Purify & Detoxify

Sat Naam everybody, welcome to Sacred Kundalini with Karoluni. This is our second practice together. Today we're going to be focusing on purification. So last week in our live class we focused on grounding our energy, connecting to that first energy center, the chakra for stability, for safety, for security. Basically the energy center that is the foundation for all the other chakras in our being.

Today this purification kriya we're going to be working on helps us open up, energize, and cleanse the organs around the second chakra. This is a chakra associated with the water element. We're also going to be moving the energy up and bringing it into the fourth chakra, the heart center. We're going to be doing some purification for the lungs today, which is perfect timing with the state of affairs in the collective, keeping those lungs clean and clear. Couple indications before we get started today, we are going to be doing a pranayama I call breath of fire.

I'll show you a little indication on how to do that, but I wanted to notify you that if you happen to be pregnant or in the first three days of your menstruation, to please instead of doing breath of fire, do a longer, deeper breath. Breath of fire activates what we call our aponic energy, our releasing energy. When you are in menstruation, you already have your aponic energy in full effect. When you're pregnant, you don't necessarily want to mess with your elimination energy, just keep things as it's designed to be. We begin every Kundalini yoga class by tuning in with our sacred invocational mantra, the Adi mantra.

The sound of the mantra is Ong, O-N-G, Namo, Guru Dev Namo. In prep, I'm rubbing my hands together, stimulating 72,000 energy channels. We have 72,000 energy meridians running through the body. They begin in the navel center. They course through our whole body and end in the hands and the feet.

When you rub the hands together nice and vigorously, rub the soles of the feet together, you start to energize and charge these meridians. Let's get some nice charge into the hands. Take a few long, deep breaths. For those of you who are new, I ask you to keep an open mind. Kundalini yoga is a little different than other styles of yoga.

There's a very definitive purpose behind everything that we do, all the movements, all the breath, even to the degree that we practice with the eyes closed. When we close the eyes, bring the hands into the heart center, when we close the eyes, we're turning into our inward universe, not as distracted by the outside world and really turning a focus inward to our inner space, connecting to our intuition and our insight. This helps us gain deeper awareness within our being. This is how so much expansion can occur within this practice is by turning inward very deeply, very intimately. Please press the thumbs into the sternum, shoulders are down away from the ears.

We're going to engage in what's called a root lock. Sex organ rectum navel muscles engage and pull up. Eyes draw up to the third eye center and we create a direction of energy flow in the body. Let's take a deep inhale through the nose, side out. Let's tune in three rounds of the Adi mantra, Ongnamo Gurudevnamo.

Take a deep breath in through the nose to begin. Ongnamo Gurudevnamo. Ongnamo Gurudevnamo. Ongnamo Gurudevnamo. Take a deep breath in through the nose, root lock, third eye focus, suspend the breath and exhale, release.

Welcome everybody. So great to have you here today on our second live practice together. We're working on purification today, purifying the physical body. And when you work on one level of the being, in this case the physical being, the physical aspect and the prana aspect, the life force energy, it accesses and helps us access and purify all other levels of the being. So we're moving into energy, we're moving into vibration.

And speaking of vibration, we're going to be doing some chanting today. And I encourage you to really make use of your voice when we chant, right? There's a difference between chanting from the heart and from the belly, the sound Ongnkar, right versus Ongnkar, which is just stuck in the throat here. Allow relaxation in the throat and the heart and think of the vibration of these sounds as medicine, as energy work, as a massage for the body. Because that's why we chant in Kundalini Yoga.

There is an energetic and physical benefit to the body. We are vibrating, right? We're releasing energy blocks, we're stimulating glands and organs. And we're also activating the hypothalamus, pituitary and pineal glands in the high brain that when activated create a cocktail of hormones in the body that bring us to experiences of expansion, higher awareness, well-being, it's really beautiful. So let's begin our practice with some spinal warmups.

It's a good idea to get the central channel, central energy channel of the spine open and activated before we begin this sacred practice. So let's take our hands on the shins. Let's inhale, roll forward, exhale, round and tuck the tail. Now these Sufi circles are intended to help us ground our lowest energy center to serve as a foundation for all the expansion and elevation that we will partake in in class today. Let's take some nice deep breaths, inhaling forward, exhaling back, eyes are closed and drawn up to third eye center.

