In this episode, we share how we first discovered Kundalini Yoga and how it has helped us in so many aspects of our lives. Kundalini Yoga is an ancient science that has been around for more than 5,000 years.
Fun Fact: You more than likely have seen Kundalini on your prescription medication bottles too. Kundalini Yoga and meditation has helped us with health, wealth, happiness and so much more. Listen to this episode to learn how Kundalini Yoga can help you in your life too.
Resources Mentioned In This Episode:
Ep #3: Wash Your Brain Daily with This Daily Practice
RockStar In Life Meditation Room
Oneness Blessing – Deeksha – Online Blessing
Hydrotherapy The Win Hof Method
Joe Rogan and Russell Brand Talking About Kundalini Yoga
Transcript: (Read Time: 37 minutes)
Intro: Welcome to the RockStar In Life podcast where you learn the secrets to unleashing your inner RockStar, so you can make the world your stage.
Siri Shakti: What's up, fellow RockStar In Life? It's Siri Shakti, and I have my co-host here with me …
Dr. Dan: Dr. Dan.
Siri Shakti: Today is going to be an awesome episode, we’re so excited to share this with you. And today is called Yoga for Health, Wealth, and Happiness. Now, let me just put this out here real quick, it's been about 10 or 11 years since I first was introduced to yoga, and some of you listening may be yogis yourself, you may have been practicing for years and have it part of your daily practice, some of you may be on the other side of the spectrum, have never really heard of yoga, know nothing about it. And that is awesome, I mean we’re here to share this information with all of you. For those of you that already know about yoga, maybe you can learn something new today.
But what I wanted to share with you is that when I first was introduced to yoga, I knew absolutely nothing about yoga. And in my mind I always thought, like this was my picture of what yoga was-
Dr. Dan: Well, like gym yoga, right? Like a 24-hour fitness or something?
Siri Shakti: No, no, no, actually-
Dr. Dan: Okay.
Siri Shakti: … my idea of yoga was that it was just people that hid away in caves in India and wore like little loin clothes and meditated for weeks on end.
Dr. Dan: Nice.
Siri Shakti: So there is a huge world of yoga, too, that we are going to be sharing with you today, and you don’t need to get a loin cloth and go sit in a cave, unless you want to.
Dr. Dan: Unless you want to. That sounds cold, very cold.
Siri Shakti: Well, you know …
Dr. Dan: Yeah. And I just did the math, and we’ve been doing it for a little over 12 years now.
Siri Shakti: Oh my god, are you serious?
Dr. Dan: Yeah, 12 years.
Siri Shakti: Wow. Time flies when you're having fun.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. Well, should we first talk about how we were introduced to yoga?
Siri Shakti: Yes, yes.
Dr. Dan: And what kind of yoga we do, because there’s many kinds.
Siri Shakti: Yes, there’s many forms of yoga, and specifically today we’re going to be talking about kundalini, mainly because that is, well, it's our favorite, it's what we practice every day-
Dr. Dan: Because it's got the coolest name, it's like kun, kundalini, right? Kundalini.
Siri Shakti: Kundawini?
Dr. Dan: Kundawini.
Siri Shakti: Oh, kundal-
Dr. Dan: Yeah. It's what I always think when you say kundalini.
Siri Shakti: Kundalini, it sounds like magic powers or something.
Dr. Dan: It is.
Siri Shakti: But I also practice other forms of yoga, but today we’re going to be focusing on kundalini.
Dr. Dan: Yup.
Siri Shakti: It's pretty cool because I remember, Dan, you were the one that brought yoga home to us. And maybe you want to share a little bit about that story of how you were introduced to it and how you ended up being inspired to bring it home with you.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. And I know in one of the other episodes we kind of talked about like my ADHD and all that and, you know, and ADD or whatever the heck they call it today, whatever the kids are calling my disabilities, but actually awesome abilities.
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. So I remember I was like really, really scattered when it came to being able to focus. I didn’t understand my gifts, and I had a really difficult time with them because I had nothing to kind of center me. And I remember I would make like a to-do list before, this is pre-yoga, pre-kundalini, right, and meditating and all that … and we’re going to be talking about meditation as well. It's all part of it, right?
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: And I remember I would make a list of like five things on my to-do list. I mean they could be something dumb like check this on the website, or send an email and go to the bank and deposit some money or withdraw, or something like that. And I’d have like five things on the list, and it would take me like two to three weeks to get through that list. It would like take me forever, and there were so many things that I wanted to do and I just wouldn’t get them done, and I wanted to be able to do so much more.
So I remember … actually I don’t remember who said … or maybe I read it or something, like, “Oh, yoga,” or something. Or maybe I came up with myself thinking like, “Maybe that would help,” because people had said, “that centers you and helps you,” and stuff like that. So I bought a DVD-
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: … on doing yoga and-
Siri Shakti: I remember it.
Dr. Dan: … I don’t know what form of yoga it was. It might have been like hatha or something, or something like that. But it was this guy, and he had like a dragon tattoo on his chest, and he was like no shirt on, and he was just doing like these weird poses. And they were all like, not putting him down or anything, they were all like, look-what-I-can-do poses, you know? Not something that you would like, you know, like with kundalini. It's actually what you imagine yoga would be like.
Siri Shakti: Right.
