Tami Simon: You’re listening to Insights at the Edge. Today my guest is Snatam Kaur. Snatam Kaur is an American-born kirtan singer raised in the Sikh and kundalini yoga tradition. She is known internationally for her ability to transform traditional chants into a contemporary sound that appeals to the modern ear and awakens an ancient yearning of the soul. While traveling across the world on tour, she also teaches yoga and meditation and, with Sounds True, has released the new book, Original Light: The Morning Practice of Kundalini Yoga—a book that includes two CDs of guided chants and practices.
In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Snatam and I spoke about the five phases of practice of the Aquarian Sadhana, a sadhana taught and developed by Yogi Bhajan, which is the basis of her new teaching book, Original Light. We also talked about the practice of Japji meditation and its origin. We heard several stanzas of Japji meditation from one of the Original Light CDs.
We also talked about working with the spine in kundalini yoga and how to awaken kundalini energy by bringing apana and prana together at the navel, and how the energy of kundalini can then rise and be expressed in the chanting that is part kundalini yoga. We also heard the chant “Guru Ram Das” sung by Snatam Kaur, also from one of the CDs included in Original Light. Here’s my conversation with Snatam Kaur:
Snatam, your new book and CD set, Original Light, brings the practice of the Aquarian Sadhana to life for people. It’s really a practice manual. To begin, I’m wondering what it’s like for you to put yourself out to the world as a teacher of spiritual practice, not so much in the role of the musician—the performing musician—and talk some about your motivation in creating this practice manual, if you will—Original Light.
Snatam Kaur: Thank you. For me, the knowledge in spiritual practice—the experience in spiritual practice—is so high and so beautiful and so real, and really my music also is driven and also draws from this place of spiritual practice completely. I became really aware of that early on before my music career took off. Getting out there musically in my career, becoming more well-known, was a process for me actually because I wanted to always maintain the connection with my spiritual practice and understanding, and also for other people to understand that as well.
It was actually a relief, in many ways, to be able to communicate the power of the spiritual practice and the gifts that it’s given to me because I always wanted a way to tell people and to connect people to that source, so that they could have that capacity to have these experiences. I never looked at myself—and I still don’t—as an amazingly talented musician with a special voice and all of these things.
To me, it’s really just a color or a sensation or a fragrance or a reflection of my experience with this spiritual practice. That’s really it for me. So, having this capacity to share with people is actually quite a relief.
TS: One of the things you write in the book that I found just so intriguing was that there are two ways to clear karma, and that one of them is spiritual practice through what you call sadhana and that the other is through seva or selfless service. I wanted to start here [in] our conversation actually having you comment on both of these ways of “clearing karma,” your understanding of spiritual practice as a way to do that, and of selfless service as a way to do that.
SK: I guess I’ll start off with the selfless service, the seva. In our family, we incorporate that maybe in a less public way, more with—we do a free community supper open to people and we also go and sing. My daughter and her friends and I, we’d go and sing in old folks’ homes. There are other ways where we provide music just free and in the community. All of this is seva, but it’s maybe less known than the spiritual practice. In terms of just my public persona, I don’t put it out there. But, it’s a part of our daily lives—having this seva.
It’s been a huge blessing to me. Maybe that’s the most powerful way in this lifetime for me, in terms of clearing my karma, but I don’t know. What do I know?
Then the spiritual practice aspect—I never really tuned into that until recently. I heard it from a teacher of mine. She talked about how, in spiritual practice, we can clear our karma as well. To me, the kind of karma that I’m talking about is this residual energetic effect from choices that we’ve made that were not so supportive in our spiritual growth or the spiritual growth of somebody else, or maybe it was in a sense that they became stronger from it. But [it] certainly didn’t really advance our connection with our spirit internally.
These kinds of residual energies can be present from this lifetime and previous lifetimes, and it can be heavy on the subconscious or psyche, and can weigh us down in a way that can be very challenging and we don’t know what’s happening or why, but it’s these kind of residual energies. You have the choice. You can do all sorts of different things—go to a healer, do this, that, and the other—but spiritual practice is something that you can do on your own that really, if you create that connection with your soul and that capacity within yourself to heal yourself through spiritual practice and release those karmas, it’s an incredibly empowering experience.