Allowing yourself to really just hear the sound of my voice and turn inward in these sacred roles, in these sacred Sufi circles, massaging the internal organs, deepening the breath and preparing the body for practice. I like to think of this as sort of an entrancing process, getting yourself into an expanded state of awareness, dropping your thoughts of the past in your anticipations of the future and just staying in the present moment with this process. Let's go for four more in this direction. Inhale, hold center and please reverse your direction. Feel the spine and the chest opening up, feel the hips opening up, feel the ribs and the lungs opening up.

Releasing subtler realms of your awareness, energy, emotion, qualities of mind. Feel how the body is starting to become liberated and releasing tension. Be an active participant in this expansion. Let's go for four, three, two and one. Now let's hold center, take a deep inhale and exhale.

Alright, continuing, let's take a nice grip of the shins and let's begin what are called spinal flex. I'm going to inhale, reach my heart forward, arch through the back, exhale round tuck and dome. Inhale, exhale and move deep into the belly and the solar plexus with this breath. I stay at third eye center. Breath is really important here to start opening up our awareness, clearing energy and charging the field around the body.

Maybe put a little smile on your face and remind yourself that this is to be fun, to be enjoyed. It's not very serious. Inhale, exhale. Good. Let it feel really nice and opening.

Let's go for four, three, two and one. Inhale, lift through the chest, suspend the breath, root lock, third eye focus and exhale, release. Alright, continuing with our warm up. It's really fun to prepare the body for the practice. That's what all of these exercises are doing.

So I'd like you to take your hands up onto your shoulders, elbows are wide out to the side and we begin to twist from the left to the right. Eyes are up, inhaling to the left, exhaling to the right. Keep that navel drawn in to support low back. Here we go. Helping us realign the vertebrae, wringing out low body organs, getting rid of stagnancy and toxins, using the breath to oxygenate the bloodstream.

It's a beautiful process and you can even do these spinal warm ups on your own every day as a matter to maintain the health of the spine and the comfort in the low back. Let's keep with this rotation and gently lift the hands off the shoulders, fingers up to the sky, index and thumb join to giand mudra, inhale, exhale. Feeling how this changed posture opens up the chest a little bit more, creates expansion in the lungs, stretching in the muscles of the heart center. Stay with me, let's go. Now keeping with this rotation, final part to this, lift those arms up and out to 60 degrees, tipping the chest and the face up to the sky.

Call an elevated emotion into the heart center, maybe gratitude, compassion, allow that elevated emotion to move through your whole being into the cells, into the mind. Let's go for four, three, two and one, inhale, hold center, reach those arms up and exhale, bow forward, stretching through the low back, alright everybody, gazing forward towards the hands and let's rise up onto table top, I'm going to place my hands under my shoulders, my knees under my hips, this is our last spinal warmup, we're going to go into what are called cat cow, inhale, lift my chin and my tail, arch my back, exhale round tuck and dome. The beautiful thing about cat cow is we're actually distributing cerebrospinal fluid through the whole spine, right? This is like liquid crystallized conductive energy, helping us really charge these seven energy fields in and around the body. So let's inhale, lift chin and tail, exhale round tuck and dome, eyes are at third eye center, here we go.

Think of yourself as distributing pranic life force energy throughout your whole body, distributing consciousness. Take your time with this, breathe nice and deep here, opening up deeper awareness, opening up access to your spiritual self, your energetic self, your intuitive self. Let's go for four, three, two, one, inhale, lift chin and tail, suspend the breath and exhale round tuck and dome. Now let's gently come out into a child's pose and just ground ourselves before we begin the practice. I think it's very important when we're practicing kundalini yoga to remain in the present, to trust and understand that each sequence, whether it be active or still, has purpose.

These kriyas are like prescriptions to elevate our consciousness, to cleanse and heal our being and our bodies. So keeping your focus at your third eye center, maybe feel free to follow along with today's intention to connect to purification, purifying body, mind and spirit, bringing ourselves into high alignment. Feel free to set an intention for yourself as well, another intention that feels organic and feels in alignment for you and for the place you find yourself today. Just take a final inhale and suspend it to solidify that intention and exhale release, all right. I'd like you to come rising up please and sitting on the heels in rock pose, okay?

Now if you find yourself tight in the knees in this posture, those of you who are runners or people who cycle a lot, a posture like this may be a little bit agitating in the knees because of the tight muscles around this area, so you can always feel free to take a blanket or a bolster and put it between the heels and the hips and that will take some of the pressure off the knees, okay? As those of you who don't need that extra addition, really allow your hips to sink down on the heels. We have an energy meridian that runs under the back of the legs and under the underside of the buttocks that relates to releasing, that relates to what's called our eponic energy. This helps us with digestion, this helps us with elimination, so when we sit on the heels we can really start to activate that channel and allow ourselves to get into an experience of release, okay? And that's not only on the physical level, that's also carries over as I mentioned into other levels of our being, so if your eponic energy is healthy and in proper condition in your physical body, then you can become energetically more able to release, right?

