Our Kundalini Yoga practice is a subtle and comprehensive experience. There are many reasons we choose to devote time, energy, and attention to this spiritual path. One basic reason is that we want to feel good. We may not realize it at first, but we have to feel good to feel God as a full body experience. In this blog I explain the relationship between feeling good and feeling God.
Much of our human pain and suffering comes from fear and shame related to our humanness and our relationship with our body. Having a human body is obviously part of the human experience.
We must keep in mind 4 points related to our human experience and our body.
[1] It is our birthright to be happy.
First, we need to know and be reassured that we deserve to feel good and to be happy. Yogi Bhajan was very adamant — ‘It is our birthright to be happy!’ We need to believe and operate from this belief.
[2] We have to take care of our body.
Second, the most basic fact of life is that we have to take care of our body to not be in pain and create illness and to stay healthy.
[3] We have to feel good in our body.
To feel good in our body, both our physical and emotional bodies must be able to relax into their natural flow and rhythm. We can’t be uptight and stressed.
If our emotions are chaotic and controlled by fear, we don’t feel good.
And if we don’t feel good, we escape into our minds to avoid feeling. If we are not feeling the sensations in our body, we can’t monitor the state of our body, and we can’t listen to its messages.
[4] Sensory pleasure connects us with our soul and the Divine.
AND if we can’t feel, we can’t experience the sensory pleasure offered to us by both our soul and the Divine. We practice Kundalini Yoga to upgrade how we relate to our body and to honor our body as the vehicle of our soul. As we do so, we can greatly increase our enjoyment of human life and reach the spiritual experiences that are available only when mind, body, and emotions are harmoniously connected.
Grounded in feeling awareness in our bodies, we can experience Love in our physical form.
This is the ultimate goal of our spiritual path! We must dedicate our practice to achieving this goal.
Honoring both Polarities of Our Soul
To experience spiritual Love in our body, we must honor and cultivate the higher expressions of both polarities of our soul. Focusing on one and avoiding the other, creates dysfunctions and imbalances.
[1] Male/mind Polarity
We must find the light in our mind in our neutral channel, where we find peace, harmony, and wisdom, not dogmatic ideologies and a critical, judgmental, and shaming parent. If we find a critical voice, this is a clear indication, we are not in our neutral mind, but still in our dualistic mind. We are in our neutral channel, when our male polarity is respectful of our body and emotions.
[2] Embracing the Flowing Polarity
It is part of the spiritual paradigm shift to recognize and honor the fundamental differences in polarities. The mind gets satisfied through awareness and consciousness. The feminine/body and emotions get satisfied through subtle sensory
feeling.
We embrace the flowing polarity in ways that are appropriate to its very nature. With feeling we cultivate the flow through relaxation, letting go, and allowing. Our goal is to achieve a commensurate pleasure in our flowing polarity as we enjoy in the stillness and peace in our mind. In our physical and emotional bodies, the experience of rhythmic moving aliveness produces deep satisfaction.
[3] Alchemy of the Polarities
When we can experience the energy of our emotions not as distracting, but an integral aspect of inner peace, the flowing polarity alchemizes with the stable polarity to bring us into a state of fulfilled wholeness and our heart opens.
The two basic energies can then work together. We can use both to live fuller, more effective, and richer lives. And our expanded consciousness and deeper sensory awareness combine to give us an ecstatic experience of our soul and the Divine.
We feel God in our whole being.
Kundalini Yoga for Experiencing Earth Energies
Lower chakra and earth energy can be experienced and upgraded only through feeling awareness. We can’t think ourselves into an improved relationship with our body, emotions, and Mother Earth. With attentive deep feeling and kindness we can awaken our body’s capacity for subtle sensitivity and enjoy this refined experience of being human.
We don’t escape to the light in our mind, we bring the higher frequencies into our bodies. We spiritualize matter when our body and aura vibrate with the Light. We have to get in our body and connected to Planet Earth to profit from this ultimate human experience.
We can practice in very simple ways.
We can enjoy breathing and moving. We can be present in feeling awareness while we do our exercises, activities, and move through life.
We can feel deeply into our heartbeat as it pulses throughout our body.
During your yoga practice, be patient with yourself. Drop any preconceived ideas about what you should experience. Simply pay attention to your movements and feel the subtle pleasures of being alive. Allow your experience to build as you
- expand your awareness,
- refine your sensitivity, and
- increase your ability to stay present to what you are feeling.
Use above guidelines with any Kundalini Yoga Kriya. Below is a Kriya from Transitions to a Heart-Centered World, and Gift of Womanhood that you can enjoy. In the standing exercises be sure to feel your connection with Mother Earth.
THYMUS & IMMUNITY SET
- Standing, start with hands before chest, palms facing each other 12-18″ apart, and just shake the whole body, creating a body rhythm, especially in the trunk, but giving the entire body a shake-massage like heavenly hell! Get wild! It starts to happen after you don’t want to shake anymore. Every tissue has to sweat. 5-10 minutes.
- Stand straight and move hips up and down by lifting alternate heels and bending knees. Shimmy, twist, hip dance! Extend arms out to the sides, hands limply hanging from wrists, continue shaking, and roll the shoulders in unison with hips. Every pore in the thighs has to sweat to get the toxins out and adjust the pelvic bones. 5-10 minutes>.
- In Easy Pose, palms pressed together overhead, elbows slightly bent, twist forcefully and fast from side to side for 2-5 minutes.
- In Cow Pose, lift left leg straight up as far as possible and keep it up as you bend elbows and touch forehead to the ground between hands, 26-52 times. Repeat with the opposite leg up, 26-52 times.
- Kneeling, on the count of 1, thrust pelvis forward, arch back and touch heels into Camel Pose, and on 2, straighten body, counting to 26-54 repetitions.
- Lie down, hands under hips, palms down and bring knees to chest. On 1, straighten legs to 90°, on 2, quickly, strike heels on buttocks as knees bend. 26 to 108 times.
- Lying flat on back, both hands on heart, relax for 1-2 minutes. Then on 1, hands still on heart, sit up and touch head to knees. On 2, lie back down again, and continue at a moderate to slow pace. 26-52 times.
- Relax on back with Gong Meditation
At a much more subtle level, we can enjoy the unique energy of each of our chakras.
We can eat healthy food and savor the taste by chewing it thoroughly. We only taste in our mouth. Once we swallow the tempting taste lingers only a while disappears. Then we compulsively eat more to satisfy our taste buds.
Years ago I attended a Kundalini yoga class with 40 women. The teacher asked us this question – how many think about how you will feel 2-3 hours afterwards before putting something in your mouth? Two of us raised our hands. I was shocked.
