Kundalini Yoga

By Karla Becker  (Sat Bachan Kaur), published in “Branches Magazine” March –April 2003

Yoga has been a hot topic around the health clubs for some time now.  Athletes are turning to yoga to help them with their flexibility.  Others look to it for helping them achieve their fitness goals.  However, recent newspaper and magazine articles have warned about the potential pain of yoga’s physical aspect, particularly in power yoga.  And well it should.  When yoga is practiced for the physical aspect alone, especially by those who might be doing yoga in the same way as doing an aerobics class, it is not yoga, but calisthenics.

Although Kundalini Yoga is quite physical, its main benefit is derived from the inner experience.  Devta Kidd, Kundalini Yoga instructor in Bloomington, says that practicing Kundalini Yoga has given her “the ability to step back away from myself and from this existence and view it all from a non-dramatic perspective.  I don't get that perspective all the time – not even most of the time – but the more I practice, the more consistently I am in that state of awareness.”

Kundalini Yoga is relatively new to the United States, having been introduced to the West Coast in 1969 when Yogi Bhajan arrived from India and founded 3HO (Healthy, Happy, Holy Organization).  This was the first time that Kundalini Yoga was taught openly.  It had been considered a secretive form of yoga, to be taught only to a high caste in India, the Brahmans.  Yogi Bhajan felt that it was needed in the United States to provide young people of the era an alternative to consciousness-altering drugs.  Devta describes Yogi Bhajan’s introduction of Kundalini Yoga as a way out for those using drugs to “help detox their systems, get their glands working properly again, strengthen their nervous systems, and increase their self and universal conscious awareness." 

How is it similar to other forms of yoga?  Like other yogas, it links movement with breath.  The way it differs is its direct focus on moving energy through the chakra system, stimulating the energy in the lower chakras and moving it to the higher chakras. 

The chakras are energy centers, seven in total, located beginning at the base of the spine and ending at the top of the head.  An eighth chakra exists in Kundalini Yoga, which is the electromagnetic field, sometimes called “aura.”  The aura is thought to be strengthened through the practice of Kundalini Yoga.

As Shakti Parwha Kaur Khalsa describes in her book, Kundalini Yoga:  The Flow of Eternal Power, “We practice Kundalini Yoga in order to balance and coordinate the functions of the lower chakras and to experience the realms of the higher chakras.  After the kundalini energy rises and becomes accustomed to flowing freely through all the chakras, there is a definite change of consciousness, a noticeable transformation in the character of an individual. 

The person looks at life differently, feels different and therefore acts differently.  The real “proof” that someone’s kundalini has risen lies in the upgrading of that person’s attitude toward life, his relationships with other people and with himself. 

Like other yogas, Kundalini links movement with breath.  Kundalini Yoga awakens the
energy that resides in the spine by balancing the masculine and feminine nerve channels
that are intertwined there.  Although it is quite physical, its main benefit is derived
from the inner experience.

”What is kundalini?  The word comes from the root word kundal in Sanskrit, which means “the lock of the hair from the beloved.”  The uncoiling of this “hair” is the awakening of the kundalini, the unlimited potential that already exists in every human.  

Kundalini Yoga activates the kundalini energy which resides in the spine.  It is released by balancing the energy flow of the two nerve channels, known as the nadis, which begin at the base of the spine and intertwine around the central nerve of the spinal column, known as the sushumna.  

These nerve channels are the ida, which is the lunar, negative, feminine energy, and the pingala, which is the solar, positive, masculine energy. 
Once this balancing occurs, the kundalini awakens and rises through the chakras until it reaches the top of the skull, activating the secretion of
the pituitary and pineal glands, which control and regulate the major functions in the body.

The kundalini is the vitality that we have inside ourselves, our infinite potential, the activation of which makes Kundalini Yoga the real power
yoga. 

For more information about Kundalini Yoga, visit the Bloomington

Kundalini Yoga Cooperative website at http://www.illumine8yoga.com.  Good books include Khalsa’s book, as well as The 8 Human Talents, Restore the Balance and Serenity Within You with Kundalini Yoga, by Gurmukh.  Yogi Bhajan’s website is also highly recommended, http://www.3ho.org.

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Karla Becker (Sat Bachan Kaur) is a student and teacher of Kundalini Yoga.  She is a certified yoga instructor as recognized by the Yoga Alliance and can be emailed from karlayoga.com or at  karlayoga@hotmail.com.  She would like to thank Devta Kidd, her Kundalini teacher in Bloomington, for providing information for this article.  She would also like to thank Mahan Kalpa
Singh, who also teaches yoga in Bloomington.