Learn through listening
Songs are learned aurally through repetition, melody, rhythm, printed transliteration, and collective voice.
Retreats & workshops
Listening as
a way of knowing.
Living Songs creates immersive learning spaces where sung poetry, meaning, contemplative practice, place, and community can be encountered together.
Naad Brahma · Divine Sound
Residential immersion in song and contemplative practice
Naad Brahma is a residential retreat program centered on the sung poetry of Kabir and other North Indian mystic poets.
Naad Brahma may be translated as “Divine Sound.” The program explores sound as both musical experience and a focus for attention. Participants listen to live folk singing, learn selected songs through oral repetition, study their poetry through English translation, and return to them through yoga, breathwork, meditation, silence, reflection, and conversation.
The retreats are designed for people who may have no prior knowledge of Kabir, Indian music, or yoga. A bhajan is introduced simply as a sung devotional or contemplative poem; transliteration and English meaning make the words accessible while the musical and cultural context remains intact.
Living Songs has facilitated five Naad Brahma retreats in India, including residential programs in rural Madhya Pradesh and near Bengaluru. Formats have ranged from intensive three-day gatherings to an eight-day village immersion.
The retreat arc
Listen. Learn. Sing. Reflect.
Each gathering is shaped around the repertoire, teachers, participants, place, and time available.
Enter the poetry
English translation and guided conversation open the imagery and ideas without claiming that one explanation exhausts a sung poem.
Develop embodied attention
Yoga postures, breathwork, meditation, nature walks, silence, and reflection prepare the body and mind for sustained listening.
Artists and facilitators
The people within the program
Names follow the program because the work begins with its purpose. Their roles are stated here so first-time visitors can understand who carries each part.
Prahlad Singh Tipaniya
A Padma Shri–honored folk singer and teacher from Madhya Pradesh, India, whose four decades of work have contributed to the vitality of Kabir singing in the Malwa region. In the retreats he leads live music, teaches songs, explains their poetry, and guides discussion.
Priyal Maheshwari
Founder of Living Songs, singer, translator, and yoga and meditation teacher. In the retreats he supports English-language access to the songs and facilitates yoga, breathwork, meditation, and reflection.
The learning community
Participants, musicians, hosts, cooks, translators, and local communities shape each gathering. The retreat is understood as a shared environment for practice rather than a personality-centered event.
Inside the retreat
The whole gathering
Teaching, contemplative practice, community, and place form one shared environment for listening.
Workshops in India
Song as shared practice
Participatory Kabir singing
Learning through listening, repetition, transliteration, translation, and conversation.
Music and contemplative practice
Formats join voice, movement, yoga, meditation, and attention without displacing the song’s cultural context.
Workshops in the United States
A doorway for new listeners
U.S. workshops have brought bhajan learning, English meaning, reflection, and contemplative practice into community, university, and intimate settings.
Programs can be shaped as participatory song learning, lecture-demonstrations, contemplative workshops, or gatherings that combine these forms.