Embodiment · “Being Precedes Having”
Kirtan
Enter a shared devotional state by singing God’s praises together in call-and-response, until the separate, self-conscious ‘me’ loosens into one voice.
In 5 lines: Gather and sing God’s praises together, leader and group in call-and-response. Let the Name and rhythm repeat; clap, sway, give your whole body to the song. Keep returning attention from self-watching to the shared line. Let the separate “me” loosen as the voices merge. Sing it for the gathering, not for yourself — and carry the song onto the road.
What it is
Kirtan is the heart of Varkari practice and of Tukaram’s life: the communal singing of God’s praises, led in call-and-response, with rhythm, repetition and often clapping, cymbals (taal) and the mridang drum.
Tukaram’s abhangas are written for exactly this — “group songs sung in a rhythmic and repetitive fashion” that draw a gathering into a single, swelling current of devotion. Where private nama-smarana is the solitary thread, kirtan is the shared fabric: many voices taking up the Name together until self-consciousness thins and the room becomes one feeling.
For Tukaram kirtan is not performance but participation, and explicitly a gift to others — its merit, he taught, is that it opens the path not only for the singer but for everyone present.
The Method
Drawn from the Varkari kirtan as Tukaram shaped it:
- Gather and face the song together. Sit or stand in a group around a leader. The form is communal, not solo.
- Call and respond. The leader sings a line of the Name or an abhanga; the gathering sings it back. The repetition is the engine — let the line return many times.
- Let the body join. Clap, sway, keep the rhythm; in full kirtan, rise and dance. The point is that “all my body’s strength I’ll spend / in hymns of joyful praise.” Devotion is embodied, not only thought.
- Give full attention to the singing. When the mind wanders to self-watching (“how do I sound?”), return it to the shared line. The Name and the rhythm are the anchor.
- Let the separate self loosen. As feeling rises and voices merge, the self-conscious “me” quiets — Tukaram sings of those who “are made one with Brahma by a song.” Don’t force this; let it come of the shared current.
- Carry it onward. On the Varkari pilgrimage the abhangas are sung while walking, so the kirtan state extends into the road, not just the gathering. (Sourcing note: quoted lines are from published English translations of Tukaram’s abhangas — “The Joy of the Name,” “The Way of Love.” The steps describe the Varkari kirtan his songs were made for, not a numbered method he set down.)
Source & Lineage
Tukaram (c. 1608–1649), Marathi poet-saint of the Varkari sampradaya, composed thousands of abhangas expressly to be sung on the pilgrimage to Pandharpur and in village kirtan.
His verses, in plain Marathi, carried high devotion to ordinary people through the gathering’s song. This entry’s distinctive flavour is communal and pilgrimage-bound: where is rhythmic devotional repetition (often individual) and is a solo phrase practice, Tukaram’s kirtan is call-and-response in a moving crowd, an embodied group state. It is the social counterpart to his solitary.
Common refinements
Treating it as performance. Kirtan is participation, not a recital to be judged; self-watching is the main obstacle.
- Singing without feeling. Tukaram’s emphasis is whole-hearted, body-and-soul praise; tepid recitation misses it.
- Forcing ecstasy. The loosening of self comes of the shared current; straining for a “high” defeats it.
- Keeping it private. Its distinctive power is communal — its merit, he taught, is that it lifts everyone present.