Sirgun Kaur is a sacred songstress and Kundalini Yoga instructor. Through the exploration of her music, and after her discovery of Kundalini Yoga, chanting, and mantra, she was led to an understanding of the transformative and healing potential of music. Sirgun believes that bodies and minds are malleable and miraculous.
Her music is designed to put listeners in a state of natural healing. By listening and chanting along, the nervous system is soothed, the mind becomes less chaotic, and thus, one’s surrounding environment becomes less overwhelming. Through a gradual process of observing and listening to other chant artists, mixed with deep and personal songwriting experiences, Sirgun was led to this spiritual path through music.
Sirgun has released five albums of sacred chants: -8, Reclaim Your Happiness, Dayaal, The Cosmic Gift, The Music Within and has performed in Europe and across the United States, leading conscious wellness festivals such as Bhakti Fest. She currently resides in a yoga community in Phoenix, Arizona with her husband and two children.
Kimberly: Welcome everybody, welcome to Spiritual Biz Chat for Spiritual Biz Magazine, I am your host, Kimberly Maska, and today we have joining us Sirgun Kaur, a sacred songstress and Kundalini Yoga instructor. Welcome, Sirgun, and thank you for being with us, how are you doing today?
Sirgun: Very well, thank you.
Kimberly: Fantastic! So, could you share the story behind your personal journey down the path to your current life’s purpose and work, and tell us more about your business?
Sirgun: Absolutely. So after I graduated from Brown University, I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism. This may seem unrelated to your question, but this “disease” became a driving force in what I do now. While I was pursuing my singer-songwriting career, I met a yoga teacher who suggested this one exercise to stimulate the thyroid gland. I didn’t even end up doing the exercise honestly (and it still healed!), but just the idea that I could overcome an ailment through yoga was mind-blowing to me at the time.
This led me to a hatha yoga teacher training, which is how I discovered mantra music. If it hadn’t been for my transitional thyroid issue, I probably would not have had a powerful enough reason to learn about yoga. Because I now had this background in yoga, a whole new world opened itself to me.
Eventually, I would discover Kundalini Yoga, and that is where most of the mantras come from in my music. My first album, which was entirely crowd-sourced, was my first step into the limelight. I really had not intended to make a career out of this, it just happened organically. People loved the music. Now I also share my passion through a workshop called “Reclaim Your Happiness”, which ties Kundalini Yoga teachings into an Abraham-Hicks perspective on the law of attraction.
Kimberly: What was the turning point in taking the steps to make your passion a business? And how have you managed to turn that into a business?
Sirgun: The turning point was a record label picking me up and helping me grow my reach. It was an amazing deal because I just made two albums with them and then I was free to be independent again (my preference). But the relationship to that label brought my listenership up to a point where I was making a consistent monthly income from music I had already recorded!
Kimberly: We know there are numerous ways of “chanting”, but I am curious to know of the most effective way in your personal experience? And how does it help find happiness?
Sirgun: You have to feel it. As with anything in life, I believe you have to put your full heart into it to get the desired effect. You can feel when you are being effective at chanting because it is the same experience as meditating. You close your eyes, and through focusing on the repetition of these sacred words, suddenly there is spaciousness. It might tingle, or swirl, or even get you up to dance. It’s just energy moving within you that was stuck. An alignment between who we think we are, and the infinite beings we really are, takes place in that moment.
When that happens, the experience is happiness. Happiness is the evidence of our spiritual connection. So I share chanting as a tool to get to that place of bliss that is who we truly are. Meditation is another great way to get there, but most people who are willing to use their voices prefer to chant because it makes the process of stilling the mind a lot easier. Chanting gives the mind a fun thing to do and essentially tricks the mind into focusing.
Kimberly: What are some helpful tips and benefits of chanting, mantra, and yoga for adults and even for children?
Sirgun: One tip for adults is not to judge your voice. It’s not a talent show. Whether you have a great voice by conventional standards, or not, you can still chant. In fact, it will be very healing for you to chant if you are someone who thinks you are a “bad” singer because moving energy through your throat center will feel like a big relief.
You don’t have to be perfect or even match pitch perfectly. We are chanting to focus our minds and attune ourselves to our Source—and it feels like ecstatic joy! That’s a very different goal than chanting to sound “good.” When we all chant together it sounds amazing anyhow. I call it the “choir effect” because if you listen to each person in a beautiful-sounding choir individually you will be very surprised!
Children do not need as many resources to vibrationally attune because they are so tuned in naturally. If you look around, the happiest people on this planet are the new ones. I use mantra music passively on my children—I’ll play it at home or in the car. That way they can be in the vibration of it without really noticing. Chant music is just a normal part of our lives. When I taught children that were not my own though, I will say the chant music was always their favorite part of yoga class!
Kimberly: This is all very helpful. For those who have never been introduced to these practices, where do they start? Do you have a quick beginners guide to Chanting or Mantra or Yoga that you can share with our magazine readers?
Sirgun: I share a lot of resources through my YouTube channel. There is a video going into more depth on what a mantra is and what it does, as well as a couple videos where I discuss the meaning and pronunciation of two very simple mantras: Sat Naam and Waheguru. CLICK HERE to find my youtube videos. I upload several videos a week, so that’s a great way to learn more.
Kimberly: Sirgun, so far you have released five albums of sacred chants: -8, Reclaim Your Happiness, Dayaal, The Cosmic Gift, The Music Within. Tell us a little bit about them and the performances you have put out across the US and internationally.
Sirgun: All of my albums combine my love of mantra with my love of song-form. So each album has some English mantras or songs on it. My first solo album, The Cosmic Gift opens with a song called “Amen”, which is my version of The Lord’s Prayer as I read it translated from the Aramaic. That is one of my most played songs. I get emails from people all over the world telling me how much it means to them. So that’s one way I travel.
Another way I travel is actual touring. I’ve shared music with audiences on the West Coast, East Coast, and in the South. I’ve also sung for audiences in Europe and Canada. I love traveling and meeting new people. I am waiting to do a bigger tour until my children are a little older. They are still small and it’s hard on them when I leave for long periods of time.
My newest album -8 is an exciting concept album. A singer-songwriter named Chad Wilkins played most of the instrumentation on it and suggested we tune it at 432 hertz, which is considered to be in tune with the frequency of the Earth. Standard tuning is 440 hertz, so I chose to name the album -8 because 440 minus 432 is 8. I also love producing my own music, so that one is my favorite of all the ones I’ve done so far.
Kimberly: Is there a final message you want to let the audience know? Or just any last little words that you have for them?
Sirgun: Everyone is a happy person. Some of us have forgotten. It isn’t hard to return to who we really are, but it takes some radically different habits of thought!
Kimberly: If our readers wanted to reach you, where can they find you? And where can they find your albums?
Sirgun: sirgunkaur.com, where you can sign up for my email list and get updates on tour dates, videos, articles, and, of course, new music!
Kimberly: Thank you, Sirgun, very much! It has been such a pleasure chatting with you today and learning about your work.
Sirgun: I really appreciate it. Thank you, Kimberly!
INTERVIEW LINKS
Website: https://sirgunkaur.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sirgunkaurmusic
Twitter: https://twitter.com/sirgunkaur
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/singerdesaintphalle
