Kundalini Yoga. What is it? After some years of practicing other forms of yoga, I signed up for a Kundalini Yoga class while on vacation in Hawaii. Before I had even realized the transformational power of it, something told me to immediately sign up for a 7-month kundalini teacher training in Chicago.
Once I started practicing this yogic form, I realized the vast power it has to transform the practitioner’s life in all aspects. Kundalini yoga uses kriyas, which are specific sets of asanas (physical postures), mantras/chants, breathe techniques, hand
mudras, and meditations to achieve a specific purpose. For example, a certain kriya will be for opening your heart and magnetic field as well as purifying the blood and strengthening the lungs. While another might be for strengthening your navel center energy, your abdominal muscles and helping with digestion. There are hundreds of kriyas each with their specific purposes. Essentially though, the practice changes your energy field. It releases stuck and blocked energy and awakens your chakra system and auric field. As this happens many things may arise in your consciousness such as fears, bad habits, repressed emotional wounds etc. It brings them up and clears them out. People will find themselves doing things they never thought imaginable and breaking through internal and external barriers that they may have had erected for lifetimes. By changing one’s energy field the people and opportunities that come into your life change. Also, that which does not belong is removed or becomes obviously uncomfortable.
As I’ve practiced by intuition and perceptions have deepened drastically and my heart has opened to love. The roots of the practice including its mantras come out of the Sikh tradition. The basic teaching of which is “Ek Ong Kar Sat Nam”. That there is only one constant in the entire universe and that your identity is that truth. A common mantra in kundalini yoga is Sa-Ta-Na-Ma which can be broken down as Sa – birth, beginning and totality of the cosmos; Ta –life, existence and creativity manifest; Na – death and transformation and Ma – rebirth, regeneration and consciously experiencing the joy of the infinite. A true yogi practices not only for the physical body, not only for the mental body, but ultimately to uproot ones samskaras
and thereby become free from the wheel of birth and death. One practices to realize their true boundless nature. I’ve always told people that I’ve studied and done many spiritual practices and I only do the practices I do because I find them very beneficial. I hope some curiosity may have been arisen in this area and maybe we will practice together one day. Until then: Sat Nam!
