Awakening the Ten Bodies

Welcome to Awakening the Ten Bodies. This is a wonderful beginner or advanced practice. You really can have never taken a Kundalini Yoga class before and jump right into this. So it's called Awakening the Ten Bodies. Earlier on in the series we talked about what the Ten Bodies are, how they function and how we can best really maximize their balance and their effect.

It is said that if your Ten Bodies are awakened and you are aware of them and you are taking care of them every day that the whole universe will be in balance with you. So it's really worth taking a little time and researching and understanding what the Ten Bodies are. But just from doing this practice you will have an experience of balance, overall feeling of wellness and energy. So we'll begin with a Stretch Pose. Every exercise we'll do will be for one minute.

And let's begin on our backs with a Stretch Pose with Breath of Fire. So Stretch Pose, if you've never done it before, you're going to lift up the heels about six inches off the ground, the shoulders about six inches off the ground. You're going to look at the tip of the toes and you're going to do Breath of Fire with the hands facing one another. If you need to modify it's absolutely fine, you can do one leg at a time. If you haven't really worked on your navel, on your core, one minute can seem like a lot.

So let us begin. Okay. Inhale deeply, hold and completely relax. Open up the palms of the hands and just breathe and soften into your mat and release. Stretch pose creates a lot of fire and a lot of tension and then that release should feel absolutely wonderful.

And the next exercise we're simply going to grab the knees to the chest and wrap the arms around the knees and bring the head up to the knees as much as you can and let's begin breath of fire. Inhale deeply, hold and completely relax. Inhale deeply, squeeze into a tight little ball, squeeze and again completely relax. Opening the hands, softening into your body, let go. And grab the knees to the chest and let's roll on the spine a couple of times and let's come sitting up in easy pose for the next posture.

Let's bring the thumbs up. This is the positive ego in Kundalini Yoga, very important that it stays active. And then here we're wrapping the rest of the fingers on the mounds of the hands. The angled arms are angled at 60 degrees and the tip we're focusing the eyes at the tip of the nose. Let's begin breath of fire.

Inhale deeply, hold and completely relax. Inhale deeply, as you bring the thumbs above the head together, hold the breath, stretch the fingers up, squeeze Mulaband, focus the eyes and as you exhale very slowly, sweep your arms down through your auric field and just place your hands on the earth for a moment of gratitude, lovely. Let's go to the next movement and we're opening the legs as wide as possible and here we're going to inhale up to the heavens, exhale left, inhale up, exhale right. And let's continue. The powerful inhale and exhale really helps in Kundalini Yoga, often used to move energy to help you move from posture to posture.

Inhale deeply, stretch up to the heavens, squeeze root lock, focus the energy at the brow point and exhale, sweep the arms down. So here you're going to grab whatever you can reach, it's supposed to be the toes but some people have too much of a long leg so I just grab my shin and you'll inhale up, exhale down, inhale halfway up, exhale down and let's begin. And powerful breath really helps. So here you're going to exhale, exhale down, exhale down, exhale down, exhale down, exhale down, inhale deeply, sit upright, squeeze the Mulabhan Root Lock, focus the energy at the brow point. Exhale. Hmm, you should start to feel a nice concoction building within and just a nice balance establishing. Bring the feet back into easy pose and now we go into what's called spinal flex. Grab the shins, inhale, you're working from the navel, open up the chest, exhale, curl backwards, inhale up on the sit bones, exhale back on the sit bones, keep the head level. Powerful breath. This helps the Kundalini energy rise up the spine to the higher chakras, the higher centers. Try to keep your eyes focused at the brow point all through the practice. Even if it's not stated, you always want to use that movement to focus the eyes, the Drishti at the brow point and inhale deeply and squeeze Mulabanda. Rise the energy up to the brow point, focus inward and release. Great, let's move on to the knees. Now if this is not comfortable for you and you've got some knee issues, no worries, you can stay in easy pose. You can also use a cushion and kind of lodge it between the heels and the butt and that makes for a nice and more comfortable seat which is what I like to do. And then now here we continue with the spinal flex but we're focusing more on the lower spine, hands on the thighs, inhale, open up the chest, exhale back and let's continue.

