The Morning Muse

I recently began my second Kundalini Yoga sadhana. After 40 mostly wonderful days of the heart opening kriya (which I write about here), I decided to start a new kriya. While I could have continued the heart-opening one beyond 40 days, I felt eager for a little change and something new.

I took a one-day break (I still did yoga on that day, but it was only hatha and kirtan kriya), I decided on Sat Kriya! After working on my heart chakra for 40 days, I felt I needed to pay attention to my lower chakras.

So far, the experience has been a little different. The kriya is not as pleasant as the heart-opening kriya; I get sweaty and my arms start to hurt as I hold them up in the air for 11 minutes. Repeating the Sat Nam mantra can start to feel a little funny, and I’ve burst out laughing more than once while I do the kriya.

I have read that such laughter (or other emotional expression) can also be a sign of energetic release!

I also tend to experience a spontaneous smile following a couple of minutes of doing the kriya, and the “relaxation” meditation after the kriya (which is still a mandated part of the practice) is filled with a really satisfying sense of being fully present.

It’s extremely important to do this one on an empty stomach since there’s so many repetitions of stomach pumping. Even with an empty stomach, I get some nausea around the five minute mark.

Having some nice music or some singing bowls playing in the background really helps with staying with it and getting through the practice faster for me.

After completing eleven minutes of belly pumping in Sat Kriya, I find that my breathing gets really light and easy, and that’s very pleasant. And about breathing, it can get a little confusing during the practice! This is one issue beginners (like me) struggle with a lot. When are you supposed to breathe? In fact, breath instructions are not a part of the kriya instructions, and practitioners are expected to figure out their own rhythm. It’s day 6, and I am still working on that, but I have mostly figured out how to sneak in a little breath around my Sats and Nams.

Even so, sometimes I can start to get a little nauseous, and when that happens, I find that interrupting my mantra and pumping just long enough to suck in some much-needed air does the trick. I don’t know if this is the proper way to do it!

Now that I am approaching the end of my first week with this kriya, one of my concerns is how to make my time with the practice more pleasant and less jarring. Every day I find a new way to improve my practice. One thing I have tried, and which has been helpful, has been to try to completely relax my belly when I release it from each pump. That sounds obvious and intuitive but it can be easy to keep holding on tightly in anticipation of the next belly pump when you’re going at a speed of 8 mantras/pumps every 10 seconds (which is the recommended speed). The kriya begins to feel more pleasant and impactful when I fully release (or try to) with every single pump.

Over the last couple of days, I have also been starting my kriya after some nice hatha yoga. I feel so much more centred (and stronger) after doing some light yoga, and I find the kriya is then both easier and more impactful and profound. Sometimes I follow a video from my Banana Blondie Yoga subscription with Michelle Muench (you can find sample yoga classes on Michelle’s Youtube channel) and other times, I need something a little slower, so I might go with a quick stretch with Yoga With Adriene or a Yin flow with Yoga With Kassandra.

I noticed that my first post on Kundalini Yoga is getting quite a few views, so I wanted to continue this series of just sharing my perceptions and impressions as I continue this life-changing practice.

In my next yoga post, I want to go over how I feel yoga has changed my mindset in just the 60 or so days I have practiced daily.