On the morning of May 2, 2020, a small virtual room opened on YouTube and Facebook with a question the host asked before anything else: where are you tuning in from, and what are you doing right now? Viewers were invited to type their answers into the comments, to sing along, to play an instrument, or simply to sit with the sound. That opening gesture sets the tone for the whole forty-four-minute session, which was part of a weekly Saturday kirtan series run by the Kirtan London channel and billed in its title as a live session with Ananda Monet. What follows is a guide to what happens in that stream, why its structure matters, and how its ideas about shelter, gratitude and the soul can be followed by anyone who never watched it.
Kirtan is congregational chanting: a leader sings a line or a name, the room answers, and the repetition gradually carries everyone into a shared state of attention. It is less a performance than a practice, and the video makes that plain from its first minutes. The host opens by naming the people who are present, asks them to settle, and then asks them to close their eyes and "tune into the energy of gratitude." Before a single mantra is sung, the session has already become a room, even though the room is spread across dozens of screens in lockdown.
That is the first thing worth understanding about this kind of stream. The sound is only half the event. The other half is the call to participate: the request to type where you are, to join in, to lift your voice. In a physical kirtan hall, the chanting arrives through bodies in a room. Here, the same principle is carried by text and by the instruction to sing along at home, which turns passive listeners into co-performers.
Whyopenwithgratitudeandadedication?
Before the first chant, the host says that "nothing happens without gratitude," and names the teachers who gave the practice of kirtan and mantra meditation to the community. The session is then dedicated to one particular teacher, the teacher of the host's daughter, and the host asks listeners to pray for that teacher's health. The dedication is not a formality. It sets the intention for the hour: the chanting is offered outward, toward a specific person in difficulty, rather than inward toward self-improvement.
The host also acknowledges that "everybody holds a need right now," referring to the difficult circumstances of spring 2020. That honesty about the moment matters. Kirtan streams in that period were not simply a way to pass time; many were built around collective prayer in the face of illness and uncertainty. The session's structure, moving from gratitude to a dedication to prayer, reflects that purpose.
Whatistheshelterchantactuallyaskingfor?
The session moves into its central chanting. The video description lists the day's practice as "Krishna He," the Maha Mantra, and Narasimha prayers, and the stream bears this out with a sustained run of Krishna and Rama repetitions, sung in call and response. Around the middle of the session, the host introduces a mantra as a call for shelter and protection, and the chant lines that come through the audio are plain in their request: "please give me your shelter, please protect me."
This is where a reader unfamiliar with the tradition should slow down. In devotional kirtan, a name is not decoration. Each repetition is a way of calling the name aloud and placing oneself in relation to it. A request for shelter is therefore not only a wish for safety in the physical sense; it is a plea addressed to a higher reality, asking to be held by it. The repeated structure lets that plea be sung again and again until the words stop feeling like a request and start feeling like a posture.
The host encourages participants to join "all together," and the audio shifts between silence, applause from the room, and sustained music. The applause and the gaps are part of the form. They mark places where the chant breathes, and they let the audience feel that they are one voice among many rather than the only one singing.
Whatdoesthesunhavetodowiththesoul?
The most distinctive passage in the session is a short meditation, introduced by the host as "our little meditation." It is brief, but it carries the teaching at the heart of the stream. The host says that "we all want happiness," and argues that the restless search for it, whether or not people recognize what they are doing, is an "inner hankering." Happiness, the host suggests, begins with understanding one's true self-nature and then coming to realize what that nature is.
To make the point, the host reaches for an image: "it's just like the Sun." When the sun comes out and shines, its light reveals things and allows us to see. In the same way, the host says, once we become aware of the supreme source of divine solace, we can begin to realize our own soul and our own needs. The image is simple, and that is its strength. Light does not need to be manufactured; it is already there, and what changes is our capacity to see by it.
The meditation then turns to a diagnosis. The host says the purpose of chanting is "to understand that divided relationship and to become aware of it again," after "forgotten many many years" of "looking for that happiness in everything else and of every other relationship." In other words, the problem is not a lack of happiness but a misplaced search. The soul is looking outward for something that is a relationship with a source, and the chant is a way of returning attention to that source.