Eyes focused at the brow point and inhaling Sat, exhaling Na mentally can really deepen your practice. Inhale deep, please straighten up the spine, pulling the root lock, focus the energy inward, be still, exhale. It's always nice to take just a little pause at the end of each exercise after the root lock to really feel into your state of being. Remember this is an experiential yoga so just tuning in, wow what is this feeling, what's moving, what am I releasing, what am I letting go of, no need to identify but just experience it. Next movement bringing the hands onto the shoulders, fingers in the front, thumbs in the back, the arms stay parallel to the ground so not here, right here parallel to the ground. We're inhaling left, exhaling right with powerful breath and the head follows. Let's go. Inhale deeply and pull, focus deeply at the brow point, hold it, hold the posture but exhale and we'll go right into the next one where you'll be inhaling, touching the wrists behind your head, exhaling, bring them parallel back here. So watch this. Inhale, exhale, powerful breath, let's begin. Working on opening up the heart and everything that creates tension around the heart and the back of the heart. This exercise really gets into those places and opens everything up. The powerful breath pattern will help you to move your body at this speed and with this strength you just can really move through the blocks. Just a little bit longer, I know, it's a little achy, you can do it. Inhale, touch it behind the head, hold the breath, focus deeply, hold it and exhale, release it, shake it out, shake it out. Good. After this move we get into the more mellow part of the Kriya. So just hang in there, you're doing amazing. Clasp the hands and Venus lock, you're going to straighten the elbows, there's no bend in the elbows, this is a wonderful movement that cancels negative energy in your auric field. It hammers it out, so inhale, you're up here, exhale, you're hammering it out.

Powerful breath. Inhale. Let's squeeze that root lock, rise the energy, consciously work to rise it up the spine through the chakras to the brow point. Exhale, release the arms. Beautiful, I can feel it, right? I know you can, just how that energy is swirling and it's moving up the spine and it's just creating this magnificent container for your life force to express itself, your creative potential. Come sitting back down in easy pose, you can sit on your cushion, I always like to have a little bit of support back there and now very sweetly hands on the knees, we're inhaling, lifting the left shoulder up, exhaling, lifting the right. Eyes closed, focus at the brow point. Inhale, exhale.

Inhale, exhale. Let's move to the right shoulder. Inhale, right shoulder up, exhale left. Keep going, doing beautiful, nearly there. You can stay with the mantra sat on the inhale, naam on the exhale. Eyes focused at the brow point will only just bring more centeredness. Inhale, exhale and of course now we have to do both shoulders at the same time, so let's do that and you can kind of push up from the thighs. Inhale, exhale, drop them down, just releasing all tension. Yogi Bhajan used to call this, I don't care Kriya, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care. So just letting go of all the I don't care and just giving it up to the universe. Keep up with the beautiful powerful breath. Inhale and now we squeeze that root lock, rise the energy to the brow point. Exhale, release and just take a few breaths, relax. So imagine with this breath how much prana you're taking in and how great you're probably already feeling and going to feel. It's really about that intake of prana, just gives tremendous energy and vitality to the system and radiance. It's what makes us glow. Okay, last few movements. So here we're with the eyes open and very slowly we're inhaling left, exhaling right. Inhale left, exhale right. Here we slow everything down, no rush. This is to help us create boundaries in life, say no when we need to say no. Also works on the thyroid and the parathyroid and the throat chakra of course. Inhale center, exhale and now we'll inhale right, exhale left and let's keep going. Slow and with presence.

Inhale center, inhale center, exhale. Good, last exercise, one of my favorites, frog poses. Who came up with such a name? So this is wonderful, I'll demonstrate. You're gonna be on your tippy toes, the heels are touching and we're going to bring the hands and the weight onto the front of the body sustained by the hands. You're gonna inhale, keep the heels off the floor, drop the head, straighten the legs and exhale. Look up and the big smile showing your teeth because this is tricking the brain into creating those happy cells. The brain doesn't know if it's a real smile or not so even if you don't feel like it invite you to just goof it up for a minute. Let's do 26 frogs. Inhale, exhale, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven and you're inhaling up, exhaling down, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26. Ah and there we have it, awakening the ten bodies. So I invite you to take at least the five to eleven minute shavasana, so important to lay out and to allow yourself to integrate everything that's happened during this Kriya, awakening the ten bodies. If you love it, even if you don't, but you know it's good for you, do it for 40 days, have an experience. Sat Naam.