Introduction To Kundalini Yoga

"Kundalini yoga teaches you how to activate your own intuition, clear your own chakras and heal yourself and others. It is a very empowering practice that puts you in the driver's seat of your life!"-Shannon Yrizarry

Lots of people have been talking about kundalini yoga lately but what is it? Well it’s not anything to be afraid of, it’s just a more traditional form of yoga that hasn’t been as westernized as most other forms of yoga. This is the yoga that was given to the royals in India and only in the 60’s was it brought to America. The man who brought it to America risked his life giving it to the public. He dedicated his life to helping improve the mental and emotional state of our culture until his passing in 2004. He worked tirelessly often barely stopping to sleep. He was so dedicated to bringing this healing and powerful form of yoga to American culture that people would even wash his hair while he was sleeping because when he was awake, he was leaving behind as much knowledge as he could.

Granted, there is flack about this type of yoga online because people don’t understand that it is experiential yoga. Your mental capacity expands and your emotional state is strong and stable with this type of yoga. But the practices are so foreign to our culture that people don’t understand the different practices. People in class sometimes wear white, sport a turban or hat and sit on a sheepskin. It’s quite different than a hot yoga class or a mainstream class in that the music is in the Gurmukhi language and there is an emphasis on chanting and meditating. Because we are unfamiliar with the mechanisms of our mind, we should expect training it to feel a bit different. There isn’t a structure in our culture for controlling and upgrading the emotional and mental state besides academic learning in our culture and this physical practice is a highly sophisticated practice that works overtime on the systems of the body. There’s certainly a learning curve when practicing this type of yoga. At first it may feel irritating, challenging, blissful or just plain weird.

Overtime, the negative patterns in your mind are rewritten and you feel a more stable positive emotional state. You will feel stronger, more alert and creative as well. I’ve found I don’t need to sleep as much and things that used to bother me, no longer cross my mind. Besides that, it orders the brain and helps us focus on the important things while giving us a tremendous amount of energy. I know many people that have been cured of addiction and depression from this type of yoga. I myself overcame chronic and serious backpain with this type of yoga when nothing else would help after 8 months of MRI’s, acupuncture, massage, chiropractors and x-rays.

So why do people wear white? It is said that it helps expand the aura just a few extra feet. It also helps us think of purity and focus on the purpose of our soul to serve humanity. The head covering is used to help reduce dizziness that can come from the electromagnetic energy (prana) brought into the body during pranayam. The breath charges the nervous system and that extra voltage needs to be contained. The skull bones are pressed together allowing energy to concentrate inward at the third eye to deepen meditation. Sensitive people can stay in meditation instead of just feeling ‘spaced out’ when wearing a head covering, especially one that puts a comforting pressure on the head.

The sounds of the chants are designed to regulate the subconscious thought patterns and override negative thoughts. The sounds have even helped me stop having nightmares when I play them at night! They are essentially a technology to help repattern the neural patterns in the brain which usually default to negative thinking. They allow us to heal the grey matter, our energetic organization and clear our energy field. Being in a group allows everyone’s auras to combine making one big aura meaning that the people who need a boost get a pick me up from those feeling strong that day who have a steady practice.

The sheepskins are another optional practice in kundalini yoga which come from the days when yogis meditated in cold areas and rubber yoga mats were not available. The organic fibers store vibrations and help you get to a deeper meditative state. They also cut the electromagnetic fields between you and the ground.