Meditation can be optimized and greatly enhanced with the practice of the Body Locks, muscle contractions intentionally held at the end and sometimes during meditation. An important part of Kundalini Yoga, the locks consolidate the effects of our practice, optimizing our experience to promote powerful healing and strength.
Dr. Sham Rang discusses how to and when to apply the body locks in this latest video part of our Beginner Basics Series.
The next video in our free Kundalini Yoga Beginner Basics series all about relaxin! Something most of us could use a little more of in our lives. The Beginner Basics series will help you if your new to yoga learn more about attending a class and structure your independant practice at home.
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If you have any other questions about starting a Kundalini Yoga practice – LEAVE A COMMENT BELOW and we will make a video!
The next video in our free Kundalini Yoga Beginner Basics series is now up. The Beginner Basics series highlights information helpful to know when starting a Kundalini Yoga practice. This one is all about sitting, because we do A LOT of that in Kundalini Yoga.
You see a lot of sitting in the practice because this helps draw energy up our spine into our higher centers where we are trying to get it to go. Where we can live from our heart and our intuition.
The thing I really love about Kundalini Yoga is that it is truly for everyBODY. You can modify practically any pose so that you can do it to your best ability.
Sign up for our FREE MEMBERSHIP to get the PDF instructional sheets with each video.
If you have any other questions about starting a Kundalini Yoga practice – LEAVE A COMMENT BELOW and we will make a video!
We’ve all done it. We’ve been on the receiving, and giving end of this popular show of aggravation. What most comes to mind is it’s use in fits of road rage.
I remember driving with my father when I was a young girl. I was always terrified to see him get red faced with anger at other drivers when they were not doing what he wanted, when he wanted, or as fast as he would have liked.
In yoga class last week the teacher framed this common circumstance, in relation to yogic knowledge. We were doing a meditation using the Saturn finger, which is the middle finger and represents patience and tolerance. The teacher so aptly put it, this is what people do, when they have no patience or tolerance left, and how amazing it is that all of humanity seems to unconsciously know what this finger represents!
I do my best to shrug it off when on the receiving end. The driver is frazzled, late for an appointment, stressed from a long day at work. They ‘run out’ of patience. Time holds no abundance for them in that moment. Here we are, not driving fast enough, taking a turn to slow, when other drivers think they have the right of way, and so it goes up, the middle finger.
I have given this myself, though it has been quite a long time. Thanks to Kundalini Yoga, I saw a monumental shift in my driving attitude. It was one of the first results I noticed from my practice. Upon reflection. every time I have presented this behavior it has been unnecessary. Frustrated, impatient, or reacting to the other persons behavior I have ‘lost’ my patience.
When you’re in this situation, and feeling the inspiration to vent your spleen, instead of raising that finger up in a pissed off rage, try Shuni Mudra, the “seal of patience.” formed by the thumb and the middle Saturn finger. Shuni Mudra, encourages patiences and supports thoughts of a noble nature, it turns our negative emotions into positive ones. Breath deep, and let the light guide your way on.
Sat Nam
I fell in love once, so deeply in ‘love’. Every part of my body surged with energy. My hands shook. My heart trembled. My body burst into a million stars that lighted up my sky. I dreamed of a future, one I never knew I even wanted. My mind, almost all day, every day was sick with love and dreams. Fragmented, I flowed with these overwhelming feelings in an ocean that embraced me in its watery swells. I had met a man. I fell fast, and I fell HARD.
We walked along the canal in Venice, little twinkles of light bounced of the tiny waves of water lapping against the cement sides of the canal, little angels blessing us. The sound of the waves of the Pacific mingled with laughter and chatter making beautiful music.
It was a dream…that soon became a nightmare, because I drowned. I had actually been drowning the entire time, I just could not see it. I drowned in the darkness that inevitably followed my sweet dream, that sucked the light and life out of my stars, into a black void, my horizon was again pitch.
It has happened to us all hasn’t it? Heartbreak. Still to this day I have an old kind of ache in my heart when I think about it. How it affected my body, my heart was ripped out of my chest when it ended (all three or five times, we couldn’t manage to establish good boundaries, but that is another blog post).
When this happens, we always interrogate ourselves with a mountain of questions – If only things had gone a different way, then I would be satisfied. If only I had done this, or said that, then he/she would not have left. Rubbish, and we know where rubbish goes; in the recycling. That is the egos trick isn’t it? Looking for satisfaction, looking for love, as if it can only be gotten from outside ourselves.
Truth be told it took years to recover from that relationship. In fact I only just recovered, and at the expense of another relationship. Which its failing, I have blamed myself for, and my inability to let go of the past, even though I wanted to and made it a priority to do so. I know both notions are not rooted in truth, or a perspective that will yield nurturing results.