I tuned into this recently, and it really helped my meditation go deeper as I realized that it wasn’t just about preparing myself for the day or [just about] the obvious things that spiritual practice can bring, but also about clearing this residual energy—this heaviness—and being able to move forward in a lighter way [and] in a very deep way.
TS: You talk in the book about something that you call “the fire of our spiritual practice” and tapas, and that tapas are one way to talk about this burning of karmic tendencies. Can you explain that?
SK: Yes. I think any kind of effort to bring ourselves to spiritual practice lights this inner fire of the tapas—our inner discipline, our focus. This is a part of how the karmas get burned, how our fear gets burned, how we can pass through difficult times—is by sitting within the practice and maintaining the focus of the practice, whether it be physical movement or chanting or stillness. But, by maintaining the discipline of that practice, [it] creates this inner heat that allows us to really go to a deeper level of self, past resistances—of, really, duality.
It is an interesting thing, because it’s this fire that burns through our duality and allows us to be really in union with the one, because duality is when we’re not feeling in a sense of union with the one, or a sense of union with our heart or the soul. To be able to remain in that sense of union takes effort, takes energy, and tapas.
TS: Snatam, the book Original Light focuses on teaching people the Aquarian Sadhana. Can you talk a little bit about how this particular spiritual practice came into being and came into your life?
SK: Yes. I think my soul must have been looking down at the Earth and decided to jump right into it. I was born into the practice, essentially. Although, in its current state, it wasn’t quite fully developed at that time. It really originated around that time, in the early ’70s, with a spiritual teacher named Yogi Bhajan, who came to the West and shared these teachings. It’s essentially a practice to help be able to live in the world, but to live in a spiritual way and to be guided by spirit and soul and then the energy of the soul.
It incorporates physical movement and then stillness and breath and chanting and devotional practices and ways that our—many ways that all work together in this beautiful experience that when you finish, you feel this lightness. It works a lot with the energy of the spine. It’s called “Aquarian” in that sense that it brings us into Aquarian consciousness, which is really being able to go with the flow of what life is presenting in front of you and to excel within that flow. Then, also to have the consciousness of community—of group consciousness; not just living by yourself, but living in the world.
TS: Yogi Bhajan created this two-and-a-half hour sequence and then introduced it back in the 1970s and ’80s. Is that correct?
SK: Yes, he created the sequence. There are elements from the Sikh spiritual path—like, for example, the Japji practice, which is the recitation. Then there are the practices of kundalini yoga and meditation, which he would say come from before him and that he’s a master in that tradition, for sure. It’s still very present to this day within the experience of kundalini yoga. But yes, he did in fact bring together the sequence of what we practice.
TS: Right here at the beginning, Snatam, I want to address what I think is probably a major objection for a lot of people. I think there are a few. Maybe we can just talk about them and get them out of the way, but I think one of them is like, “This is all so foreign.” I’m practicing in a language that is foreign to me, saying words that aren’t part of my experience and culture. Snatam herself is wearing a turban. Can’t I do a spiritual practice that’s more native to me as an American? This just seems outside of my experience.
SK: Yes. I think that that’s possible for anyone to do. There are ways to experience spiritual practice from your own tradition. I think that’s a part of my journey. That was a part of my journey in writing the book in a sense that people could understand the basic elements of this practice and understand the power within them and why they work.
Certainly, the words are different. I try to bridge the gap—the understanding gap—as much as possible with going into the meanings of the words and the experience of the words themselves. It’s usually pretty easy. It’s a pretty easy gap to fill because there’s just an energy within the words and you just feel so good afterwards and after chanting. It kind of comes down to just the experience. That in and of itself is an opening.
People are—they’re interested and ask me, “How do you create this feeling within your concerts of this uplifting feeling? How is it that your music is so uplifting?” For me, the sadhana is a way to empower people with the tools to create their own experience within their home. At the same time, I can’t really water it down. I have to be true to the tradition.