Dr. Dan: “Here, do this pretzel pose. Oh, you can’t do that? Well, work up to it for a couple of years and then you’ll be able to do it.” And that's exactly what I thought yoga would be like anyway, so I didn’t know any better. I’m like, “Man, maybe this thing isn’t for me,” because-
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: … it was difficult, the things that he was doing and stuff. I’m like, “Whoa.”
Siri Shakti: I think that's why so many people have said to us, “I can’t do yoga, I’m not flexible,” because they have the perception that that's what yoga is and only is.
Dr. Dan: Yeah, and we also call that gym yoga, too, like some of the stuff they do in there as well.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: It's getting a little better at some places and stuff like that, but over the years, back when we were starting it was like gym yoga and that was it, right?
Siri Shakti: Yeah. Like, yeah, you're right.
Dr. Dan: Which was more like exercising and moving around.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: It wasn’t really yoga or anything like that. So I joined Platinum Partners maybe like a year or two after getting that DVD, with Tony Robbins, which I’ve talked about in other episodes. And in 2006, I went to my first Platinum Partners event, and Tony Robbins had brought some people there. One of the people that he brought to meet was one of his mentors and good friends, was Guru Singh, who he’d known for, I don't know at the time, I mean … I think he said like twenty-something years, maybe thirty. I don't know, something like that.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: It was a long time. And they reconnected. And Guru Singh had actually … well, when I first went up to him and I said, “Hey, how are you doing? I’m Dan.” And it was like really cool connection. And he was with his wife, Guruperkarma. And I was like, “Whoa. Tell me more. What religion are you?” Or like, “What do you pray to or that?” And he’s like, “Oh, the same as you.” And I was like, “Oh. I don't know what I pray to, but okay.” I call myself human when people say like, “What religion are you?” “I’m human.”
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: You know? And basically he was saying like we believe in all of them, and I thought that was really cool. And that kind of took me back at first because I’d never heard anybody say that before, you know?
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: And I just thought that was cool. And he had this cool energy going about him. So Tony had rented this like auditorium or this theater room, and this is in Sun Valley, Idaho. And there was about 20 of us in the room, somewhere around there. And we didn’t really know what to expect. I’d never like really done a meditation or anything like that, that I can remember, at least, because my brain was always like going like a thousand miles an hour, and I didn’t think that I could meditate. And I remember Guru Singh got up there. He didn’t go up there and go, “Hey everybody, I’m Guru Singh, and I’m going to meditate you guys,” or anything like that. He just got up there and started talking, and he was talking about numbers, and he was going through numerology.
And next thing I know, I swear, I thought I was high. I was like, “Is there like smoke behind Guru Singh he’s talking?” I had never experienced anything like that, other than with like smoking weed or something like that, which I didn’t do a lot but I remember those days, but I didn’t inhale. So I was like just up there just like in this like cloud, and it just felt amazing. My whole body was like tingling and … it wasn’t even tingling, it was like this warm like blanket, it felt like, that was like massaging me. And I was just like, “Whoa, what is going on?” And I was like, “I want more of this.” Right? And we also did thing called the oneness blessing as well at the end of it, but that was after everything was done.
And I was just like, “I want more of all of this.” You know, “How do I get more? How do I get more?” You know? And it wasn’t until a couple of months later, I don’t remember exactly, it might have been like one or two months later, we were actually invited to go to Fiji with Tony, to his private resort, Namale Resort. And it was Platinum Partners, I want to say there was about 30 of us at that one. And he also invited some celebrities as well, so there were some celebrities. And also invited the Oneness University. I don't know if you … I’ve forgotten how if you call them Das, because they’re Dasa … Dasajis?
Siri Shakti: Dasajis.
Dr. Dan: Dasaji?
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: Dasaji. And I don’t remember if it's Dasajis or if it's plural just Dasaji. You know, like-
Siri Shakti: Okay.
Dr. Dan: … goose, geese, all that, you know?
Siri Shakti: Right.
Dr. Dan: So anyway, so they were there as well, these oneness beings as well, that were like pure like energy and happiness and all the stuff. And the energy was awesome. And I remember every morning, and I can’t remember what time it was like, but it was like maybe 6:00 a.m. or something or 5:00 a.m., we would all show up and be on the lawn underneath all the coconut trees. And we would all just be doing yoga every morning, kundalini yoga every morning. This is the first time I had ever done kundalini yoga. And it was just amazing. I remember also like every now and then I hear this thump, like this thump-
Siri Shakti: Oh god.
Dr. Dan: … and I’m like, “Whoa, what is that?” You know, and I turned around and it was actually coconuts falling from the trees. And I was like, “Oh, crap.” You know? So I made sure I wasn’t sitting underneath any trees.
Siri Shakti: You're like trying to meditate and there’s coconuts falling around you?
Dr. Dan: Well, I didn’t notice until after the fact. You know, like afterwards, because I was so into it and I’m like, “This is amazing. I want more of this.” We did that every morning. I forgot if we were there for maybe six days, five or six or seven days, I can’t remember exactly. But it was amazing, I knew I wanted more of this. And when we ended up leaving, he actually gave us some cards, or they had printed out some cards on like some of the poses that we did. And I had remembered a lot, because we did it like more than once a day, and we also meditated and did some blessing, Deeksha oneness blessing energy work as well.
