SpiritualFrom the very beginning of my devotional life, I had been intrigued by the bhajanas that were sung in the temple. Sanskrit and Bengali seemed to be designed for glorifying Kṛṣṇa. The combination of philosophy and music was fascinating. Over the next couple of years, I made myself familiar with many of the songs that our predecessor ācāryas had composed, and I wanted to share them with others by combining sound with sight to enhance the experience. That was in 1975, decades before computers would make audiovisual presentations a breeze. In those days a slide projector would have to do, involving many hours of preparing appropriate photographs, often taking close-ups from the paintings in Prabhupāda’s books. Times have changed. With the advent of the digital age, the combination of images and sound has become as easy as can be. During the last decade (2010-2019), wherever I was invited to preach, I used to give PowerPoint Seminars about the songs of the Vaiṣṇava ācāryas. When participants approached me afterwards, asking for CDs with the songs that we had studied, I had to disappoint them. There were none. The requests did not stop and finally, in 2017, I began to contemplate how to go about it. I did not want to simply record some songs. That I had done in the past and, at any rate, there were already so many recordings by so many devotees available. If I were to embark on such a project, it had to be different. I wanted people not just to listen to the songs, I wanted them to imbibe the meaning and become inspired and encouraged to sing these bhajanas themselves. Each song needed a choir, who would invite the listener to sing along with them. And a songbook was needed that would offer more than just the transliterations and translations. Our Vaiṣṇava songs are a treasure house of transcendental knowledge, and Śrīla Prabhupāda was very much familiar with its contents. He used to quote from the ācāryas’ songs hundreds of times in his books and lectures. The reader/listener should hear Prabhupāda speak, and to this end, I have included in Sacred Song Symphony quotes for almost each of the 108 songs. Digital recording has many advantages over analogue technology, one being the tremendous flexibility it offers. Many devotees collaborated and lent their voices for the choirs, but the more the merrier. I would love to see the choirs grow, and expand the synergy more and more. Here is where you, dear reader, may come in. If you wish to participate in this ongoing project, please contact me. Visit www.sacredsongsymphony.com for contact information, news, updates and download links.