Kundalini Yoga

Spirituality
#21

Brother Neil,

“I believe that each one of us has a style of yoga that may fit us best, Kundalini yoga may be for you”

Though many different forms of yoga are there - it should also be understood that they cross paths with each other in such a way, that at times it is difficult to truly define what it is that one is practicing. For example, Patanjalis formula of Eight Limbed Yoga has been used as a model not just for techniques of “Raja Yoga”, but also in Laya Yoga, which is itself a kind of Kundalini yoga which seeks to awaken the Kundalini through a meditative approach. Bhakti yoga is also not separate from the other forms of yoga- although it will appear to be so in the beginning. But as you continue along the path - whether you are practicing Raja Yoga or Tantra Yoga, a certain natural surrender starts growing which is itself the very quality of bhakti. And as you expand in your awareness, while you are involved in action in the world, it becomes very natural for you to become absolutely involved in the moment, acting without attachment or becoming identified with anything in particular. This is itself a kind of Karma Yoga. So all of the various different kinds of yoga - while their starting points may be different, while their strategies may be different, they eventually all converge together.

#22

Hatha Yoga is itself a kind of Kundalini Yoga. Because any method which has for its means the awakening of Kundalini at the base of the spine and activating of the chakras along the sushumna, is a method of Kundalini Yoga. What a man like Yogi Bhajan has done is simply coin the words " Kundalini Yoga ", to refer to the techniques which he had been transmitting. But if one thinks that his “Kundalini Yoga” is some kind of ownership over Kundalini Yoga, then one is mistaken. Though Hatha Yoga has become severely distorted in the West, its fundamental concern is with awakening of the Kundalini energy and transformation of the energies of the subtle body as a means towards enlightenment - it is fundamentally a method of Kundalini yoga.

I agree with your assessment, although in contemporary western society these nuances are not always considered.

I was specifically referring to Yogi Bhajan’s blend of practices and especially the organisation that has been formed by/around him and the potentially harmful effects association with this group may have.

#23

This is what Jung said about Kundalini yoga.

"One often hears and reads about the dangers of Yoga, particularly of the ill-reputed Kundalini Yoga. The deliberately induced psychotic state, which in certain unstable individuals might easily lead to a real psychosis, is a danger that needs to be taken very seriously indeed. These things really are dangerous and ought not to be meddled with in our typically Western way. It is a meddling with Fate, which strikes at the very roots of human existence and can let loose a flood of sufferings of which no sane person ever dreamed. These sufferings correspond to the hellish torments of the ch?nyid state…"
C. G. Jung, Introduction to The Tibetan book of the Dead *

#24

prasad,

It should be important to understand a man like Carl Jung. What he has said regarding Kundalini Yoga is not just in regards to Kundalini Yoga, but all of the yogic sciences. Because part of what he was teaching was that the Western man has developed in a way which is entirely different from the Eastern man. And because of this - if you adopt the methods of the East in a Western society, then it can be very dangerous. The Western person will have to develop methods which are unique according to his situation. That is what Carl Jung was trying to do - he was trying to create a Western kind of yoga. So in most of his writings, he is severely against all of the methods that have arisen fro the East. Which is strange, because on the other hand -he has been speaking of the collective unconscious mind. And if most of what happens in one’s experience is being influenced by the collective unconscious - then these distinctions of Eastern and Western would simply disappear.

Carl Jung was speaking from a certain prejudice, and if he understood anything about yoga - not just through reading about it, but through practice, he would know very well that this technology does not care whether you are Eastern or Western, whether you are a Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jew, Jain, Buddhist, Sikh - or whether you prefer eating tomatoes, carrots, or eggs for breakfast. If you know how to use it - it works. If you do not know how to use it - it does not work. It is a simple cause and effect situation. If you are human and have a mind and body, and practice with the proper mindfulness, then these techniques will work on any human being.

#25

@amir,

For whatever you stood for, I admired your tenacity,
I conquer for the first time to what you post.
god bless you

#26

Namaste to you dear friend.

#27

[QUOTE=prasad;63763]@amir,

For whatever you stood for, I admired your tenacity,
I conquer for the first time to what you post.
god bless you[/QUOTE]

Dear Friend:

I could not understand “conquer” in your response. So when I read the post to which you responded as above, i realised you wanted to say “I concur.”

regards
anand

#28

http://kundalini.se/eng/fallgrop.html

#29

There are a couple of aspects to “kundalini yoga”. First there is this belief of the sleeping serpent ready to spring up the spine unleashing an all powerful kundalini experience. It is a metaphor. Don’t worry about it.

Then there is the kundalini yoga of yogi bhajan. He was merely a con man who took various parts of legitimate yoga, added his own made up yoga and created his own yoga system. He sold it and made millions. It has no history beyond the 60’s when he made it up.