And I remember they also gave us an iPad … not iPad, it was an iPod Nano. I don't know if you guys remember those, but little … like the middle size iPod, right-
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: … the old school ones. And they loaded it with a bunch of music on there, a bunch of amazing music that we had actually done yoga to and stuff, and the blessings and meditations. And I came home and we played that like every single day. We were playing it everywhere, we were playing it in the car, we were playing it in the house, we were playing it while we went on morning walks, we were playing it while we were doing yoga outside in our backyard. We were doing yoga every morning, we were hooked.
Siri Shakti: Well, I remember, you came home super-inspired, and you're like, “We’re going to start waking up each morning, we’re going to do yoga together in the office.”
Dr. Dan: Yeah.
Siri Shakti: And so I didn’t know anything about this, so we’d sit down each morning, you'd put that music on, and we would just follow those same yoga postures each morning. We must have done that for over a year. And-
Dr. Dan: We kept doing it but we kept doing the exact same one.
Siri Shakti: The exact same one.
Dr. Dan: Yeah.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. We got really good at those, yeah. And the thing about kundalini yoga is it's extremely powerful in a good way, and it works very fast. So you sit down, you do the yoga, you're going to feel the difference immediately. And so what my experience of it was is that you brought this home to us and it was like I felt like something was shifting in our lives, something was opening up that had never been experienced before. And this time when you were in the Platinum Partners, and you were growing so much and learning new things, I wasn’t having the same experiences as you because I wasn’t there with you. And I was going through quite a challenging time in my life, and I can remember that I always kind of felt like not comfortable in my own skin.
I always felt like I had to make myself look a certain way to gain approval from people, and I had to act a certain way, and I always felt like I didn’t quite know who I was. When we started getting deeper into the teachings and I started learning more and more, and I remember one time you and I went to Los Angeles, and we went to Yoga West, which is in North Hollywood, and that was my first time meeting people that were in the community of practicing kundalini yoga. And the first thing that struck me about these women is that they had this sense of presence to them. I remember feeling like they knew who they were, they were graceful, they were confident. And I knew in my heart that that was something that I wanted to experience.
And so I was inspired to just learn as much as I could about the teachings and the lifestyle. And I’ll tell you one thing, I’d say the most important thing that has come from practicing this form of yoga is that I saw my life transform and open up in ways that I’d never imagined. But most of all, I began to really feel that sense of knowing who I was, and that sense of calmness in my daily life, which to me being able to be calm in the middle of so much stress in our lives nowadays is one of the greatest powers that you can have.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. And it's not all perfect and lollypops and rainbows-
Siri Shakti: Oh no. No.
Dr. Dan: … like all the time.
Siri Shakti: Oh gosh, no.
Dr. Dan: It's still going to be a struggle, but it's like the difference between, you know, man, I would say it's like the difference between walking in mud, you know, a mile in mud to get to your destination is without doing the kundalini yoga and without doing the meditation.
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr. Dan: And if you do kundalini yoga and the meditation, then it's more like driving a car somewhere.
Siri Shakti: Yes, yes.
Dr. Dan: It's like the difference between that, it's like night and day.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, and it's given both of us the tools that whenever we’re going through something in our life, you know, like there’s days that I’m having a bad day, and you remind me, you say, “Go sit down and do a meditation,” or, “go do some yoga.” And I’ll sit down and I’ll do it for a few minutes-
Dr. Dan: Or go for a run and take a shower, and then maybe you’ll do that afterwards.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Dan: But yeah, it's all part of it.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. And even just sitting down and focusing on my breath for a few minutes changes where I’m at mentally, you know?
Dr. Dan: Yeah, exactly.
Siri Shakti: Now, I do want to get into the ins and outs of what makes up this form of yoga. But before I do that, I really want to explain to you and share with you a little bit about a man named Yogi Bhajan. Now, Yogi Bhajan-
Dr. Dan: Who’s that? Who’s Yogi Bhajan?
Siri Shakti: Yogi Bhajan is an awesome guy. No. Yogi Bhajan, actually-
Dr. Dan: He’s a bear, right?
Siri Shakti: Yogi Bear?
Dr. Dan: Yeah, Yogi Bear.
Siri Shakti: Oh yeah.
Dr. Dan: That's what I always think of, Yogi Bhajan, Yogi Bear.
Siri Shakti: Is he friends with Boo-Boo? Is it Boo-Boo?
Dr. Dan: Yeah. There’s also something like a little fun fact here I remember hearing. I obviously didn’t research this but it came from a good source. And they were saying that the reason why Yogi Berra, right, Yogi Berra, the famous baseball player?
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: They called him Yogi, is because of the way he like squatted down in like in easy pose, which is like Indian style when he would be a catcher. And because of that position that he was always, he kind of like was sitting in that awkward position that most people didn’t, and was able to get up and stuff like that, they started calling him Yogi, I guess. So-
Siri Shakti: Oh my gosh, are you serious?
Dr. Dan: Yeah. I’ll have to fact-check that but-
Siri Shakti: It sounds about right.
Dr. Dan: … that's what I heard.
Siri Shakti: That's so cool.
Dr. Dan: Yeah.
Siri Shakti: Nice. Yeah, so Yogi Bhajan brought kundalini yoga to the West in 1969. Now, before that, kundalini yoga was considered a secret form of yoga. It was only passed down from master to chosen student. He actually learned kundalini yoga from a master called Sant … wait, wait. I think it was Sant Hazara Singh. Yeah, that's what it was, Sant Hazara Singh. And, this is so cool, Yogi Bhajan became a master of kundalini yoga when he was 16 years old.
