7 Habits of Solid Yogis

1) Commitment 

Make your practice a priority. You have experienced the duality of life. You have experienced the shallowness, the compulsiveness, and the neurotic behavior. Now, you are ready for something deeper. You can feel it deep in your being. Don’t hesitate! Make the commitment to personal transformation, personal development and embrace your daily spiritual practice (Sadhana).  It takes time and patience to develop a strong daily practice. Being committed to success will give you the strength to see it through. No doubt there will be days when you rebel against doing your practice, —do it anyway! You have the power and that power is your commitment.  If you haven’t established a daily Sadhana yet, now is the time! If you have, congratulations and keep it up!

2) Create Your Sacred Space

Create an altar using things that inspire you and keep you going!  Use pictures of your teacher(s), stones or objects that hold a high vibration, candles, incense…. whatever!  Just make sure that when you look at your altar it reminds you of your highest potential and inspires you to practice daily. 

The Adi Shakti Sacred Healing Space of Boulder

Get your yoga mat, sheepskin, wool mat, etc. and create a sacred space where you can stretch out, breathe, and meditate. Do your best to eliminate any and all distractions. Now that you have decided your Sadhana is the most important thing to you, create a space that reflects your commitment.

3) Find your Supportive Community

Finding a network in your town or city will provide you with invaluable support in your Sadhana and will inspire you to keep up! Find out where yoga classes are being held and attend as many as you can. Find Kirtans (there’s one here!), gatherings, meditation groups, sanctuaries, etc. Look for people you resonate with, and who support your authenticity and commitment to your daily practice. Don’t be afraid to reach out and talk to new people. You will be pleasantly surprised by the connections you make in a class or gathering of conscious people who are also committed to bettering their health and wellbeing. Exchange information, stories, and keep in touch. Talk to the singers, facilitators, and teachers if you get a chance and don’t hesitate to ask questions! 

Boulder Kundalini Yogi Community

4) Find Your Teachers

One of the best ways to grow your own supportive community is to attend different classes and get to know different teaching styles. There are thousands of different yoga sets (Kiryas) and meditations taught by Yogi Bhajan. There are also many different excellent teachers who each express themselves in unique ways when teaching yoga. As such, it is great to find teachers that you resonate with and attend their classes. Talk with them, ask them questions, and show your commitment to participating and practicing. It has been said that when you take one step towards the Guru or Teacher, the Guru will take 10 steps towards you!

5) Find Your Music

One of the most profound parts of a Kundalini Yoga class is the music teachers’ use throughout class, which often consists of reciting mantras. Never underestimate the power of divine sounds in their ability to fully support you in your practice. In fact, my students almost always comment on how much they enjoyed the music during classes! 

Personally, I listen to mantra music throughout the day. These vibrations  keep me feeling elevated and in the eternal flow of love and life. Find music that inspires you and listen to it daily. It’s always easier to do house work with divine music in the background and the same is true for inner work (in fact, I'm listening to some right now as I write this). Some of my favorite artists are listed HERE! I LOVE teaching Kundalini Yoga and I also have a deep passion for playing the guitar and singing. One of my specialties is inspirational conscious hip-hop. I also thoroughly enjoy playing acoustic music. You are welcome to check out some of my sounds HERE! 

Buy Kirtan music at Spirit Voyage!

6) Don’t Make Excuses

In today’s fast paced world there are so many distractions. Stay steady! Set your space for success when you begin your practice. Turn off your phone, tune out the distracting world, stay focused, and tune in to your Self! A million things will come up as soon as you begin your practice. Forget about that email that you need to send, forget about your Facebook post. Sit down and go within, be disciplined. Whatever it is, you can do it later. Remember your commitment. Initiate your practice and let it consume you. Afterwards, when you are clear and balanced, you can take care of all those things much more efficiently and without the stress! 

7) Enjoy It!

Finally, don’t take yourself too seriously. If your practice becomes too serious, it tends to lose its sense of freedom and flow. Practice a little in the morning and a little at night. Have fun with it and switch it up as necessary to stay solid!  Throw in a creative movement piece or do some Tai Chi. Find a way to weave it into your day so that it feels natural and not like an obligation. Enjoy the mantras as you chant them. Feel their vibration through your whole being. Feel the depth of your meditation. Bask in your beautiful inner space. Feel at home within you and embrace your practice as the wonderful gift and blessing that it is. Rise up and dive in!

Sat Nam,

Eric Gurmukh Klema* 

Certified Kundalini Yoga Teacher 

www.eternalsunyoga.com

*Gurmukh teaches a weekly donation class at The Adi Shakti Center of Boulder on Thursdays from 7:00-8:30p.

What is Yoga? Kundalini Yoga? Kundalini Energy?

What is Yoga? What is its Purpose?