Even though this person has been in my life, a good friend, there was this weight and sadness that lived among the perfect tranquility of an innocent friendship, but it only lived within me, and had nothing to do with our past. But I did something, as I do with all my relationships. I used it to love myself more, to expand my experience of myself, and my strength, and to learn. To heal the separation from the communication and love of my soul. When someone pushes me away, there is one place I will go. To myself. I sit, pray, meditate, and chant. I do whatever I need to use that experience to:
Write a song, a book, paint a painting, take a photograph. Take your sorrow and throw it to the wind, let the sun soak it up and turn it into a flower. It’s energy. Be a magician.
Stifling and burying emotion under layers of resentment is a symbolic death of the heart. It blackens and burns it until it eats away at itself, it cries in its cage and weeps to be let free. The heart begs for love, for recognition, and for warm tenderness. Sometimes it is hard to even know how to shower love on ourselves. How can we create that energy if we are so low. Luckily, I have yoga and meditation.
It is possible to give yourself this love and tenderness, any time you are in need of it. And a beautiful thing is, you’re not going anywhere. You will always be your own best friend, and your greatest lover.
The heart is a wielder of cosmic energy. The electrical component of our heart’s electromagnetic field is 60 times greater in amplitude then the brain and it permeates every cell of our body. The magnetic component of the heart’s electromagnetic field is approximately 5000 times stronger than our brain and the magnetic field can be detected several feet away from our body. A neural communication network links our heart to our brain and body and it is this network from which the heart communicates information to the brain and throughout the body via the electromagnetic field interactions. It is the heart that generates our body’s most powerful and most extensive rhythmic electromagnetic field.
Our emotional state is communicated throughout the body through the heart’s electromagnetic field. As we experience different emotions the rhythmic beating patterns of the heart change. Positive emotions of love, gratitude, and appreciation create smooth waves, ordered in coherent beating patterns. ‘Changes in the heart’s beating patterns create corresponding changes in the structure of the electromagnetic field radiated by the heart’. The rhythmic field of the heart has a powerful influence on processes throughout the body. ‘Brain rhythms naturally synchronize to the heart’s rhythmic activity, and during sustained feelings of love or appreciation, the blood pressure and respiratory rhythms, among other oscillatory systems, entrain to the heart’s rhythm.’ It is the heart that generates the pace and pulse of the rhythm of life.
Check out Dr. Sham Rang talking a little bit about his ‘Radiant Self Healing’ classes we will be featuring! Filming with Dr. Sham Rang has been a wonderful experience, feeling the vibration of these classes during filming has been uplifting. Skyler, the resident Aquarian Yogi dog also likes them… if you listen carefully you can hear her faintly pitter patter in the background. Sat Nam!
My journey with Kundalini Yoga began fourteen years ago. Kundalini Yoga has enriched my life in ways I never imagined, and has taken me by surprise many times. It did not take long for me to see I did not just stumble upon Kundalini Yoga. I was lead by destiny, that unseen hand that guides us, which has found me here, creating this wonderful space for Kundalini Yoga.
Yogi Bhajan left for us a wealth of knowledge so vast it is a marvel one man could share and create so much in a lifetime. He gave us teachings to empower and experience ourselves. Thousands of kriyas, meditations and lectures for us to experience and share with each other. He created, and supported the creation of companies and products for people wishing to live a healthy lifestyle. His life was a life of seva, dedicated to the upliftment of humanity.
Yogi Bhajan has been a very important, and spiritually intimate figure in my life. I never met him in person, but he has made himself known to me in the most beautiful ways. I have felt his touch, his voice, and his light, blessing me with grace, and a love so pure, and unconditional.
Kundalini Yoga is for ‘everyBODY’ (as he would say), from every walk of life, no matter what your age, or what your difficulty, Kundalini Yoga can support you and help you transform. Over the years as a sevadar and employee of several yoga studios, I have seen many students fear starting a yoga practice. The judgement starts before they even cross the threshold of the studio door. Without my strong encouragement and assurance that anyone can do Kundalini Yoga, they never would have taken the chance. Being given the opportunity to support people in empowering themselves, I am most deeply grateful for. We are all on the same ship here. Yoga is not a place of performance, where we are on show for the world, but the sacred place we go to find ourselves. It is not until it is experienced that the power of Kundalini Yoga can be known.
I am always striving to remember, what is most important, what liberates me, that we are here to serve and uplift one another. It is an honor to be a part of creating another way for us to connect with each other and share the teachings of Kundalini Yogi that are so needed in this ever changing, fast paced world.
– Sat Avtar Kaur