Dr. Dan: Wow. That reminds me-
Siri Shakti: That's amazing.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. No, that reminds me of like the story, if you guys have seen that movie of Bruce Lee, the story of Bruce Lee, and how he had started teaching Kung Fu. And he was told that's forbidden to teach foreigners, to teach the White man.
Siri Shakti: Oh, I didn’t know that.
Dr. Dan: And yeah, they tried to shut him down. They said, “You shouldn’t be teaching that.” And that always reminds me, it was like the sacred, not for anybody else, it had to be like-
Siri Shakti: Right.
Dr. Dan: … the master and the student.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: And I thought that was cool.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. Well, there you go. And so like I said, he did bring kundalini yoga to the West in 1969. He gave his first public lecture in the United States on January 5th, 1969 at the East-West Cultural Center, where he stated firmly his conviction, and he always would say this, that it is every human’s birthright to be healthy, happy, and holy. And around this time, because we’re talking about, you know, there’s lots of hippies in 1969, right, what he noticed is that so many of the young people that he met were trying to achieve higher sense of consciousness by experimenting with different types of drugs, mind-altering drugs to raise their consciousness and have a different experience.
And despite this form of yoga being considered the secret form of yoga for a long time, Yogi Bhajan knew that it was the most effective technology, and he needed to teach, he needed to open it up and start teaching. And what he would always say is that you could essentially get high without any side effects, and yoga’s legal of course. So he taught people that by practicing this form of yoga, you didn’t have to experiment with mind-altering drugs, that this is going to raise your consciousness and your awareness, and open up your mind and your spirit without having to do those things.
Dr. Dan: Yeah.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: And I feel it.
Siri Shakti: Right?
Dr. Dan: You know, in some occasions like the one I was talking about when we were doing that meditation, it was like, “Whoa.”
Siri Shakti: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Dan: And we’ve had yoga sessions where I felt that way, too. I was just like, “Whoa, this is like amazing.”
Siri Shakti: Yeah. I mean me, too, there’s times where I’ve had like physical sensations and I’m like, “Whoa, what was that?”
Dr. Dan: Well, there was this episode, a podcast episode that Joe Rogan did and, man, I cannot remember what it was. It was like there was some chemical substance that he says he takes that makes him really high or something like that, it takes him like mind-altering levels where he’s able to like tap into his inner self and all the stuff.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: And I remember him saying, and I can’t remember what it was, but I remember him saying like there was only two ways of something to get there. One was doing that drug, which is what he did.
Siri Shakti: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dr. Dan: And then the other way is doing kundalini yoga-
Siri Shakti: Yup.
Dr. Dan: … which was amazing. I never heard about that before-
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: … and I was like, “Whoa, I’ve been there.”
Siri Shakti: Yeah, I remember him saying he has friends that have had heightened experiences by practicing kundalini yoga. I thought that was pretty cool when he said that.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. No, for sure. Yeah, he was talking to Russell Brand, I think, when they were talking about that.
Siri Shakti: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah.
Dr. Dan: Yeah, we’ll link to that episode.
Joe Rogan and Russell Brand Talk About Kundalini Yoga
We obviously recommend doing Kundalini Yoga and not the DMT drug. Get high on life instead 🙂
Siri Shakti: That interview, yeah. That was a good one.
Dr. Dan: Something I wanted to mention was that kundalini is actually like it's a serpent, and it has to do with your spine, and I know I’m going to butcher the way I explain this, but I’m going off of memory here, with a spine and your spine is the serpent. And if you remember like medicine, right, if you look at medicine, like at the prescriptions and stuff like that has like two serpents like going around a staff.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: Well, that comes from kundalini. Kundalini is a science. And that's where it originated from, that staff and the two serpents that spin around-
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: … coil around it. And so I mean, man, kundalini has been around for a long time-
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: … and the healing and the energy and all that.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. And actually kind of I have a little more information to add to that. So it's a dormant energy at the base of the spine, it's a coiled energy. And when you practice kundalini yoga, it begins to awaken, and as that energy moves up the spine, that's what creates that heightened awareness, and you begin to have a higher awareness of your life, of yourself, and things like that. And as far as how long kundalini yoga has been around, I was reading just today that it dates back to 5,000 years ago.
Dr. Dan: Wow.
Siri Shakti: That's a long time.
Dr. Dan: Yeah, it is.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. Yeah, so I really want to get into all the aspects that make up this form of yoga so you guys can learn how to apply this to your own life. But firstly, oftentimes, people refer to kundalini yoga as the mother of yogas. And it's really because of how quickly and efficiently it works. But I’d say more commonly you’ll hear that kundalini yoga is called the yoga of awareness. I know I hear that all the time. Yeah. And when we’re talking about the different components of kundalini yoga, I’m just going to kind of go through each one, and really all of these components you can do individually, but also you put them together at times, depending on what you're doing.
The first one is meditation, which is a discipline used to reach a deeper or higher state of awareness through really observation of the mind. And sometimes we do silent meditation, sometimes we do meditation where we’re using different sounds, which I’ll get into in a moment. Sometimes we do meditation where we have different things that we’re focusing on. So it's not always just silent meditation. We also have what is called pranayama. Now, pranayama is when we learn to control the breath. There’s different breathing exercises. And let's think about it in this term, I’m going to ask you a question, what happens when you feel stressed out or anxious, what happens to your breath? Why don’t you answer this, Dan?