Of course, everybody has the capacity to take or leave what they wish. But it was fun in the book—I got to go into—with the chants, the way that they work is, through the chanting process, you’re tapping the tongue at the roof of the mouth and creating this Morse Code communication to the brain, which connects to your nervous system and your glandular system. That’s how we can scientifically explain why people feel so good after a concert or after doing a meditation, or that these kinds of meditations can help with—like, there’s a kundalini yoga meditation called “Sa Ta Na Ma,” which is now being used in the Alzheimer’s community and is huge. This is a way we kind of go back to the science of it.
Then, in the book, I talk about how in the practice—it’ll help support your practice more if you keep a vegetarian diet because of the capacity to digest a vegetarian diet more so than not so that you can have that empty gut—not finding a pretty word for it, but being able to meditate on an empty gut is an incredibly uplifting experience. So, having that capacity to digest every morning before you practice—I kind of go into the science of it.
Then with the turban, I talk about the reason that I wear a turban and the reason I invite people to have that experience is that the kundalini energy works with the energy of the spine and also with the energy of the hair. As we wrap the hair at the top of the head, this supports the energy of the kundalini being able to rise through the crown chakra, which is at the top of the head. The turban helps to stimulate various acupressure points to support that kundalini rising.
I go back to the basics of it for the reasons that this lifestyle has these different elements—and with the full knowledge that somebody’s going to say, “You know what? That’s not going to work for me. It works better for me to shave my head,” and that’s fine. That is going to be still an incredible experience for that person, I believe, in chanting the mantras. But, at the same time, I see myself as not only serving the broader community aside from the kundalini yoga and Sikh community, but serving the broader community as my music reaches out to people who aren’t practicing kundalini yoga and they’re not Sikhs.
That’s definitely a part of my focus and intention, but it’s also to maintain the knowledge and the purity of the teachings as I know them. I’ve done that in this book, both reaching out but then also maintaining the purity of the teachings.
TS: It’s interesting that you used this word “purity” because that is a word, Snatam, that I associate with you. I associate it with the book, Original Light, when I feel into the book and read it. Also, I associate it with just hearing your music. I’m curious: what does it mean to you to maintain “your purity?”
SK: In many ways, it’s just God’s grace and Guru’s grace that I’ve made it this far and I’ve been able to present that sense of purity to you and that I’ve been able to do this kind of work. I have my faults and I have my challenges. It’s hard for people to understand how [this can] be. For me, what it comes down to is, really, that it’s the practice—it’s the energy within the practice—that is my purity. It really isn’t me. I go back to that, I keep returning to that. I think the day that I don’t return to that, the world will know.
It’s really the energy within these teachings that allows me—that gives me the grace, that gives me the breathing room and the space to be human. I feel like I was, in a certain sense, chosen to deliver these teachings—not necessarily because of anything good that I did or have done, but just because that’s the way it is. I’ve been chosen to uphold and honor and carry and share these teachings.
I really try to convey to people my sense of humanity. I try to do some of that in the book—my sense of struggle, my sense of overwhelm. My family could be better at telling you this than me, but they know that I’m not perfect. But, they do know—my daughter does know, my husband does know—that the practice works. It works for me, it works for us. It keeps the grace, it keeps the purity.
That’s why I return. That’s why I fight for my practice every morning. I wake up, I create the space, I create the rhythm, and bring that energy into my life and into the life of my home and my family because it brings a certain kind of a grace and purity within the experience of the practice.
TS: I think part of what you’re pointing to here in your response to this question is that being pure-hearted and perfect are not the same. They’re definitely not the same.
SK: Yes. I think we all have to be OK getting knocked down not only by challenges that come from outside, but the challenges that come from inside as well—and having those moments of imperfection come through. But yes, there is a grace within the practice. That’s something that’s very exciting to me to be able to share with people that—in times of stress, in times of struggl—we can do these practices, and they can work and they do work. We have a capacity, we have a tool, we have a way.
