The Gentle Secret of Immortality: Kirtan, Mishaps, and the Wisdom of Bhagavad Gita 2:20

The Gentle Secret of Immortality: Kirtan, Mishaps, and the Wisdom of Bhagavad Gita 2:20

Welcome to a corner of the world where peace arrives in many beautiful words, and sometimes with a little laughter or a thump on the stairs. This is Maria and Mark’s Juicy MagiK, ep. 3, tucked under the olive trees and open to anyone who needs a breath of stillness, a story, or the sacred sound of a name that feels like warmth after getting caught in the rain.

Whether you’re drawn by peace, kirtan, sacred mantras, or a place for your heart to settle down after a rough patch, you’re at home here. We wander through stories, mishaps, chanting, and honest conversation about pain, aging, and why it helps to hold a bigger view when things break or bodies ache. These aren’t lectures or instructions. This is that friendly space where spiritual practice has muddy shoes, where tears and laughter share the same breath, and where the spiritual heart learns to carry both gratitude and mystery.

Welcomes and Words for Peace

Namaste, haribol, and peace be with you. You can say it in almost any language: Russian, Arabic, Hebrew, Sanskrit, French, English, what matters is how it lands in your chest, that little ripple of softening. Here, we don’t do tune in, turn on, and drop out. We say, tune in, turn on, and drop in. Drop into yourself with us, in all your color and imperfection. Wherever you’re reading from, thank you for showing up, breathing, being present, and adding your presence to this little circle.

We begin the same way most days: a Gauranga meditation, which for us means gathering and gently chanting names of the Divine. Gauranga is said to mean “he whose body is more beautiful than molten gold.” Four syllables, gently sung and repeated back. Simple, warm, like an embrace in the form of sound.

What Is Kirtan, and Why Do We Chant?

Kirtan is group chanting, a practice that’s as simple as calling out a name and hearing it return. Sometimes it’s loud and fast, sometimes barely a hum. There’s wisdom in not making it too serious, letting the melody roam and the heart follow. There’s a quote we hold close: “Wherever two or more are gathered in My name, there I am between them.”

Group chanting, or kirtan, is one of the first steps in devotional service, sometimes called Sadhana Bhakti. You don’t have to believe anything special. You don’t need to sound good. You only need to show up. Sometimes we sing together like this:

• Gauranga Gauranga Gauranga Gauranga
• Haribol Haribol

You can make it quick or soft, joyful or tender. The only rule is to let it be what it is.

The Power of Sacred Sound

Let’s talk about why chanting and sound matter, even when life goes sideways. Science, old and new, says hearing is the first sense a child develops in the womb, and the last sense to fade when the body prepares to leave this world. Babies know their parents’ voices before they see a face. Even if someone’s in a coma or near the end, hearing endures.

If someone you love is suffering or lying in bed, quietly repeating any sacred name in any tradition carries grace. It might be Psalm 23, the Lord’s Prayer, zikir beads, or (as in our practice) the Mahamantra or Japa Mala. Modern technology lets you put those sounds on repeat—sacred vibration anywhere, every hour if you’d like.

Sacred sound is a bridge—when words run out, the simple name can still reach someone. Sometimes even a skeptic or doubter will find themselves whispering a name for help at midnight.

Maria’s Stair Story: Pain, Laughter, and Suffering’s Oil Change

Now, life under the olive trees isn’t all bliss and divine melodies. Sometimes it’s falling down the stairs in the dark. Maria tells it best—she’d just started to recover from being sick after a difficult trip to India (“we caught India,” as we now say, half-joking, half-serious), and was finally feeling better when she went to fetch something from the van late at night.

No flashlight this time. Just the soft sound of bare feet, the memory of steps, and the darkness swallowing up lines and edges. “I must be at the bottom,” she thought. Only there were five more steps. Down she went—a thud, a groan, and a quiet moment on the cold ground. Meanwhile, inside, Mark is deep in scripture and doesn’t even hear it happen.

Maria eventually hobbles inside, pain flying through her toes and a bit of her dignity, as Mark realizes maybe he ought to check on her. The thing is, that’s life—sometimes you’re reading about the soul, sometimes you forget the flashlight, and sometimes you get a hard little reminder about impermanence.

The pain didn’t let up the next day. Maria found herself waking up, night after night, with only the mantra “Hare Krishna” echoing in her mind. Suffering had pressed something new: a yearning, a reach beyond pain that gently pulled her into chanting through the sleepless dark.

