It was quite clear that what I wanted so desperately to learn was being taught by people who didnвЂ™t understand it themselves and who, quite frankly, did not seem to be on the spiritual path at all. I found it really weird how quickly my fellow trainees started dressing in this peculiar uniform and why they accepted all of this without question.Д«y the second weekend of the training I wanted to quit. To pass the training I wore a white woolie hat in an act of defiance. I didnвЂ™t want to become a Sikh вЂ“ I wanted to learn about Kundalini practices. I quickly became persona non grata on the training вЂ“ everyone else seemed happy to wear white and took to turban wearing very quickly. Those of you who know me will know that IвЂ™m not shy in pointing out discrepancies! Any questions I raised were quickly dismissed and I was referred to the manual, a large, rambling work that was pieced together from the lectures of Yogi Bhajan, clearly by someone who had no knowledge of yoga beyond what heвЂ™d been told by his guru. Yogi B was revered as almost a God-like figure вЂ“ we were not allowed to question his wisdom despite some of it being absurd and not scientifically true. People were expected to wear white robes and turbans to teach (and to practice in some cases). Yogi Bhajan was a Sikh and had tied in a lot of Sikh practice to the original Tantric yoga. He quickly became a really popular teacher and established ashrams, training organisations (such as 3HO) and businesses such as Yogi Tea and Akal Security.Д«y the time I came to train In Kundalini as taught by Yogi Bhajan it was basically a cult. Yogi Bhajan was a civil servant from India who travelled to the USA in the 60s and started teaching Kundalini to the hippies, people whacked out on drugs and those looking for enlightenment. However, that wasnвЂ™t the scenario that greeted me when I signed up for teacher training! Back when I trained, outside of India, the only way to qualify to teach Kundalini Yoga was to learn Kundalini as taught by Yogi Bhajan. I came to Kundalini via Ravi Singh and Ana Brett вЂ“ anyone who has come across them will know that they are pretty normal in their way of dressing and presenting Kundalini. It took me about 6 months to realise I wanted to learn to teach it. Now here was a practice that did all of this and more, drawing in bioenergetics, psychology and philosophy. Often Hatha practice frustrated me because it didnвЂ™t go far enough. I was never interested in using yoga as acrobatics or even for relaxation вЂ“ for me it was always about using the body to access deeper states of consciousness. From the first moment I was absolutely hooked. Bizarrely it hadnвЂ™t come across my radar until then вЂ“ I had studied Kundalini via Tantra but had not realised that there was a branch of yoga dedicated to it. These two disciplines combined introduced me to the idea of Kundalini energy.Д«ut it took until 2009 for me to encounter Kundalini Yoga. By the time I took my first yoga class I was already practising Tantric meditation via the teachings of Swami Muktananda. I had been on the path for inner knowledge since university where I studied philosophy, Eastern philosophy in particular. I would hound the teacher for books about yoga philosophy in a quest for deeper knowledge. I first took a yoga class in 1993 вЂ“ it was Hatha yoga and I absolutely loved it.

Here is the reason why IвЂ™ve stayed away from it recently. Since moving online I havenвЂ™t been teaching like this and I know that a few of you have been missing it. Those of you that have practised Kundalini Yoga with me over the years know that traditionally the class starts and ends with chanting. Is this correct or incorrect of us, this sharing of our colored-in God pictures? Today I will believe only in the God within us all and see what shifts may come, if any.Wondered why IвЂ™ve stopped the chanting during the Kundalini sessions? This will explain why. I cling to them and use them to help me share what's within me.

The presence within them which is the same as the presence within me, only colored by their perception and not mine. If there is only God within what would the world be like - better or worse than the model of only God without? Could this be the true meaning of svadhyaya - which is taken as meaning the study of scriptures and/or the study of the Self? So the scriptures were someone's attempt at sharing their God within. And then I thought, 'What if there is no God without, only within?', as a few of us might. I prayed to God for God, as some of us do. On my walk this morning while chanting this and thinking of our world and how our republican/democratic civil war is trying to stop or serve other nations and their wars, I wondered where God was, as most of us have. The title of this is the kundalini yoga tune in mantra, or the adi mantra, and it means 'I bow to the presence of God all around me and deep within me' (my translation).

Yogi bhajan on ong namo guru dev namo