I have been teaching yoga for ten years and have always wanted to deepen my experience with training in India. I enrolled in the Samadhi Yoga 300 hour Kundulini training for the month of October, 2024. My intention was to deepen my Yoga studies by learning in the place where it all began from native teachers who’ve lived and breathed these teachings from childhood. I didn’t fully appreciate that this was not going to be an extended vacation, but a rigorous school, both physically and intellectually demanding. Our study and practice began at 4:30 every morning and ended at 7:00 pm. In the 14+ hours each day, about 6 hours was spent in an active physical practice. The rest was listening to lectures, breath work, meditation and the like. There was a lot of sitting on the floor. I didn’t appreciate how taxing that was for me. Did I mention that I'm 72 years old.
Living for a month in an ashram an experience. This is not a hotel. You are responsible for cleaning your room, changing your sheets and cleaning up after meals. The food was of course vegetarian and mostly vegan - a yogic diet. I haven’t had a drop of coffee or alcohol. Most every meal was lentils, rice, fruit and a veggie stew (curry), with little variation from day to day. It was as if the living arrangements were planned not to distract from study and practice.
In addition to the extensive practice sessions and classroom work, we were able to experience the Indian culture in a way a tourist never could. Celebrations here seem to happen almost daily and every celebration occasions lots of singing and dancing, like a Jewish wedding times 100. We went to staff and neighborhood birthday parties, joined parades that made their way through town and on to the next one, attended puja ceremonies, met with revered Swamis and Gurus. I can’t even count the number of flower garlands I received or the spices thrown into the ceremonial fires.
It will take a long time to fully appreciate all that I’ve received here, including deep knowledge about yogic practices I could never have learned from a book or a seminar back home in the US. For example, every day after Sadhana we had a 90 minute pranayama practice led by a well known Guru. After taking a week to teach the practice to us, we did the same practice day after day, week after week until it was committed to memory. There are a lot of components to it: movement, 5 different breath practices, bandha, mudra, chanting. It’s a lot. But it’s also amazing. Far beyond anything I’ve ever done in the yoga practice. Guru explained this was his master’s practice, handed down from master to student over the ages, never written, transmitted by demonstration only. And in the last week, Guruji shared the “secret” part of the practice, a part we were invited to include in our personal practice, but which we promised never to teach to others. With that agreement, we humbly acknowledged our own limitations.
I can say without reservation that I feel full to overflowing. The quality of the teaching here is excellent. I heartily recommend Samadhi Yoga Ashram to anyone interested in deepening their practice.