• Fifth year senior Neal Styka uses traditional Indian song and chant to enhance his prayer
• He said it helps him reflect on Christian themes
• Taize, an ecumenical prayer style that emphasizes sung chants, is gaining popuularity in Christian churches
• These styles of prayer provide both community and self-reflection

It may be hard to see how Neal Styka, a fifth-year senior in the College of Engineering, can find inner peace amidst hundreds of people swaying, clapping and chanting to traditional Indian music.

But Styka said Kirtan, a kind of musical prayer service that began in India and is open to all religions, is a cleansing experience that helps him to focus on his prayer.

"Every time I come, I'm happy. I'm very positive when I leave," he said.

He said he first discovered Kirtan through his instructor for a yoga class he took at Marquette in fall 2005. The instructor invited her class to go dinner together and then to a church in north Milwaukee where a monthly Kirtan event was held.

Styka said he was wary at first and didn't understand the chanting around him. As he began to participate in the singing, he found the chants relaxed him and cleared his mind.

He said the services he attends are led by Ragani, a recording artist who creates traditional Indian music. Participants sit on the floor and Ragani begins with a reflective chant, "basically like an opening prayer," Styka said.

The mantra, or chanted words, is posted on a projector screen in Sanskrit, an ancient Indian language. Ragani said she gives rough translations of the words, but definitions don't capture the meanings of the words. You don't understand who a person is by their name, she said, but by their qualities. Mantras are similar.

"You don't get caught up in the words," Styka said. "You go beyond the words."

Ragani said Kirtan's popularity has grown so much that she now holds her events at Unitarian Universalist Church West, 13001 W. North Ave, in Brookfield to support the crowd of 300 to 400 worshipers.

She said after surveying attendees, she was surprised most don't fit the "hippie" stereotype. The average age of attendees is around 50, although many college age students attended as well and many parents brought their children.

Styka said a Kirtan service will include four or five chants and last around two hours, but he is unaware of the time until it is over.

He said the simplicity of Kirtan helps him reflect on Christian themes. In Lent, Christians reflect on how they came from dust and will return to dust. All people are connected to the earth, Styka said, and Eastern traditions can help realize that.

Singing and chanting as a style of meditative prayer is not exclusive to Eastern religions. Mark McDonough, pastor of Calvary Presbyterian Church, 935 W. Wisconsin Ave., said Taize prayer has drawn a growing number of people in the last few years.

Taize prayer, McDonough said, is an ecumenical prayer service started by the Taize community of religious brothers in France in 1940. It too involves repetitive song and meditation.

Last October, he said a brother from the Taize community came to lead a Taize service at Calvary. Of the approximately 360 people in attendance, McDonough said at least half were college students.

"'Musically meditative' is one way to describe it," McDonough said.

Those in the congregation sing simple musical parts that help them experience both the communal and individual aspects of the service.

Styka said the 10 p.m. Mass Tuesday nights in the Joan of Arc Chapel have similar elements of Kirtan and Taize.

"It's like hanging out with good friends," he said. "It's all people together as one voice."

Some people might hesitate to try alternative styles of prayer, Styka said.

"Christ didn't say, 'This is the way you should pray,' " he said. "Prayer time doesn't have any prerequisites."