My Comically Spiritual Experience with Kundalini Yoga

My infinite quest for new experiences and recent involvement with Yoga, brought me to try a new form I’ve never heard about – Kundalini. I went to class equipped with no background information but rather with an open mind and open heart (I learned this approach from a kind Brazilian human resources contact just before I moved to Brazil).

The first thing I noticed was that most student were dressed in white, and some had fur rugs lying above their yoga mats. I then was welcomed by “Jason” (or pick any other typical name), who was a white american male in his mid 40’s or so. Jason’s face was covered with a giant beard and he was dressed in a white pajama (or what my Indian friends would call Shalwar Kameez)  with a white turban adorning his head.

Class was held in cross-legs sitting position. The first exercise required us to sway our upper buddy in circles, breathing in on the forward part and breathing out on the backward part of the circle, in the typical yoga fashion.

Then things got much better. After a long speech about letting go of stress (yoga is all about therapy, only much cheaper), we spent about 10 mins clapping our hands together and on our knees. Think “We will Rock You“.  The next exercise involved bringing our elbows to our body and flapping them back and forth like in the chicken dance. I was watching the 70+ gentleman sitting in front of me batting his elbows like a little rooster and it was when I started looking for the hidden camera. Shortly after, the entire room was filled with laughter so  I was happy to discover I was not the only one finding this situation completely absurd.

Hand swinging like window-washers followed before we reached the best part of the class: Jason put a rhythmic song on and we began drumming on our yoga mats. Then we were instructed to close our eyes and swing our hands and release our rib cage as much as possible with the sounds of music. I had too much fun doing all sorts of arabic dance moves or pretending I were a modern dancer. Of course I had to peep out (bad me for not focusing on my meditation) and then had to hold myself from  laughing at the sight of fifteen middle-aged looking like they had a Tourrete Syndrome.

We were then guided to enter inner hypnosis as Jason played the giant gong for 10 mins or so (“folks, please take out your hearing aids if you have any..”). I couldn’t get into hypnosis because I kept trying to remind myself all that happened in the class so that I could write about it in this post. Perhaps next time.

Class ended with us pretending to throw water behind our backs with our hands, while chanting “Wahe Guru Wahe Jio“(all I recall is mantra of  “ecstasy”)  for about 10000 times, followed by singing “May the Long Time Sun Shine Upon You“.

I believe I now have all the required tools to start my own cult. Who wants to join?