Yoga is a type of activity based on the spiritual nature of the human being. Yoga means Union. Many answers can be given about Union, but Union with what?  Ultimately, it means Union with God. Many types of yoga exist today, which is encouraged, however, they all have the same goal in mind, to become One with God. This actually means to be completely present with your own existence right here, right now, in this very moment. 

This can be scary for some people and bring up a lot of ego resistance. However, becoming One with God is really just the same thing as saying becoming a completely conscious human being. A completely conscious human being is One who practices consciousness throughout each and every day and spreads that awareness to those around them. The purpose of yoga is to awaken you to the fact that you are Consciousness itself, or you are God.  There is no distinction between the two. 

The purpose of yoga is to reap the benefits of practice. Indeed, these benefits are numerous. Yoga can cultivate physical, mental, and spiritual awareness beyond that which you have previously imagined impossible. I have personally experienced and witnessed the transformative power of yoga within myself and other students around me. I’ve connected with fellow students in ways that I’ve never envisioned before practicing Yoga!

What is Kundalini Yoga and The Kundalini Energy?

A hot topic! Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan is the Yoga of Awareness. Practicing Kundalini Yoga will rapidly increase your awareness, including awareness of how you create your own world, which can be painful at times. It will challenge you. It will make you feel anger, hate and fear. It will evoke compassion, love and forgiveness. And it will release these emotions simultaneously, which can be overwhelming, to say the least. With consistent practice of Kundalini Yoga, you will experience this juxtaposition of emotions more frequently and more intensely! 

At times during my practice, I am so moved by the beauty of The Creation that I am, that tears pour forth and I convulse with sobs. In this state, I experience how everyone else emanates beauty and I feel so much love and compassion that no words can do justice.

The Kundalini Energy is a mystery that slowly unfolds uniquely for each person, as it should be. Ultimately it is the pure creative force (or Adi Shakti) in the universe. Have you seen the recent article about the Big Bang theory of the creation of the Universe? The Big Bang was exactly that, a pure Kundalini Energy explosion. This is the energy of creation that resides in each one of us and can be called upon to serve us by chanting “ONG”. This is the sound current that begins to coax the Kundalini Energy from the base of the spine towards the higher energy centers in the human body. Practicing Kundalini Yoga is how we “control” or navigate this energy so that it doesn’t destroy us, which it can easily do. You’ve heard the stories!

How does Kundalini Yoga Differ from Other Types of Yoga?

Kundalini Yoga is not better or worse than other types of yoga. This is old dualistic thinking from the Piscean Age! In fact, Kundalini Yoga is not even better or worse than any other spiritual path. Kundalini Yoga differs from other spiritual paths in that it is a VERY RAPID path to awareness. I have personally studied and practiced Buddhism, Martial Arts, Taoism, and Yoga. In my experiences, Kundalini Yoga rapidly increased my awareness in a way none of these other practices could. This simply means that Kundalini Yoga was the “correct” path for me, NOT that Kundalini Yoga is a superior spiritual path to others!

The most sacred teaching I received from Kundalini Yoga was that I AM MY OWN TEACHER. I finally surrendered to the truth that I should trust my own intuition rather than rely on the wisdom or teaching of others. Sure you should be open to new teachings you encounter or wisdom you find, but ultimately you should practice and begin to TRUST your own intuition and path.  This is how Kundalini Yoga differs from other types of yoga.

To your success,

Prabhusukh Singh PhD*

*Prabhusukh teaches a donation based Community Kundalini Yoga class at The Little Yoga Studio on Sundays at 8:00am.

The Five Sutras of the Aquarian Age

Five Sutras of the Aquarian Age

     The five sutras of the Aquarian Age are:

          1. Recognize that the other person is you.

          2. There is a way through every block.

          3. When the time is on you, start, and the pressure will be off.

          4. Understand through compassion or you will misunderstand the times.

          5. Vibrate the Cosmos, the Cosmos shall clear the path.

                                                                        

                                                                                     - Yogi  Bhajan
 

1. Recognize that the other person is you.

-       This was the theme of last years Summer Solstice celebration in New Mexico

-       Adapted from Gurucharan Singh PhD: The sutra says that you and every person share a common nucleus; a still point that is by nature infinite. It is beyond our normal sense of time and space, and yet gives birth to all that is experienced. It is an empty stillness from which all things arise. We enter that by creating a state of shuniya in meditation and prayer.

-       As that Oneness expresses, it takes the form of polarities. A basic polarity is you and others. You and me. Without stillness and depth in our heart, these seem different, opposed or unrelated. But as we attune to the depth within our own consciousness (Humee Hum) and listen to the depth in the other person (Tumee Tum) and place both sensitivities before the Infinite (Wahe Guru), we are multiplied.