You won't be as prone to grasping, right, in different areas of your life, so that's how energy channels really work, they're holistic within our being. All right, we're going to do the first part of this kriya set. For those of you who have practiced kundalini yoga before, you may be familiar with sattkriya. This is a very powerfully energizing, charging practice in kundalini yoga. We're going to chant the mantra.

The mantra is satt, and it would be very specific on your enunciation, satt, S-A-T-N-A-M, it means truth is my identity or truth is my name, it's a very powerful endeavor in kundalini yoga to connect to our true nature, so we vibrate that intention on a regular basis. The mudra we're going to hold involves the arms up over the head, interlacing the last three fingers and extending the Jupiter finger, the index finger to the sky. Women or female identifying can take the left thumb, cross it over the right, men or male identifying individuals can take right and cross it over left, shoulders plugged down and away, have a nice long neck. Now when we chant satt, I'm going to engage my root lock and squeeze my navel. When I chant nam, I'm going to release, so it's going to kind of look like a massage or a pulse as I chant, it's going to look like this, satt, nam, satt, nam, satt, nam, there's an engage and a release.

We're using this massaging technique to help move clear energy blocks and direct the energy upward. Eyes will be drawn up to third eye center, and please join me, here we go, really project that sound, declare it, consider it as part of the medicine of this practice. Here we go. Sat naam, sat naam. Sat naam, sat naam.

Sat naam, sat naam. Sat naam, sat naam. Sat naam, sat naam. Sat naam, sat naam. Sat naam, sat naam.

Sat Naam Sat Naam Sat Naam Sat Naam Sat Naam Sat Naam Sat Naam Sat Naam Sat naam Continue chanting. Sat Naam. Now you may find that the shoulders of the arms start to feel a little tingly or tense, maybe there's a little discomfort. I encourage you, as long as you're not in any pain, to move through the discomfort. This is how we move through energy blocks. This is how we create transformation in our energy field, is moving through some of that friction, tension, and pressure. Continue... Sat Naam, Sat Naam Sat Naam, Sat Naam Sat Naam Sat Naam Sat Naam Sat Naam, Sat Naam Sat nam. Sat nam. Sat nam. Sat nam. Sat nam. Sat nam. Sat nam. 30 more seconds. Sat nam. Sat nam. Sat nam. Sat nam. Sat nam. Sat nam. Sat nam. Sat nam. Sat nam. Sat nam. Sat Naam. Sat Naam. Sat Naam. Sat Naam. Inhale. Suspend the breath, root lock, third eye focus and stretch those arms up. Engage all the muscles and reach, reach, reach up. Keep the posture. Exhale. Again, inhale. Suspend, engage, and direct. And exhale. Hands come down through the energy field nice and slow. Feel as if you're spreading a light energy around your whole body. And just sit here for a moment, hands on the thighs, and allow yourself to be in present witness. Just whatever, whatever is your present experience. No expectations, no judgment, just neutrality in observance. Long deep breathing.

Teaching ourselves, or rather re-teaching ourselves, how to be okay in stillness, how to receive in stillness. This is something that the pace of our modern lifestyle tends to reject. It's so necessary for our health and well-being and evolution. Gently blink the eyes open. I'd like you to transition into a seated cross leg position please. Okay, and again feel free to keep bolster or blanket under the hips for comfort if you like. Now we're going to be doing a little set that's going to help us do a little detoxing of the kidneys. Okay, I want you to wrap your hands just around the narrowest part of your waist. Okay, fingers are facing forward, thumbs are right behind. And I want you to place a little bit of pressure on the thumbs. Not enough to make a bruise or anything like that, but just enough to create a little stimulation. What we're doing here is we're stimulating the kidneys. This is a kidney point right here. And I'm going to gently squeeze and press as I inhale, twist to the left, exhale, twist to the right. This is one of the major parts of our detoxification process today in the Kriya set. So keep a nice long spine, eyes are closed, chin to the chest, and we inhale, twist left, exhale, twist right with a gentle squeeze on the waistline. And we're going to be here for a while guys. We need to give it time for the kidney to be stimulated, for it to kind of be activated, and then the kidneys to start to detoxify and release. Okay, so let's settle in for about two or three minutes here with this twisting and breathing. Gentle squeeze on the waistline. Here we go. Elbows are wide to the side. And I like to always remind people that what you put into it is equal to what you get out of it. So stay focused, stay connected into this shared consciousness that we have in practice today. Allow yourself to really release here. We're working on the second chakra and the muscles and the organs in that area. So if maybe you find yourself say for example in a creative block, this is a great practice to do to kind of reconnect you to your creative center. Stay with me. Notice any resistances that come up, some of the mind chatter that says when is this going to end, or how long are we going to do this, or can I keep going. These are the negative mind patterns we seek to neutralize because they, like everything else, carries over into all aspects of our life.