Yes, I think what you’re talking about, too, is not just within the practice itself, but in our day-to-day moments and life itself. To me, I do the practice in the morning so that my days could be filled with the rhythm of the practice that I’ve been toned and ingrained within my being in the morning—and that become the inner resonance and frequency of my being throughout the day.
TS: In the book, Original Light, Snatam, you describe the practice of the Aquarian Sadhana as happening in five stages. The first stage is preparing to do the practice and creating an altar of the self, as you describe it. Then the second phase is something that you call Japji meditation. There are two CDs that accompany the book. One of them contains these Japji meditations. I’d love our listeners to hear a bit of that. Maybe you can introduce it and give people a sense of what they’re listening to and what this practice of Japji meditation asks of us.
SK: Japji comes from Guru Nanak, who is the first guru of the Sikhs. He taught in northern India in the fifteenth century. He was born with an incredible amount of light, but there is this moment in his life when he decided to make that transition from a more householder, secular life to just completely devoting himself to teaching. He submerged himself in this river as a part of his preparation for his morning practice one morning. He submerged into that river and stayed within the river in a very deep meditative state for three days. When he came out, he recited the very first part of Japji. Then, subsequently in his life, the other 39 steps—because there’s a total of 40 steps—the other 39 stanzas came.
It’s understood that when you recite all of these 40 stanzas, then you can receive that same message of how to have that merger of soul and the divine as Guru Nanak had within his underwater meditation or jal samadhi or the underwater samadhi, or having that experience of light and completely merging with it.
He really left the sound current of Japji for us. Each of the 40 stanzas has a specific message for the soul as to how it can find the merger and find its way to that total sense of merger. If you recite the whole Japji every day, you get this tonic with each of the 40 stanzas supporting your soul and as merger with the one.
TS: The full chanting of all the stanzas takes about 30 minutes, but we’re just going to listen here to a couple of minutes—the first few stanzas of the Japji meditation. Let’s listen.
[Recording of Snatam Kaur chanting plays.]
TS: Now, Snatam, I can definitely imagine listening for 30-ish minutes to this Japji meditation, but the idea that I’m going to be able to pronounce this correctly and chant along with you? Really?
SK: Really, yes. [Laughs.] It’s a process. What I’ve presented here is not something that I’m expecting people to get overnight. And certainly to just have the Japji playing in your home or in your environment or as a part of the practice in the morning and listening to it is a good first step. I have a learning tool that I also developed—a call-and-response format for people to learn that want to go deeper into the experience in the practice of Japji.
Then there’s also—I’m teaching an online course coming up in October for people that want to go deeper. It’s like I just needed to present the beauty of the practice. Then also people can read Japji—the translation of Japji—right there within the book as well. You can also read just a section of Japji, a stanza of Japji, to have an experience of just one stanza. I also invite people to utilize Japji in the sense of taking a divine reading at the end of the morning practice so that you can have a guidance for the day.
There are many ways to approach Japji. I look at it for myself, the practice of Japji and learning more about it, it’s a lifetime practice. It’s so beautiful. Japji is the sacred poem of my life—my love-sacred poem. I think I’ve recorded more things from Japji than any other writing from the Sikh tradition. I really felt super excited and happy to be able to put the entire Japji text within the Original Light book for people to have access to these teachings and then, again, just to really invite people to take it step by step.
TS: The third phase of the practice of the Aquarian Sadhana is kundalini yoga. You mentioned that a core aspect of practicing the Aquarian Sadhana has to do with working with the spine. I wonder if you can talk more about that and the importance of working with the spine.
SK: Yes. In kundalini yoga, there is a flexibility of the spine that comes naturally, I’ve noticed, with people that practice it on a regular basis. It’s not just flexibility of the spine; you can suddenly do circus tricks and things like that. It’s really about this lightness of the spine, a lightness of energy.
