Spiritual chanting - on YouTube…

September 21, 2007 | 4 comments

A few months ago, I was searching for Buddhist chant music / video online. In particular, I was searching for versions of the Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhi Svaha mantra. I did indeed find a few things, and one in particular really amazed me. It wasn’t a huge orchestral rendition, 300 monks, or any large gathering like that. Instead, it was a a video of a man with a guitar, just sitting and singing; about half way through the video, a woman joins in with him. I found their sincerity quite touching. You can watch the video here. (Incidentally, the woman in the video reminds me an awful lot of Jodie Foster…)

I ended up looking at some of the other videos that user had uploaded, and found Mahadevaki, done by the same man (no accompanying female in this one). I’m not sure what Mahadevaki means - searching for the term just brings up that video - but it again, I found his sincerity extremely touching. Judging by the tags on the videos, I believe the guy is Hindu, but I could certainly be wrong.

These two videos have become a sort of daily thing for me. I typically listen to both of them in the morning when I get up, and sometimes before I go to bed. I’m not Hindu, but I find them really relaxing.

(By the way, I know that you can embed YouTube videos in blog posts, and I actually attempted to do this. But for some reason, the video caused the whole layout of my blog to be screwed up. So, alas - links it is!)

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January 30, 2008 at 4:33 am

byodo

byodo’s avatar

Hi Josh,
my name is Byodo and I really find it amazing how things go these days in the internet.
Couple of days ago I was googling and found these 2 videos in the internet hardly remembering at first that and when they were made, being very surprised.
Slowly it dawned in my mind it’s been around 2000 that Shambo, an australian guy made them in Rishikesh, Northern India, of me, a german guy (you see, I’m not a hindu as you guess but a simple european ;-)), to arrive
in Southern Ohio. That’s cool.
I’m touched how you write about and how you experience my songs, like it you like it.
With kind regards
Byodo

January 30, 2008 at 6:20 pm

Josh

Josh’s avatar

Byodo: Hi! Indeed, it really is amazing that you ended up finding my post here. :) Are you back in Germany now? Still globetrotting?

And yeah, absolutely love them both, especially the first one I mentioned in the post.

March 20, 2008 at 4:15 pm

byodo

byodo’s avatar

Hi Josh,
here’s Byodo again, was very busy with all kind of stuff.

Lernst Du noch Deutsch?;-) I’m living in Germany, Cologne, no more overseas travels in the last years, europe is also beautiful.
I found a guy called JaiMa James on you tube who sings very
nice mantras, maybe you like to listen to him.
Happy easter

March 24, 2008 at 6:09 pm

Josh

Josh’s avatar

Hey Byodo! Ja, ich lerne noch Deutsch. :) I wish I lived in Germany (or England or France or Spain or pick-another-European-country), but alas! - here I am in Ohio.

Thanks for the heads up, I’ll check out his videos. And, also, Happy Easter!