Contemplating where I was at, and two kirtans in Berlin

Contemplating where I was at....and two kirtans in Berlin

I have a confession to make. Most of today's blog was written about two months ago. And yet it has been sitting unpublished because I was unsure whether to share it publicly or not. But this morning I had an interesting discussion with a friend who told me his story about his career in the music industry, his need to leave the industry and his own spiritual journey which has lead him back to music again. It seemed so similar to my story. So perhaps the time is right for me to share mine with you.....

Happy and uplifted after the kirtan at YogaCircle, Berlin

I have been working with mantras for several years now and so I do attribute a lot of my own development and spiritual growth to the sacred sound vibrations of  mantra. However, it has been a long, arduous and challenging journey for me to get to this point. In 2004 I was cracking from the inside. I had been in the commercial music industry from the age of nineteen and within five years it had wrung me dry of my integrity, my authenticity and my vital energy. I began to realise that I had placed my entire sense of self worth on my appearance, and on what complete strangers thought of me. I was physically and emotionally addicted to diet pills, fashion, drama and to being adored. My whole identity and hence my Ego was centred around being noticed and performing as an artist on stage. Yet, on a deeper level, nothing within me wanted to 'sing' any more, because I had forgotten what I was doing it for. So, in what should have been the prime of my music career years I intuitively made a painful but necessary break from the industry and embarked on a new path to discover who I was and to find out where the real me had disappeared to.

Kirtan at YogaCircle, Berlin

Kirtan at Jivamukti, Berlin

The next four years were really hard, spent working in jobs that made me miserable (but which kept me fed), in London City which lends no pity to an underdog. For about two of those four years I hardly sang at all, not even in the shower. I was purely focused on survival and having a “normal” life. I went to university and studied something I found inspiring and satisfying. I began once more to explore different approaches to spirituality and discovered some fascinating and sometimes painful things about myself. I began to reconnect with the activities that I had lost touch with, like meditation and yoga. I became more 'self-aware' and in so doing, I became more alive! 

In 2008 I got together with my wonderful husband, and we went to Peru and drank Ayahuasca. It was one of the most profound and awe inspiring experiences of my life. Soon afterwards I started Kundalini Yoga, I became a certified teacher, and I discovered Vipassana meditation.

I started to fully grasp how I was responsible for my life and for absolutely everything that had happened to me and that 
being a victim was my greatest attachment and affliction!

Then, slowly I began to notice that whenever I chanted mantras, my voice would come alive...as if it had a life of it's own. I was afraid of this at first. I shied away from invitations to take part in kirtans (group meetings of devotional singing) because I was fearful of the memory of the pain and anguish I had endured as a result of singing in front of people in the past, subject to their (often painful) criticism, and even worse to my own (even more painful) criticism and I wanted to avoid that 'slippery slope' at all costs.

Yet, another four years later, here I am with my own mantra album, having made a bold step to stand bravely within my own vulnerability. 

For on this journey I have learnt that my greatest vulnerability can also be my greatest strength!  

You can find my album Uplifting Mantras for You here: http://sarabdeva.bandcamp.com/ 

A big thank you to YogaCircle Berlin and Jivamukti Berlin for hosting our Uplifting Kirtans and sharing their lovely spaces with us.

Next stop USA!!

Kirtan at YogaCircle, Berlin

Atul, Leigh and Sarab Deva at YogaCircle, Berlin

Atul, Leigh and Sarab Deva at Jivamukti, Berlin

London: Is home really where the heart is?

Heading Back to The Big Smoke

We flew into London last Wednesday for a few days of catching up with friends and the kirtan.  It's been a year since I was last in "The Big Smoke”. I travelled in and out of London several times last year completing my studies, and I still tend to experience a wave of nostalgia whenever I am on the train coming in from Gatwick Airport to London Bridge.

Tower Bridge, London

London was home to me from almost eight years of my life and I would consider it far more my home than anywhere else. I am not sure if I would want to still live in London though, after a challenging and amazing eight year relationship with the city, by the end I did feel it was time to move on to some other (possibly calmer) place. However, perhaps it was the familiarity of that train ride, possibly even the people and the sounds of the announcements on the train and drawing up into London Bridge Station that rekindled feelings much like reconnecting with an 'old friend'.  And then walking into the Underground felt like we had just picked up where we had left off almost as if I had never been gone.

What was particularly special about the venue for this particular kirtan, is that it was the first place I ever practiced Kundalini Yoga. Also it was the venue where I did my Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training.  I was there regularly for a few years  and it was almost like another home for me. It was super cool to see this on the board when we walked in :)

Alchemy, the Centre where Love Transforms 

Rehearsal time

Harv tuning his tablas

Since my husband and I left London in 2011, we have not really settled anywhere and for a home-loving Cancerian (which is what I am) this was a real opportunity to stretch me out of my comfort zone. Since March 2011 we've been in a sort of limbo, unsure where to go, leaving our belongings in storage with friends in a few different countries. Perhaps that of'times tempestuous relationship (for both of us) with London from 2004 to 2011 cut so deeply that we have become slightly commitment phobic when it comes to deciding on the next place to settle down. Nevertheless, through the experiences from the last couple of years, I have learnt a powerful lesson in non-attachment. I have come to recognise that home really is where the heart is. And I am not talking metaphorically, but rather within the actual body. The tiniest particles (or Kalapas as the Buddha called them) that make up my physical shell, they house me and are my home. So no matter where I may be or what I may be doing, I am always home. What else could I possibly need as a home other than a healthy body that allows me to experience the aching beauty and the sublime suffering of this reality?

Believe it or not, it's a comforting thought for me. In fact, I have enough trouble keeping this home clean and in order, let alone a bigger one with actual furniture in it! (Chuckle)

The kirtan begins!

There is a mantra on my album which was the first mantra I ever began to work with; Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhi Svaha. This phrase is known as the Heart Sutra and is the mantra to calm all suffering. There are many ways of interpreting this mantra however my personal favourite is: “Gone, gone, gone to the Other Shore, attained the Other Shore having never left” because it really applies to me and my journey over the last several years.

And as I see it, using this mantra has helped me to release my preconceived ideas and belief systems of how life SHOULD be (beliefs that have often kept me chained like a prisoner) so that I may now be free to move closer to my own enlightenment and to really be open to all the wonderful opportunities this life has to offer.

Do you perhaps have some preconceived ideas that no longer serve you?  This is the mantra for you: http://sarabdeva.bandcamp.com/track/gate-gate

Kirtan at Alchemy Centre, Camden, London

Kirtan at Alchemy Centre, Camden, London

A big thank you to the Alchemy Centre for hosting our London kirtan last weekend in their beautiful and peaceful space in Camden: http://www.alchemythecentre.co.uk/

A special thank-you to Harvinder Sidhu for accompanying me on tabla.

Also thank-you to all the participants who gave their energy, devotion and voices to the mantras and thank-you to my new friend Alexander for blogging about this kirtan! 
When you have a moment, please check out what he had to say :http://everybodydies.net/2013/06/03/proof-of-heaven/

With love, Sarab Deva xx