High Mesa Happenings & Heartstrings

Highlight at HMHC:Kirtan with Dharmashakti

On Saturday, March 21st, 2009, at 7:30pm, HMHC welcomes

Kirtan with Dharmashakti

and local Singers

"The practice of Bhakti, Raja, Japa and Jnana collide in a fun and thoughtful evening of bliss."

Click www.Dharmashakti.com to read about the Singers, hear Songs, see Videos and Pictures, find Past and Future Events, etc.

To view the poster announcing the event, click Download Dharmashakti Poster

Also on the website, sample the free CD which is included in the suggested donation of $20 for the evening. Gather family and friends for a great evening of devotional  music and rhythm .

What is Kirtan Singing?

Kirtan (Sanskrit: "to repeat") is call-and-response chanting performed in India's devotional traditions.. When this chanting is done as a private meditation it is called japa but performed congregationally with instruments, and often dancing, it is called kirtan or sankirtan (from san (complete) kirtan). The person performing the Kirtan is known as a Kirtankar.

In the ancient Sanskrit text the Bhagavad-gita(9.13) Krishna states that great souls are always engaged in glorifying him with kirtan. The practice was popularized in the Hindu devotional revival of the fifteenth CCE, exemplified by the Bengali Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, and others.

Kirtan practice involves the chanting of hymns or mantrasto the accompaniment of instruments such as the harmonium, the two-headed mrdanga or pakawaj drum and karatal hand cymbals. It is a major tenet of Vaisnavadevotionalism, Sikhism, the Santtraditions, some forms of Buddhism, and other sects.

A kirtan performance with traditional instruments - the late Giani Harjit Singh in Kenya around 1960's

Text and Photo:  Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Posted by NWH

Spirituality in Health Care:

This article written by Barbara was published in the Ruidoso News .

Do you want your doctor or health care provider to pray for you? 

 Recent surveys show that 75% of patients believe their physicians should address spiritual issues as part of their medical care, and 50% want their doctor to pray not only for them but with them.

After many years of separation, spirituality is now moving much closer and into the health care scene.  And it is about time!

According to Larry Dossey, M.D, about one third of the medical schools in the United States have developed courses in  alternative/complementary medicine, many of which emphasize spiritual issues in health care including prayer. Five medical schools have developed programs dedicated to exploring the relationship between faith and health.

So, are we out of our rational minds?  I don’t think so! 

 “Statistically, God is good for you,” says David B. Larson, M.D., of the National Institute of Healthcare Research in Rockville, Maryland, which studies the relationship between spirituality and health. Larson also says,  "If you pray regularly, it's very beneficial in terms of preventing illness, mental and physical, and you cope with illness much more effectively. If you look  at the research, in area after area, it's 80 percent beneficial. I was shocked."

 So, does it not make good sense to use both prayer and  modern medicine together?

Larry Dossey, M.D., reports that the Spindrift studies on the different kinds of prayer were most revealing on directed and nondirected prayer.  In directed prayer, the praying person is attaching a specific outcome to the prayer –e.g., praying for the cancer to go away or the heart attack to heal.  In contrast, in nondirected prayer no specific outcome is asked.  This corresponds to a “Thy will be done” approach in which the praying person simply asks for the best thing to occur in a particular situation.  What is best is left up to God to decide.  Which approach works best?  The studies show that, although both approaches are effective, the nondirected approach is quantitatively more powerful than the directed approach. 

In Dr. Larry Dossey’s book, Prayer Is Good Medicine he writes, “Although science tells us that prayer works it cannot tell us how prayer works.  Science is limited  in studying prayer.  Therefore, science can never swallow up prayer, as some people fear.  The sacred mysteries will remain."  

If Jesus and Buddha had access to penicillin they probably would have used it ---- along with prayer.

Prayer and the most modern hi-tech medical care need to be used together. It gives us the best of both worlds.  And those worlds are getting closer and closer until some day we will have integrated care for the whole client.  Prayer, medications and surgery are all blessings, gifts.  So why not use all of them, with reverence and gratitude?  It is just good medicine!   

Barbara Mader, RN, CHTP, RM

Posted by NWH