As many people that have delved into spiritual traditions like the Sounds True audience would know, on the spinal column we have all of our chakras that relate to the higher self and the human self and the earthly self—with the first chakra being the earth and elimination; second chakra being water and creativity, sexuality; third chakra at the navel center being digestive, fire, and courage. Then at the heart center, compassion. Then [the] throat center—the capacity to communicate. Then the third eye—the point between the eyebrows, the intuition. Then the seventh chakra, at the top of the head connecting to the divine and having that marriage of the divine, that union with the divine through the crown chakra. Really, when we talk about a flexible spine, it’s about having an energized chakra system and having all of these centers being completely nourished, balanced, and energized for the day.
Kundalini yoga is pretty incredible in that it works to do just this through many different types of kriyas, or sets of exercises. Some of them relate directly to the spine and some of them relate to things like depression or things like the kidneys or things like memory or love connections—all sorts of different aspects. But, at the end of the day and if you boil it all down, it really has to do with this kundalini energy rising through the spine.
In the kundalini yoga sets that I’ve provided in the book—and in many kundalini yoga sets—there’s movement and circulation, which I find is really important at the beginning of the day. [There are] ways to bring blood flow and energy to all the parts of your body—the legs and the arms—and have that sense of movement and rejuvenation. We work with this energy of movement and flow, but then it really comes back to the spine again—of creating that sense of neutrality at the base of the spine so that when you sit down to do the next part, which is chanting, you have that capacity for the energy to rise—to actually rise up the spine.
I always tell people if you want to learn to sing for me, if you want me to be your singing teacher, you’re going to also have to learn how to do kundalini yoga because, for me, it’s about having that flow, and the glandular system and the nervous system balanced and in flow. Then you can sit down and have the energy of the kundalini essentially rise up the spine. That is really the key experience within the Aquarian Sadhana.
TS: So, are you saying, Snatam, that in your experience, when you’re singing, when you’re performing—which is probably the way most people have related to you historically—you’re expressing vocally the rising of kundalini? That’s really what that energy is—rising up your spine and singing, and that’s why you would start anybody who wants to train with you by teaching them the practice of raising kundalini?
SK: Yes. I’m not one of these people that I’m going to tell you, “Oh, my kundalini is rising right now.” It’s not like that. If anybody tells you that their kundalini is rising at a particular moment then you probably want to raise your eyebrows, because it’s a much more subtle energy. It’s a much more gentle, subtle energy. Essentially, the way that I describe it is the innocence of a child, the lightness of joy. It’s when you feel that sense of a union with the one.
Yes, I experienced that while I’m chanting. Anything less would be utterly disappointing and boring to me. It’s come from years and years of this practice and immersion. The good news is that it can be really had by anyone who has that discipline to incorporate these teachings into their life. Yes, it’s all about the kundalini energy, the rising within the experience of the chanting.
TS: In the book, you describe in, I think, classic yogic language that this awakening of kundalini happens when prana and apana come together and meet at the navel. Can you explain your direct understanding and experience of that prana and apana coming together?
SK:The prana is the life force energy that’s moving upwards and apana is the energy of death and dying and decay. In the kundalini yoga practice, we work to bring these energies to a place of neutrality. That happens through the various movements and postures and angles of holding postures and breathwork. It happens in a very exact way.
In a kundalini yoga set, we would never, let’s say, skip the third exercise in the series, or would never change the ratio and practice one exercise much longer than what is stated and all of these things, or mix and match other traditions within the experience of a kundalini yoga set or kriya. That’s from top to bottom as given by Yogi Bhajan, because each set works in a very specific way to neutralize, bring the prana and apana to a state of zero, so that that kundalini energy can rise.
It happens like clockwork within these sets, within these kriyas that have been given. That’s why they’re revered so much and there’s so much effort and energy to maintaining the purity of the teachings because they work. We tune in at the very beginning with the tuning in chant and we close out at the end to hold respect to these teachings.
That’s what’s happening on a physical level. Then there’s the whole mental, emotional, psychic level of what does that mean when your prana, your upward moving energy balances and mixes with the apana, your downward, your decay, your dying, your sense of imperfection, all of these things.
