Deva Premal and Miten and Manose. Photo by Rishi (www.HappyLivingMedia.com)

For nearly two decades, audiences around the world have flocked to performances by the beloved mantra singers, Deva Premal and Miten. At the start of their North American Temple At Midnight Tour (which stops at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles on Saturday, May 27th), they sat down with LA Yoga to talk about love, loss, and redemption.

Don’t miss Deva Premal and Miten’s World Tour, which travels through 18 cities in North America from May 13 to June 11. For more information, visit devapremalmiten.com.

Miten, your much-lauded new album of songs, Temple At Midnight, is a meditation on love, loss, and redemption. How have those themes manifested in your life with your partner, Deva Premal?

Miten: How do they manifest? In everything we do. They can’t be departmentalized…

How do you find your way through the darkness?

Miten: The mantras [that we sing on our albums and in our concerts]…they light up the darkness.

What is love?

Deva Premal: I was given the name [Deva Premal, or] ‘Divine Loving’ by my guru when I was 11 years old, so the flavor of love has been with me for a long time. Love is connection, and everyone is happy when they feel connected. I think the suffering comes when we feel disconnected.

I love the love that I feel with Miten. Every day I wake up with it, and it makes me so happy. [Other types of] love that I feel are the universal connection in nature, and love with strangers. Just smiling with somebody on the street who smiles back at you, it’s so uplifting.

Deva Premal and Miten. Photo by Rishi (www.HappyLivingMedia.com)

You’ve been together for 26 years. What keeps your relationship going strong?

Deva Premal: Humor. And freedom—as much as possible, letting the other person live their own life. But for us, it’s also the traveling. Our life is a flowing river, there is nothing stagnant about it. It’s also the love field that we have around us, with so many friends and such a [strong] community. [But] I think the most important [thing is] that we are creative together. It feels like, in this relationship, we are not looking at each other. We are both looking in the same direction, holding hands. We know the focus is not about each other, it’s about both of us walking in the light, toward the light.

How can people experience or generate more love in their relationships?

Miten: Respect each other’s spiritual journey and make that your highest priority.

For those of us who have been affected by loss, what would you say is the path to redemption?

Miten: If you say, “It will take time,” you’ll never heal, because time doesn’t heal in that way. The only way to deal with loss is to face the fact that you might have an addiction to the thing [or the person] that you’ve lost. You just have to deal with the addiction until you’re free and clear of it and you don’t want it anymore. Then you can wish that person well, [whether they’re alive or not]. Then your perspective changes, [because you realize that] their spiritual journey is their business, no matter how much you think you might be hurt or let down or whatever.

When we’re really raw, when we’re feeling that loss, that’s where the lessons are…not in the steady flow of the river, [but] in the pull and the push of the currents. It’s part of the journey of life…to live and to love and to lose and to keep moving through.

Deva Premal & Miten, the duo dubbed as “the Johnny and June Carter Cash of sacred music” by Yoga International, will bring their North American Temple At Midnight Tour to the Wilshire Ebell Hall in Los Angeles on Saturday, May 27th. Tickets are available here.

Tori Rose

The post Deva Premal & Miten on Love, Loss & Redemption appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Nearly 10,000 people in over 20 countries participated in Deva Premal & Miten’s Buddha Full Moon Meditation at 9am worldwide on May 21 to create a wave of healing energy across the planet.

The Buddha Full Moon, also known as Wesak, “is one of the most auspicious times for meditation and chanting, with a focus on enlightenment for all beings,” they explained on their Facebook event page.

“Buddha was born, became enlightened, and left his body on this day. At this powerful time, we can raise our vibration and focus our intention for the benefit of humanity. For all sentient beings, actually.”

A Mantra for Awakening

During their virtual, global meditation, Deva Premal & Miten invited participants to chant the core mantra of Nichiren Buddhism: “Nam Myoho Renge Kyo.”

“The translation of the mantra is ‘I bow down to the mystical law of the Lotus Sutra’,” they explained in an email interview with LA Yoga. “In the Lotus Sutra, Gautama talks about our inherent nature being ‘Buddha Nature’—the potential in us all to wake up to the here-and-now, in all its pristine beauty and awesomeness.”

As Deva Premal and Miten observe in the liner notes of their new album, Cosmic Connections Live (which rose to #1 on the iTunes world music chart in the US, Canada, Germany, and Switzerland), “Chanting this mantra opens us to our supreme and innate Buddha Nature.”

Deva Premal & Miten and Manose in a Moon Mandala created by Tania Summerell

During the Buddha Full Moon Meditation, participants chanted along to the “Nam Myoho Renge Kyo Mantra (live)” track from the new album. Deva Premal’s soothing, surround-sound rendition of the ancient mantra is embedded in an East-West fusion soundscape that soars on luminous notes of the bansuri (courtesy of Nepalese maestro Manose).

As 9am rolled around in time zones across the world, comments from participants began pouring in on Deva Premal & Miten’s Facebook page for the event:

“We need this light and energy so much,” wrote Mariann Weed from Rohnert Park, California.
“Thank you for creating a universal connection without borders!” wrote Roshan Cader from Johannesburg, South Africa.

“I did the meditation near the ocean…Lots of love to all from Mallorca, Spain!” wrote Uschi Schena.
Tania Summerell, from Cabarita Beach, Australia, described Deva Premal & Miten’s mantra track as “a wave of soft light and love itself.”

And Miri Jeijers, writing from Middleburg in the Netherlands, said, “I chanted with this track over and over again for a full hour, first with happy tears down my face and later on with a smile. Beautiful to be a part of this.”

The Benefits of a Global Meditation

“Everything we think, say, and do creates a certain vibration in the energetic field in which we live,” Deva Premal & Miten explain. “That’s why it’s so important to purify our thoughts, words, and actions so that we stay in a healthy, joyful state. The more people put their intentions on raising the vibration, the stronger it becomes.”

It also helps us connect to a sangha, or spiritual community, they say. “Chanting mantras [together] creates this spiritual bond among us…The silence that follows the chant connects us all on a non-physical level. We meet in a higher dimension.”

Get a free download of Deva Premal & Miten’s “Nam Myoho Renge Kyo Mantra” here. For more information about the duo’s upcoming concerts and other events, visit devapremalmiten.com.

Tori Rose

The post What Happens When 10,000 People Meditate with Deva Premal appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.