Episode 32 – Fateh Kaur

the human experience is in session my guest tonight is bought a car who specializes in Kundalini Yoga fate’ welcome to the human experience thank you so Fatih can you just kind of give me an idea of how you got into practicing Kundalini Yoga okay I was I had been practicing yoga since I was a teenager because I need it for mental wellness and I had been practicing a yankor Yoga for 10 years and when I moved to New York City for work she was working as a

Ford model and I should say I was working as a for plus-size model I went to the ie anger Yoga Institute in York City and found that it wasn’t I wasn’t loving enough it was too too heady and too linear and a little bit cold a night not too platonic anger yoga studio there in New York because it I love I love the practice and the people and everything it was just that one experience but I had that one day and so a friend of mine

from Miami had told me about a community other studio in the city and so I went there and took a class and just fell in love with it the first class I took I knew that this was my path I knew this was something but I’m looking to be teaching I wanted to do it immediately let’s talk about that a little bit how did you how did you go for him because I mean those are two opposing things how did you go from this sort of modeling career to this kundalini yoga practice

how does that happen well I was doing both at the same time really I was um continued to model and but I would take I would go and do retreats with Yogi Bhajan and Espanola New Mexico that’s where he lived he had a passion on there he died in 2003 but he was very accessible and so I went in the early 90s and took we course called the Masters touch and Yogi Bhajan lectured twice a day every day he came in the morning and he came

or actually came after lunch and then he came after dinner and every lecture he gave he would give it some meditation to do and the meditation would be anywhere from 11 minutes to he never he said he never time the meditations he could just see when the aura and the room changed and that’s when he knew that it was complete but it was anywhere from 11 minutes – it could even be an hour dude can you just tell us a little bit more

about who Yogi Bhajan is who is that sure so you guys came came to America and the early and the early sixties looking to create some teachers not followers he wanted everybody to be 10 times better than than he was so he wanted it has but he didn’t he didn’t simply share yoga exercises and meditation his teaches in you know if teachers included teachings excuse me included it was a comprehensive lifestyle um and he taught you know

which allows sort of like this radiance of the soul to shine in that facet of life so it was like how to eat how to dress how to communicate how to have relationships how to raise children how to do business so he infused every aspect of life with the beauty and graces of you know of his teaching um he started to pro whole he had many many many business like yogi yogi t is one of his businesses he had a security business um he started a whole school

called super health which is how to break addictions through Kundalini Yoga he tied you know how to be a man how to be a woman and interface it was very comprehensive and he called it a human ology so this is a whole system of living then it’s not just a kind of posture process it can be it can be if you choose to and then there’s a religion associated with it as well what is the what religion is done it’s the Sikh religion from northern

India and um you know the you know they but you don’t have to be it was a very tolerant you you just came and did what you wanted there is never any pressure at all she should be part of the religion you know there were many faiths I would practice that do practice cannellini yoga so what what is Kundalini define that for us please so when you raise your Kundalini you’re you’re changing your consciousness and every aspect of your life gets

transformed and the lifestyle teachings of Yogi Bhajan organization which is called 3h o healthy holy happy organization are designed to support you through that transformation and so in this way you can live a healthy happy Holi bountiful blissful beaut and beautiful as completely healed and a sovereign human being so you know he would give medications and he would say do this meditation for a hundred and twenty days twice a day for 62 minutes so that’s

what you know they say it takes forty days to change a habit so minimum you know choose one of his thousands of meditations and just do it every single day at the same time in the same place in the amrit vela which is the the early wee hours of the morning we’re the rays of the Sun like clean the earth you know and it’s basically about clearing out the subconscious mind continually you know it’s like we clean out we clean everything

right but we don’t clean our mind so this is this is really tools for our consciousness and really cleaning out the subconscious mind so at one point you traveled to India to learn more about this can you tell us about that sure I traveled to India to study Iyengar yoga back in 1994 I was working in as a model in the city and traveling a lot and I decided it was my time to go and meet mr. anger and so I had written a letter and they wrote me back saying yes you

can come but not until 1997 so I thought okay three years from now I don’t know what I’m going to be doing but I can hold my spot $100 and I’m going to go for it so I actually did not go to India for Kundalini Yoga I went there to study I younger yoga with DK si anger and when I got there there was no living they didn’t offer any living situations so someone had told me about a place to stay down the street and when I got in the rickshaw the driver took me to the