On Death, Time Slipping Away, and What Lasts

The material world is beautiful, yes, but also uncertain. Accidents happen, bodies get tired, saying goodbye comes sooner or later for all of us. One of Mark’s teachers would say, “It’s never too late, but it’s getting late.” It’s a good reminder, delivered kindly, that time doesn’t wait for us to figure it all out.

The stories pile up: Mark’s mother is nearly 87, and friends and family leave their bodies, as the tradition says, at regular, unpredictable intervals. Mark remembers wanting to visit a friend’s father in Germany, planning to chant with him and bring a little prasadam (offered food). He was too late—the man passed while Mark was stuck at the door. It stings, but it also presses the need to keep these practices alive, to bring presence and comfort while there’s still breath in the body.

The reality is, we all exit in our time. The teachings from the Bhagavad Gita, As It Is (specifically, Chapter 2, verse 20) help steady that truth with something both ancient and oddly comforting. The Gita says:

For the soul, there is neither birth nor death at any time. She has not come into being, does not come into being, and will not come into being. She is unborn, eternal, ever-existing, and primeval. She is not slain when the body is slain.

Reading this, Maria says, helped shift her out of fixating on pain and into deep gratitude. She wasn’t her body or her pain, she was much more. The pain faded. Gratitude filled the space it left.

Practicing Bhakti and Building a Spiritual Toolkit

Mark’s body has weathered 31 years of Type 1 diabetes. His spiritual practice began because the need was urgent and real, not because things were easy or he had time to spare. Bhakti yoga, mantra meditation, kirtan, and temple food—simple tools carried across years and mishaps.

Sometimes it feels like you’re hauling a sick old wagon that should have been traded in years ago. But the Gita and chanting offer shelter—a way to feel held by something larger. You don’t need to do it by yourself, Mark says, even if you’ve picked up the Western love for self-reliance. Inside, everyone knows the feeling of being close to sinking, when the cry for help comes out almost by itself.

There are practices that can be hard or even risky, spiritual paths that can bring confusion or harm. But this path of singing, chanting, and reading timeless texts is gentle, steady, and available. Do it in a crowd, or alone. Do it messy. There are no medals, no certificates, nothing to join or quit.

If you want to connect with others on the path or just share a question, you’ll find a warm community at Maria and Mark’s Juicy Magik Agora—open, welcoming, and ready for anything you want to bring.

Gauranga Breathing: A Simple Practice for Any Day

Take a deep breath in. On the inhale, imagine the sound “Gauranga”—the four syllables, slow and wide as the sky. Let the exhale carry the name softly out, and let your body relax. If you want, close your eyes partway, focus gently between your eyebrows, or sit with your hands loosely together (no rules, just whatever makes you feel comfortable).

A few rounds of this can quiet the mind and bring a gentle sense of connection. Gauranga is said to be a name for the one whose body is more beautiful than gold—chanting it, you let something sweet and warm settle in, no matter what the day has brought.

Why Practice Together (or Alone)?

The mantras aren’t from this world, Mark says, but they clean the heart like water. You don’t need to make them work—they work by their own nature, washing away the dust of many years, many lifetimes, losses, and disappointments. That still, small voice that asks for help, safety, or just a place to rest finds comfort in the names.

You don’t have to get it right. You don’t have to do it alone. The way is safe, gradual, and, most of all, sweet. You can test it for yourself—chant along, give kirtan a try for a month, see what settles in your chest.

You might find, as many have, that pain eases and gratitude grows. Or maybe that life, in all its messy fullness, reveals something softly miraculous: the sense that you are more than your body, and that—despite accidents, heartbreak, and aging—that which truly matters never vanishes.

Kirtan, Stories, and Gentle Endings

Life on pilgrimage, on the road, or stuck at home recovering—it’s all part of this journey. By simply showing up, by breathing a little slower or repeating a name, you join a practice older than memory. These stories, these daily gatherings, are about living sincerely, singing even when your voice shakes, and finding the sacred in bruised toes and shared laughter.

We invite you to stick around with Juicy Magik on the Daily, for more stories and gentle teachings. This is a decentralized, open-hearted circle. Try a chant, breathe deep, and see what comes of it.

As we close, a blessing: Peace be with you. Namaste, haribol, and please—watch those steps at night, and let yourself stay a little longer. There’s no hurry. There’s story left to live.

If you’d like a place to ask questions, swap stories, or support this community, visit Juicy Magik Agora. Wishing you gentleness, day by day, breath by breath.