Dawn Chant is well known and often sung in SRF. Its point of view is unusual: the one chanting speaks as God, or as Divine Mother, to the devotee. You can see this in the line “Think ye of thy Guru’s lotus feet,” where “thy” is lowercase because it refers to the devotee, not to God.

A common mistake is to sing “thinking of the Guru’s lotus feet” instead of “think ye of thy Guru’s lotus feet.” Take care to sing the words as written.

Some people like to sing this chant in the morning because of its title. It’s fitting at any time, though, if you think of the dawn as the soul awakening to God’s presence within, through the blessings of the Guru.

Song Form

A: Night has flown, dawn has come.
B: Wake, My children, wake! x2
C: Sitting in the asana of meditation, x2
D: Think ye of thy Guru’s lotus feet. x2

Line A is in 4/4 time, line B shifts to 6/4, and lines C and D return to 4/4.

Notes

• In D, be alert to the rhythm on “Guru’s.” “Gu-” is a quick eighth note, and “-ru’s” comes in just before beat 4 and is held through beat 4. It’s easy to smooth this into even beats.

• Once you’ve gone through the full song form several times, you may want to stay with the meditative second half. You could loop lines C and D, each sung twice, for a while, or simply keep repeating line D.

• The chant ends on “lotus feet” at the end of line D, as marked in the sheet music in the Cosmic Chants book.

Listen to SRF Recordings

Videos on YouTube

• 2025 Convocation Monks' Kirtan (Bro. Devananda)

• 2020 Convocation Monks' Kirtan (3-hour)

• 2026 Convocation Monks' Kirtan (3-hour)

Audio Recordings

• Dawn Chant (Br. Bhaskarananda), from the album O Blazing Light
  Spotify · Apple Music · Tidal

• Dawn Chant (Bro. Kamalananda), from the album The Ocean of Love
  Spotify · Apple Music · Tidal

• Dawn Chant (Sr. Ishwari), from the album Light the Lamp of Thy Love
  Spotify · Apple Music · Tidal