Dr. Dan: Get all hot and bothered. No, it's all-
Siri Shakti: Really, is that what happens?
Dr. Dan: It's all shallow and you start-
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: … taking like quick breaths like-
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr. Dan: You know, just, yeah.
Siri Shakti: Sometimes people even hold their breath when they feel anxious.
Dr. Dan: Yup.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. So if your emotional state affects your breath, well, then that means we can do the opposite. We can learn to control the breath to change the emotional state, and that's exactly what pranayama does. And the cool thing about this is that each different breath exercise works specifically on different things. So like for instance, there’s one called sitali pranayam, which is where you roll the tongue and you stick it out of your mouth, if you can, and you breathe in and out through your curled tongue. And this is considered a very cooling breath. So this is cool to do if you feel a little bit anxious or stressed out. It's also good to do if you have a fever, it can help to reduce the fever because it's drawing in that very cooling breath and cooling down the body.
Even sometimes after exercise, I’ll use this because you're hot and sweaty after exercise, so that's nice. The next one is asanas, which are specific body postures used in your yoga practice. So that's pretty easy, it's just different types of postures that you're putting your body into. And this next one is called bandha. Now, I kind of want to explain this to you. Bandha, what they are is they’re muscular locks which direct prana. Okay, now prana is considered life force energy. So it's directing that life force energy within the physical and energetic pathways of the body to promote healing, energizing, and strengthening the whole body.
And I’m going to give you an example of how this works. There’s one bandha that's called root lock or the traditional word is called mula bandha. And what you do with this one is you actually contract the anus, the sex organs, and the navel point. And by contracting those muscles it opens the energy flow up the spine and stimulates the proper flow of spinal fluid up the spine. So you can see how powerful these are. I mean just by contracting those muscles, you're sending all this energy up and down the spine. It's pretty amazing. The next one is called mudras. Now, mudras are symbolic spiritual hand gestures.
And my favorite explanation of this is that when you're in your mother’s womb, your hands at one point during your development are actually attached to your brain. I mean isn’t that … that's so awesome.
Dr. Dan: Yeah, don’t they grow out of your brain or something like … or they grow together or something like that. They’re attached.
Siri Shakti: I think they grow out. I have to … let me check on that.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. Well, they’re formed … I mean like if you take your fingers right now and we’re able to pull your brain out of your head and put it in your hands, your fingers would actually fit perfectly-
Siri Shakti: Perfectly.
Dr. Dan: … into the grooves on your brain-
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr. Dan: … which is crazy, because it's unique to your fingers.
Siri Shakti: Wow, that's so cool. Yeah, and as your hands, of course your hands do come apart, but what's so amazing is that everything you do with your hands is going to affect your brain, right? And-
Dr. Dan: Yeah. That's why they’re so sensitive. Like if you get like, you know, they poke your finger or something like that, it like hurts and you get like, “Whoa. Aww, that hurt.”
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: Or paper cut, right? Like so sensitive.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, yeah, it really is. Yeah, and you know, so then when you put your hands in certain postures or mudras, right, I mean you may have seen like Buddha statues where he has his hands in like different postures and-
Dr. Dan: Yeah.
Siri Shakti: Each one affects the brain differently. So that's-
Dr. Dan: Wasn’t there 70,000 like nerve endings or something on your fingers?
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: Was it combined with your toes as well or is it just the fingers? I can’t remember, something like that.
Siri Shakti: I don’t-
Dr. Dan: Some huge number.
Siri Shakti: I’m not sure.
Dr. Dan: Yeah.
Siri Shakti: I think it's just the fingers actually.
Dr. Dan: Okay.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so that's mudras. And the next one, in kundalini yoga we use what is called kriyas. Now, kriyas they’re like yoga exercises or a set of practices designed to achieve certain outcome. So for instance, oftentimes, you’ll find yoga sets or yoga kriyas that have different yoga postures that are specifically put together in a specific order to achieve a certain outcome.
Dr. Dan: So it's like a group?
Siri Shakti: Yeah, like-
Dr. Dan: Yeah, it's a group.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. But sometimes even just one posture can make up a whole kriya.
Dr. Dan: Correct. Yeah.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. I mean the cool thing about kriyas is that they really can work on … like for instance, if there’s something specific you're having a challenge with, right?
Dr. Dan: Yeah.
Siri Shakti: Let's, I don't know, come up with a challenge, what's-
Dr. Dan: A challenge. Challenge accepted. How about the challenge is coming up with a challenge?
Siri Shakti: Okay.
Dr. Dan: No. The challenge is you are stressed-
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr. Dan: … about money.
Siri Shakti: Oh, okay.
Dr. Dan: Right? Am I going to have enough money to pay my mortgage or my rent or something like that.
Siri Shakti: So like abundance, let's say-
Dr. Dan: Yes.
Siri Shakti: … abundance. Okay.
Dr. Dan: Abundance.
Siri Shakti: So what you can do is you can find a kriya that works on abundance. You can even find one that works on trust. Not trust, you said stress, right?
Dr. Dan: Yup.
Siri Shakti: And those specific postures will-
Dr. Dan: Or depression as well.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. And those specific postures will work on the body and the energetic bodies to bring that into alignment. I mean we use these every day.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. I know we have a couple of kriyas already on the rockstarinlife.com website.
