Light Invocation
3 Versions of the Gayatri Mantra
 
I am delighted and honoured to bring you these new extended vocal meditations, from my new Devotional Music Compilations Series. Each album highlights three or four of my most treasured musical offerings - sacred prayers, chants, mantras, vocal medicine inspired by a direct experience of the sound and spiritual philosophy of mystical and wisdom lineages worldwide. These new extended versions of the originals, provide you with a much more in-depth opportunity to listen, to absorb and to actively participate - as inspired. Enjoy these unique music meditations providing you with an uplifting entry into silent meditation, restoring harmony and stillness, through this original healing power of devotional sound and silence.
 
Light Invocation Tracklist
1. Gayatri (Saraswati) (17:31)
2. Gayatri (Contemporary) (16:25)
3. Gayatri (Vedic) (26:47)
 
The Gayatri Mantra is known as the ‘Mother of Mantras’ and its purpose is to invoke the light of the ten thousand suns within; to realize your Self as a being of Light. I was told many years ago in India, that it was traditionally sung 108 times at sunrise and sunset; and you can hear its penetrating prayerful presence resounding along the banks of the sacred river Ganges, chanted by millions of Indian Hindu worshippers everyday. I was originally introduced to it at the Krishnamurti School in India in the late 80s. Its luminous presence entered my prayer life, as inspired by journeys to and from India in the 80s and 90s. I especially loved hearing the Vedic priests reciting Gayatri mantra in Ramana Maharshi’s ashram in Tiruvannamalai. Since then I have shared it in my retreats. I was honoured to sing it at the memorial services of Aisha, Maharani of Jaipur, and her son Ajit. The mantra is now sung increasingly all over the world, notably in Western Yoga and Bhakti (devotional) communities, and it is now chanted in many different ways. 
 
I have recorded three versions of the Gayatri mantra here. Enjoy the Saraswati version, sung in a devotional three-part choral setting with an almost Eastern European flavour. The second Contemporary orchestral version, is a more uplifting rhythmic version, and includes an ecstatic choral improvisation. This was first featured in my album “Sura”. The third orthodox version is based on a ‘authentic’ Vedic version for solo voice, similar to that chanted in India.