Shanti Shanti Kaur Khalsa, PhD, is founder and director of the Guru Ram Das center for Medicine and Humanology. A yoga instructor since 1971, she began to specialize in teaching kundalini yoga and meditation to people with chronic or life-threatening illnesses and their family members in 1986, under the direction of Yogi Bhajan. At the Guru Ram Das center she works with people who have diabetes, cancer, heart disease, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, HIV, anxiety, depression, and major life transitions. In the following essay, she shares the results of that work as well as answering such questions as: Does kundalini yoga have the potential to improve quality of life for those with chronic illnesses? If so, how does it heal?
“I have already passed the cross in the road, haven’t I?” Sarah asked.[1] It wasn’t really a question. “And I made a choice, a decision which direction to go. And I acted on that.”
Sarah had spent the past two years exhausted and in pain. She had seen a series of physicians, including many specialists, who could not give her a clear diagnosis. No one knew: Did she have chronic fatigue syndrome? Fibromyalgia? Something else? Desperate, she turned to the practice of kundalini yoga to help support her while she grappled with a chronic condition that could not be named.
At first, Sarah practiced simple breathing techniques to raise her vitality and build endurance. She chanted mantras accompanied by rhythmic movement to relieve pain and emotional distress. She particularly benefited from a sound current that is basic to the practice of kundalini yoga: sat nam. This mantra means “truth is my identity” and has the effect of bringing forward one’s clear self. As she grew stronger, she began to practice kriyas—predetermined sequences that combine breath, posture, movement, and mantra—that her teacher matched to her ability and needs.
Shortly after she started practicing these kriyas, Sarah noticed the benefits. She slept better, she was less anxious and depressed, and the intensity and duration of pain were reduced. She was more hopeful about the future, she had more energy, and her energy lasted longer—she had more “better days” than not.
The “cross in the road” came when Sarah realized she could use these techniques to get well, and that she had the tools she needed to do so. She made a decision to improve her condition and acted on it. She continued to seek and receive medical treatment when she needed it, and to practice kundalini yoga a little longer each day. Over time, she fully recovered her health.
“The year I was diagnosed with breast cancer was the most transformational of my life,” Leigh recalls. She was just thirty-six, and the mother of three young children. “I had been mildly depressed for some time, dissatisfied with my life, but not enough to do anything about it. I knew I was not myself, that I wasn’t authentic, really, to myself—not that I knew what to do about it. There was nothing wrong with my life—I was simply getting by.”
After her diagnosis, Leigh joined a kundalini yoga class for women with breast cancer and discovered that raising her energy allowed her to tap into her hidden gifts and make new decisions in her life. She enrolled in an art class and began creating award-winning pieces. “This is what I had been missing. I learned that in illness and in health, it is important to stay receptive to what is unseen and the possibility of change. I am awake now, and I find joy in most of what I do each day. No longer do I drag through and take my blessed life for granted.”
A graphic artist, Martin had lived and worked in San Francisco for twenty-eight years before he was diagnosed with a serious viral condition. “When I tested positive for hepatitis C, it was so far along and my liver so damaged I thought my life was over. The help I received through the practice of kundalini yoga gave me an experience of myself and made me aware that I can have a future, that I do have a future. I learned what I need to do in order to stay well, to live my life in a way that reminds me all life is sacred. I believe I would not be alive today if I had not started to practice kundalini yoga and make the life changes it helped me to make.”
After practicing kundalini yoga regularly, Martin recognized that recovering from illness and then maintaining health through conscious flow of the kundalini energy are a result of a total way of living, not just practicing exercises to raise the kundalini.
In October 1986, it was my blessing to teach the first kundalini yoga class especially designed for people living with HIV. This was the same year that azidothymidine (AZT[1]; now called zidovudine and manufactured as Retrovir) went into clinical trials, and many of the students in the class found themselves sicker from the side effects of the medication than from any opportunistic infection. The kinks had not yet been worked out in the dosing.
The purpose of kundalini yoga practice is to enable healthy people to experience their excellence. It is not inherently a therapeutic practice. When we train to teach this form of yoga, we prepare to teach it to healthy people, not people with life-threatening health conditions. Yet I learned firsthand that it has therapeutic value.
In 1986, there was no curriculum or protocol for teaching people who were as ill as those who came to class. Over the next few months, under Yogi Bhajan’s guidance, an approach was formed to meet the wide range of needs of people in all stages of HIV disease, and thus our service to people with this illness began.
For many centuries kundalini yoga practices were kept secret, and because of this, myths have surrounded the term kundalini to fill in the gap created by lack of knowledge. Other teachers in the yoga community cautioned me, “You can’t teach kundalini yoga to ill people; it is too vigorous, too strenuous.” These words, though well intended, showed a misunderstanding of the practice of kundalini yoga and how it can be applied in recovering health.
Although the people who came to our HIV classes wanted to get well, most were in a tough position because they believed that to improve their condition meant to return to the state they had been in before they were diagnosed. But as they became more aware of what was possible with kundalini yoga, they realized they did not want to go back to how they had been living. They wanted to be well and more aware, conscious, and open to kundalini energy.
What became apparent to me through teaching people with chronic or life-threatening illness was that a healthful recovery and living well are based on uncovering and discovering hidden talents, meaning, and purpose within each individual. It is important to identify this divine purpose or highest state of being and form it into a concept, or an image, of the future for which we want to be well.
