Host a Kirtan & Bhajan Mandali Clubbing Session at Your Home – Bay Area
Bring the Power of Kirtan Into Your Home
Whether you are hosting a housewarming, birthday, naming ceremony, Janmashtami celebration, or simply wish to gather your community for an evening of devotional kirtan — we bring the complete experience to you.
DIVE DEEP INTO HEARING & CHANTING
BRING THE GIFT OF BHAKTI HOME
When Can You Book a Home Kirtan?
- You can schedule satsang at your home/business on Saturdays at 11:00 AM or 5:30 PM, and Sundays at 11:00 AM.
What Our Bhajan Mandali Brings
- Bring expert singers, instruments, discourse speaker, and a high-quality PA system
- Guide you on logistics and best practices
- Deliver a unique, immersive spiritual experience
How to Host a Kirtan at Home
- Invite your friends, neighbors, colleagues, alumni, and relatives to enjoy this spiritually blissful experience
- Become an ambassador for spreading Lord Chaitanya’s mercy to make the world a better place
Feel instant happiness
Deepen your connection
Get positive energy
Experience the transformation
Control your mind
Learn the science
Check availability to book your event in San Francisco Bay Area today!
KIRTAN CLIPS
Host a Kirtan & Bhajan Mandali Clubbing Session at Your Home – Bay Area
Select your preferred date below to schedule a transformative kirtan, bhajan, and discourse session.
WE ARE HERE TO HELP YOU
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What are the occasions to have kirtan/katha at home?
There is no specific occasion needed for doing satsang for the Lord. All days are auspicious. However, these may be some compelling events for you to consider doing a satsang at home:
- Condolence/memorial service for loved ones who have passed away
- Birthdays / anniversaries
- Housewarming
- Parents/relatives visiting from India
- Festivals (Navratri / Holi / Diwali / Dussehra)
- Prayers for health and wellness
- New year or holidays
- Pooja (Shraadh / Pitra Paksha)
- Any auspicious occasion
What is the usual structure of these programs?
The program generally lasts 1.5-2 hours. The content can be tweaked per host’s requirement, but here is the recommended breakup:
- Ice-breaker talk & overview of glories of holy names: 10-15 min
- Bhajan/kirtan(s): 20-25 min
- Inspirational talk on Bhagavad Gita / Srimad Bhagavatam Maha Puran: 35-45 min
- Bhajan/kirtan(s): 20-25 min
- Arti and offer bhoga to the Lord: 5-10 min
- Prasadam and mingling: 30-45 min
How much should I donate?
Our volunteers don’t charge anything as such as this is not a business service. Our volunteers drive 30-60 mins each way for conducting the program, and stay 2-3 hours they spend at your location.
However, if you’re inclined, you can donate per your faith and capacity for supporting temple operations and Sanatan dharma. You will get a receipt for your donations for tax deduction purposes. It will either be from ISKCON of Silicon Valley or Pacific Learning Alliance.
Remember:
- Taking a bath purifies your body
- Mantra meditation purifies your mind
- giving charity purifies your wealth
Please do not give individual envelopes with donations to each team member.
All the donation goes to the temple. We don’t keep anything for ourselves. Sometimes we may partner with devotees from other organizations to conduct the program and it just complicates things if you give them a donation too. Then ISKCON cannot give you a receipt for the donation you give to them. We want to avoid this complication.
We don’t recommend cash or cheque because it becomes challenging to get you a donation receipt well before tax season. With digital donation methods, you get an immediate digital receipt via email or text, and it’s less hassle for everyone.
How can I donate?
We recommend any of these donation methods:
- Credit or debit card/ Apple Pay / Samsung Pay/ Google Pay. This payment method uses Square and will happen on the spot with a temple devotee who is conducting the program. Note that the Square receipts don’t have your name on it for matching.
- Zelle – teamisv@gmail.com. If you use this method, please send us a screenshot for tracking purpose as we don’t have access to these accounts.
- Paypal – teamisv@gmail.com. If you use this method, please send us a screenshot for tracking purposes as we don’t have access to these accounts.
- Venmo. @isv_books If you use this method, please send us a screenshot for tracking purposes as we don’t have access to these accounts.
If your company matches donations for nonprofits, then please do consider it. We do encourage you to explore this option. You can use the receipt for submit for matching donation for these registered nonprofits:
Pacific Learning Alliance
EIN 45-2210885
Pacificlearningalliance@gmail.com
OR
ISKCON of Silicon Valley
EIN 77-0463781
If your matching portal requires your name on it, we can send you a PDF receipt with your name on the letterhead of ISKCON of Silicon Valley or Pacific Learning Alliance. It can take a little time (like a week or two at max), but it will be done.
