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Bhagavata Seva Fall 2023 -1
When parents or grandparents travel from India or another city to visit, the Bay Area family is suddenly full again — voices, meals, the particular quality of presence that only elders carry. These visits are, in the Vedic understanding, among the most auspicious occasions a household can experience. The tradition of honouring one’s parents as divine representatives is not a metaphor but a practical instruction: receive them with the care and reverence with which you would receive the Lord Himself. A visiting parents kirtan Bay Area families are hosting during a visit brings this instruction to life.
📲 Bring a kirtan program to your home
Trained devotees travel to you and lead a two-hour devotional evening — bhajans, katha, and arati with dance.
Honouring Parents: The Vedic Instruction
The Taittiriya Upanishad contains one of the most direct and famous teachings in all of Vedic literature: matru devo bhava, pitru devo bhava — may your mother be a goddess to you, may your father be a god. This is not poetry. In the Vedic framework, parents are the child’s first experience of the divine — the source of their body, their first knowledge, their earliest protection. Honouring them is itself a devotional act.
This distinction is worth stating clearly, because a parents’ visit is often organised purely around logistics — flights, guest rooms, sightseeing plans. The tradition doesn’t ask families to reduce any of that planning. It simply suggests that somewhere within the visit, one evening should be set aside specifically to honour the elders’ presence in a spiritually meaningful way, distinct from the practical business of hosting them.
“May your mother be a goddess to you. May your father be a god to you. May your teacher be a god to you. May your guest be a god to you.”
— Taittiriya Upanishad 1.11
Why Kirtan Carries Special Merit for a Family Reunion
Srimad Bhagavatam 11.5.32 calls congregational chanting the most effective spiritual practice for this age — and a visit from parents or grandparents, often the one time each year the full family is physically together, is exactly the kind of occasion this teaching is meant for. The Taittiriya Upanishad’s instruction to treat parents as living representations of the divine (quoted above) is not meant to remain abstract; a kirtan is how that instruction becomes an actual evening, with the parents seated at the centre of a room full of chanting family, rather than simply a verse remembered in passing. For many older parents visiting from India, the kirtan also carries a layer of familiarity that a restaurant dinner cannot — the bhajans, the arati, the rhythm of the evening often closely mirror programs they attended for decades back home, making the evening feel less like a novelty and more like a homecoming.
When parents visit from India — sometimes after a year or more of separation — the family naturally wants to mark the occasion. Dinners happen. Relatives call. But a kirtan takes the gathering to a different register entirely: it places the parents at the centre of a devotional event, surrounded by the family’s chanting and the sound of the Lord’s names. Many parents who attend a home kirtan with their Bay Area children describe it as the most meaningful part of the entire visit.
A family reunion kirtan also serves the extended family who gather for the visit — cousins, siblings, neighbours — bringing them together not just around a dinner table but around a shared spiritual act. In a diaspora community where maintaining cultural and devotional practice across generations is an ongoing effort, a home kirtan during a parent’s visit is one of the most effective bridges between the world the parents came from and the world the children now inhabit.
📲 Bring a kirtan program to your home
Trained devotees travel to you and lead a two-hour devotional evening — bhajans, katha, and arati with dance.
How Families Structure a Reunion Kirtan
Most families schedule the kirtan for a weekend evening during the parents’ visit, when work schedules allow the widest possible gathering of cousins, siblings, and family friends. The program typically opens with a greeting arati specifically honouring the visiting elders — sometimes including a garland or tilak — before moving into the main bhajan session. Because many visiting parents grew up with these bhajans, the room often ends up singing along more fully and more quickly than at other occasions, with even reluctant younger family members drawn in by their grandparents’ obvious enjoyment.
Families with a longer visit sometimes hold more than one kirtan — a smaller gathering early in the trip and a larger one closer to the parents’ departure, treating the visit itself as a season of devotion rather than a single event. Others prefer one well-planned evening timed to when the most relatives can attend. Either approach works, and our devotees are glad to help think through timing given the visit’s overall length.
What a Family Reunion Kirtan Looks Like
ISKCON Silicon Valley’s devotees arrive at your home with harmonium, mridanga, and kartals. The program opens with a greeting arati — often offered specifically in honour of the visiting elders — then moves into the main bhajan session with joyful Braj-style chanting, bhajans familiar to older Indian guests, and the Hare Krishna mahamantra. A short katha on the Vedic teaching on family and the honouring of elders follows, and the evening closes with a full arati in which everyone participates. The program runs approximately two hours and blends seamlessly with a family gathering.