"We've been looking for that happiness in everything else and of every other relationship." (the host, in the live session, May 2, 2020)
A reader does not need to share the stream's devotional framework to see what the argument is doing. It locates happiness not in acquisition or in any single relationship, but in the recognition of a deeper connection. That is a central claim of much contemplative teaching, and the video makes it through a sun, a soul, and a song rather than through an abstract lecture.
The stream closes with one more prayer, this time for protection. The host asks for protection of the material, temporary body; of the spiritual self; of the spirit soul; of the true nature; and of the spiritual dimension of life. The structure is careful. It begins with the most visible vulnerability, the body, and moves inward toward what the host regards as permanent. Protection, in this framing, is not only against illness or danger, but against forgetting one's own nature.
The session then ends on practical notes. The host thanks the audience for joining, says the team is running live streams every day on Facebook and Instagram, and promises a new schedule for the month of May with a range of offerings. Those details are worth noting because they show what this kind of channel is: a regular, ongoing practice, not a single broadcast.
Whydoesthis2020sessionstillmatter?
A recording made in the first weeks of a global lockdown carries its moment with it. But the structure it shows is durable. A teacher opens with gratitude, dedicates the practice to someone in need, chants a name in call and response, offers a short teaching, and closes with a prayer for protection. That arc is one that many kirtan gatherings follow, in person or online, and it works without any special equipment or prior knowledge.
For a reader who never watched, the session offers a clear model of how a devotional chant can be used: as a way of gathering people, of asking for help, and of returning attention to the source of one's own sense of peace. The sun image and the claim that we have been looking for happiness in the wrong places are ideas that can be tested in ordinary life, without any commitment to the particular tradition.
Wheretogofromhere
If this session has caught your interest, the most useful next step is to listen to a full kirtan stream rather than a short clip, letting the call-and-response build over several minutes. Try singing the shelter line, "please give me your shelter, please protect me," softly, and notice how the repetition changes what the words mean. Read the host's sun-and-soul meditation slowly, and ask where, in your own life, you have been looking for happiness in everything else. The session is a short lesson in both sound and attention, and it rewards being revisited, especially in a moment that calls for shelter of its own.
Kirtan is congregational call-and-response chanting in which a leader sings a name or line and the group answers, using repetition to bring everyone into shared attention. In a livestream like this 2020 Saturday session, participants are invited to sing along at home and type where they are tuning in from. The format turns viewers into co-participants rather than passive listeners.
In the session, the host introduces a mantra as a call for shelter and protection, and the sung lines ask, 'please give me your shelter, please protect me.' Within devotional practice, such a chant is a plea addressed to a higher reality, asking to be held by it. Repetition lets the request become a sustained posture rather than a single wish.
The video description lists the day's practice as 'Krishna He,' the Maha Mantra, and Narasimha prayers. The stream itself is built on repeated Krishna and Rama chanting in call and response. The video does not go into a detailed explanation of each mantra, so readers wanting that background should look to dedicated kirtan teaching sources.
The host says the sun comes out and shines, and its light lets us see. In the same way, becoming aware of the supreme source of divine solace allows us to realize our own soul and needs. The image frames happiness as something already present that we come to see, rather than something we must manufacture.
The host argues that everyone wants happiness, and that the search for it begins with understanding one's true self-nature. The session's diagnosis is that people have spent years looking for happiness in everything else and in other relationships, and that chanting helps restore awareness of the connection to a deeper source.
The host dedicates the session to the teacher of the host's daughter and asks listeners to pray for that teacher's health. The dedication also reflects the host's wider point that everyone is holding some kind of need during a difficult period, so the practice is offered outward to someone in difficulty.
Start by listening to a full kirtan session rather than a short clip, and sing along with the repeated lines softly. Notice how the repetition changes the meaning of words like 'shelter' and 'protect' as you continue. Many kirtan streams invite viewers to type where they are and join in, which is an easy way to begin.
