What is the meaning and Concept of "GURU"?

Kundalini as a tool to achieve a life full of lightness, joy, and boundless love. Through Kundalini Yoga, you will begin to not only become aware of the geometry of your body, but also see how this practice affects the energy, emotion, and motion in your body, quickly and efficiently.

Kundalini yoga is a form of yoga that involves chanting, singing, breathing exercises, and repetitive poses. Its purpose is to activate your Kundalini energy, or shakti. This is a spiritual energy that’s said to be located at the base of your spine. As Kundalini yoga awakens this energy, it’s supposed to enhance your awareness and help you move past your ego. Sometimes, the practice is also called “yoga of awareness.”

The term “Kundalini” comes from the Sanskrit word “kundal,” which means “circular.” It also refers to a coiled snake. And according to practitioners, Kundalini energy is like that coiled snake: It sits at the base of your spine, sleeping and unaroused.

Kundalini yoga consists of six main components, which are done in the following order:

• Opening chant. Every class begins with an opening chant, also known as tuning in.
• Pranayama or warmup. You’ll do breathing exercises, called pranayama, and sometimes also movements to stretch your spine. The goal of pranayama is to practice breath control.
• Kriya. A kriya is a sequence of postures, pranayama, mudras (hand positions), sounds, and meditation. The length and intensity of the kriya depends on your instructor.
• Relaxation. This allows your body and mind to absorb the effects of a kriya.
• Meditation. Your instructor guides you through meditation to cultivate awareness.
• Closing chant. The class ends with a closing chant.

We all have “locks” in our body where energy is stuck and we are no longer in flow with our mind–body connection, the universe, and our highest potential. Kundalini Yoga pulls the energy at the base of your spine up, all the way through the roof of your crown and outward so that energy can flow and create balance in your energy centers and chakras.

Kundalini yoga is practiced to activate this energy, which allows it to move up and through the chakras along your spine. In yoga, chakras are the seven energy centers in your body. They include:

• MULADHARA: root chakra
• SAWADISTHANA: sacral chakra
• MANIPURA: naval, or solar plexus, chakra
• AANATHA: heart chakra
• VISSUDHA: throat chakra
• AAGYA: third eye chakra
• BIDURPUDHA: crown chakra

As Kundalini energy rises, it’s believed to help balance these chakras and contribute to your spiritual wellness. With regular practice, Kundalini yoga is said to lead to spiritual enlightenment. This is called a “Kundalini awakening.”

Inward seekers are known as yogis and yoginis, and regardless of their cultural background they speak with a singular voice which communicates the universal truth of their collective discovery.

Awake awareness is invisible, content-less, formless, boundless, and timeless, but it is the ground of our being. When you shift out of your conventional sense of self, there’s a gap of not-knowing. Awake awareness is who we are prior to the personal conditioning we usually turn to for our identity. Rather than looking to our thoughts, memories, personality, or roles to identify ourselves, we learn to know awake awareness as the primary dimension of who we are, the ground of Being. Then, with unconditioned awake awareness as the foundation of identity, we can include our conditioned thoughts, emotions, and sensations as waves of the ocean of our life. When people feel awake awareness as their primary dimension of consciousness, they report feeling an essential well-being that is free, loving, and safe.

Awake awareness, as the ground of Being, is the same in all of us, and our individuality arises out of it. Awake awareness is sometimes called “pure awareness,” but it’s also inherent within all forms of our consciousness. At other times, the term “awakened awareness” is used, but awareness is always awake and so has not awakened. Awake awareness is always already here, and it’s only a matter of learning how to directly access it.

One of the most important things to learn is how to separate awareness from thinking. Only then can we see that thoughts and emotions are not the center of who we are. We then discover that awareness is the source of mind that brings the peace that passes understanding. One student said, “This is what it feels like to be open-minded.” It’s our natural wisdom mind, both prior to and beyond conceptual thinking. We are able to then use thinking as needed without being a “thinker.” It is like doing something from a “flow state,” being in the zone, or a continuous intuition.

 Awake awareness can “know” something without referring overtly to thoughts, but it can also use thought when needed. When we discover the important ability to step back into awake awareness, we are no longer identified with our worried thoughts and fearful emotions. That which is aware of fear is not fearful.

The yogic techniques used to realize this state of Oneness come in many flavors and they too are known as yoga. Yet, it is important to understand the key distinction between the methods of yoga, which can be defined as means of “union” and the ultimate outcome of such practices which is best understood as a state of “unity.” 

From Socrates’ message of “Know Thyself” to Vasishta’s guidance to inquire “Who am I?” From Einstein’s proclaim of a “Singularity Theory” to Lau Tzu’s “Way of the Tao.” From Chief Seattle’s message that “Everything is Interconnected” to the Dalai Lama’s teachings on “Interdependent Origination.” From Bob Marley’s hymns of “Jah Love” to Ramana Maharshi’s “Non-Dual Truth,” there is simply no denying that a singular One Reality pervades and unites us all. To discover this One is the aim of yoga. 

The name “8 Limbs” comes from the Sanskrit term Ashtanga which refers to 

1. Yama (attitudes toward our environment)
2. Niyama (attitudes toward ourselves)
3. Asana (physical postures)
4. Pranayama (restraint or expansion of the breath)
5. Pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses)
6. Dharana (concentration)
7. Dhyana (meditation) and 
8. Samadhi (complete integration)