Some Bay Area families simply call this a bhajan mandali or bhajan clubbing evening — a home gathering built around live bhajans rather than a formal program. See What Is Bhajan Clubbing? for more on how these informal jamming sessions work.
Devotees who have led these reunion kirtans often note a particular dynamic: grandchildren who rarely see their grandparents in a devotional setting often watch them chant with visible surprise and pride, discovering a side of their grandparents’ lives they don’t normally witness during a typical family visit.
Families in San Jose, Fremont, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, and Milpitas have hosted ISKCON kirtan evenings at home — our devotees travel to you, so there is no logistical burden on the family hosting visiting elders.
Host a Kirtan for Your Visiting Parents or Grandparents
Give your parents’ visit an evening they will carry home with them. To book a home kirtan Bay Area session for a family reunion or parents’ visit, use the Calendly widget below or reach out via WhatsApp with your dates.
Want to host a kirtan program at your home? Check available dates:
Because parents’ visits are often planned around fixed and sometimes short travel windows, we’re used to working with tighter timelines than usual — once you select a date above or send a WhatsApp message, our team responds quickly to confirm details, including how many guests to expect and whether there’s a specific occasion within the visit (an arrival, a birthday that falls during the trip, a departure) you’d like the kirtan tied to. The service is free of charge, and devotees are flexible on timing to fit around a visit’s sometimes unpredictable schedule.
Visit schedules can shift right up to the date — flight delays, changed plans — and our team is used to staying flexible around exactly this kind of last-minute adjustment for a family reunion kirtan.
Given how quickly visit plans can change, our team keeps the WhatsApp line open right up to the day, so last-minute adjustments to timing are never a problem.
📲 Bring a kirtan program to your home
Trained devotees travel to you and lead a two-hour devotional evening — bhajans, katha, and arati with dance.
About ISKCON Silicon Valley
ISKCON Silicon Valley is part of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, founded in 1966 by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and recognised globally as a leading Vaishnava institution. Our Silicon Valley temple has served the Bay Area community for decades, offering weekly programs, festivals, and the Vrindavan Mellows home-kirtan service — trained devotees who bring a two-hour program of bhajans, katha, and arati directly to your home.
Book a Family Reunion Kirtan in the Bay Area
Honour your parents and elders with the best gift the Vedic tradition offers — the Lord’s names, chanted together by the whole family. Check available dates above or reach out via WhatsApp. Our temple schedule at iskconsv.com/programs is also available for those who wish to visit with visiting elders.
To learn more about hosting a satsang gathering, see What Is a Satsang? — and if your family is also settling into a new home, see Griha Pravesh Housewarming Kirtan.
Looking for a kirtan for a different occasion? Browse other life-occasion kirtans — birthdays, anniversaries, housewarmings, and more.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why host a kirtan when parents are visiting?
In the Vedic tradition, parents are considered living representations of the divine — ‘matru devo bhava, pitru devo bhava’ (Taittiriya Upanishad 1.11). When parents visit from India or another city, hosting a kirtan is a way to honour them within a spiritual framework, not just a social one. The gathering also gives extended family a meaningful reason to assemble.
Can the kirtan be the main event of a family gathering, or does it need to be combined with something else?
The kirtan works perfectly as a standalone evening event, typically two hours. Many families arrange dinner before or after. It is the anchor around which the family gathers, not a side item.
Do visiting parents or grandparents need to do anything special?
Nothing at all — they simply attend and participate as much or as little as they like. Many older parents find the kirtan deeply familiar and comforting; it reminds them of devotional programs back home.
What if some family members are not particularly devotional?
Kirtan is designed to be participatory without requiring prior devotion. The chanting is in simple repeating refrains, the mood is joyful, and no prior knowledge is expected. Most guests who arrive uncertain find themselves drawn in within the first ten minutes.
Is the home kirtan service free?
Yes. ISKCON Silicon Valley’s home kirtan service is free of charge to all host families.
Kirtan Volunteer · ISKCON Silicon Valley
Gaurav has been leading bhajans and kirtans in Bay Area homes for more than 10 years. He teaches harmonium for kirtan on YouTube, shares bhajan albums on SoundCloud, and coordinates the Vrindavan Mellows home kirtan service across the San Francisco Bay Area.