ocean or ahhm which was about a 20-minute a rickshaw driver wedding and I ended up staying at the Osho Osho Ashram and hiring the rickshaw driver to be my like driver daily for a month to take me to the anger Cove Institute wait for me during class and then drive me back and then the rest of the day I would spend studying osho’s teachings which is a whole different comprehensive teaching so I think oh I didn’t go to India for Kundalini Yoga I went to

actually New Mexico to study why the shift what did you notice about Kundalini Yoga versus the this other type of yoga that was so different for you Yoga is nonlinear so you can take it for the first time and and and be like a master at it if it’s nonlinear so hmm so it’s not like you have to learn fundamentals and then build upon those fundamentals in a linear way like when container garden to first grade and and you you can start anywhere and and

be in a class with people who’ve been doing it for years and years and years and be you know right there with them I don’t know if that explains it well enough hmm it was it’s an energetic it’s an energetic practice so if somebody who has a real strengths nostalgia Yoga has a real strength in my yang Gor yoga and coming to Kundalini and feel really weak there’s there’s different strengths that Kundalini Yoga allow you know that they

offer me let me give you like a an example so yeah gee yogi bhajan I might have its older hold our arms up at a 60 degree angle from fingertip to fingertip like like your arms are making a V let’s say you know up over your head lungs elbows you would have us hold our arms up like that for 62 minutes No so after you know two minutes it’s quite difficult or 11 minutes let’s say let’s bring it down so holding your arms up for 11 minutes somebody who’s completely

fit really strong muscularly you know who you know marathon runner or whatever that is difficult so it takes grit and it takes grip and it takes you know lifting your consciousness you go through the pain of holding your arms up for 11 minutes takes focus mantra there’s there’s mantra and Kundalini Yoga there’s mudra and criminally new yoga there’s something called the nod the vibration would you say that you your Kundalini is awakened I don’t know

I I know that that that there’s a really big for me a distinction between joy and happiness and and when I feel more joy and can you can contain it then yes I feel I feel more alive you know I thought there was kind of a specific thing that happens when your Kundalini awakens I mean is there is the purpose of Kundalini Yoga to awaken your Kundalini and what I mean Yogi Bhajan I don’t even think he ever spoke about that you know it’s that’s kind of a

trendy concept even though it’s very real and you know you know it’s like raising the Kundalini without containment is not good you know so we have to build this container of our nervous system you hold the Kundalini you know the Kundalini is like Shakti it’s very powerful it can blow your circuits out right no I think that’s why it’s a you know makes people crazy and stuff it’s like that’s not the ultimate goal is to raise the Kundalini you know

it’s it’s to be it’s to have all your chakras and balance it’s to activate your power center three inches further than a ball ground yourself and then elevate yourself and then serve others you know it’s all he was all about serving serving it sounds like you’re building yourself up to this point I mean is this even accurate you’re building yourself up to this point where the Kundalini can awaken is that even a goal a Cathy a goal I’m suppose it was

never really my goal you know I mean I always you know the child feels very connected to my Kundalini awakened stage you know I like what does it really mean you know I I mean my thing is are you happy you know are you are you able to not be you know addicted to alcohol or marijuana or shemale you know can you can you can you be you and and ever in everything you speak you know why are you speaking it are you conscious like that that means

it’s kind of menial Egan are you conscious you know it’s more about sort of awareness and like bringing your body into a rhythm a totally oh you nailed it the rhythm the rhythm in community yoga love it okay so that’s another thing that I think makes kinda lean yoga this is a good distinction is that there’s so much rhythm in it there’s a rhythm in motion there’s rhythm and nod which is the sound vibration so there’s a lot of music around cannellini yoga you have

beautiful artists like snot on car and you know Simran you can go to on Spirit voyage calm and here all the Kundalini Yoga music it’s just so beautiful because it has a certain rhythm with pulsation of the universe the sound but yeah just being balanced being how can I serve today you know how can I serve in a conscious way and that to me is Kundalini awakens k’en’dl Eve what else would you do with it anyways go out make more money you know I mean

yes Yogi Bhajan was all about abundance and prosperity you know he has actually meditations for creating more abundance and prosperity you know he was a very wealthy man and he had lots of material possessions you can go visit his house and this one deal in New Mexico and sees all his cars and stuff but he wasn’t attached to them would you say that there is a resurgence of this sort of I don’t know east meets west type of thinking where these Eastern

philosophies and paradigms or of seeping into our Western society you know Xavier there’s going to come a point and I think we’re reaching this sort of tipping point where pharmaceutical medications are not going to work and they’re not working how many people do do I know you know that are taking a medication for you know mental emotional issues and just working so Yogi Bhajan spoke about this time that were in you know the aquarium entirely

