Kundalini Yoga is often referred to as the Mother of Yoga. It is a very ancient form of yoga and in its place of origin – the Himalayas – it can be traced back several thousand years. Because its teachers and students considered it a very powerful technique it was kept secret in the Himalayas until the 1960’s, when Yogi Bhajan brought it to the West. It was clear that the times were changing and Kundalini Yoga could make a great contribution to help people to better manage the acceleration of change, the increase in stress and pressure and the growing insecurities lying within all this. Yogi Bhajan started teaching Kundalini Yoga in 1968 in the U.S. from where it spread worldwide to a global network of today over 40 countries where Kundalini Yoga is being taught and practised by many thousands of people.

Kundalini Yoga is the science of sequence, rhythm and sound, to work on every aspect of your body, mind and soul. No previous experience in yoga or related disciplines is required for you to begin to achieve undeniable benefits almost immediately.

This holistic philosophy presents a comprehensive system of breathing techniques (Pranayama), body postures (Asanas), hand postures (Mudras), healthy mental vibration (Mantra), the science of sound & chanting (Laya Yoga) and Meditation (Dhyana). It is a dynamic and powerful tool for expanding awareness and it brings practical benefits of rejuvenation and healing.

Over a time this practice provides the physiological and psychological prerequisites for total health. These include a balanced glandular system, strong nervous system, expanded lung capacity and the clearing of emotional blocks. In this way it is a dynamic and powerful tool for expanding our awareness and we develop a conscious relationship between our personal life- energy and the universal flow of Prana. The overall result is the balancing of our chakras and the alignment of our Ten Spiritual Bodies. This awakens us to who we really are; spiritual beings having a human experience.

Kundalini Yoga is based on kriyas, or specially formulated sets of exercises. This allows us to target specific benefits and work on exactly those aspects of ourselves that need work at the current time. Any amount of time spent practicing – whether three minutes or an hour a day – produces significant benefits, and in turn, motivates individuals to dedicate more time to its practice.

 Yogi Bhajan

Yogi Bhajan, a Master of Kundalini Yoga by the age of 16 – itself a rare feat –gave his first lecture at a Los Angeles high school gym on January 5, 1969. Then a 39-year-old recent émigré from India, he left behind a government career in order to realize the vision of bringing Kundalini Yoga to the West. No matter that not a single person was present that evening; he came to teach and he proceeded to speak to the empty hall.

In the turbulent, drug culture of the 60s, Yogi Bhajan first reached out to the youth. He recognized their experimentation with drugs and “altered states of consciousness” expressed a deeper desire to experience a holistic, liberating sense of awareness and a longing for family, for connection with themselves and one another. Soon realizing that pharmaceuticals provided, at best, a cheap imitation to the peaceful, inner euphoria they could get naturally from Kundalini Yoga, and at worst, had debilitating physical and mental side effects, young people began flocking to his classes, arriving by the busloads. He created a family, known as 3HO (Healthy, Happy, Holy Organization) and soon 3HO teaching centers began springing up across the United States and throughout the world.

He sparked a movement whose many tendrils have wound their way into our culture. Yogi Bhajan blazed a trail, which today, after more than 30 years of determined effort on the part of 3HO and the Kundalini Research Institute, yoga and meditation have gained widespread acceptance in the West. This popular attention speaks not only to the proven benefits of yoga and meditation, but to the increasing public interest in spirituality and a healthy lifestyle.

Born Harbhajan Singh in what is now Pakistan to a family of healers and community leaders, Yogi Bhajan studied comparative religion and Vedic philosophy in his undergraduate years, going onto receive his Masters in Economics with honors from Punjab University. Years later, he earned his Ph.D. in communications psychology from the University of Humanistic Studies in San Francisco.

He emerged as a religious, community and business leader with a distinguished reputation as a man of peace, world-vision, wisdom, and compassion. He has authored and published more than 30 books on topics ranging from spirituality and consciousness to communication and psychology. He has founded several foods companies that manufacture and distribute natural products based on these teachings. He has fostered economic development in every community in which he participates, annually conducts business seminars, and has authored several books that provide guidance to both the aspiring entrepreneur and seasoned business executive alike. As the Siri Singh Sahib, or the Sikh leader in the Western Hemisphere, he has met with Pope John Paul II to discuss inter-religious dialogue and worked side-by-side with the Dalai Lama and the Archbishop of Canterbury to foster world peace.

About Karam Kriya

Karam Kriya is a unique approach to negotiating change; working with the global archetypes of numbers to provide a personal, professional and spiritual health check.

Karam = Structures that take us through time but with no result other than repetition.

Kriya = Completion of these structures and the establishment of Dharmic structures. Dharmic structures are vehicles of awareness that use time to go beyond time.

An organic and ever young approach to finding creative ways to utilise the passing time in order to create opportunities and to expand our possibilities of unlocking our full potential and giving birth to the individualised soul while here in the precious jewel of human life and in the mediums of time and space given for this purpose. It is the ongoing practice of re-negotiating the ways we shape our physical and psychic space towards the above-mentioned purpose. This negotiation always takes place in relation to other human beings.
Working with the individual or the group, Karam Kriya is a negotiation of change that facilitates the journey of the soul in delivering itself through the mediums of time and space. Transmitting a call to consciousness and inviting the awareness of opportunity, choice and possibility. Maximising the given law of cause and effect to exhaust karma and give life to dharma. Realising the sound that created us and becoming that in all we do.

Karam Kriya is inspired by the teachings of Yogi Bhajan and developed by Shiv Charan Singh. It is a completing activity that uses Applied Numerology to provide interactive diagnostic tools for transformation. For example your date of birth provides a window into your life patterns, which is also your karma. Karam Kriya is a scientific approach to understanding the influence of the law of karma in your life and through this learning rendering your history transparent.

Once you have this transparency of your past you can introduce changes in your actions and belief structure that will help you to have a story that will bring you to your destiny. It is the science of getting in touch with the basic formula, which initiated your existence. And then using the time and energy before it uses you to fuel changes in the shape of your life in order to create opportunities and to seize them.

 

Shiv Charan Singh

The founding director of the training is Shiv Charan Singh; an outstanding spiritual teacher who runs the Karam Kriya School in North London .

Shiv Charan's interest in the link between the concrete physical and abstract spiritual aspects of life led him through a thorough study of Kundalini Yoga philosophy and practice and into several counselling courses culminating with a degree in humanities, as well as independently studying a number of different approaches to physical, mental and spiritual health. In time he began to integrate these studies with the study of Applied Numerology [the first and last language, common to all] and brought it together in a way of working with others through healing conversations.

As a spiritual teacher and trained counsellor, Shiv Charan offers profoundly transformative individual consultations. In 2002 he has started a challenging 3-year training in Karam Kriya consultancy in England, France, Germany, Italy and Russia.

This training offers students the opportunity to learn about communication and relationship. First by examining the nature of the mind in order to render it transparent. Then by an in-depth exploration of the five universal voices that speak in everyone. It is a challenging course that calls on the students motivation and willingness to self-initiate into an accelerated learning process.