(relaxed music)
- Sat Nam.
Today we'll be talking about Kundalini yoga,
and what is yoga, anyways?
In Western world, we have such a misunderstanding
of what yoga is.
We think it's a physical exercise
so we can slim and look great.
We think it's religion.
We also think that it's a tool
that we can use for achieving some superhuman powers.
Whatever the take is, it's really far
from what the reality is.
Yoga is a union.
It's a connection of you, as a human being,
to something divine, to the greater knowledge,
to the cosmos.
It's an awareness of your being, of your existence,
of your purpose, and how your life
is shaped within that cosmos.
So we are all one, I'm sure you've heard about that concept,
because our energies flow and interact,
and mix with everything around us.
Everything, from this pillow, my body, the couch,
all of this is energy, and we mix and interact all the time.
But yet we came to this planet with a physical vessel,
in a body, so that although our energy's flowing
and it's one, we differentiate ourselves,
we create a unit, an element, that's standing on its own.
So yoga is a union, creating that connection
with ourselves, and the cosmos.
Understanding the purpose of our life.
Raising our awareness into the way we live our life.
And Kundalini is a really interesting practice.
I found it because of my personal issues
back in my younger years, back when I used to stress a lot,
and it brought a lot of depth in my life.
And it's an extremely powerful practice.
It's known as the mother of all yoga.
It's known as the diamond that has all the facets
of the different styles of yoga in it.
There are about 22 types of yoga,
and Kundalini is all-encompassing.
Because it combines all the elements.
You have the physical exercise, you have the repetition,
you have the mantras, the breath,
the focus, the relaxation, the meditation.
It is such an encompassing powerful sequence
that it is capable of transforming you,
of transforming your life.
And we as humans, we have to think,
we actually come in three parts.
You thought you are one, you're not.
You have your body, so that's the physical,
the outward way you see things.
You have the mind.
That's the eagle and your consciousness,
your understanding of the world around you.
And you also have the soul, your essence,
your deep being, the energy that you came in with.
And when all these three are combined and with awareness,
you live in bliss.
But to achieve that,
you need to practice because we live in a society
which is so focused on the gross, on the material.
Or we go to the other extreme,
we go into such a spiritual world that
suddenly we just want to be out there in a mountain
under a tree, just meditating
and there is no distractions.
But the reality is you need to mix these things.
You need to live now, here, in your life,
but bring that knowledge, that tools
to enhance that life.
To raise your awareness and your consciousness.
Kundalini yoga is known as the yoga of awareness,
the consciousness yoga.
And what it does, it awakens your Kundalini energy.
Kundalini energy is your creative power.
It's nothing super fancy out there.
I get a lot of questions on, is this a sexual energy?
Is this something that's gonna give me
some superhuman powers?
No.
It is your creative essential energy.
And the way we awaken that energy
is by a process where the glandular system of the body
and the nervous system connect
and start sending signals to the brain to awake,
to be aware of everything
so that we connect to our higher consciousness,
to the knowledge, to the utmost power.
And then we feel strong.
And then we feel creative.
And then we feel balance.
So the way we do this
is by all the exercises, all the different tools we use.
And Kundalini yoga is so unique
that it addresses very specific areas in your life.
It's a little bit like medicine.
So if you take a medicine
but you take the wrong dosage,
or you take the wrong medicine
for the problem you want to solve,
you're not gonna get anywhere.
It's a little bit of a science.
You need to go behind, understand the tools,
what they mean, how they work,
how they react together.
So that you can achieve, you can really go into that
transformative journey with your purpose, with your goal.
We use two energies for that,
the prana, which is our life force,
the creative power within,
and the apana, which is your limiting force,
the cleansing force, both physical and energetic.
And when these two are balanced,
then the energy starts flowing.
In Kunalini, energy is said to be residing
at our lower vertebrae, at the back,
which then raises up with all the techniques we use,
we push it up, we raise it,
we illuminate it, and it rises up to our Shushumna.
The Shushumna is the central, the main channel,
also known as nadi.
The body has overall 72,000 nadis
and they all start from the navel point.
And then they spread around the body
all the way to the legs and hands.
