Awaken Your Heart With Sacred Song & Kirtan

Kirtan is a bhakti yoga practice of devotional singing, which Jai Uttal describes as the ancient yoga of chanting or singing to God. In Awaken Your Heart With Sacred Song & Kirtan, a free online video event from The Shift Network, the Grammy-nominated sacred music composer and kirtan artist invites you to experience it from the inside, with the voice you already have. Some feelings, as the event puts it, are too deep for words, yet they still ask to be expressed.

Many people love music yet fall silent at the thought of singing, as another voice takes over: I can't sing, I don't sound good, I'll embarrass myself. Jai knows that voice firsthand. As a young musician studying Indian classical music, he was intensely shy and critical of his own voice. Singing gradually gave him glimpses of a rich inner world, and kirtan became central to his own healing and spiritual life. He teaches that the voice arises from a deep well of emotion that holds joy and love alongside grief, longing, tenderness and prayer, and that sacred singing gives sound to what has stayed unspoken.

The event is experiential. Jai begins by drawing you out of the thinking mind and into the body through the shared vibration of Aum, the sacred syllable also written Om. Then comes an easy call-and-response on the open sound “Ah”, in which you simply answer what is sung to you, followed by a simple mantra melody. Rather than worrying about how you sound, you are encouraged to listen inwardly and notice what emerges. The practice closes in silence, a time to rest and feel what has changed. Jai suggests you may find a little more spaciousness where there was tension, expression where something felt locked inside, and connection where there was self-consciousness.

No musical training is needed, and neither is confidence in your voice. In kirtan, as Jai teaches it, the goal is not to sing beautifully but to use your voice as an expression of devotion. The event also explores how longing, sadness and tenderness can become fuel for prayer and sacred expression, a way to move with what you feel instead of suppressing it, and how mantra, melody and silence can quiet mental chatter.

Jai Uttal is a kirtan artist, multi-instrumentalist and ecstatic vocalist, and a pioneer in the world music community, influenced by Indian music as well as American rock and jazz. He grew up in New York City in a home filled with music, began classical piano at seven and later took up old-time banjo, harmonica and guitar. At seventeen he heard Indian music for the first time; two years later he moved to California to study with the famous sarod player Ali Akbar Khan. He went on to make regular pilgrimages to India, living among the wandering street musicians of Bengal and singing with the kirtan wallahs in the temple of his guru, Neem Karoli Baba.

For close to fifty years Jai has led, taught and performed world music and kirtan around the world, creating a safe environment for people to open their hearts and voices. He has released twenty acclaimed recordings and become a leading influence in the Western bhakti movement. Ram Dass, author of Be Here Now, described him as an ambassador between the two cultures, at home in East and West alike. Jai himself considers bhakti yoga the core of his musical and spiritual life.

The live broadcast is on Tuesday, November 3, 2026 at 5:30pm Pacific (8:30pm Eastern), with a final replay on Saturday, November 7 at 12:00pm Pacific (3:00pm Eastern). Registration is free on The Shift Network's page, and everyone who registers receives the recording. During the event you will also be among the first to hear about Jai's seven-week live video course, which goes further into freeing your natural voice through sacred sound, mantra, deep listening and devotional singing.