Last 30 seconds. Stay with me. Last 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and inhale center one. Suspend the breath, root lock, third eye, lift those ribs up away from the hips, and exhale. Gently release. Please allow your hands to rest on the knees, and again we bear witness. It's in the moments of stillness that these energy blocks tend to release. Sometimes the release of an energy block can manifest in the form of tears, crying for a reason that you're not quite aware of. Laughter, maybe even yawning, sneezing sometimes, tingling in a certain chakra area. The more you practice, the more you start to open yourself up to receive these clearings. Reminding your nervous system on how to just be. Maybe even noticing if there's some resistance in yourself to this. Instead of trying to escape the feeling by doing something, instead just act as an observer. Huh, how interesting. It's very challenging for me to be. Maybe. It's all about coming to know thyself more as an observer, bearing witness. Let's gently blink the eyes open. Okay, we have a few more parts of this kriya set. The next two parts to this kriya set involve breath of fire. So I'd like to coach you on breath of fire before we begin. Sometimes breath of fire is done through the mouth, sometimes it's done through the nose. Today we'll be doing it through the nose. When we do breath of fire through the nose, we're charging and activating two very powerful energy meridians in our body. In the left nostril we have our Ida or Ida energy channel. It runs from the entrance of the left nostril all the way down to the base of the spine. It's our feminine energy channel. Everyone has it, male, female, man, woman. Right nostril is our pingala energy channel. It is our masculine energy channel, very projective, very sun, where the Ida is very moon and very inwardly focused and restorative. So through this nostril breathing we're balancing out these two energy channels, bringing ourselves into a state of harmony and stability in our masculine and feminine energy. It's a very powerful experience. So breath of fire when done through the mouth, which is the easiest way to begin coaching, is kind of like panting like a dog. You can see how my belly starts to pump. The diaphragm drops and my belly expands on the inhale and it contracts and draws up on the exhale. Okay, you can do it slower. We're gonna bring it to the nose like this. Even on the inhale, even on the exhale, very progressive and sustainable.

Okay, I'd like you to extend your legs forward and ground your hands behind you with the fingertips facing away. We're going to use that breath of fire as we rise up into a back platform. Chin is to the chest and then bring it right back down so it's going to look like this. Okay, shoulders are engaged backward. Draw the shoulder blades together. Eyes are drawn up to the third eye center. Here we go. Now go at a pace that works for you. My pace may not be what works for you, so feel free to go slower or faster if you like. Engage the muscles, use the breath. Connect with how this is purifying and energizing. Move through the discomfort. See if you can push some of those self-created limits just a little. Let's go for four and lift. Inhale. Suspend root lock third eye and exhale. Gently relax on your back for a moment. Again, be in the space to receive. Allow all muscles and joints to relax. As you become more aware of your energy, you'll start to notice the feeling of energy moving from the navel up into the heart. Energy moving from the low triangle to the high triangle. See if you can relax even more. Be in a space of allowing. Well done. All right, let's draw the knees into the chest. Please wrap the hands under the hinges of the knees. Rock yourself up. Please cross at the shins. Come on to a tabletop position and then come laying down onto the belly. Okay, we're going to be using that breath of fire again. We're going to rise up into cobra position with breath of fire and then release it back down. Now I have a modification for those of you with kind of tight or sensitive low backs, okay?

Instead of cobra with hands under the shoulders and the elbows pulled back, you can instead feel free to come into a sphinx posture with the elbows under the shoulders. This will make it a little less intense on the low back, okay? Either way, you're going to come down with the forehead to the ground and then rise up. Down with forehead to the ground and rise up. That's the modification with breath of fire. Full expression of the posture. Feet are fully grounded, tail turned down, hands under shoulders. We rise up with a breath of fire. Exhale with a breath of fire. Eyes at third eye center. Here we go. Baring witness here to what this feels like. Opening up energy, moving it to the higher centers. Detoxifying lungs, intestines, low body organs, kidneys and adrenals. Last 30 seconds. That's four. Now lift and inhale. Suspend breath, root lock, third eye. And exhale. Hands cross, forehead comes to the ground and relax.

