Gauri Madhuri Dhanraj

What does religion mean to you?

Hinduism for me, it's more about giving thanks and living selflessly and trying to make the world a better place for you and for the people around you.

I think I've always been into them.

My father and his father before him and his father before him, they were Hindu priests, pundits.

So I always grew up in Mandir, in the temple.

And bhajans have always been the way that the lay people or the common people can connect to God.

especially because many of our scriptures are in Sanskrit and our bhajans are in Hindi or Awad Basha or the local Hindi language.

So they've always felt special to the common folk.

Yeah, so I think I was just kind of born into it and now it's just with me forever.

I know for the Guyanese who would have come from India, it was like their pathway to home.

Like they would have been in this foreign land that looked very similar to home, but the language was different, the people were different.

But the water was the same, the sky was the same, the trees were the same.

And then when they would have sang their bhajans, it made them feel like they weren't alone.

Because even though they were far away from home and family and friends, Bhagwan, or that divine entity, was still with them across the oceans.

And I think it's kind of analogous to what we're experiencing today because my generation is almost like the twice diaspora because we've immigrated from India to Guyana and then again from Guyana to Canada.

And we've also lost that connection to two homes now, the first home of our parents and then the second home of India, of our great-great-grandparents.

So bhajans kind of serve as a bridge between not just two countries, but three almost.

So I think we're experiencing the same thing as our ancestors, just in a different language today.

Satsang with Mooji

Because we're from Guyana and the music there is a little more rural folk music.