Khalsa Dharm - Essential kundalini yoga: an invitation to radiant health, unconditional love, and the awakening of your energetic potential

WE DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO Karenas father, Giulio Ferrari, and Dharms mother, Osa Skotting Maclane. Giulio was Karenas first spiritual teacher. He taught her to love with all the love in her heart and showed her the everyday beauty of giving to the Divine by giving to others. His spirit was tangible as we opened our hearts and poured our love into the delicate balance of words. Osa was Dharms first yoga teacher. She passed on into the light as this book was being created, and her sense of aesthetic balance, patience, and grace runs deeply through the pages. She lived her life as an artist creating from her heart to her hands.

Both Giulio and Osa would have loved to have seen the finished book and hold it in their hands. Their memory reminds us every day that compassion, kindness, and generosity are essential ingredients for a fulfilled life.

We also dedicate this book to our amazing spouses, Charles Virginia and Gurukirn Khalsa, for their support and inspiration, which made this book possible. Your unwavering love is reflected in these words. To our children, Gabriella and Christian Virginia, and Hari Rai and Sahib Simran Khalsa, who are the joy in our hearts dancing out into the world. We love you to the moon and back for infinity, and you will always be our babies and our teachers at the same time.

To Mommy, Dad, Stephi, Robert, William, and Gitte. We love you forever. To all those who share our hearts and connect with us in one beautiful tapestry.

To Yogi Bhajan for openly sharing these sacred teachings, and encouraging us to dwell within the stream of grace that comes from timeless truth. We dedicate this book to you, the entire Golden Chain of teachers, and to your transformative prescence in our lives. We are forever grateful.

To the millions of angels who dance and sing around our globe reminding us that we are all so very similar, and we are all so very loved. Always.

We would like to make an extra special dedication to Karenas nephew, Michael James Ferrari, who passed on into the arms of the infinite during the time of writing this book. His sweet smile and loving heart will always be remembered, and he lives within many of the words in this book. We pray that his soul touches and heals the lives of teenagers, and that we may be conduits helping many others find their way.

Finally, with all the love in our hearts, we dedicate this book to you, dear reader, for holding these words close to your heart. We pray it touches your life and inspires you to touch another. May you be blessed with love forever.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

EACH OF US HAS AMAZING potential for creating health, happiness, love, and a life of fulfillment. Deep in our hearts, we know we have the ability to activate and generate a life of our highest calling. The question is: Are we allowing the magnificent brightness of our true selves to shine, or are we hiding the radiance we were born with? Just as a diamond needs light to sparkle, our own true self needs the release of its inner light to be fulfilled.

This book is about clearing our energetic restrictions so our true selves shine as wonderfully as they can, in accord with our natural, inherent ability. The ancient practices of kundalini yoga are incredibly effective tools in this modern age for activating the elusive, hidden release of magnetism we are born with. The exercises open up energy pathways within our body, so we can experience vibrant health, abundance, love, empathy, intuition, and an expanded sense of connection with others.

Many people are experiencing a tangible soul-level drive for self-actualization. It feels like a voice deeply connected with the center of our being that is waiting to be heard. But although we feel it calling inside, we suppress it with self-limiting beliefs, and our unique brilliance remains hidden beneath layers of politeness and emotional armor. We may distract ourselves with our busy lives, stifle our yearnings, and go to sleep feeling so unfulfilled night after night that we become used to it. There are a hundred ways to hide the sensitive, beautiful nature of who we are.

In this era, many of us are noticing an inner voice persistently reminding us to leave behind our fears and step into the magnificence that we naturally possess. And the urging, calling, and whispering of this inner voice can no longer be ignored. If you have picked up this book, chances are that you are hearing it yourself.

THE SECRET YOGA OF ENERGY

Kundalini yoga is an ancient, time-tested system of exercise and meditation that boosts our energy, synchronizes the impulses of our nervous system, releases energetic blockages, balances our hormones, and uplifts our attitude to allow the pure radiance of our authentic self to shine. While other branches of yoga focus primarily on physical postures, kundalini yoga focuses on how the postures alter our energy and mind-set. Postures, movement, breathing, meditation, mantras, and lifestyle come together to bring about remarkable transformations of personal energy. The term kundalini refers to the concentrated living energy that opens up our potential. It is an energy that is dormant yet calls us to be awakened within. Once activated, it permeates us, energizes our cells to bring health and vitality, and connects our consciousness with the infinite. The techniques of kundalini yoga were developed over the course of thousands of years and are highly effective tools for opening up our energy pathways so the right amount of energy at the right frequency can flow smoothly through our entire being.

Kundalini yoga works on the principle that our physical body and our energy move hand in hand. What we do with our body has a parallel effect on our energy, and, likewise, what we do with our energy has a parallel effect on our body. For example, tightness in our hamstrings is actually a blockage in the energy that otherwise would be flowing through that area of our body. We call that tightness an opacity because it is blocking the flow of inner light. Using the ancient techniques of kundalini yoga to stretch the muscle or move a limb through the energy field that surrounds our body, we can release the corresponding blocked-up energy. Our inner light can then start flowing into an area where it was restricted before. The resulting effect on our body and mind is absolutely profound. Not only does the muscle itself become more limber, but our consciousness shifts, our mind becomes clearer, and the new energy optimizes our functioning at the genetic level. As the light flows through our energy field, our awareness comes alive. Our energy level soars, and, like a flower emerging from the soil after a long, cold winter, we feel alive and hopeful.

Kundalini yoga was kept secret in India for thousands of years, taught only to devotees who were deemed worthy. In the 1960s, Yogi Bhajan moved from his home country of India to the United States. He began teaching kundalini yoga as a technology for self-improvement, and it quickly became popular. He authored more than thirty books and traveled extensively, teaching kundalini yoga around the globe until his passing in 2004. The authors have studied kundalini yoga extensively. In this book, for historical accuracy, we have sourced the exercises so you can see whether an exercise was taught by Yogi Bhajan, is a classic from the ages, or is a visualization we bring to help explain a topic.

THE KUNDALINI SPIRIT

Practicing kundalini yoga often results in a natural sensation of oneness with a universal force greater than our limited sense of self. Yet kundalini yoga is not a religion, can be practiced by anyone with any spiritual belief, and does not require any particular spiritual philosophy. It is typical for the practices to enhance ones feelings of spirituality, whether you belong to a formal religion or not. Flashes of insight, cosmic breakthroughs, tears of joy, and sobs of surrender are normal occurrences when the wondrous flood of our own energy is finally allowed to emerge through the layers of shielding we have put up all our lives. We encourage you to allow yourself to be swept up in the gift of spiritual experience rather than resisting out of fear. In fact, it is high time to give up the fear of your own brightness. Throughout this book, we use the terms