Brain Balancer

Hello, everybody. Welcome to Kundalini Rising on Yoga Anytime. My name is Kara Looney. Today, we will be working on a set that's a powerful brain balancer. This is a set that's going to help us oxygenate the brain, bring balance to the right and left hemisphere, activate the pineal gland, and help relieve memory loss.

All right? Let's get started. As we do in every Kundalini Yoga class, we tune in with our sacred invocational mantra. We rub our hands together, stimulating 72,000 energy channels. We tune in with Aung Namo, Gurudev Namo.

I bow to the divine teacher within. We chant this mantra three times through, and then we'll begin our practice. Bring the thumbs into the sternum, shoulders down, away from the ears. Eyes are closed, drawn up to third eye center, and let's lengthen that spine. Take a deep inhale through the nose to begin.

Aung Namo. Aung Namo. Aung Namo. Gurudev Namo. Aung Namo.

Gurudev Namo. Take a deep breath in through the nose. Suspend the breath, engage your root lock, third eye focus, and exhale, release. Welcome. Today we are going to be, as I mentioned, bringing a lot of balance into the brain and oxygenating the brain, activating the pineal gland, and getting the brain prepared for any high-focus activity you may have upcoming.

We start every practice with a nice warm-up to activate the central channel of the spine. We bring our hands onto the knees, and start rolling in counterclockwise position, inhaling forward, exhaling back, and I encourage you during the practice to close your eyes as long as that benefits you and you feel unbalanced and stable. So let's just roll forward and back, inhaling, opening the heart, exhaling, rounding, tucking the tail. Let's take four more in this direction. And then inhale, hold center, and reverse the direction.

Inhale and exhale, opening the chest, rounding through the back, moving through the neck and shoulders. Let's take four, three, two, and one. Inhale, hold center, and let's take a spinal flex, forward on the inhale, rounding and tucking on the exhale, eyes are closed at third eye center. These spinal exercises are a wonderful way to relieve any tension in the back and open up the energy channels throughout the body. And let's take four more, and inhale, center, lift through the crown of the head, lengthen the spine, and release.

Let's take those hands, sweep them up overhead to inhale, exhale, hinge and bow forward and come on to the hands and knees and tabletop. I'm going to come side facing, and we're going to come into cat cow. So my hands are under my shoulders, my knees are under my hips, and I begin with a neutral spine and then I lift my chin and my tail to inhale, exhale, round tuck and dome. Here we go. Eyes are closed, drawn up to third eye center, and just moving prana through the body.

Let's take four, three, two, and one, inhale, chin and tail, suspend the breath. Exhale round tuck and dome, and come back to a neutral spine. Let's curl those toes under, press up into a downward dog. Pedal the feet, wag the tail a little bit, shake that head loose, and then let's look forward to the hands and gently step the feet in toward the hands into a forward fold. All right, taking it from this forward fold, let's gently come rising with bent knees, hands come up over the head, and come forward facing.

My feet are shoulder width or wider on the ground, my arms are up wide above my head. I'm going to take a deep inhale, and I'm going to cross my body touching my opposite foot, my left hand to my right foot, rise up, and exhale, bow forward. Now keep a nice bend in the knees to support the low back. Here we go, feel free to keep the eyes closed as you move if your balance allows. Let's take four, three, two, and one.

Inhale rise, and let's come down to a seated cross leg position, bring the legs in, come down seated. All right, let's get started on our kriya set. This is a three-part kriya set that's very powerful for the brain. It's going to involve a lot of breath work, and we're going to use a mudra. As I've mentioned before in my classes, the hands and the fingers play a powerful role when it comes to working with the brain.

So I'm going to take my thumbs, pull them in toward my palms, and I'm going to close my ring and my pinky finger over my thumbs so my index and middle finger remain extended. I'm going to bring my arms forward so my wrists are in alignment with my elbows, my elbows are wide out to the side. And I'm going to take a movement where my arms move in and then emphatically outward. So I'm going to inhale with an O mouth as I move my arms in toward my chest, and then through an exhale nose with an emphatic kind of flick out to the side. Eyes are closed, drawn up to third eye center.

Here we go. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, eight, nine, eight, nine, eight, nine, eight, nine, eight, nine. Let's take four, three, two and one. Inhale, suspend the breath. These are at third eye center, root lock.

