A Journey of Physical & Spiritual Healing... by Joseph Brown

The motto for the Picean age was I want to know please help me? The motto for the Aquarian age is I know, let me help take you there.

Hi my name is Joseph, I started Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan in November of 2012, this is around 3 & a half years ago. I was really interested in Kundalini after reading about it's mystical potential in Eastern & Western Esoteric writings. I'd been suffering from a herniated disc after playing Rugby 5 years previous, so if I could strengthen my back & relieve some of the pain I was persistently going through & also gain more spirituality & understanding then I was clearly onto a good thing.

At the time I tried Kundalini yoga with other yogas & meditation, I was swimming & trying alternative practices, such as Chi Kung, Martial arts, Taoism, I Ching, Shamanism, Five Rhythms dancing & Massage of all different sorts, I found them all to be healing in many different ways. Each practice & path also would teach you something about yourself; five rhythms dancing showed me fear & insecurity, the way through was to just keep dancing, to lose & find yourself in the Dance. Taoism showed me about the microcosmic orbit our the relationship to chi, movement, breath & healing ourselves from within.

After around six months, of a one night a week KY practice, I began to feel as though I could see a positive change in my life, i'd lost weight, given up on bad friends & had a new passion, Kundalini Yoga. After class one night I heard an inner voice say quite clearly ''you should learn to teach this'' at the time it was abundantly clear to me that I hadn't really had a goal for a while, or succeeded in any i'd chosen to attempt. It felt as though life was passing by quickly, without much success & a limited understanding of who I was & what I was meant to do with my life. At a dance workshop called dance your dreams, I was able to put things into order & see that I was the only one holding myself back , me & my fears, if I wanted I could become a teacher, all I had to do was apply myself.
After telling my teacher of my goal he quickly took me under his wing & helped me see where I was heading & the things I was going to have to go through. I started a 40 day kriya & stuck to it, i'd been vegetarian since starting KY & had completed a few Aquarian Sadhanas. I was enjoying my transformation, but my body was showing me how much damage there was & I was still in a lot of pain with my back. In March I started my Kundalini Teacher training, I became a KRI International Level 1 Instructor in April of 2015 i've been teaching at least one or two+ classes a week since February 2015.

Kundalini Yoga is the yoga of awareness, my practice has been like a project or hobby at times, by teaching it & learning to teach it, it has taught me so much more about what's going on within & outside of me. When I started my Kundalini project it was to get fit, heal my mind body & Soul, it was like stripping down an old car & then the rebuilding of it. It's been a huge transformation process, which I found safe and secure in, with lots of ways to understand what's actually going on with you & the others in your life. You begin to deal with the issues, learning to support yourself  & others along the way, to where's best & where you aught to be.
Kundalini exercises, have deepened my inner body awareness helping me to heal from within. I've managed to heal nerve damage & build muscle back to help realign my posture, relieving a lot of pain and suffering. Through meditation you can quieten the mind, observe the ego & become aware of your surroundings, emotions and feelings, dropping into the awareness and starting to feel connected. The growing ability to heal my body has been a beautiful experience that has kept growing, day by day, becoming my own teacher & using the teachings has been such a gift.


Through our understanding of our physical body and it's systems (nervous system, circulatory system, musculoskeletal, lymphatic and Endocrine systems) we see how yoga helps and can explain the the purposes of movement and breath work for specific illness associated with organs, glands, nerves, strengthening muscle and balancing & stretching them too. This then allows for improved posture, better digestion a stronger immune system, an ability to see signs of stress and how to avoid it or deal with with it competently.
What we put into our bodies can relieve stress from some systems and improve others performance, or massively hamper us. Through the science of Kundalini Yoga we look at our nutritional diet, fasting & mono fasts to help clean the systems. We can respond to illness quickly by what we eat & strengthen ourselves to avoid further illnesses, you can match your nature with nature & live more in harmony with life.
Pranayamma controls the mind very quickly and can balance the systems of the body & massage internal organs. We chant to vibrate our glandular system allowing regular secretion and hormone distribution, and the yoga keeps it healthy also. Chanting can be quite a challenge for some people & it's interesting to see how it can develop confidence, put strength in your voice and give you projection.

The other way to connect with Kundalini Yoga is within spiritual development, understanding how to work with Kundalini Energy. Kundalini Yoga is a 'praan' yoga, so we use breath & bandha (inner locks) to elevate energy, which we cultivate through kriya or movement & apply to the chakras & ten bodies system. Working with this awareness allows you an understanding of the eastern philosophical questions, showing you how to live, and operate in the hectic times we find ourselves in.

After completing my Goal of Teacher Trainer, i'm looking to deepen my practice & time spent with Kundalini Yoga once again. I had a recurring question on my teacher training; ''where is this taking me too?''. My teacher would smile back at me, as I waited for her to tell me & I never really knew or could get an answer, which seemed frustrating, however I realise sometimes it's not about where your going, you don't need to know & if your already there..... then hey what's the problem? Why go anywhere else? My body is healing at a good rate, but to help speed things up I think spending some time immersed in Kundalini Yoga might be what I need?
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I've put on my calender for next year to go & spend some time at the Quinta do Rajo Ashram in Portugal, you must stay for a minimum of 40 days & help out with seva to earn your keep. My idea is that you can utilise the peaceful & powerful qualities of an ashram for your study & service, again furthering a connection to awareness of self & others. Recently i've found a loneliness in communities of all sorts, that closeness seem far away as though there is something missing or could be better understood in the Ashram surrounding/experience? 


Yours


Joseph


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