-       Mantra: I am thine in mine, myself, wha-hay guroo. humee hum tumee tum, wha-hay guroo. 

 

2. There is a way through every block.
 

-       This will be the theme of Summer Solstice 2014

-        Adapted from Gurucharan Singh PhD: Let each sound resonate through your whole being like a pebble across the calmest of ponds. And in that complex matrix of ripples you are still present and feel your vastness in equal proportion to your specific finiteness. When you listen from the doorway between the finite and Infinite, the mantra you recite becomes the shabad—a sound that dissolves the ego as it invites the Infinite through the heart that you embody. 

-       As Yogi Bhajan instructed us: “This is a Shabad. If you can perfect that Shabad—perfect means when you can recite it correctly at any time without any hindrance while reciting, this is the perfection of the Shabad. While reciting you can hear it accurately. You hear it within yourself, not anybody else. That means it is perfected. Then whenever you will perform it the master miracle will happen.”
-     The practice of this meditation locates you in your heart, opens your perception, and lets you immediately recognize the way forward. All blocks will dissolve. When darkness and obscurity appear to surround you, a ray of light will find its way to you when you practice this mantra. This is a steady state of gratitude to see the constant flow of miracles that accompany you on your path.

-       Mantra: Gobinday, mukanday, udaaray, apaaray, hareeung, kareeung, nirnaamay, akaamay.

3. When the time is on you, start, and the pressure will be off. 

-       This will be the theme of Summer Solstice 2015

-       The meaning of this sutra is fairly simple. We all feel the pressure in our everyday lives. This sutra suggests that, really, the only way to deal with this pressure is by starting. That is, starting what we know needs to be done to deal with the pressure we are feeling.

-       By getting oneself out of a worrisome head space, inactivity will diminish. A busy mental state can be helpful at the start, but at some point it switches gears and begins to hold us back, or block us. Certainly, there are bills to be paid, appointments that must be kept, and news that must be heard. But when drawn away from the authentic self, the result is always the same: fear and an inability to act.

-       Mantra: Gobinday, mukanday, udaaray, apaaray, hareeung, kareeung, nirnaamay, akaamay.

4. Understand through compassion or you will misunderstand the times.

 

-       This will be the theme of Summer Solstice 2016

-       This sutra suggests that we use empathy to understand the potentially difficult times that others may be going through. This is especially important when we are on the receiving end of negativity projected towards us by another. Quite often (if not always), the other person is hurting and attempting to connect the only way they know how, which is through negativity. We need to have compassion, not react, and attempt to understand the underlying issue(s) that may be occurring.

-       Compassion is learning and acting from the heart. If we choose to go into judgment or look away from the suffering of our fellow human beings, we are misunderstanding the times. It is only the ego and mind that keep us separate from one another and in denial of the truth.

-       Keep your heart open today and resist the urge to go into the mind and ego. Remember to look into the eyes of others to see the same light that lives in us all.

-       Mantra: Rakhay rakhanhaar aap ubaariun, Gur kee pairee paa-eh kaaj savaariun , Hoaa aap dayaal manho na visaariun, Saadh janaa kai sung bhavjal taariun , Saakat nindak dusht khin maa-eh bidaariun , Tis saahib kee tayk naanak manai maa-eh , Jis simrat sukh ho-eh sagalay dookh jaa-eh

5. Vibrate the cosmos, and the cosmos shall clear the path.

-       This will be the theme of Summer Solstice 2017

-       My favorite sutra! We are encouraged to take control of our own destiny by vibrating (this means chanting mantra) the cosmos. When we do this, we establish a deep connection with the divine. The divine hears our call and begins to clear a path for our own awakening. What this does NOT mean is that our life will be great and easy and no problems will ever arise. Life is life. Challenges come and go, but with continuous practice we can begin to more effectively navigate those challenges. Once this happens, everything feels much easier than before because we are now guided through obstacles with much greater acuity.

-       We vibrate on a both a cellular and emotional level! We vibrate in our heart, which comes through when we communicate using our voice. We live in a vibrational universe. Everything that exists in the universe has a vibration (think quantum physics). Even the planets have their unique humming sounds as they orbit in space! When we vibrate with the cosmos through mantra, we attune ourselves to the higher frequency of Love. Remember the saying, “Like attracts like”. As we increase our quantum vibration, we attract better people who can (and want) to help us achieve our goals, whatever our goals are.

-       Mantra: 3 ½ Cycle Ek Ong Kar (Laya Yoga version)
Ek Ong Kaar-a, Saa Taa Naa Maa-a, Siree Whaa-a, Hay Gu-Roo

To your success,

Prabhusukh Singh PhD*

*Prabhusukh teaches a donation based Community Kundalini Yoga class at The Little Yoga Studio on Sundays at 8:00am.