Karuna’s Instructional Guide to Yoga, Issue 2
We’re pleased to present, issue by issue in Light on Light, an Instructional Guide paralleling the Yoga Sessions available on Karuna’s Apple and Play Station App and for your yoga practice in general. Instructions and demonstrations in each issue of Light on Light will be built around an at least 30-minute Yoga Session demonstrated in a linked video and described in the Instructional Guide. As Light on Light issues accumulate this will build a general guide and manual for your exploration and development in yoga. And, we plan to present that in a stand-alone manual in the future too. Exciting! In using the Instructional Guide, you’ll want to refer both to (1) the Foundational Guide, which is about activities and poses common to all yoga practice or sessions (warming up and fundamental poses and breath work) and (2) the Session Guides which provide instructions for particular sessions taught by Karuna. What’s great about our format is that all session elements (eg, asanas, mudras, mantras, etc.) will have a number—the Manual Tag (M-tag: #)—and this will allow you to locate them easily as they are arranged in different orders or sequences in future sessions and issues. In both the Foundational Guide and the Session Guides, the elements will be added gradually, session by session and issue by issue, and so will accumulate for you in a natural way. The purpose of the guides, overall, is to give you a comprehensive reference tool as you build your yoga practice and development. Worldwide, there are over twenty kinds, or schools, of yoga. Karuna’s expertise is in Kundalini Yoga, in the tradition of the Sikh master Yogi Bhajan. Although we’ll center on that tradition in this manual for fundamentals, warm-ups, and so on, we will also universalize. For instance, in naming the various elements, we’ll provide both the common English names and also the range of names used in the ancient Indian (Sanskrit) traditions. 67
Q&A with Karuna What is the difference between Kundalini Yoga and other Yoga paths? Kundalini Yoga is regarded as “the dangerous yoga” because it opens you up! It clarifies the depth of how much you want to glow, feel good, trust, share, and find happiness. We all have experienced the Hatha Yoga Path. It was Yogi Bhajan’s first path. But then he said, “I just don’t want to wear a loin cloth.” He reached his personal heights through meditations, and yoga asanas, in the “kriya style” of sequences—to work on specific organs, tissues, joints, glands, the skeleton, and so on. He also employed sound current to uplift from the heart center and out of the “lower triangle” to the upper, higher, Self. You can raise your frequency and elevate with balanced Yoga asanas (posture practices) and then further culminate these with sound current through Gong, laying out with Gong and in deep meditation.
What does your daily practice look like? My daily practice is what is called “Aquarian Sadhana”. It combines yoga, meditations, and teachings. Details of those elements change all the time (there are over 4000 variants to choose from!) but the essential makeup of Aquarian Sadhana always includes those three essential core components.
What is most inspiring in your yoga practice? Hearing, and watching how the flow takes its time to seep into my cells step by step, demon by demon, until all becomes peaceful and reunited into the present moment of breath and serenity. It’s an incredible experience each day from sunrise to sunset.
How has yoga changed your life? Yoga has given me the courage to understand the “AKAL”— the deathlessness, having no fear, and letting go into trust. Working with my practice gives me stamina and vitality and helps heal layers of wounds, freeing old subconscious patterns that no longer serve me. Discovering the Divine Feminine brings more and more love, and love to share with everyone. I’m always thanking the past for all it has taught me and understanding that, just as we’ve had generations before us to serve, we have generations after us to serve as well. Actually,
it’s all about being in LOVE!