Part I: A Description of Classes at Kundalini Yoga in Detroit; a five (was three!) part blog

Andrea Fiondo
Jun 2, 2025
4 min read

Updated: Mar 8

Those wild and wonderful energy centers called Chakras with EK ONG KAR at the 7th chakra

Class: Kundalini Yoga

Kundalini—What is that?

Kundalini refers to the potential energy that resides within all conscious beings. If you understand Consciousness, or Awareness, as the ground of the existence of everything, then kundalini energy is in everything. But we humans are a complicated species. Or rather, the mind complicates our experience.

Ancient non-dual wisdom teaches that we are energy, temporarily contained in an illusory and impermanent vehicle—the form sometimes called the body/mind. The illusion that is so fascinating is not just the form that energy takes, but the forms surrounding the Self, sometimes called “the 10,000 things.” We become temporarily entranced by any number of the 10,000 things, seeing them as separate, and ourselves as a separate being: alone, afraid, and unprotected.

MAYA.

MAYA THE GODESS OF ILLUSION, WHO MAKES THE ONE APPEAR AS MANY

We are afraid until we see through this illusion. And even then, liberation is a lived experience, not a state of body/mind. It is our life’s purpose to find the way to live in love rather than in fear. Jesus, Siddhartha, Ramana, and many, many others found this way. There are three main pathways to enlightenment. But the way is available to all of us.

There are three paths to freedom: the Progressive Path, the Direct Path, and the Pathless Path. Kundalini Yoga is one method on the Progressive Path. This path concedes, for a time, that we have a separate body/mind and a legitimate egoic structure.

Kundalini energy is within us from the beginning of life, and it is channeled through energy centers called chakras (CHAK-raz) as we mature in our awareness of reality.

I've written a three-part essay on Chakras through a developmental lens, for those of you interested in psychology and ethical adulthood; it's available on this website.

So that’s what Kundalini is.

Monday (or another chosen day) private classes are different for each student or group. In the past, we have hosted a husband-wife duo, a wife-wife duo, a mother and daughter, single men and women, and people with a variety of needs—tailbone pain, tight hip flexors and hamstrings, and many obstacles that are psychological in nature, but are still treatable through this form of yoga. Regular kundalini yoga group classes are Wednesday at 6 pm and Saturday at 11 am.

Kundalini Yoga is unique in many ways. There is a generic form, but we teach the form as taught by Yogi Bhajan, which is codified and, to a large extent, written down.

Harbhajan Singh Puri (1929-2004) founder of 3HO, Sikh Dharma International, Yogi Tea, Spirit Voyage Record Company, etc. etc. etc.

First of all, every class hits differently. The teacher picks a set based on the group’s energy and the instructor’s own preferences, called a kriya. It can be a set with as few as three or four exercises, or as many as 23, done over the course of 15 to 60 minutes. Because the focus is on the movement and directing of energy in the body/mind, and not on a second-by-second flow of postures, the body/mind is experienced through the lens of where we are placing our attention—where we are focusing awareness. When we direct our primal energy forces through a body/mind system, we can make enormous, lasting changes.

Secondly, we are usually given a chance to use the throat chakra to move energy. Singing and/or chanting is part of most classes, to some degree.

Third, we experience what one minute, three minutes, seven minutes, or eleven minutes feels like in the body/mind when we sustain attention in a singular practice. This can work wonders for patience, understanding of impermanence, and compassion for the body/mind.

There is also an opportunity for both pranayama and/or a meditation practice, which asks the body/mind to focus its attention—a bit of a misnomer—on one or two things, such as the breath or a mantra, instead of the 10,000 things with which it is normally engaged. Focused attention during meditation is the Progressive Path.

Fourth, there is an opportunity for fellowship, and for “breaking bread,” at the end of class. This is such an important part of Kundalini Yoga: drinking healing teas or fresh water, eating nuts, fruit, maybe some chocolate, with friends. It is entirely wonderful.

We were hungry

Last, this is not the kind of yoga you come to in order to get your workout in. This is not heavy-duty exercise, although it is challenging.

We are not here to wear ourselves out, lose weight, increase strength, or build muscle. We need to go to the gym or play a sport for that. We are here to shift our awareness from the outer world, which we cannot change very much, to the inner world, where we feel we have some agency. And since Kundalini Yoga is based on the teaching of non-duality, these worlds are one and the same—and also independent of each other—we cannot help but affect real changes in our perspective on our lives.

We learn compassion. We learn love. We learn forgiveness. We learn to be free of dogma, free of the weight of beliefs that are making us miserable. We learn to live, love, and let go.

We begin the process of awakening to our true nature. Sat Nam becomes a way of life.