Vaishnav Jana

This week's Maitri Tunes is a heartfelt tribute to the man the whole world reveres as someone who always walked his talk, and stood up for his values no matter what the cost. Happy Birthday Bapu ji. May your thoughts continue to illumine our journeys.

"Vaishnava Jana To" is one of the Gandhi's favorite prayers and was written in the 15th century by the poet Narsinh Mehta. Recently while sharing his reflections on Gandhi at the Cal State University, our friend Somik ended up by playing a recording of this song by Neha composed especially for this gathering. Here is an excerpt from Somik's note.

"Poems have a way of getting to the point much faster than prose can hope to achieve. So, I ended by sharing a definition of purity from Narsinh Mehta's famous poem, "Vaishnav Jan," which Gandhi loved. I wanted to play a meditative rendition of this song, and couldn't find any on iTunes. So, a request went out on Thursday night to my old friend from Stanford Neha Kumar, who had sung this beautifully at Stanford events, that I needed this recorded by Friday evening. After explaining where this would be played, I requested Neha, "The only requirement is that you meditate for 10 minutes before singing this." Neha wrote back at 12 AM that she would sit for 30 mins! :) This labor of love blew the audience away."

We pray that more and more folks around the world are inspired to sing their heart's songs with such devotion.