Keep the posture, exhale, again inhale, root lock third eye, exhale, last time, suspend the root lock third eye, and exhale, release, and relax, and gently give yourself a moment to breathe and reset, and gently blink your eyes open. Now our next set involves a similar mudra, but slightly different. I'm going to hold my hands up, and I'm going to take my ring and pinky finger, close them down with my thumb this time, shoulders are down and away, Jupiter in Saturn finger, extend to the sky, that's my index and middle finger, and I'm going to roll in outward circles, creating little vortexes of energy around the body, and my eyes are closed, drawn up to third eye center, and I begin a rhythmic breathing through my mouth, a gentle breath of fire, pumping the belly. Keep moving like this. Breathing the energy in the chest, feeling the energy in the arms, eyes are at third eye center, and continue.

Keeping any self-consciousness and moving into self-awareness. Let's take 30 more seconds. Continue at this pace. And inhale, suspend the breath, freeze the arms out to the side, root lock, third eye, exhale through the nose, keep the posture, inhale, root lock, third eye, exhale, last time, inhale, suspend the breath, root lock, third eye, and exhale, release, palms face up on the knees, gently give yourself a moment to connect to your awareness, connect to that witness that's just observing the experience of your physical body, and connecting you into a state of balance, a state of harmony, and clarity in the mind, gently blink the eyes open. Let's come into our last part of this kriya set.

I'm going to take my arms out to the side, and then I'm going to employ that same mudra where the thumb closes down on the ring and pinky finger, index and middle finger extend out long, shoulders are down away from the ears, and I rotate my arms backwards so the eye of the elbow is to the sky, my heart is lifted, and my ribs are lifted. I close my eyes, and I begin long deep breathing. I'd like you to continue maintaining awareness of that backward rotation of the arms and the shoulders as we long deep breathe through the nose, inhaling, exhaling, extending those arms to full length long neck. You may find you start to feel some discomfort in the arms and the shoulder for holding this posture for an extended period of time. I'd like you to try and override any inclination to quit or give up, and just stay connected to the witness.

Stay connected to the breath. Feeling the energy of the heart and the lungs opening up. Long third eye focus. And you're feeling the lungs open wide. Good.

Keep breathing. Good. Let's take four more deep, powerful breaths with the eyes focused at third eye center. Taking that strong rotation of the arms. Now on this last breath, take a full inhale and suspend the breath.

Root lock, third eye, reach those arms, open the heart, suspend the breath. Keep the posture, exhale through the nose, again inhale. Root lock, third eye, suspend, open the chest, reach the arms, and exhale, release. Gently relax the hands, palms face up on the knees, chin to the chest, and connect to a space of stillness. Maybe ghee on mudra, index, finger and thumb join.

Well done. Gently blink your eyes open. And I invite you to come laying down onto your backs for a little sound healing savasana. Feet and thighs turn out naturally, palms face up next to the hips, shoulders are down away from the ears, jaw softens, tongue relaxes in the mouth, ears fall back, eyes sink back, have a gentle awareness at the crown of your head. Gently blink your eyes, palms face up next to the chest, and exhale through the nose.

Gently blink your eyes, palms face up next to the chest, and exhale through the nose. Gently blink your eyes, palms face up next to the chest, and exhale through the nose. Gently blink your eyes, palms face up next to the chest, and exhale through the nose. Gently blink your eyes, palms face up next to the chest, and exhale through the nose. Gently blink your eyes, palms face up next to the chest, and exhale through the nose.

Gently wiggling your fingers and your toes, draw your knees into your chest, wrap your forearms around your shins and rock from side to side. And rolling onto one side into fetal position, while you're down there, take a full breath in through the nose, inside out through the mouth. And gently blink your eyes open. At the end of every Kundalini Yoga class, we sing a blessing. May the long time sun shine upon you, all love surround you, and the pure light within you guide your way on.

And then we close that out with three long vibrational expressions of the mantra Satnam, declaring truth is our identity. Let's bring our hands to the heart center. Feel free to join me or just listen to the mantra as a blessing. Let's take a deep inhale through the nose to begin. May the long time 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.

Saptnam, Satnam, Satnam, Saptnam, Satnam, Satnam, Satnam. Take a deep breath in through the nose, suspending it, bringing folded hands to third eye center, blessing that you'll be guided by intuition and have the wisdom and courage to follow it. Inhale bowing forward, Sat Naam, Namaste. Inhale rising up. Thank you, everybody. Sat Naam.