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94 chapter four Glorious Chants 3 Bhajan chanting extols the magnificence and the holiness of God. It celebrates the divine gloriesoftheLord.ChantingconsistsofworshippingGodthroughsongandmusic . . . Chanting removes agitations or vrittis from the mind, and brings peace. It edifies one, uplifts the spirit, purifies the atmosphere, and elevates the consciousness. —Alice Coltrane, Mantra In 1976, Alice Coltrane had a revelation in which she received divine instruction to renounce secular life and don the orange robes of a swami, or spiritual teacher in the Hindu tradition. Thereafter, she was known as Swamini (the feminine form of “swami”) Turiyasangitananda; she translated her “anointed” name from Sanskrit as “the Transcendental Lord’s highest song of bliss.” Typically, a Hindu monk or guru ordains a swami into a recognized lineage; however, according to Alice, her initiation came directly from the Lord, resembling the call to preach in her family’s Baptist faith. In the last interview she granted before passing away, Alice recalled her experience: It started with taking sanyas. That was a total mystical experience. It was God’s deliverance of his anointed mercy on me. I was told the night and time, and to be prepared, so I got ready and put on a white dress and all, and I noticed when the time came, the colors of orange were poured into the cloth of the dress I was wearing . And I just watched it happen. I just watched everything go into that beautiful saffron color. And my name was given, of course, and the whole outline of the duty, the work and mission were also revealed. One of the directives given to me was to start the Ashram . . . At first, I don’t think my idea was on sanyas (renunciation) as much as it was on having the availability to seek the Lord, to be able to study spiritual scriptures and just to really immerse myself in living the spiritual life as much as possible. My children, I had raised them, my husband had passed some years ago. I had reached a point where most of my duties as a householder were fulfilled. It gave me the time to want to see, to want to strive, to want to devote quality time, because, you know the work of a Glorious Chants / 95 woman is so full! I mean it’s sometimes twenty-four hours. So once that was reduced , I had additional time that I could apply to the path, and that’s what I’ve been doing. (A. Coltrane 2006, 36–38) Alice’s liberty from her “duties as a householder” and her freedom from an established religion allowed her the opportunity to develop a sui generis spiritual practice. As part of this pursuit, she began composing and adapting bhajans (Hindu devotional hymns) for the handful of spiritual followers that she had attracted in San Francisco during the early 1970s. Today, these hymns form the basis of musical worship services at Sai Anantam Ashram, the alternative spiritual community that Alice established in 1983. They are sung twice a day during the week, and once a day on the weekends. In total, Alice made five studio recordings of these bhajans, the majority of which are noncommercial and fairly difficult to obtain. The earliest can be found on the B sides of Transcendence (1977) and Radha Krsna Nama Sankirtana (1977), both on the Warner Brothers label. Alice’s arrangements of “Sivaya,” “Ghana Nila,” “Bhaja Govindam,” “Sri Nrsimha,” “Govinda Jai Jai,” “Ganesha,” “Prema Muditha,” and “Hare Krishna” on these albums feature her choir and her lively accompaniment on her Fender Rhodes piano. In her liner notes, she thanked her students at the Vedantic Center “who have lifted their voices and hand percussion in praise and adoration of the Supreme Lord.” The remainder of her bhajans can be heard on Divine Songs (1987), Infinite Chants (1991), and Glorious Chants (1995), all released on Avatar Book Institute, an independent label affiliated with the Vedantic Center. They feature Alice on keyboard, her choir, and a small string section, processed evocatively with studio effects and overdubbing. With the addition of Turiya Sings (1982), a solo album recorded in a marathon fifteen-hour session in which Alice chanted Hindu mantras by herself, these Avatar releases were the only recordings she made after leaving the commercial music industry in 1978, until she resurfaced with her final jazz album, Translinear Light, in 2003. Quite remarkably, at Sai Anantam Ashram, Alice’s bhajans have come to function as...

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