Siri Shakti: Yes, we do. Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dr. Dan: I know we’ll be adding more as well, so these would be some good ones to add as well.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, that's a good idea. I’ll have to put those together.
Dr. Dan: Yes, it is. Let's do it. I mean just to get it done. I mean we have all this fancy equipment here but we might just have to go on our balcony out here or next to the pool and then just record it. Like I’ll just hold the camera-
Siri Shakti: Sure.
Dr. Dan: … and just record. Who cares if we get the best audio as long as we get it out there, right?
Siri Shakti: And have it like perfectly edited with like amazing music and …
Dr. Dan: Oh yeah, definitely. Let's have a live band here just playing.
Siri Shakti: Let's do it. Okay. And I just have two more to share. One, the next one is called dristi. I always have a hard time saying that. And this is your focal point, your gaze, your eyes, okay? There’s different ways of focusing your eyes in-
Dr. Dan: Is it dristi or drishti? It's one of those.
Siri Shakti: Well, we’ll both say it our own unique way.
Dr. Dan: I’m sure there’s someone out there that knows the correct pronunciation-
Siri Shakti: My tongue can’t say it.
Dr. Dan: … and they’ll like correct us.
Siri Shakti: Thank you, yes.
Dr. Dan: You know. Yeah.
Siri Shakti: Okay. Yeah, and oftentimes, usually in a meditation or in a kriya, they have, in each posture, it will say a specific eye focus, like focus of the third eye, which you hear a lot, or focus at the nose, the tip of the nose, like at the chin or at the top of the head. And it's not like your eyes are completely like staring at the top of your head, it's just when you have your eyes closed they’re kind of rolled up and you're focusing at the top of the head.
Dr. Dan: Yup.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. And then we have mantras, which I love. You see, all sound has a vibration, and when we use sound, we’re not necessarily focusing on what each mantra necessarily means, but we’re using the sound current, we’re using the vibration of what it does to the physical body. And so when we have, you know, oftentimes, you’ll hear us chanting different sounds or different verses, and each one of these sounds are going to be affecting the body and the emotions in a different way, and they’re really powerful. And sometimes we do these for just a few minutes, sometimes it's longer. I mean I’ve done different mantras where we chanted it for like an hour.
And it sounds like a long time but, wow, wow, when you're chanting that vibration for that long, especially when you're in a group, it just fills the space. I mean it's very powerful. So it's beautiful. I mean you think about music, right, music is extremely powerful, it's very healing. And that's exactly what mantra is, it's using the power of sound and music to create change.
Dr. Dan: Yup, exactly.
Siri Shakti: Okay. Well, after going through … what I just went through, those are the main components that make up kundalini yoga. But now I want to get into a few things that we personally do, and this is what is taught in kundalini yoga, on a daily basis. These are tools that you can use every day that are very powerful. And I know we’ve talked about some of these before but we’ll just kind of touch on them again. Do you want to touch on sadhana a little bit and how that works?
Dr. Dan: Yes. Sadhana is something you do in the morning.
Siri Shakti: Okay, maybe I’ll cover this one.
Dr. Dan: Yeah, go for it. I just do it, I don’t explain it. Come on.
Siri Shakti: How about you talk about hydrotherapy then, okay?
Dr. Dan: Yeah, go for it.
Siri Shakti: All right, so I’ll talk about sadhana. All right, so sadhana is a daily spiritual practice, and it's a personal commitment that you do on a daily basis. And Yogi Bhajan would always say that sadhana is considered a selfish act, and here’s why. It's not that you're a selfish person, it's because it is something you do every day to take care of yourself and bring yourself into alignment every day. And so it's the … you know, it's really the best form of selfishness, because we really all have to be a little bit selfish each day. We have to take care of ourselves, because if we don’t take care of ourselves, how can we take care of everyone else, right?
Dr. Dan: Exactly.
Siri Shakti: Now, in kundalini yoga, it's taught that, you know, well, first of all, let me say sadhana is good at any time of the day, but it's very much encouraged to do it like early in the morning before the sun rises. The first 2-1/2 hours before the sun rises, those are called the ambrosial hours, and this is the best time to meditate, to do yoga, and to center yourself. The reason being, you know, for those of you that have gone outside early in the morning, right, what does the air feel like? I mean it just, right, it feels calm, it feels … there’s like a certain energy to it. And it's because everyone’s asleep, so yes, it is calm, and the collective mind, the collective energy is very still because people are sleeping all around you.
And like I said, sadhana is great any time of the day, but if you can get yourself to slowly work down to waking up early in the morning before the sun rises, it's very powerful. And when I say sadhana, what that is really is you know, it's really creating your own spiritual practice. For us, it's yoga, right, it's our meditation, it's moving through postures, focusing on our breath. For me, I really connect like with angels, so I do a little prayer each morning where I connect with my angels and ask for protection, so that way when I go out in my day I feel guided and protected. And sadhana is a very personal thing, so each person can really breathe life into it and design it the way that best suits them.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. And if you are somebody that still wakes up late in the day, like whether it be like 10:00, 11:00 or noon or whatever, then that's totally fine as well. You know, do it when you can, regardless. It doesn’t matter … I mean-
Siri Shakti: Right.
Dr. Dan: … if the only time you can do it is in the evening for some reason or whatever, or you forget to do it earlier in the day, then do it. You know, don’t use that as an excuse. There is a best time to do it, but that doesn’t mean that you just skip it because you can’t get up early enough to do it for some reason.