When can I donate?
If you do want to donate and support the temple, it’s best to have a sankalpa or predetermined thought of how much you want to donate, and do it right after the program.
Please understand that the temple volunteers are also busy working professionals, and with so much going on, they too have challenges in following up for non profit donations. The donation amount is strictly between you and Shri Radha Madan Mohan and we are just instruments.
Please do not be offended when we request you to share the donation amount. Kindly note that the temple volunteers don’t have any direct access to the temple accounts so we are unable to know how much you donated. It’s a completely blind process. Thus, we have to request you to tell us the figure so that we can talk to the treasurer and have an official receipt sent to you.
What are the recommendations for food/prasadam?
Food must be sattvik and vegetarian (minus onion, garlic, mushrooms, gelatin, brinjal). At minimum, you can just have khichdi, dahi, papad, and fruits. While offering naivedyam or bhoga, tulsi leaves should be put on the plate as that is desirable to the Lord.
For cooking at home or with friends, kindly note:
- The utensils should not have been used for cooking non-veg or eggs or seafood before.
- If you’re asking your friends to make anything, please ensure they are following the above cooking standards.
- While cooking, you can put bhajans or Hare Krishna kirtan from YouTube to keep your mind spiritually inclined. The consciousness of the preparer comes into the food.
Outside catering options/ Some of them deliver also so please ask:
- Yogi Plate (669) 278-8417 (South Bay) (devotee-owned catering service)
- Arth Vegetarian Food Catering +1 (669) 800-7099
- Harsha Jain (510) 298-8116, (510) 207-6767 (Fremont Gujrati aunty)
- Neelu Vegetarian cook +1 (510) 358-0718
- Shalini Khanna vegetarian cook +1 (408) 406-7252
- Chat Bhavan (Fremont/ Sunnyvale/ Dublin) Ask for Jain Food
- Ananda Bhavan (Pleasanton) (925) 924-1122 Ask for Jain Food
- Sricatering.com (Livermore/Tri-valley area) (813) 389-4225 or (813) 735-9815 Ask for Jain Food
Please note:
- We are not directly associated with any of these caterers.
- Ask them for Jain food (without onion, garlic, mushrooms, gelatin etc.)
If possible, request them NOT to taste ahead of time as it is for Bhoga for the Lord.
Will you be eating food at our place?
It depends on the preference of the devotees who come. Our volunteers may have certain food discipline (e.g. ayurvedic diet or spiritual vows etc.) they may be abiding by, so they may not eat at the event. Please do not pressurize them to eat but as a dutiful host you can always ask. Please do not take offence if they are unable to eat or are uninclined. Most will accept fruits, all the same.
Do you have any recordings?
Yes, please review selected recordings at bit.ly/kirtanexamples
See pravachan recordings
I don’t want to get into the hassle of arranging for food. Can I do a low-budget or shorter kirtan event?
Yes, everything is possible. Food should not become the bottleneck in satsang.
If you want to avoid the hassle of cooking lunch/dinner or catering from outside, we can just do a shorter event in the timeframe between lunch and dinner. You can serve light snacks to your guests and still offer a good spiritual experience. Please discuss this option with us at +1-341-758-0572 (Whatsapp). Basically, the food is for your guests, and we don’t need it for the temple team.
We can also do a shorter satsang of 1 hour or 30-45 mins depending on the situation. The key goal is to spread the divine consciousness, so we are flexible to the special needs of the occasion. However, if possible, please consider setting aside 1.5-2 hours for the full experience that we can offer.
How many people should I call?
We encourage you to invite AS MANY people as possible for the event per your hosting capacity.
Your network is bigger than you think and a satsang is a great way to get back in touch. You can tap these networks for inviting people:
- Neighbors in your community
- Parents of your children’ s friends
- Colleagues
- Alumni network
- Volunteering or interest groups you are part of
- Relatives
Multiply that with 2 to cover your spouse’s networks.
⇒ So, if you really get down to it, you can easily invite 15-30 families. This is the real service in organizing a satsang.
What if I have a dog or cat?
No offence to your wonderful pets, but they can be quite distracting and take people’s attention away from the spiritual gathering. And human attention is at a premium at these gatherings. In fact, that’s the whole point of the satsang.
Pets roam around and sniff people or lick them or our equipment, which becomes a hygiene issue.
We thus request pets to be tied in an area that’s away from the gathering place and visually out of sight.
What type of bhajans do you sing or which Deities do you sing for?
Our goal is to recreate the Vrindavan mood.
We do a variety of nam sankirtan (chanting of holy names) and popular bhajans glorifying several deities such as Lord Krishna, Srimati Radharani, Balaram, Shri Ram and Sita devi, Shri Vishnu, Jagannath, Shri Narsimhadev, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (Joint incarnation of Krishna and Radharani), Nityananda Prabhu (Incarnation of Lord Balaram) etc.
