Michael Dunn brings to the ancient art of kirtan a devotional intensity and simplicity that many have found profoundly moving. In India they say that the name of God is God. “Various are Thy Names, O Lord. In each and every name, Thy power resides,” wrote the great bhakti Sri Chaitanya. Chanting from the heart opens the door to communion with the Divine, and can create a wave of joy that carries one through the day.
For the last fifteen years, Michael Dunn has led kirtan meditations at the world-famed Lake Shrine meditation center founded by the great world-teacher Paramahansa Yogananda in Pacific Palisades, California. After an award-winning fifteen year career in theatre and music, Michael heeded an inner need for a spiritual sabbatical and began work as a vegetarian cook at the Lake Shrine ashram, immersing himself in the teachings of Yogananda.
Michael’s beginnings as a kirtan artist can be traced to an earthquake.
The 1994 Los Angeles temblor left the Lake Shrine short of a kirtan leader (who chose to move to a more stable tectonic plate) and the head monk asked Michael to learn the harmonium. Years of leading chants and meditations followed, culminating in a pilgrimage to India for the Maha Kumbha Mela in 2001. There he learned chants from the monks of Yogoda Satsanga Society at Dakshineswar, and at a Himalayan retreat in Dwarahat, near the cave of Mahavatar Babaji. This pilgrimage also planted the seeds of what would become the CD, “Adoration – Chants for Meditation" which has earned ecstatic response from listeners around the world.
After many joyful kirtans in Southern California and around the U.S., Michael is now bringing devotional chant to interfaith gatherings around the world - in Assisi last summer for The Global Peace Initiative of Women at a summit of contemplatives on The Divine Feminine; in Washington D.C. this fall at the American Alliance of Contemplatives, and at a global gathering of spiritual leaders during the crucial United Nations Conference on climate change in Copenhagen.
It is our hope that these chants will find a place in your heart.