Siri Shakti: Absolutely, yes. And I mean, heck, there’s been times where I really needed the sleep, and I slept in and then just did it whenever I woke up.
Dr. Dan: Yup.
Siri Shakti: And I mean personally, I still felt great after doing it.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. No, totally.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, yeah. Now, part of doing sadhana is this wonderful thing that we love called hydrotherapy. And for those of you that have listened to our other episodes, we have talked about this before. But I just want to touch on this because this is a very important part of the kundalini yoga practice.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. Are we talking about hydrotherapy?
Siri Shakti: Uh-huh (affirmative).
Dr. Dan: So yeah. And we covered this pretty good on episode three. What was it called, Wash Your Brain with This Daily Practice?
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr. Dan: So we definitely went through it in there and I’ll just kind of touch on it right now. Is that it's great for you to start out with a, you know, if you do like a three-minute warm … so you start with a warm shower, and then you flip it on to cold, freezing cold.
Siri Shakti: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dr. Dan: As cold as your water will get, and then go under it for another three minutes at least. At least three minutes. Try not to do a super long shower. Like don’t try and do like a 20-minute hot shower and then a 3-minute cold shower. I mean if you've got it started then that's, you know, then I guess that's what you got to do but, you know, try and keep the warm water to like three or six minutes.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: And the way I do this is I’ll actually start with the warm water, I’ll get under it, and I’ll just wash my privates, right?
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: That's it. That's it, I’ll just wash my privates.
Siri Shakti: You said privates.
Dr. Dan: Yeah, I did. I have my privates. That's my little soldier. I’ll wash my little soldier.
Siri Shakti: Little soldier?
Dr. Dan: Yeah, my little guy. And so I’ll wash-
Siri Shakti: Wow.
Dr. Dan: … I’ll wash that, and the reason I do that is because it's not the best to wash with cold water, and we won’t get to the jokes on that. Has nothing to do with like, oh, shrinkage or anything like that. It's just not the best. So anyways, so you do that, and then what you do is you, you know, so that … you know, and then I can relax into the water if I want the warm water, kind of get that in. Then I put it to freezing cold, and then I wash the rest of my body. And the reason why I do that under the freezing cold is because I don’t want to just sit there for three minutes not doing anything, because then you're going to like last like maybe a minute and be like, “Oh, this sucks.”
So I’ll usually turn on the cold water and before I get under it I’ll do some deep breaths. I’ll do like breath of fire where I’m like, and then I’ll just go under it, and then I’ll just take like, I’ll exhale. So I’ll hold my breath, and then soon as I get under I’ll go, and then I’ll just kind of breathe normal after that. And it usually takes me about, I don't know, about 10, 15 seconds to like actually just be okay with it. And then all of a sudden it's not as cold to me anymore, your body kind of … and that's what you want to happen anyways. You don’t want to be under, going, “This sucks, this sucks, this sucks.”
Siri Shakti: Right.
Dr. Dan: So you want to kind of like get used to it. And then I’ll be under it and I’ll wash my entire body, take my time so that then I’m not just standing under cold water for no reason and usually I’ll time myself as well from my phone. So I’ll have my phone like in the corner or something like that so I can see it and … otherwise, you’ll end up going like a minute and a half thinking, “Oh, that was three minutes,” but that ain’t going to happen. Or like my wife where she’ll count in her head like, “Oh, I counted to three minutes.” I’m like, “Uh, that was a minute and a half. You counted fast.”
Siri Shakti: I’m like, “One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight.”
Dr. Dan: Yeah. And I mean there’s so many health benefits to doing this, and I can’t remember exactly, because we kind of explained it. I remember I had notes on it. I don’t have the notes in front of me now.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: But it had to do with bringing in the toxins. So what we do is the warm water would actually push the toxins into … or no, wouldn’t it bring it to the outside of the … or outside inside-
Siri Shakti: Shoot.
Dr. Dan: I can’t remember.
Siri Shakti: I’m forgetting, yeah.
Dr. Dan: It was kind of weird, yeah. So anyways, yeah, so it’ll bring it like outside or wherever in … yeah, outside, yeah, that's what it was. It’ll bring it to, you know, your skin would get all like red and stuff, and it’ll bring it to the outside all the toxins and everything and to the surface. So it’d bring it out to the surface, it wouldn’t eliminate though. And then when you got into the cold water, it would force it out of your system.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: It would flush it out of your system.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: So when you go to the bathroom, whatever, it would help eliminate it. So it helps you with your health, your wellness, your energy, your brain, that monkey mind that's like all over the place like worried about all kinds of things. You get under the cold water and all of a sudden you're like, “Whoa, I’m focused.” You know?
Siri Shakti: Big time. Big time focus.
Dr. Dan: Totally. So that's the quick version of … and again, I recommend going to episode three and listening to that, for sure.
Siri Shakti: And you know what we can put on there, we’ll put a link to 3HO has a great page all about hydrotherapy.
Dr. Dan: Okay.
Siri Shakti: So we’ll put that link on there.
Dr. Dan: Let's do it.
Siri Shakti: You guys can learn in detail a lot more about it. Yeah.
Win Hof Method Hydrotherapy
The Win Hof Method Main Site
Dr. Dan: Yeah. Okay, what's next?