this Aquarius time where he said that if you can’t make a decision in three seconds so you’re done you need to be able to make a decision in three seconds or less you know three or four seconds so this this is medicine this practice of Kundalini Yoga is medicine sort of mind um let’s say you have trauma let’s say you have anxiety or deep fears this will just clear them you’ll feel more connected to who you truly are like in three minutes it’s that what do you say

to someone who thinks that this is pretty much just hippie and isn’t really paying attention to would I have to experience it that’s experiences we know we might not have a shared belief but we can have a shared experience and so you know breath of fire do you brought it fire and pop your navel for three minutes and then sit still and notice how you feel I don’t have to convince you just do it just try it instead of instead of

you know opening up a beer or instead of taking a pill sit quietly focus at your third eye point which is between your eyebrows if it’s the root of your nose as deep as you go internally go externally awaken your pineal pituitary gland connection get the pituitary gland secrete he’s your master gland activate your navel Center you breath a fire and keep that you got in your awareness you know and when experience it this is very

experiential what do you think that has been your most fundamental understanding through this practice what is it what is the thing that you think that you’ve learned the most through practicing Kundalini Yoga mmm my god that’s a great question I learned the most how to be joyful yeah honey and my birthday my middle name is joy and my father used to validate me as it’s always talking about bringing joy into the world and last year I had something happen to me where

and that joy just I couldn’t I could just couldn’t seem to you one get in touch with it anymore this is sort of something happened that was really traumatic and filled me up with a lot of fear and a lot of darkness and doubt anything in my practice of Kundalini Yoga for the since that time has not been strong and recently I really connected deeply I took a course called white tantric yoga and it travels around the whole country and it’s a one

day all day of meditation and this day we did five thirty one minute meditations in 162 minute meditation and it helped me it helped me so much reconnect back to my own personal joy I do I do I live my life like doing joy all over the place no and like that that to me is very unappealing you know I think that there’s an underworld and dark and shadow and light and it’s all important but for me to feel joy inside my own heart and some dispossession inside my

own being that’s important and this practice connects me to that and reconnects me to that over and over and over again so there’s many opportunities for people to take community yoga they can just go on to the three a joke org website and find a teacher there’s celebrations during the summer solstice in New Mexico there’s winter solstice celebration in Lake Wales Florida and it’s three days of white tantric yoga three full days

you do it with a partner sitting across open eyes and then there’s different mantras and things that you do and yogi bhajan was very much about keep up keep up and you’ll be kept up you know focus on your third eye point this is developing your intuition which is what I spoke about before making their decision within three seconds or less that’s your own your intuition there he was very much about this third eye point developing cultivating your intuition

and letting your intuition guide you what would you say the main differences between Kundalini Yoga and other types of yoga what kind of I don’t mean ii yo’ –ga you know it’s so interesting because they always compare it like okay like boats I live on the water you know and I see all these boats and they’re all boats they all float you know you know they all have very very similar things about them but every boat has is different you know she’ll boats people

whatnot right so it’s like yoga like yoga is all the same it brings the same sort of end result in a way but how you get there is different you know so Kundalini Yoga is very much about mantra so the big mantra the seed mantra I would say the most popular mantra is such num SAT and am such num and it rhymes with but mom what does that mean such means truth or light and non is like namaste naughty so as you inhale meant to be vibrate such and

as you exhale meant to be vibrate mom with an eye focus so eyes are focused either like up at the third eye point the tip of the nose or their they’re just closed by for a simple and when listening to this right now they want to begin you know experiencing this practice they can have a a hand mudra so you can put the tip of the thumb to the tip of the index finger keanu address you look knowledge and focus episode I Queen sit straight

comfortable easy pose speeded position or in a chair spine to and just inhale mentally vibrates that through the white thinking of the meaning of the mantra and then exhale nam instead of time I do it for three minutes 11 minutes 31 minutes 62 minutes and any time a negative thought comes but matcha cuts the negative thoughts it slices through it it takes that negative scott it cuts it and it turns it into a positive one kundalini yoga also has its very

spiritual and very energetic it has numerology it has its called the the ten bodies and I’m very fascinated with that whole and then the numbers you know like one through ten this whole system of numerology like the first body is the soul body and then the next three bodies two three and four mental bodies and negative mind the positive minds fours the neutral mines and five of physical body and then six through 10 or more energetic bodies sixes or arc line