Any conflict about the past that one might have can be resolved in directing one’s energy toward a more compelling vision of the future. In this way, we all might live up to a higher state of being. This is the “cross in the road” that the person recovering her health must face. When this happens, she is then free to get well and become open to her most genuine essence, as Sarah did. Raising kundalini energy is essential to this process. It brings awareness and vitality, and we need both of these qualities to get and stay well.
Contrary to one popular myth, kundalini is not some exotic energy that shoots up your spine without warning. It is a natural flow of energy inherent in each person, part of the subtle structure of each human being. It is at home and flowing through your nervous system right now, even as you read this.
There’s more concentrated kundalini energy untapped beneath the fourth vertebra, also called the seat of the soul. This is the dormant energy that is awakened through the practice of kriyas. Once it is awakened, it moves through the chakras to unfold and integrate one’s gifts, creativity, and capacity. Kundalini energy is a tool we can use to break through the silence of the self and experience what is possible, to give us the foundation and endurance to achieve our unique purpose.
We have all seen the caduceus, the ancient symbol used to represent the modern Western medical profession. Through Eastern eyes, the two serpents intertwined on a staff represent the rise of kundalini energy through the two nerve channels, the ida and the pingala. The central channel, the staff, is the sushumna. It raises the question: was it known or intended that the symbol of modern medicine signifies these three channels of ancient healing?
These three channels are called nadis. The ida channel is experienced via the breath through the left nostril. Breathing through the left nostril relates to the parasympathetic nervous system; it is calming, cooling, and restorative and assists with elimination. The pingala channel is experienced by breathing through the right nostril. This relates to the sympathetic nervous system; it is energizing and warming and allows assimilation. These two channels cover the distance from both nostrils to the base of the spine, the seat of the kundalini. The sushumna, the central channel, originates at the base of the spine where the three nadis meet and carries energy to the top of the head.
The practice of kundalini yoga balances the prana through the use of breathing methods and allows the self-healing potential that is already present to flow. In ancient times, healers invoked prana through the three channels as their medicine and mode of treatment. Yogis used specific breath techniques through the nadis to create the necessary effect. They included different bhandas, or locks, each relating to a specific area of the body. In the neck lock, for example, the neck is lengthened, and the chin is positioned in toward the spine. Because the process of kriya invokes kundalini, the application of the bhandas is necessary to establish the integration of energy through the three channels.
The three major nadis of yogic anatomy, the sushumna, ida, and pingala, are each employed naturally in the structure of kriya incorporating breath, movement, posture, and mantra. Through the ida nadi, healing involves the whole being in relationship to the sacred using sound, which regulates the breath, image, and thought or belief. Through the pingala nadi, we heal through movement and the application of the bhandas, guiding prana from one area of the body to another. Through the sushumna, we invoke healing through neutral awareness or stillness. Mudra (the position of fingers and hands) and dhrist (eye focus) are part of the kriyas and also function to direct the flow of prana.
Though the methods are sophisticated and often subtle, there is a simple formula for healing through the three channels: when we access energy through breath, strengthen through rhythmic, targeted movement, and integrate these changes through sound, this brings us to stillness, where the healing force of kundalini energy is most effective.
Breathing consciously is a basic yogic technique, common to all traditions. To breathe at a rhythmic, focused pace is to put the key into the ignition and get the energy started. Long, deep breathing opens the lungs, balances the nervous and endocrine systems, improves lymphatic and cardio circulation, and brings alertness.
Rhythmic movement in relation to yogic posture strengthens weaker areas of the body, opens and clears energy blocks, and builds vitality and endurance. The application of bhandas and mudras directs the flow of prana and builds natural immunity.
In Native American tradition, there are songs that are specifically intended to cure illness. Similarly, when yogic mantra is included in the practice, it can relieve pain, alleviate depression and anxiety, improve lung capacity and lymphatic circulation, raise vitality, and build self-efficacy.
Sound is essential to healing through kundalini energy. Mantras regulate the breath and flow of prana, stimulate meridian points in the tongue, mouth, and lips to activate and balance brain function, and create distinct frequencies to integrate the effects of the kundalini energy.
Yogi Bhajan explained: “As long as you practice a total discipline or a complete and balanced kriya, there is no difficulty. In kundalini yoga, you will notice that every meditation and kriya has some form of mantra in it. This ensures the channelization of the energy.”[3]
Once kundalini energy is activated, engaged, integrated, flowing, and creating healing effects, it needs to be maintained. Daily habits of living, including diet, personal hygiene, one’s manner of speaking and thinking, and service to others are part of maintaining this flow of energy
I encourage you, regardless of your state of health, to experience the same type of energy in your life. Right now, right where you are, let’s practice a simple, effective breath meditation as taught by Yogi Bhajan. Put the book down and place your hands on your knees, palms facing upward, the back of the hand resting on the knee. On each hand, the tip of your index finger touches the tip of the thumb, forming a circle. The other fingers remain extended. Close your eyes and gently focus them at the point between your eyebrows. Inhale deeply. As you exhale, open your jaw and let the sound of a long “saat” come from your navel out your mouth. As your breath comes to completion, end with a short “nam.” Inhale and begin again. Continue for three to eleven minutes. When you are done, inhale deeply through your nose. Exhale and relax. Notice how you feel.
What can raising kundalini energy do for people with a chronic or life-threatening illness? In their own words, they say it offers:
May you live with joy, peace, and good health, in a life rich with discovery and adventure, service and community, creativity and fulfillment. Sat nam.