Can You Sing Om?

Wendt says that when he chants, "the stress melts in my body and I feel this opening in my heart." But whether he is actually practicing kirtan is a matter of debate. Georg Feuerstein, founder of the Yoga Research and Education Center near Redding, Calif., says kirtan is an exclusively Hindu practice in which believers praise gods to whom they are devoted. He contends that although non-Hindus or those who do not understand what they are chanting may experience a quasi-religious feeling, "the traditionalist would want to know why divine Hindu names are being used for that purpose."

Joyce Schmidtbauer, a commercial producer in Los Angeles, says she benefits from not understanding the words. "My mind won't hold on to the meaning," she says. "Instead, it just becomes sounds that I know have power and are prayerful." K.D. agrees. "It is the very unfamiliarity of the language that stops the mind," he says. He is unapologetic about his American adaptations of the music. "As my path got deeper, the melodies came out in a more natural way for my incarnation," he says. "And I am arrogant and dull and stubborn and lazy enough to just let that happen." What could be more American than that? --With reporting by Sally Duros/Chicago and Stacie Stukin/Los Angeles