Give the Heart a Warm Bath: I Just Want to be a Woman
Kundalini Yoga in China

Suraj Kaur, a KRI Kundalini Yoga Teacher Trainer from Sydney, Australia, has been traveling regularly to China to share Yogi Bhajan's teachings to enthusiatic students. The women's teachings have been especially well received.

Here are translated excerpts from an article which was published in a Chinese newspaper.

Suraj Kaur and Seva Kaur, Norway/ Australia, will be the trainers for the Conscious Pregnancy Teacher Trainin in China in May.)

Day One
Outside of Beijing, together with a group of women in plain white clothes and turbans on the heads, I sat on the wooden floor with my bare feet.  The morning sun shone brightly and warmly through the windows. The teacher started talking: Now, please straighten your spine, gently close your eyes, focus at your heart center, inhale deeply and exhale completely and start chanting: Ong – Namo - Guru Dev – Namo. 

Merging in the sound current of the group chanting, my mind seemed to fly into another world where there was no conflicts, but peace, purity, love and light.  This was how the four-day workshop “I  Just  Want to Be A Woman” – Kundalini Yoga Women’s Workshop began - in such magical vibration.

After the chanting we did a simple set of exercises called Kriya.   Now please raise your arms. Powerfully shake your arms and shoulders. Keep moving. Imagine that you are throwing all your fears and angers behind… I lost the concept of time.  My shoulders were numb. I had no idea at this moment what had happened to my body and mind.  At the same time, I heard some crying and screaming sounds around me.  Suraj, our teacher, said that we have stored much negative emotional energy in our body.   Our cells possess much traumatized memories. 

With the traditional healing methods, we can only go very slowly, bit by bit back tracking to our childhood to locate the cause and then release the pains.   But with Kundalini Yoga you don’t need to know what happened in the past.   You just need to follow the instructions and do it whole-heartedly.  Then, what needs to be released will be released.  While the negative energy is being released, the positive energy will replace it and expand.

This was our first day:  we practiced a combination of kriyas to release women’s collective unconscious fears and anger.   Every kriya brought out a release and cleansed our body and mind like a cozy warm bath.   At the end of the day, I felt exhausted but liberated.

WOMEN CREATED THE WORLD – RELEASE WOMEN’S COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS WOUND
The master of Kundalini Yoga, Yogi Bhajan said:  "Women carry and nurture the children.  In some way it indicates that women’s consciousness determines the world’s consciousness. Women by nature are creative.  They create the world.  In English the word woman contains man.  And female also contains male." 

Therefore, the female energy is the mother earth’s energy which creates all beings. But for thousands of years, women have lived in the male-dominant  society, thus endured accumulated wounds and traumas.   Some psychologists call this “the women’s collective pain body”, such as slavery, supression, rape, birth and abortion, etc. which are like a physical body existing in the female body cells.

Day 2  -  THOSE INTIMATE SCARS - THE MARKS LEFT BEHIND - CAN THEY BE WASHED OFF?
We got up at 3:30 in the morning the next day.  The two and half hours morning sadhana starts at four o’clock.  It was not as difficult as I had anticipated.  Morning sadhana is a part of the Kundalini Yoga tradition.   Great yogis in the past knew the energy was most powerful around four o’clock.   Man can tap into the energy to gain the strong connection with the universe.

There were more intensive kriyas in the morning.   These exercises are designed to release women’s traumas from the encounter of the sexual intimacy. The teacher explained every man will leave his mark on the woman’s magnetic field.   

As for me who encountered Kundalini Yoga for the first time, the gong meditation in the early afternoon was most amazing.   Students lay on the yoga mats and covered with blankets. We closed our eyes. The voice of the teacher seemed drifting from a far distance: Whatever you feel, just let it flow out freely.

“Kuang – kuang” The teacher started playing the gong. It sounded softly at first. Gradually it got louder.  I felt frightened as if I was entering a dark and dismal area. I contracted my body.  All of a sudden, the gong made a thundering sound, I was shocked and immediately felt the immense sound current entering my body through my crown.  Every cell in my body started vibrating.  The gong’s vibration became more and more intense.  The waves of the sound current swarmed at me persistently.  Little by little, my body loosened up.  Suddenly, I felt a warm current rising from the bottom of my heart.  It’s a unspeakable joy. My mind went completely blank.  The teacher said: The gong creates an internal vibration.  When we play the gong, the sound current of the gong will have the great impact in our body and mind.  Then, we can let go of our fear and anxiety, and cleanse our magnetic field.