The bhajans are in Hindi, Braj bhasha, Sanskrit, Bengali. We also cover bhajans by devotees like Surdas, Tulsidas, Meera bai etc. We are constantly evolving our compilation of bhajans at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Rl_T4v_nDBEqa20vQQWlF5FWX1qJuJIHtc-L7TIklFc/edit.
Please note that it gets challenging to do unheard bhajans on the spot. We are more comfortable singing bhajans that are from authentic sources and not contradictory to scriptural teachings. We request your cooperation and trust in conducting the spiritual program for the best outcome.
Any good template for SMS/WhatsApp/Evite messaging for guests?
SMS/Whatsapp: I’d like to personally invite you for a special evening of transcendental musical meditation for gaining auspiciousness, positive energy and beating stress. It will be really awesome if you join us.
Evite: Dear Friends, You are cordially invited for a blissful evening for transcendental musical meditation that will make you happy, stress-free and positive! You will get Lord’s mercy and will be able to control your mind better. The spiritual impact of transcendental musical meditation cannot be explained in words. It has to be experienced.
Kirtaneers from Iskcon of Silicon Valley will come with musical instruments and sing in easy to follow melodies. We guarantee that you will truly enjoy this experience. Please call/text on xxxxxxxx for any questions. Looking forward to seeing you at our home.
What is the best seating arrangement (IMPORTANT)?
The layout of the seating makes a big difference in the general engagement of the guests. The temple devotees should directly face the audience.
It’s better to pick a room that is rectangular or symmetric in shape. Sitting on the floor is preferred to keep the mood traditional. For older people, it’s okay to have chairs at the back or sides.
You may have to move around some furniture to make this possible. It’s really important to have comfortable seating for the guests because they will be sitting for a couple hours. If you have hardwood or marble or vinyl flooring, blankets, chatai, or comforters should be put on the floor. If your floor has carpet, you can just put bed sheets on top of it.
Backyard is also an option for the venue, but note that for afternoon slots, it will be better to get a shamiana or tent to get shade. People don’t want to sit in the sun. For evenings, you can ask them to wear jackets or shawls to beat the cold, depending on weather.
How should the altar be setup?
You can have a small, simple altar with photo / printout / murti (any thing is fine) of Radha Krishna/Sita Ram/Lakshmi Narayan. You can decorate the table with some flowers, agarbatti and oil/ghee/artificial lamp to make it aesthetically pleasing.
What time will you start the program?
Sometimes people get upset over this question, but it’s important to understand that there are a few dynamics at play here. First of all, please understand that this is a satsang, it’s not your daily stand up meeting. It’s not a corporate setting.
With that said, per our experience of more than a decade, people easily take an hour to come for satsangs. Like it or not, Indians tend to come an hour or so late, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
The main thing is that for us to begin, we need at least 10 people, EXCLUDING the temple team. So when people ask us when we will begin, the answer is whenever we will have 10 people gathered. The reason is that we have to orient the people with a short speech and get some engagement going. We can’t do it again and again when people come later. We just need to wait for a quorum first.
No, it doesn’t matter if you guests live across the door, if they are your relatives, or if they’re very close to you. We have seen it all. The only exception we have seen to this is if the guests are already part of some satsang group, then they are used to coming on time and are already motivated for the spiritual session. Not to say that there can’t be other exceptions.
So, the bottom line is that it’s intelligent to have a buffer of 1 hour before the realistic start time.
- For the afternoon slot, if you say 11am, they will realistically turn up around 12pm or 12:15pm. We have waited for 1.5 hours also, and it’s not a desirable situation to be in. To account for the natural delay, you can mention 10:30am as the start time. Then they will come around 11:30am.
- For the evening slot, if you want to start at 6:30pm, ask your friends to come at 5:30pm. If you want to start at 6pm, then say 5pm to your guests. Also note that people usually do not turn up until it’s dark in the evening, so giving a time of 4pm or 3pm doesn’t work either. People have a natural sense of time in their minds, and you can only game it so much.
Our audio and musical instruments setup hardly takes 20 mins or so, but we do end up waiting for the guests to show up more than 60% of the time.
So, it’s a good idea to send reminders to your guests as the event start time comes closer. Some of them may take notice and come within 30-40 mins to give us that quorum that we need to get started.
The right question to ask is when will you end the program, and then try to work the start time backwards. It’s usually not as bad as it initially seems to be.
Do you do Satyanarayan katha also?
