yin and yang in kundalini yoga and meditation

I am at heart a researcher. Over the past year, my research has led me to study the concepts of yin and yang, as well as kundalini yoga and meditation. In my own sadhana, or KYM practice, I have been endlessly intrigued and overjoyed to see how the concepts of yin and yang present themselves in the basics of kundalini yoga and meditation.

Yin and Yang overview

I've blogged about this before, but yin is the feminine essence and yang is the masculine essence. Yang leads, yin follows; yang does, yin is. While yang is aggressive, yin is submissive.

Kundalini and feminine energy

Kundalini is energy coiled at the base of the spine; it rises when the masculine and feminine energies are brought together. This is the purpose of kundalini yoga and meditation: to raise the kundalini from the base of the spine to the top of it. 

Yin and yang in KYM

Here are just a few examples of how the principles of yin and yang are exemplified in KYM.

• Sat nam. The phrase means "I am truth; truth is my identity." When you do meditations like cat-cow, you're supposed to think "Sat" on the inhale and "Nam" on the exhale. Inhalation is fundamentally yang, and exhalation is fundamentally yin. Similarly, the active voice, as exemplified in "I am truth," is yang, while passive voice ("Truth is my identity") is yin. The phrase "Sat nam" as a whole combines both yin and yang energies. And breaking it up with "sat" on the inhale and "nam" on the exhale... it's yin and yang, guys!

• Sat nam, Waheguru. Other KYM things have you think "Sat nam" on the inhalation and "Waheguru" ("praise be to God") on the exhalation. Just as it is masculine to assert identity, it is feminine to praise others, and particularly to praise the masculine essence--and what is more "masculine essence" than God? Another perfect example of yin and yang in KYM. 

• Opposing postures. While other forms of yoga involve long deep stretches and minimal movement, many KYM postures involve movement--back and forth, flex and curl, etc. Doing the postures can really work up a sweat! KYM is designed to balance yin and yang energies, though, in a way other yogas are not. Using opposite postures (ex: flexed spine/curled spine) on the inhalation and exhalation balance the masculine and feminine energies in a truly fascinating and effective way.

• Finite and infinite.
  
  "Kundalini Yoga is the science to unite the finite with Infinity, and it's the art to experience Infinity in the finite." - Yogi Bhajan.
  
  Infinity is yang, and the finite is yin. Just as the Heavens are yang and the Earth is yin. KYM purports to unite the two, finite and Infinity--as Yogi Bhajan says, the science to unite finite with Infinity, and the art to experience Infinity in the finite. A beautiful expression of what it means to bring the yin and yang, masculine and feminine, energies into alignment.

• Going along with the Infinite/finite idea, consider the words of the tuning-out song, Longtime Sun:
  
  May the longtime sun shine upon you
  All love surround you
  And the pure light within you
  Guide your way on
  
  Even the tune-out song unites the Infinite (the longtime sun, or Son, for those Christian practitioners out there!) and the Finite (the light within you). This is another example of KYM uniting the perceived duality of yin and yang, masculine and feminine, Infinite and Finite.

Conclusion

If you are working to balance your masculine and feminine energies, or are working to achieve any sort of enlightenment, taking up a kundalini yoga and meditation practice will help with that. KYM is a technology that uses exercise and vibration (through postures and chanting) to bring energies into alignment for spiritual awakening. 

Axis and Orbit: Halfway Complete Update

I somehow missed this challenge when it was first announced. The challenge, the Axis and Orbit Summer Challenge, is to complete 30 kundalini yoga and meditation classes by September 21, the autumn equinox. When the challenge was issued, there was enough time to complete the challenge by doing 3 KYM classes/week.

Somehow I missed this blog post when it came out, and only became aware of it in late July. I committed on the first day of August, or so, and signed up for Progressive Prophetess's Prosperity series (available here). I figured I would just do the six classes over and over. Indeed, that is what I have been doing! Any day that I can, I do two classes, to make up for the days I can't do any.

The point of the challenge is to transform your "psyche, axis, and orbit," your axis relating to your connection with God, and your orbit relating to your connection with others. If your axis and orbit are both balanced, you will be happy and prosperous.

In the past few days I completed my fifteenth KYM class (this morning I finished class 17), and I wanted to update the world on how that was going.

Feel free to buy as many copies of my
amazing novel as you'd like.
Christmas presents, anyone? ;)

The most noticeable difference, probably, has involved money. I work by donation and a lot of times people don't donate and I am too--I don't know, something--to press people on it. So a lot of times I work for free. I'm trying to figure out a new solution but in the meantime, a notable change has been in spontaneous monetary donations. It has been kind of astonishing.

Additionally, I've felt renewed senses of creativity. I've always been a very creative person; I write a lot of music and I blog and I have a novel out which you should totally buy and review on Amazon now. This year I have barely touched my fiction or written music. But since I started taking that class, I've been feeling itchy to work on my most pressing work in progress (WIP), Spidermaiden. What an awesome book, guys. I love it but haven't felt able to work on it. But that is changing!

I also have felt like it is now within the realm of possibility for me to actually make my own webinars, so I've been trying to figure that out. In the past, I just figured it was something too complicated for me to figure out, but now I feel a confidence about it that is amazing.