And through these nadis prana gets disseminated.
So let's just do a quick panic exercise.
You're gonna raise your hand up.
You're gonna hold your wrist.
And you're gonna raise them above your head.
And as you raise, you're gonna feel this isometric pull
on both sides.
Close your eyes.
And we're gonna breathe here, long and deep.
You have to feel the pressure between the shoulder blades.
This is where the prana resides.
Long, deep breathing.
Feel the pull,
equally distributed from left and right,
meeting in the center between the shoulder blades.
Relax the body.
Just feel that pull.
(ethereal music)
And inhale deep.
Holding the breath in and pull even harder.
And exhale, and relax.
We'll be covering each element of Kundalini yoga
through this series,
but overall Kundalini consists of several elements.
That's kriyas, which are series and sequences, asanas.
An asana is a special, specific posture.
Each has a specific time
so that the desired effect from each posture is achieved.
They tend to be quite repetitive.
It's not like hatha or ashtanga where you go through
sequence of a flow.
Because we want to awaken that specific area
that we're working on.
Be it we're trying to cleanse the liver
or open the heart, or work on the throat chakra
and balance our thyroid or stimulating the pituitary gland.
Whatever we're working on,
we really want allow for that necessary time to pass.
A series of repetitions or just holding specific postures
so that we get to that final end
to get to our result.
So you need to understand
that when we say, okay, do 11 minutes stretch pose
and you're dying out there
thinking what is she doing to me?
This is not because I'm trying to be
pushing you towards a harder exercise
or trying to get you sweat,
it is because that's how long you need to hold it
so that we can achieve the desired end result.
We also have quite a different toolkit.
We have the breath,
and there is whole science on that,
on how breath affects.
What is the left nostril, what is the right nostril,
what happens if I breathe through my mouth?
And each one has a very distinct, specific effect on you.
You can fall asleep, you can wake up,
you can relax, you can stimulate your energy.
It really, really controls
how the body reacts.
We have mudras.
These are different hand positions
that we hold to further enhance
whatever we're working on.
Be it on knowledge, on communicate, on wisdom,
we're gonna go through all this,
but it's very essential part.
We have the eye focus.
Sometimes the eyes are closed,
sometimes the eyes are focused in front of us
and slightly open, sometimes they're widely open,
and that also gives us an additional lock of the mind.
Not only working on the body
but also working with the mind
so that we're sending the awareness where it should be.
We have locks which serve as levers.
As we generate energy in different areas,
in different specific parts of what we're trying to do,
we use the locks,
which we're gonna go through in more detail,
push up that energy to hold, to contain the energy,
we stimulate it in the body.
We use widely mantras, as you know.
We sing a lot of mantras,
which are seed sounds,
and of the rudimentary sounds we were born with.
Doesn't matter of language.
Doesn't matter where you were born.
Each sounds, each movement of the tongue
has a very specific hit on the palate.
And that stimulates nerve endings
which then send signals to the brain,
so we're not just doing it for fun,
although it is fun.
But we also working at the same time
on the specific areas.
So there are a lot of different aspects.
We're gonna go through each on individually,
you're gonna experience it so that you feel
what each one them means,
so that when we do a class, you say ah ha,
I know why I'm doing this.
Because it does this and this and this to me.
And when I combine it in all the layers
with all different locks and mudras
and eye focus and the breath and the posture,
then I have arranged all these tools correctly,
and then I know I'm doing the things right.
This is for today.
I am probably covered too quickly everything.
But don't worry, we're gonna go through each one separately
and you're gonna have the chance to experience it.
And in addition, I have a gift for you.
We have created a Essential Beginner's Guide
so that you can further your knowledge
and that you can go deeper and read
and if anything wasn't clear,
you want to understand more about the philosophy
or the specific tools,
you can just go in there and read about it
and experience it as we go along.
If you want to learn more, it's completely free.
We've just done it so that you can enjoy this
and you understand it and you can use this practice
to really, really, really reach the results
and goals you have.
It's gonna be somewhere down below,
there will be a link.
Click on it and claim your free book.
I'll see you next time.
And we kickstart with every part of our practice.
Sat Nam.
See you soon.
(relaxed music)