Siri Shakti: Yeah. And then I have two other things that I wanted to share with you guys. These are things that I use in my daily life. And the first one is covering the head. Now, in kundalini yoga, one of the traditions is to cover your head. And this is not mandatory. I mean not everyone does this, but you’ll always see the teachers covering their head. It's just part of the tradition. Now, I do cover my head when I’m practicing kundalini yoga, and I also cover my head not every day but most days when I go out into the world and things like that. And the reason behind this is that when you cover your head with something, you're actually protecting what is called the crown chakra.
And we’ll have to do another episode and go through what the chakras are, but just to kind of touch on that, it's a center of energy at the top of your head, and it's very sensitive. And so when you're practicing yoga and you cover your head with any sort of covering, like I know, Dan, you wear different types of beanies and things like that, and-
Dr. Dan: Yup.
Siri Shakti: … I use different shawls and wrap them kind of like a turban in a way. And you really feel more secure when you're practicing. You know, it's a feeling of secure, of more focused, and I always feel like I’m actually more protected, even, because it's shielding that sensitive energy at the top of the head. And it's pretty cool because I’ve seen people get really creative with it, too. I mean they’ll wear all sorts of different things and, you know, a lot of women wear shawls and different types of head covering.
Dr. Dan: Yup.
Siri Shakti: So that's definitely part of the tradition. And then something that goes hand in hand with that, if we’re talking about like wardrobe, is the use of the color white. Now, we already know that colors are very powerful. It's, you know, I mean there’s so much information out there about color therapy and things like that. But the color white is used traditionally in kundalini yoga. And again, this is not something that you have to do. I mean you … I go to class, there’s people wearing all sorts of colors. But there’s specific understanding of the color white. You see, wearing white, what it does is it expands your aura, and it creates that powerful interface between you and your environments.
And if we’re talking about like the spectrums of colors, well, the color white or the spectrum of light energy that makes up the color white, it actually contains the energies of all colors. So by wearing white, you're in essence wearing all the colors. They’re all available to you to support you and you know, to really enhance your aura, your energy and open you up. And there’s times that I don’t wear white, like when I go to class or in my day-to-day life, I personally love wearing all sorts of colors. But I have to tell you, the times that I do wear all white, I do feel the difference. I actually kind of feel regal and I feel like more expanded and open.
Dr. Dan: Well, I mean there’s a reason why you see, you know, like if you're seeing like an artist or a musician or whatever and they’re like Alice Cooper or what's his name again, you know, the guy that's like Alice Cooper?
Siri Shakti: Oh, I don't know.
Dr. Dan: You know, I’m like blanking on his name. What is it? Marilyn Manson, that's his name. Remember him?
Siri Shakti: Yup, yeah. I actually really like his music.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. Cool. Yeah, so you know, those kind … you know, they’re always wearing dark colors, you know-
Siri Shakti: Right.
Dr. Dan: … like, or anybody that's like, you know, they’re always wearing dark colors when they’re being in that kind of energy.
Siri Shakti: Yes, yes.
Dr. Dan: You know, it’d be kind of funny to see them all wearing white, though, wouldn’t it?
Siri Shakti: That's true. Kind of wouldn’t come off the same.
Dr. Dan: Exactly.
Siri Shakti: I never thought about it like that. That's a good point.
Dr. Dan: Yeah.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. So I know we went over a lot of things here. I mean I have so much more that I could say, and I know I want to do another episode and kind of get deeper into some of the things that we talked about, but this episode was really about just kind of touching on what makes up kundalini yoga and why this form of yoga is so special. And something that we both understand and is taught in this form of yoga is that, guys, this form of yoga is so just user-friendly. I mean even someone that has never been introduced to yoga or any type of fitness level or experience can pick this up at any moment and begin practicing and feel the benefits of it right away.
Dr. Dan: So Siri Shakti, is there anything else you want to cover?
Siri Shakti: No, I think that's it. Just we’ll definitely put some really good links on the website, and I am going to be adding some more yoga videos and meditation videos, so be looking out for that.
Dr. Dan: Awesome. All right. Well, before we get into the RockStar mission for today, be sure to go to rockstarinlife.com to links to the resources mentioned in this episode, the transcript, download my free books, training, yoga, meditation, home schooling advice, and so much more being added every single week. So remember to go to rockstarinlife.com and join the RockStar In Life Revolution today.
Siri Shakti: Awesome.
Dr. Dan: All right. So your RockStar mission for today, if you're willing to take it on, which we hope you will, right?
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr. Dan: Right. So your RockStar mission for today is to check out the links and resources on this episode’s page at rockstarinlife.com and commit to doing kundalini yoga, right, commit to doing it for the next two weeks, just to try it out, then go 30 days, and then just keep going.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: But commit to doing it for the next two weeks, trying it out, seeing how it fits, seeing how you feel, and keep a journal and take notes. Take really good notes on how you feel, if it gets easier or if you notice something change in your life, or whatever you start feeling. Anything different, write it down.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Dan: Write down all the good stuff. And of course we have to give that disclaimer or that warning, to always seek your doctor’s or physician’s advice before starting any strenuous activity.
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr. Dan: Right? Just in case, cover our butts, right?
Siri Shakti: Great.
Dr. Dan: Awesome. Anything else you want to add?
Siri Shakti: No, that's it.
Dr. Dan: All right. So, that's it.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. So hey, guys, don’t forget to be a RockStar in your life …
Dr. Dan: And make the world your stage.
Be a RockStar In Your Life.
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