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my gosh seven is like electromagnetic field aura a to chronic body nine as the subtle body and ten is the radiant body you know so he was all about like like like this radiant body you know like spending from your aura out to infinity in all directions projecting your consciousness out to infinity you know like really expanding expanding yourself so it’s a physical practice because there is a lot of physical we do a lot of rhythmic

movements combined with mantra and flash but it’s about really expanding your consciousness and your awareness becoming more sensitive and subtle can you can you perhaps kind of disambiguate what the different asanas are I mean I know that all these different yoga practices they have postures that they use what I mean how is it different with Kundalini Yoga you know that’s a really good question and and for me personally having studied a very bony alignment

practice of a younger yoga for a good 10 years before I even even thought it was possible that there was any other valid yoga system on the planet you know I was like I anger you know there’s the only of that and it’s true anger Yoga is great classical foundational work it’s like if you’re a musician you start on the piano you know sort of thing and then you plans other instruments so I came from a very classically alignment based practice physically you know in a

bone such they the Kundalini Yoga I can say aren’t too concerned with that there there is you know every pose has a posture to it but and of course our concerns with the bone alignment but it’s more of a chakra alignment it’s more of an energetic alignment or looking for you know

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let me see I have a book here right in front of me Yoga for women and there’s cobra pose and you go up into Cobra it tells you what the pose does it increases flexibility and rejuvenates the spinal nerve combines with deep breathing or breath of fire massages and expands the ribcage you know it’s particularly helpful relieving tension and the ovaries and uterus and so yes this is very physical process but it doesn’t just sort of stop

there and I know I’m not saying that I anger does either I hate to compare I have deep devotion to many practices but this is just it’s so prana it’s like breath with Breath of Fire and it’s a lot of holding of the breath in and out and it’s the mantra focusing at the third eye point now I’m using the motto a lot of brain emulation like crossing you know alternate a lot of stuff with the arms arm circles and keeping the arms up you know they call

they call a forward bend you know one of the the postures is called miracle bends and that’s simply just standing in Tadasana but the arms are gonna head on the inhale and then the exhale bending forward touching the ground and then you would like do that quickly 26 times you don’t I’m saying yeah so there’s very similar physical practice but it sort of takes it to another level it’s a very creative very playful but then you don’t we do tree pose you know

what is what’s the understanding in regards to how do I say I mean I don’t have ovaries so I mean I like you’re a man’s personal power or energy yeah well get about it in the man that ovaries are outside of the body right there your testicle so so energetically know how you know the creative center you know their reproductive organs your power your your your second chakra you know so so at all at all really is there is there any sort of body of

understanding that talks about preserving that sort of lifeforce for men Wow yes in a way I mean are you they talked more about that like the rasa that students like could you be you know that’s more I I would think like are you later you know practices which which is also linked to this but this does definitely keep you energetically potent you know not in that way yeah you’re potent your words are potent you know activating the

power center the navel Center rigid where you were connected to your mother and the womb and the placenta you know the power center into the tip of the tongue and where you vibrate your words if you if you speak from that place everything becomes more potent interesting yeah so I mean any last thoughts or anything that you want to get out there as far as messaging you know teach you to do what you love to do serve others and that’s why I love

teaching I so service in a sense I’m giving you know I’m helping people to feel good empower yourself become self empowered you know yeah so self empowerment in a way that just connect back to the things that you love to do connect to the earth do this things that make you happy like really happy yeah I like that message I think that’s a good message is there a zero website or place that people can find out more about your work

well I have a a website at yoga with Mia calm yes I have your government name but so anyways so you know they’re with me as calm I haven’t been able to update it lately but you can email me through that website and that I also encourage them to go on to the 3h o website as well there’s an app there’s a wonderful app as well it’s just 3h org and everything everything they want to know we’d like to know if they are it’s really a great

app I really like that you’re kind of pitching the whole organization not just your studio most people would be like oh no come to my studio but you’re I mean you’re at you have a broader message which i think is it’s cool yeah yeah because that’s what mossy is like namazu I mean it’s if I can look at somebody else’s though I’m just looking in the mirror and I can see myself and somebody else and they can see themselves in me and we look at each other like there’s

no separation we’re just one which is what namaste means this world would be a much better place to live in I want to I want to be I want to live in a world that everyone’s feeling good you know that doesn’t mean like I want everyone to be happy everyone who feel good so we can all play like we just want to play you know I just wanna have fun you know it’s fun you know so that’s that’s really my purpose it’s not just about me I’m putting some money

my pocket or getting followers or anything like that you know yeah yeah well that’s a thank you so much for your time and your and your presence for being here this is the human experience guys thank you so much for listening we’ll catch you guys next week