Again, being in this place to receive, to allow, to unwind, to undo. This movement between activity and stillness helps to re-educate the nervous system. We're often compulsively, chronically stuck in fight-or-flight. Stuck in that do and be, be something, do something aspect. Tends to wear us out. Disconnects us from our creativity and our intuition. It's in the moments of stillness that we can reconnect to and reclaim this part of our being. It's very important as we evolve into more spiritual beings. Take one more full breath. And exhale. Please gently rise up. Let's come into a seated cross-leg position for a final part of the kriya set where we will be chanting together. Now a little history about me. I used to have the most constricted throat chakra as a child and even into my adulthood and when I first started practicing kundalini yoga, you know, I would be the first to declare I had the worst, worst singing voice.

Everything was restricted and even to the degree that when I tried to sing, I would actually cry and I didn't know why. When I started practicing kundalini yoga, I realized that was all so much repressed emotion from just years and years that when I tried to sing, all of it was just bubbling up to the surface. So it was like a good year of just practicing kundalini yoga and crying and getting out some of all, all of that repression. And then I was able to really fully embody my sound, absent the impediments presented by allergies. So today we're going to chant the sound omg, o-n-g, kar. Omg vibrates the energy up in the sixth and seventh chakra, right? Third eye, crown, high spiritual centers, kar. It's very heart-centered. So this is a mantra that's really connecting us into our high spiritual centers, heart, throat, third eye and crown. I'd like you to keep the eyes drawn up to third eye center when we begin. Hands will be in gyan mudra, shoulders down away from the ears, nice long spine. We're going to chant in a round of five. So just listen to me and then begin to follow as you catch the rhythm and the melody. Let's take a deep breath in through the nose to begin and be sure to enunciate those sounds as best you can and project them. Omkarrongkarongkarongkarongkarongkarongkaarongkarongkarongkarongkarongkarongkarongkarongkarongkarongkarongkarongkarongkarongkarongkarongkarongkarongkarll 33 hong carong karong karong karong kar hong carong karong karong karong kar hong karong karong karong karong kar Let's go for four more. Lunga daunOD onka daunOD onka daunOD Final time.

On-ka, on-ka, on-ka, on-ka, on-ka, on-ka. Take a deep inhale. Root lock, fill the belly, fill the chest, eyes up at third eye center, suspend the breath. And exhale. See if you can sense that vibration in your being.

Connecting more intimately to energy, to vibration, to consciousness, to spirit. And please gently bring yourself down, laying down, into savasana. I'll play a little sound healing. Allow your feet and thighs to turn out naturally. Allow the palms to face up next to the hips.

Shoulders are down away from the ears. These two bowls are lined with the keys of C and F, connecting us to the root and the heart chakra. Chin is to the chest, tongue relaxes in the mouth, ears fall back. I sink back. Allow the palms to turn out naturally.

Allow the palms to turn out naturally. Allow the palms to turn out naturally. Allow the palms to turn out naturally. Allow the palms to turn out naturally. Allow the palms to turn out naturally.

Allow the palms to turn out naturally. Allow the palms to turn out naturally. Allow the palms to turn out naturally. Allow the palms to turn out naturally. Allow the palms to turn out naturally.

Allow the palms to turn out naturally. Allow the palms to turn out naturally. Allow the palms to turn out naturally. Allow the palms to turn out naturally. Allow the palms to turn out naturally.

Allow the palms to turn out naturally. Allow the palms to turn out naturally. Allow the palms to turn out naturally. Gently wiggling your fingers and your toes. And dry your knees into your chest.

Wrap your forearms around your shins. Rock from side to side. And please roll onto one side in a fetal position. Gently using your top hand to press yourself up seated. Cross-leg position, hands at the heart center. At the end of every Kundalini Yoga class, we tune out with a blessing.

It's a song brought to the practice back in 1969 called The Longtime Sun. We sing, may the longtime sun shine upon you, all love surround you, and the pure light within you guide your way on. Then we close out with three long vibrational expressions of the sound, satnam, declaring truth as our identity. Let's take a deep breath in through the nose to begin. May the longtime sun shine upon you, all love surround you, and the pure light within you guide your way on.

Guide your way on. Guide your way on. Satnam Satnam Satnam Satnam Take a deep breath in through the nose, suspending the breath, root lock, third eye. Bring those folded hands to third eye center, blessing that you'll be guided by intuition. Have the wisdom and courage to follow it.

Exhale, bowing forward. Satnam Namaste. Thank you, everybody. See you next time.