Day 3 - EXPERIENCING PREGNANCY  
Being a mother of three children, Suraj (teacher) said: Regarding pregnancy, according to Kundalini Yoga, only after 120 days the soul will enter the mother’s womb. If the woman can practice daily sadhana and meditation, and keep a clear consciousness, then, the more evolved soul can come and become the child of the pregnant woman.  If a woman wants to have a child, she needs to prepare herself before and during the pregnancy with her whole being. The deeper we cleanse ourselves, the better it will be for the child.  Therefore, today’s kriya aimed at eradicating the old wound.

Now please go to your heart center. Breathe deeply. We are going to do a kriya to clear out the memories’ Ghosts before our 11th year.   Raise both arms up as if you were flapping the wings.  Coordinate with your breaths while moving the arms.   We fly over the fields, the rivers and vast desert.  Yes, we are flying over the desert, you might feel your wings getting heavy and tired.  But you can’t stop because the desert is so vast and immense….you need to fly through.

I had no idea how long I had been flying. It seemed like a century. My arms were like two pieces of logs, no longer following my command. My mind kept saying: “no more! I can’t do it.”  Then, I heard the teacher said: Are your young wings feeling exhausted? But you can’t stop, the distance to cross the desert is still very long, you must keep going regardless….I have reached my limit. My tears poured out uncontrollably. “I can’t, I really can’t take it any more. I just can’t!”    I didn’t know if I was still flapping my wings, I just couldn’t stop crying.

All of a sudden, a surge of powerful current came from my head to my arms, my wings felt light.  “Ah! I went beyond my limit!”   I felt an overwhelming joy. 

At this moment, I heard the teacher again: “you have flown over the desert and now slowly fly higher and higher toward the sky.  Through the dark clouds, you are now in the clear blue sky.  You are embraced by the warm sunlight.   You are flying over the beautiful and lush tropical rain forest.   Oh, it’s so beautiful…”

Day 4 -   IF I COULD BE BORN AGAIN
Today’s subject is REBIRTH. Besides, the healing kriyas, the Hypnotic technique of Kundalini Yoga has enabled me to experience the rebirth.

Please, sit on your heels. Put your head on the floor. Hands by your sides and relax like a baby. Now we are back in the womb of our mothers. We will experience rebirth… in the intercourse of your mother and father, your micro physical body was formed… Now the physical body is three months old. Your soul is still lingering around your mother. Are you ready to choose this woman as your mother in this life? If you have decided, please enter your physical body.  Feel it and feel the environment. How is it?

I wasn’t sure whether it’s my imagination or delusion, suddenly I felt a surge of warmth in my body as if I had just entered the safest domain, even though it’s pitch black all around.  I couldn’t see anything…You are five month old already.  You have established a deep connection with this mother.   Feel your mother’s emotions.   Is it sad?   Or happy?   Or pleased?   My intuition told me this woman who was my mother was very sad.   She wasn’t happy… Now you are seven months old.   You can feel your mother’s breaths, inhale – exhale and every heartbeat.   You have grown accustomed to be with this mother. Feel the warm water all around you.  Feel your mother’s emotion…

My mother, she was still sad.   She was exhausted and yet felt no protection and love. Suddenly I felt very sorry for her, this woman who was my mother.   She was so sad.  She could hardly get enough to eat.   And yet she gave all she had to me.   I wanted to tell her: “Mom, I have seen all you have experienced and endured.   Can you feel my love for you?

... Now, you are going to be born.  Do you want to come out? Or you still want to hang in there?   Ah, light!   Can you feel the light shining?   With the light, you are being pushed to the tunnel.   You feel the tightness of the tunnel.   Do you hear the chattering of the people?   Welcome to the world of Light… 

I felt I was really reluctant to leave that safe haven, my mother’s stomach.  The journey to be born seemed quite smooth.  And yet I felt an indescribable loneliness. Sobbing and crying noises brought me back to my reality.   At the same time, I could still feel my love and care for my mother.   I gently moved my body.  I felt a deeper understanding of my mother.  I cherished even more our mother-daughter relationship.    Lunch break came, I immediately called my mother.   I shared my experience.   Amazingly, she told me what I experienced was exactly what she had experienced, and she had never confided with anyone of her state of mind back then.