If you need to schedule an appointment on Monday around noon with attorney Marie Spicuzza, you’re out of luck. No matter what’s going on during this time of day, whether it be a lunch with other legal professionals or a casual meeting with a witness in an upcoming case, Spicuzza will tell you she’ll need to take a rain check. And for good reason. This environment and energy lawyer spends her lunch hour doing deep breathing exercises, yoga postures, chanting, and meditation.
Spicuzza attends a beginning Kundalini yoga class once a week at Soham Yoga — an inconspicuous yoga studio located at 55 E. Washington Street, in the heart of Jewelers Row, in Chicago. She says this class makes all the difference in her workweek. "It’s about being more grounded and clearing negative emotions," says Spicuzza, who has been practicing this style of yoga since August of last year. "When I leave my Kundalini yoga class, I have a different outlook, not only on my work, but on my life," she says.
Taught by Susan Kezios, whose spiritual name is Shakta Kaur, this class appeals to attorneys, business executives, and other office workers who want to begin their workweek feeling calm.
"The class is designed for folks who want to de-stress right in the middle of the day," says Kezios, a business consultant and founder of a trade association, whose life is just as busy as that of the people who attend her weekly forty-five minute class." The reason you go to yoga class is to — if only for a few minutes — get in touch with your true self," she says.
Kezios isn’t the only one encouraging students to connect with their inner selves through Kundalini yoga. This style is also being taught in thousands of yoga studios throughout the country, including metropolitan Chicago. It was first introduced to America back in 1969 by Yogi Bhajan, Ph.D., although it has been practiced by yogis for centuries in India and other Eastern countries.
Chicagoans also attend Kundalini yoga classes at Spirit Rising Yoga, 1902 W. Addison Street, in the city. This center is the only yoga studio in town that offers an exclusive schedule of Kundalini yoga classes as well as teacher training programs.
"Kundalini is the energy of awareness," explains Shiva Singh Khalsa, who runs the yoga center with his wife Shabad Kaur Khalsa, and also works as project coordinator of the Asian AIDS Prevention Project when he’s not teaching classes at the center. "It’s when the cells throughout the body vibrate with awareness."
When it is dormant Kundalini energy lies at the fourth vertebrae of the spine. One of the ways it becomes fully active is by doing transformative work like Kundalini yoga. According to Shiva, tell-tale signs of the Kundalini energy are an expansive consciousness, compassion and humility.
Yoga for Busy Lives
This form of yoga is powerful because it works on both the glandular and nervous systems, explains Shabad Kaur Khalsa, M.A., LMFT, a psychotherapist who shares several of the techniques used in Kundalini yoga with her patients.
"It uses yoga postures, breathing techniques, sounds, and mudras — the positions of the hands and arms — which all affect different parts of the brain and nervous system," Shiva says.
In fact, this style of yoga is called the householder’s path and is designed for people who lead busy lives. "According to yogic scriptures, it takes two-and-a-half hours to master a Hatha yoga posture," Shiva says. "You can receive the same benefits from doing Kundalini Yoga for three minutes."
What happens in a Kundalini yoga class? A typical session begins with chanting. Practitioners are asked to recite the Adi Mantra, a prayer of sorts, which, when translated means I bow to the creative consciousness within me and outside of me. "It’s a process of tuning into ourselves," Shiva says.
Then comes the yoga exercises or kriyas. Each kriya lasts for three to seven minutes and can include such familiar poses as the cobra and warrior pose. It also incorporates dynamic movements.
"The kriyas focus on a particular part of the body like the nervous or glandular system, muscles, and even the mind," Shiva says.
After the kriyas is a meditation, and then a song of positive affirmation called the "Long Time Sunshine Song," which concludes the yoga session.
Kundalini yoga has often been associated with tantra, an ancient practice which involves working with sexual energy. But Kundalini yoga and tantra are two separate practices. Shabad says that people link the two because several Kundalini yoga practitioners practice "white tantric yoga," a group ritual which involves meditating for 31 to 62 minutes with a partner. This practice helps individuals to release fears and other limitations lodged in the subconscious mind.
Kundalini yoga involves the transformation of the mind, body and spirit. "The goal of yoga is not just flexibility. It’s not just for stress-relief. These are the kinds of things you need so you can experience your vastness — your infinity," Shiva says. "The goal of all yoga is so your Kundalini, which is the nerve of the soul, can be active in all your chakras—so you can experience your totality, and then have an experience of what it truly means to be a human being."
For additional information about Kundalini Yoga call Susan Kezios at 312-663-5193 or Spirit Rising Yoga at 773-975-9754.
Darlene E. Paris is a freelance writer, teacher, Reiki Master, and the author of Healthy and Natural Living in Chicago: The Best Alternative Resources in the City and Suburbs (Chicago Review Press, 1998).