That’s where your kundalini just simply cannot rise when you have a massively huge ego. Ego can be both things of taking responsibility for everything and feeling completely guilty and overwhelmed and all of these things to thinking that you’re it and you’re the sole possessor on the planet and such a super-hot singer and all these things. That’s ego as well.
In a certain sense, ego gets tested by the apana, the decay process. We’re all dying, we’re all changing. The only way that you can remain in a sense of neutral space so that your kundalini can rise is by going through those psychic experiences of ego and coming back to just the essence of soul and the essence of self, which is the only thing you’re going to have at the end of this life anyway. It’s good to make friends now and have that understanding now.
Kundalini also has to do with that capacity to in a sense bow and allow yourself to go through those transformations so that you can come to a state of neutrality. Yes, that’s the short and long answer to your question.
TS: Then you mentioned that after the practice of kundalini yoga, the fourth phase in the Aquarian Sadhana practice is chanting. There’s a second CD included with the Original Light book that has an entire sequence of chants. I thought we could play for our listeners the Guru Ram Das chant. I’m wondering if you can introduce that for us.
SK: That sounds good. I’m glad you’re playing this one. This is the chant that I do without fail every single day. It’s one of those chants in my life that has worked to bring me out of any kind of heaviness, darkness, sadness, fear. Sometimes I’ll chant it for just five or six minutes, which is the length that it is on the CD, and sometimes I’ll just chant it for hours, two hours, whatever it takes to get through the resistances of the day and connect to that divine energy that is, really, I feel like everyone’s birthright to be connected to, but it can be a process sometimes, or a lot of times, to be honest with you.
This chant, “Guru Guru Wahe Guru, Guru Ram Das Guru,” as we chant “Guru, Guru” is a sacred word that is a spark word or it lights the fire. “Gu” means darkness and “Ru” means to light, so from darkness to light. As we chant this word and all of these sacred words, there’s a part of us within our beings, as cellular resonance, that understands the meaning. Whether or not you understand it on a mental level, with these sacred words, there is a capacity for you to understand even without that mental understanding—where there’s a communication happening, where we, in fact, move from darkness to light in our consciousness.
We chant that twice, Guru Guru. As my teacher described it, it’s like moving up the rungs of a ladder. Then we chant, “Wahe Guru,” which is the experience of bliss, “Wahe,” here and now, and “Guru” from darkness to light, that experience of bliss. That’s where we have reached out now fully to the divine, climbing that ladder of consciousness. Then Guru Ram Das Guru, the universe comes back in the form of Ram Das, the servant of the divine to then serve that entity who called out in the first place. The guardian of this mantra that guarantees, I feel, that their prayer is answered and heard is Guru Ram Das, who is the fourth Guru of the Sikhs. This is the way that I connect with his energy is through this chant, and have experienced incredible healing from it.
[Recording of Snatam Kaur chanting plays.]
TS: I have to say, Snatam, listening to you sing that chant, it touches me so deeply. To hear your book, Original Light, I feel like what you’re inviting people is to not just listen to you and receive your music, but to come join you as a kundalini yoga practitioner, to come join you in that field of grace, if you will.
This title, Original Light, I wonder if you can explain that. In the very beginning of the book, you write, “There’s a light that I can tap into, an infinity of original light through spiritual practice.”
SK: I forget oftentimes in my own life, even with all the practice and everything that I have, this light that I can tap into. I think even in the recording of that chant, I had forgotten. I remember I think the take that we actually decided to use was this take when I remember that light and I remember to tap into that light. It was so beautiful it brought me to tears. I guess we can somehow easily forget. Fortunately, we have these moments of grace to remember that that light is available to us.
My greatest hope for this book, and prayer for this book, is that people that are touched by the music can find out that it wasn’t something that only happened to me, but it’s something that can be available to absolutely everyone—that it’s a technique, that it’s a tool, that there’s a methodology and a whole teaching and experience for people to have right at home, even if they don’t have a yoga studio to go to, or the community.
I’m really hopeful that the book will be able to reach out to those people as well and then for people to have the capacity of community, or the prayer for community, that this sadhana is actually also a really powerful way to, in fact, sacred community and grow community.