Satyanarayan katha is the katha for Lord Vishnu’s glories. We do bhagvat katha from Bhagavad Gita or Srimad Bhagavatam maha puran which is also for Lord Narayan or Vishnu. Gita and Srimad Bhagavatam are both the summary of the vedas. Bhagavata Kaha is purifying no matter which source you hear it from.
Will you do fire yagya also?
We focus on Nam sankirtan yagya, which is also a yagya but the fire of purification burns within your heart. There are many kinds of yagyas mentioned in Bhagavad Gita and this is one of them. In fact, in the Gita https://vedabase.io/en/library/bg/10/25/ Lord says that of all yagyas, I am japa yagya.
At the end of the day, the goal is purification of the heart, not just seeing fire and becoming happy. The fire of purification burns in our hearts when we do bhajan or nam sankirtan yagya.
What is the Hare Krishna mahamantra and why do we chant it?
The Hare Krishna mahāmantra is a sacred sixteen-word mantra found in the Kali-Saṇṭāraṇa Upaniṣad and widely propagated by Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu (1486–1534), the founder of the Gaudiya Vaiṣṇava tradition. It is as follows:
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama Hare Hare
Meaning:
- “Hare” can be understood as an address to Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī (the divine energy of Krishna) or as a vocative form of Hari (the one who removes illusion).
- “Krishna” means the all-attractive Supreme Person.
- “Rama” refers both to Lord Rāma (the king of Ayodhyā) and Krishna (one who gives and takes pleasure), as well as meaning “source of supreme joy.”
So, the mantra is essentially a heartfelt call to the Divine Couple—Radha and Krishna—for connection, service, and shelter.
The devotees recite it for:
- Spiritual purification – Chanting cleanses the mirror of the heart (ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanam as Caitanya Mahāprabhu describes), removing layers of ego, anger, and worldly distraction.
- Connection with God – In the bhakti tradition, chanting is a direct way to associate with Krishna, since His name and He Himself are non-different (nāma-nāminoḥ abhedaḥ).
- Peace and joy – Devotees find that chanting calms the mind, reduces anxiety, and brings inner happiness not dependent on external conditions.
- Scriptural recommendation – The Vedas and Purāṇas declare that in this age of Kali, where meditation, sacrifice, and temple rituals are harder to maintain, chanting the holy names is the most effective spiritual practice.
- harer nāma harer nāma harer nāmaiva kevalam / kalau nāsty eva nāsty eva nāsty eva gatir anyathā
(“In this age of quarrel, there is no way, no way, no way other than chanting the holy name of Hari.” – Bṛhan-nāradīya Purāṇa 3.8.126)
- harer nāma harer nāma harer nāmaiva kevalam / kalau nāsty eva nāsty eva nāsty eva gatir anyathā
Do you do Mata ki chowki or Jagaran/jagrata or Sundar Kand also?
We don’t do them ourselves but can probably give you some pointers to people who do them. Please get in touch with us for the references.
How do people feel after hosting this program?
Please review feedback from hosts here.
What is your mission and how can we support it?
Our mission is to spread the holy names, teachings of Bhagavad Gita and Srimad Bhagavatam Maha Puran, and distribute the aforementioned scriptures throughout the Bay Area.
You can support us by being an ambassador by hosting a satsang at your home. We encourage you to consider taking a set of the Srimad Bhagavatam Mahapuran—a Vedic encyclopedia known for imparting the gift of bhakti swiftly. They may donate to help print more books, or you can sponsor them as special gifts.
Additionally, you have the opportunity to support our goshala (cow protection initiative), which is a vital part of our community service.
Please also join our local Bhakti Vriksha satsangs and inspire your group to visit the temple on weekends with their families for spiritual enrichment.
Join our newsletter at http://eepurl.com/cw8unD to be informed of weekly events. You will get one email per week.
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What Bay Area Families Are Saying
“We had the absolute joy of hosting a Hare Krishna kirtan at our home… The team brought such beautiful energy, devotion, and warmth. If you’re looking to bring a meaningful, joyful, unforgettable spiritual experience to your home, I wholeheartedly recommend them.”
Mona C. — Bay Area, CA
“We had 100+ people and the whole room was clapping, dancing, and singing along within a few songs. For most of our guests, this was their first time attending a devotional kirtan — and they had a wonderful experience.”
Moumita P. — Milpitas, CA
“I wanted to do something special to honor my father’s memory. The whole team showed up on time and very gracefully blessed us with their soulful kirtan and chanting. Every person who attended loved it and left mesmerized.”
Sudiptaa C. — Dublin, CA
“It was an amazing experience to host Bhajan Mandali at our home. They involved everyone in singing different bhajans, and the closing Hare Krishna mahamantra aarti was beautiful. I’d encourage everyone to host this at home.”
Saurabh G. — Newark, CA