Physically, I've had two ear infections in the piercing on the right ear. In Chinese face reading, mien shiang, the earlobes are connected to wealth and prosperity. The bigger, fleshier, longer the earlobes, the better! So I've found that fascinating, that my earlobe associated with increasing wealth would be swelling so much lately. I'm taking it as another sign that things are working! A kind of annoying sign but a sign nonetheless. I think it's probably like how when I have started other meditations that gave me acne--I started prosperity meditations in earnest and I'm getting the equivalent of acne on the part of my face that is associated with prosperity.

I also got very sick after I started this challenge; I was sick for two weeks and have just been getting over it all. I had a moment where I realized that part of the purpose of my sickness was to help my body change faster (reorganize, consolidate, purify). So now I wonder if it was connected to the challenge.

Also physically, I've noticed an increase in physical strength since I started doing the classes. Before, it was a struggle to complete certain exercises. But every time I do them I can do them longer and more effectively.

Spiritually, I've felt transitional, but good. Things are reorganizing in my life but in a good way.

As far as connection to others, I've been noticing a lot more how the idea of separation is an illusion. I feel very unified with the people around me, even if we don't know each other very well, or even if we disagree on things. It's less of a unity of thought or ideas or something, and more of a unity in the sense that I feel like we are part of each other, and so I feel this love for them for that.

So: thirteen more classes to go before September 21. Excited to see what other changes it brings....

studying the scriptures like you meditate

I have to go to bed RIGHT NOW, but I wanted to blog quickly!

I've been taking the 40-Day Meditation Challenge from Tree of Life Kundalini Yoga, which is run by Progressive Prophetess. One of the rules is that you have to do your meditation for 40 consecutive days, as in, you miss a day, you start the count over.

For the record, I believe I am on Day 14. And yes, I did my meditation for today!

One of the reasons meditating for so many days in a row is recommended is that you're building new neural circuitry in your brain and each day builds on the habits built in the last. It's more complicated than this, I think (or is it?), but that's my summary.

This site explains the kirtan kriya.

To perform the kirtan kriya, which is the kriya I am doing for 40 days,  one of the things you do is envision light from God entering you through your crown, and making kind of an L-shape in your head to beam out through your forehead (your third eye).

[Side note: Progressive Prophetess has pointed out the Christ connection to the kirtan kriya. If I may add to the LDS kundalini scholarship, I would like to mention that in my own practice, rather than interpreting the "maa" as "rebirth," I interpret that rebirth more along the lines of "resurrection," which to me more solidly reinforces the idea of the kirtan kriya being about Jesus Christ and our own divine paths. Resurrection is a type of rebirth, after all--our rebirth into our new perfected bodies.]

Anyway, I've been focusing on getting in my daily meditation, and it's become a priority for me. I will stay up late to get it in, even if--like right now--my eyes are closing on me and I'm totally drowsy. I realized, I want to get in my meditation because:

A. I want to complete the challenge! 40 consecutive days, baby!
B. Did I mention I paid $60 for the class on the challenge? Gotta get my money's worth! :o)
C. I want those brain changes!

But here's the important thing: the prophets and scriptures have certainly commanded us to meditate (although they are not always clear on the definition of meditation). But an even clearer commandment is to study the scriptures.

As I was explaining the L-shape of light that's supposed to go on in the kirtan kriya to a friend, I had a sudden understanding that this is how scripture reading is supposed to work, too. Maybe not in exactly the same way as it does in meditation, but in a similar way. A chiastic way, perhaps. Maybe the opposite way. Maybe as we study the scriptures, light and understanding enter us through our third eye--basically our eyes and minds--and help us connect up with God. Or maybe light and understanding from God is supposed to enter us through our crowns and enlighten our minds and eyes as we read the scriptures. Either way makes sense to me.

From lds.org.

It suddenly became clear to me that just as meditation is the most effective at creating a change of heart and mind when it is done for consecutive days, so is scripture study. To me, in the past it has been easy to compartmentalize scripture study into something that's just kind of nebulously good for the spirit, rather than something that actually has real, true potential to change the literal heart and mind. I mean, I know that's true, but I don't know that there are studies showing how scripture study changes the body as there are studies about kundalini meditation.

I mean, look. Wikipedia even has an article about the research on meditation's effects on the body. Meditation has been shown to make a measurable difference in the workings of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. Meditation has been shown to alleviate chronic pain, reduce stress, and do all sorts of great stuff for the human mindbody.

But it appears to me now that meditation works on the same pathways that scripture study can work, if we are diligent about it and do it every day, and go into it with the right frame of mind.

Imagine reading your scriptures for 11 or 31 minutes a day, with the background focus of your mind being that light of God entering your body through the top of your head and then enlightening your vision and your mind as you study His words. Or imagine envisioning the light from His holy scriptures enlightening your body through your third eye and linking you back up to Heaven, opening your connection with God in a more visual way. Would that not enlighten your understanding, even just the one time you tried it?

From lds.org.

Now imagine doing your scripture study that way every day--building those neural circuits that are also built during meditation as you study God's word. Imagine the ability to reduce stress, get your body in better condition, receive greater light and understanding, as you implemented this practice.

I write all this as someone who doesn't actually do that stuff--yet! But just understanding that this type of scripture study is a possibility is kind of blowing my mind. I had to share. Maybe tonight will not be the night I start reading the scriptures with the background intention of that light and knowledge making the L-shape in my head as I read, but it's now officially on the to-do list. We'll see how it goes!