Grammy Winning White Sun II Album Release Party. Photo by Santosh Khalsa
Powerful music is timeless: it envelops us, welcomes us into its essence, and stays with us long past the last song on the album. The mantra music created by yoga supergroup White Sun is good music that uses mantra to nourish our spirit with love.
White Sun’s second album White Sun II rose to #1 on Billboard’s New Age Chart, #2 on the on Billboard’s World Chart, and won the 2017 Grammy for Best New Age Album. Band members Harijiwan and Gurujas are Kundalini yoga teacher trainers, and band member Adam Berry is a two-time Emmy-winning composer. An array of White Sun’s talented collaborators include Mamado Diabete on kora, Abhiman Kaushal on tabla, Gabe Witcher of Punch Brothers on fiddle, and award-winning gospel singers whose albums have gone platinum and sold one million copies.
White Sun artist and Kundalini Yoga Teacher Trainer Gurujas photographed by Julia Yang
Vocalist and harmonium player Gurujas believes that, “Mantras have their own consciousness. These mantras want to serve, uplift and help people by reducing fear and increasing the love vibration.”
Dr. Helen Lavretsky, a psychiatry professor at UCLA, has studied the effects of chanting mantra on the human system. Lavretsky’s research shows that chanting the Kirtan Kirya mantra meditation (otherwise known as Sa-Ta-Na-Ma meditation) enhances connectivity of the brain that is associated with improvement in mood, resilience, and cognition. According to their published study, the results of chanting mantra (which differs from simply listening to relaxing music) include, “Improved mental and cognitive functioning, lower levels of depressive symptoms…accompanied by an increase in telomerase activity suggesting improvement in stress-induced cellular aging.”
Translation: just listening to these mantras can drastically alter the stress levels in your life and help slow down the aging process of cells.
“In my clinical practice,” Dr. Lavretsky says, “I start people who are not used to chanting with just listening to the mantras. They start chanting when they become comfortable with it. The White Sun II is my favorite CD to ‘prescribe’ for patients with anxiety or depression, or recommend to my colleagues due to its deeply spiritual sound that promotes relaxation and rejuvenation of the soul.”
Gurujas explains the power of each mantra:
1. Gobinday Mukunday – Bestows intuitive power and allows us to be more effective in our work, relationships and communication.
2. Ajai Ajai – Gives supreme self-confidence.
3. Chattra Chakkra Varti – Helps remove negativity (fear) and replaces it with love. Great for banishing nightmares.
4. Simro Gobind – Increases the radiant body.
5. Suniai – Evokes the ability to hear so deeply that we begin to hear the unheard, see the unseen and know the unknown.
6. Aap Sahaee Hoa Har Har Har – Very protective. Removes negativity. Is believed to “melt your enemies like ice cream under the hot sun.”
7. Dhan Dhan Ram Das Gur – Brings about miracles.
8. Akal Instrumental and 9. Akal– Helps transition souls to and from earth. Appropriate for death and birth.
10. Hummee Hum – Mimics the heartbeat. Purifies the heart chakra.
11. Ik Ardas Wahe Guru – Ik Ardas honors the heart space of planet earth. Wahe Guru is the expression of absolute ecstasy.
Read our full interview with Gurujas about White Sun and their mantra work here.
Aria Morgan is a yoga teacher, doula and music lover who finds inspiration in nature: ariamorgan.com.