Kundalini Yoga: Awakening the Energy Within
Exploring the practices, energy, and spiritual awareness behind Kundalini yoga
I have been practicing Kundalini yoga for a few years, and it has become an important part of my spiritual journey.
Kundalini yoga is a form of yoga that incorporates chanting, breathwork, repetitive postures, meditation, rituals, and prayer. For me, it is more than a physical practice. It is one way to bring my spiritual life into my body and create space for deeper awareness.
The word yoga means union. Traditionally, yoga refers to the union of the individual self with the divine. While different traditions understand that union in different ways, the underlying idea is one I return to often: spirituality isn't separate from us. We experience it through our minds, bodies, emotions, intuition, and daily lives.
Kundalini yoga is one path toward that experience.
Many types of yoga serve different purposes. Some aim to develop psychic abilities, some support physical and mental well-being, and some support spiritual awakening. Kundalini yoga is a powerful practice for spiritual awakening.
How does Kundalini yoga do this?
In Hinduism, Kundalini is described as the divine energy that stays locked up in a coiled form at the base of the spine. When it is awakened, it moves through the central energy channels, or chakras, until it meets the seventh chakra, or the crown chakra. The crown chakra is the divine masculine energy. The meeting of the two is called yoga or union.
When a person experiences yoga within themselves, they enter a heightened state of awareness and experience divine oneness. This is what Kundalini yoga is designed for.
How To Awaken Kundalini
A Kundalini awakening can be intense, but it can also be subtle. It all depends on the person’s readiness. Even advanced practitioners can become scared, confused, and highly uncomfortable when their Kundalini starts to rise up. So, it is best to practice Kundalini yoga under the guidance of a teacher.
Also, despite your best efforts, it is up to your Kundalini when she decides to wake up. For some, it takes a whole lifetime; for others, it happens spontaneously; and for still more, it takes a few lifetimes. If you want to embark upon this journey, do so without any expectations. Be open to what the experience brings. Even if you don’t experience a full awakening, there are countless benefits to practicing any kind of yoga, including Kundalini yoga, such as stress reduction, improved sleep, increased mobility, better health, and reduced anxiety, among others.
Usually, a teacher guides you through the following practices:
1) Breathwork
Certain breathing exercises can help the life force energy, or prana, flow freely in the subtle body or energy body. This can often support an awakening.
2) Meditation
Meditation is one of the best ways to connect to divine forces and prepare the body, mind, and energies to experience an awakening.
3) Yoga Postures
Certain types of yoga, like Hatha yoga, can strengthen the body to trigger an awakening and help you handle the energy released during such an event.
4) Energy Healing
The role of healing cannot be overstated. Yoga practices clear energetic blockages in the energy body, which can help relieve ailments, heal energy pathways, support the physical body, and prepare for the awakening.
5) Chanting
Chanting is an essential component of Kundalini yoga, and it can create the necessary vibrational state in the body to trigger a Kundalini awakening. Many sacred mantras can help unblock and balance chakras and create the perfect atmosphere for an awakening.
What I appreciate most about Kundalini yoga is that it doesn't ask me to leave my body behind in order to experience spirituality. Instead, it gives me practices that help me become more aware of my body, breath, energy, thoughts, and inner experience.
As I said, it is best to find a teacher to guide you through Kundalini practice and help you find a sequence of breathwork, meditation, postures, and chanting that works best for you. It may result in an awakening and, at the very least, help align your body, mind, and spirit.
Awakening Is More Than an Experience
One thing I've learned through my own spiritual journey is that awakening isn't simply about having profound experiences, receiving messages, or feeling connected to something greater.
Awakening also asks us to look at ourselves.
What beliefs are we carrying? What fears are keeping us small? Where are we living according to someone else's expectations? What parts of ourselves have we abandoned in order to belong, achieve, please, or feel safe?
This is where spiritual growth becomes grounded. Spirituality isn't an escape from being human. It's a way of becoming more conscious of how we live as human beings.
We don't awaken to escape our lives. We awaken so that we can live them more consciously.
This is also at the heart of my program, Uncaged: Free Yourself. Reclaim Your Life. Uncaged explores the patterns, expectations, fears, and identities that can keep us living inside invisible cages, and invites us to begin releasing them so we can live from a deeper sense of truth and self-connection.
Because awakening isn't only about connecting with something greater than ourselves.
It's also about becoming more fully ourselves.