavan Das and Durga Das (aka David Newman). Through them, he was immersed in the grace of Baba Neem Karoli (Maharaji), initiated into this path of Bhakti, and given the name Rudra Das.
In March of 2008, Rudra Das began leading kirtan in the DFW area, and in 2009 released his first album “A Deeper Sense of Surrender”. By 2011, he was leading kirtans nationwide, and took his first pilgrimage to India. In the summer of 2013, he completed his Vedic Astrology certification through the American Academy of Vedic Arts and Science, and completed his advanced course in 2015. Rudra Das is a member of the Association for Spiritual Integrity, and is a Master of Divinity candidate at Naropa University.
