40 Days of Kundalini Yoga 

 

As part of my Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training I have to undertake a 40 day fast and also 40 days of a particular Kriya (yoga practice) of my choosing.

The fast has not proven to be the difficulty and has been the subject of another post.

In comparison, I just could not seem to settle into my 40 day yoga practice. This was particularly frustrating for 2 reasons –

• Kundalini Yoga covers a myriad of kriyas and meditations that are as simple or as complex as I would like them to be. If I wanted to I could do a kundalini yoga practice from my bed without having to do anything particularly strenuous at all.
• The second thing is that I know for sure that doing Kundalini yoga each day – even a small amount will make me feel so, so much better,

What I absolutely could not understand was that if I know that doing the yoga is not going to cause me any hardship and I also know that it is going to make feel great then why am I not doing it.

Even more frustrating, why was I making myself grumpier and grumpier, mindlessly reading things on the internet I did not want to read or watching things on tv I did not want to watch and getting more and more peeved at myself because in the back of my mind I knew that just doing some Kundalini yoga would make me feel better in half the time I spend procrastinating about it.

Yesterday I finally decided on the Kriya and Meditation I am going to do for the 40 days and I also completed the first day of the 40 days of yoga.

As choosing the Kriya and Meditation was proving to be such a ridiculously difficult task for me, I just took yesterday afternoon and went into YouTube and did a few Kundalini Mantras and Meditations along with the videos to see what felt right for me.

Choosing a Kriya

What was interesting was that I completed a few Kriyas that did not really feel as if they were the right choice, however as soon as I started the Kirtan Kriya (the Sa Ta NA Ma meditation) I immediately could feel the emotions welling up in me and I found the process incredibly upsetting.

For me, the Kirtan Kriya brought up a feeling of being unclean and unworthy and it is unclear to me exactly the reasons for those feelings.

The Kirtan Kriya

As stated on the website Mantras and Miracles:

 

One of the first mantra mediations Yogi Bhajan taught when he came to the states was Kirtan Kriya using the mantra Sa Ta Na Ma. It is considered one of the most important mantras in Kundalini Yoga.  

It is a mantra for change, a mantra for evolution and a mantra to break addictions. 

It works to deeply clean the subconscious mind. It creates balance in the mind and resets the pituitary and pineal gland….

 

“SA TA NA MA is so primal that its impact on our psyche is like splitting an atom. The power of his mantra comes from the fact that it rearranges the subconscious mind at the most elementary level. It has the power to break habits and addictions because it accesses the level of the mind where habits are created.” – Guru Ratana”

 

The level of emotion that doing the Kirtan Kriya which is one of the simplest Kriyas to do in Kundalini (deceptively simple) really surprised me and made it clear to me that this was the Kriya I had to do for my challenge.

Choosing a Meditation

In terms of choosing a meditation for the 40 days I also really struggled with this and tried a few which didn’t seem to really fit. When I came upon a meditation entitled a Celestial Communication Meditation, this again invoked huge emotions in me and I knew this was the meditation that I was to do for the forty days.

Celestial Communication Meditation is a common term in Kundalini Yoga for a moving meditation composed of choreographed arm and hand movements to mantras music.

The Adi Shakti Meditation

The Celestial Communication Meditation that I had clicked into in YouTube was in fact the Kunadlini Bhakti (Adi Shakti) meditation described in “I am Woman: Creative, sacred & Invincible” page 46 as follows:

 

“Adi Shakti Namo Namo

 

This devotional mantra (a Bhakti mantra), invokes the primary Creative Power which is manifest as the feminine. It calls upon the Mother Power. It will help you to be free of the insecurities which block freedom of action. By meditating on it one can obtain a deeper understanding of the constant interplay between the manifest and the unmanifest qualities of the cosmos and consciousness.  This powerful mantra belongs to all women to call upon any time. She can chant it freely and powerfully, any time.

 

Adi Shakti Adi Shakti Adi Shakti Namo Namo

Sarab Shakti Sarab Shakti Sarab Shakti Namo Namo

Pritham Bhagvati Pritham Bhagvati Pritham Bhagvati Namo Namo

Kundalini Mata Shakti Mata Shakti Namo Namo

I bow to the Primal Power.

I bow to the all Encompassing Power and Energy.

I bow to that through which God creates.

I bow to the creative power of the kundalini, the Divine Mother Power.

 

WITH CELESTIAL COMMUNICATION

 

This mantra can be experienced powerfully by adding Celestial Communication—mudra in motion. A tool for mental relaxation, it is meditation with mantra and movement of the arms and upper body. The meaning of the mantra is expressed through movement. Yogi Bhajan describes its impact: “Everything comes from stress. If you want to get rid of this inner-grown stress, here is one solution. There’s no power more than the power of the word, and when the word is formed through the body, the entire being is purified, relaxed…”

you can create your own movements, or learn already developed sequences.”

 

The Adi Shakti Meditation which I had inadvertently clicked into in YouTube was exactly what I needed, being in the masculine corporate world for so long and feeling entirely stripped of my femininity along raising questions as to why I ended up in that position in the first place. What is the root of my insecurity and why I do not feel good enough in myself that I feel the need to constantly prove myself and push myself to a point of exhaustion is a recurring issue for me although I tend to brush it away and not deal with it and paper over it with overwork is also a recurring issue for me.

These two aspects of Kundalini yoga – the Kirtan Kriya and the Adi Shakti Meditation could not have been more perfect for me in that context.

The interesting thing for me was that the decision to choose these practices was an entirely intuitive one, based completely on emotion. As I mentioned, at the time of coming across the Celestial CommunicatioN Meditation, I did not even know that I was in fact clicking into the Adi Shakti invocation to the divine mother.

I do think your body knows, your subconscious knows so much before you allow that information to manifest into this realm and I wonder now if my absolute reluctance and downright petulance and grumpiness in choosing my yoga practices was because, of some level I knew that they were going to shine a light on various aspects of my life and being that would make me emotional and upset.

I will say that the effect of finding and doing the Kirtan Kriya and Adi Shakti Meditation completely exhausted me. I am travelling and am usually a compulsive sightseer, taking everything in wherever I go, however after my afternoon working with the Kriyas and meditations, I was just exhausted and absolutely could not do anything this morning in terms of sightseeing, I just needed to be in the womb like cocoon of my room away from the crowds – this is the first time this has happened to me on my entire trip.

 

To see the Kirtan Kriya (Sa Ta Na Ma Meditation) I am following for the 40 days click here

To see the Adi Shakti with Celestial Communication Meditation I am using for the 40 days click here