Expert Yogi
Posts: 5098
 
Location: Somewhere in the Mountains of Western NC | tourist - 2005-07-19 7:18 PM
You should be fine with Bikram not awakening the kundalini. Bikram's practice is designed to be completely physical and non-spiritual. I would think you would not like a kundalini class - see if you can find Iyengar, Ashtanga etc. "Vinyasa" just means the poses are done in "flow" so it may have a spiritual side or not. It depends. I find Iyengar classes not too focused on spiritual stuff at first but we do Om and one little chant each class, which can be too much for some people but most seem to find it ok. Later on we start studying the sutras and stuff, but it is never mandatory.
Tourist, I just got around to reading this and wanted to comment. I have to disagree with your statement about Bikram being non-spiritual. From my own experience and Bikram himself has stated many times that it is not a spiritual class, however, by doing the Yoga Postures, the spiritual will fall into place - naturally, on its own. Yes, absolutely, doing Bikram yoga has the potential to awaken the Kundalini. But, I will say if you are not familiar with that, then you may never know or notice, or you may further down the road want to seek further avenues in learning about the Kundalini is and about the functions of the Kundalini. |
| There are a number of sites on the web that warn of the dangers of kundalini yoga. Most of them are pretty laughable, but most of the horror stories probably contain a tiny little nugget of truth. When I first started taking Kundalini I had some strange experiences for the first few weeks. I found myself restless and aggressive at times, and utterly depressed at others, and suffered from severe insomnia. It's funny, but I never really equated this with the kundalini until long after it had passed and I heard other new students discussing the same symptoms. Looking back, I can see how someone could begin to have these experiences and give up thinking it was somehow bad or harmful. The delusions and paranoia that most of these sites mention could be the result of fatigue brought on by insomnia. I never had to deal with anything that bad, but I guess it is possible. At any rate, it was my experience that these negative effects only lasted a week or two. |
Concerned about starting Kundalini