TS: Snatam, I want to ask you what I think is an edgy question, but I can’t help myself—our program is called Insights at the Edge after all. Which is, I think, one of the reasons people reject certain spiritual practices is they’ll say, “There’s something wrong with X, Y, Z teacher, that I’ve heard stories about this guru, Yogi Bhajan, and this bothers me or that bothers me, so I’m turned off to the whole practice. Not interested,” or there’s some way that they’ve always got one hand rejecting while another hand is saying, “Come closer. I’m interested.” There’s always this weird ambivalence. I’m curious what you would say to that person.
SK: I feel like it’s a soul thing, it’s a soul calling. I don’t really spend much time in the upstream part of the river trying to convince people that are not drawn to it. It’s like if your soul is not drawn to it, if you don’t have this inner calling, it’s probably not for you.
Maybe some of the marketing people that I’ve worked with in the past haven’t liked that so much, but, in the end, it’s been the secret to my success, I feel, is staying true to the teachings and true to what it is. When and if that soul or your soul is meant to experience the teachings of this path, then it’ll happen. I have complete and utter faith. Then if your soul is meant to experience the teachings of another path, I have complete confidence and faith that that is the best way to go.
I really try to do this with my own life, too, is try to tap in. What does the soul want? What is the soul asking for? My job in all of this has been to follow the calling of my soul, which is to present these teachings in their purest form that I know and to be a guardian, I guess, at this point of the teachings as I’m getting into my forties. That’s really my role. I’ve never been one to try and convince somebody of something that wasn’t calling to them.
TS: OK. One final question. The last part of the Aquarian Sadhana, the fifth phase, is surrender, bow, and receive. I think this would be a wonderful way to end our conversation. If you would, if you could help give people an invitation, if you will, to this act of bowing and surrendering and how that works for you. In many ways, this seems to me to be the final offering of the practice, this invitation to surrender and bow and receive.
SK: This is the final stage in which I invite people to really state their prayers. I share a tradition, a Sikh form of doing that, called Ardas. Then to take a divine reading afterwards. In the Sikh tradition, we do that with a sacred text called the Sri Guru Granth, which we bow to as our guru, and essentially just open the sacred text to whatever page we are meant to and then take the reading from wherever our eyes fall and take that reading. Then that serves as a voice and guidance.
I encourage people to, if they feel more called to, take a sacred reading from the Bible or the Torah or the Quran or a favorite book of poems, but just some way that the divine can speak to you and can guide you in this way, where you have done your practice, you balanced your energy with the yoga and the chanting. Now you really give that energy to the divine in these real ways of putting your prayers out to the universe and then receiving the messages from the divine in whatever form they come.
To me, this is not something that just happens in one day. To me, this is a daily intention, a lifelong intention that my family and I have been blessed to live in this way, to honor this way, where we really have this intention, whether we do it perfectly or not, to live by the will of the divine.
I feel that this daily practice of ours, in this fifth and final stage of praying and then receiving the wisdom from the divine has really allowed us to carve and architect our life in flow with serving the divine. Granted we have lots more to grow and lots more to learn and do. I feel, especially within myself, so much more to learn and grow. I do have the sense that we are connected with the divine, that we have a guidance or a compass.
You don’t have to do it from the Sikh tradition, you can do it from your own tradition. But I really, really encourage people to tap into these sacred traditions and get guidance and have a way to hear the voice of the divine every single day. It’s been incredibly powerful for me and it has helped me to live my life in a divine way.
TS: I’ve been speaking with Snatam Kaur. She has created a beautiful, new book and two-CD set. It’s called Original Light: The Morning Practice of Kundalini Yoga. Two CDs are included with the text: a CD of Japji meditation and then also a second CD that goes through a series of chants that are part of this morning practice. Snatam, thank you so much for being a straight-shooting truth-teller and for the beauty of your human instrument in this world. Thank you so much.
SK: Thank you for having me.
TS: SoundsTrue.com: Many voices, one journey. Thanks for listening.
