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!
I have worked at several studios and come across something universally at each; people afraid to start a yoga practice. Our own mental blocks create so much resistance…we are our own toughest critics and worst enemies.
Start by just jumping in the puddle – not the ocean.
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. Heck, even just going to a Kundalini Yoga class and not being able to do much other then breathing and the layout is going to benefit you!
We have a series of Kundalini Yoga Basics, free short video classes on all the aspects of beginning a practice we are working on to answer these question and give people the information they need to know upon starting a yoga practice. We will cover sitting postures, tuning in and closing, mantra, mudra, relaxation, chakras and more.
Keep a look out as we post each video. Sign up for our FREE MEMBERSHIP to get all the videos, for updates and to get the PDF instructional sheets with each video that go into further detail.
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.
Aquarian Yogi celebrates February, a month known for love and intimate relationship, with a free class with Dr. Sham Rang Singh Khalsa.
With the debut of Aquarian Yogi, those of us involved in building this project have seen many changes and transformations in our lives, and within this space we are birthing for Kundalini Yoga. As things often end in our ever-changing lives, these endings, though often difficult, herald the birth of the new. Kundalini Yoga gives us the strength to keep up, to connect with ourselves, and to navigate these storms with a strong sail.
We all at times feel a longing for love in our lives. The love of a departed lover, a wanted child, or simply a friend that is near and dear to our hearts. If this longing we feel is a schism in our connection with our self, can we use this longing to deepen our love and connection to the infinite grace?
To be human is to feel weakness, fear, and a myriad of emotions and thoughts we sometimes see as sordid reflections of our human condition. Recognize these emotions and thoughts, love them…then use them to fuel your own radiance.
We sail through waters of emotions, swaying with the gales of heavy storms, and the soft breezes of our sunny days. The road can feel like a never ending tempest, but realize that may only be the purging of what no longer serves you, so that you can realize and know all that you really are. Close your eyes and meditate on the trees, listen for the sound of God in the wind. Sit, breath and bring your hands in prayer at your heart and chant Ong Sohung to call on the creative consciousness that you are.
As I have edited each video in the Radiant Self Healing series each class has held significant coincidence in its message for me. This class, where Sham Rang examines the energy of the Kapha Dosha, is a message of divine love – using the longing for love in our lives, where we ache for connection, into divine love and radiance. We can bless ourselves, and fill the chalice of our own heart.
Thank you for being a part and supporter of spreading the sacred teachings of Kundalini Yoga. May we be blessed and serve with joyous devotion.
