My Kundalini White Tantric Yoga Experience
Edit: April 10th, 2022: This post was created two years before the allegations of sexual misconduct by the teacher. I strongly condemn this behaviour and was unaware of this misconduct at the time. I was also 20 years old at the time and had relatively little understanding of the dangers of cults.
This weekend I had the pleasure to experience a White Tantric Yoga retreat in New York City. The workshop was all day and based off of kundalini yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan. When I arrived to the center, which was just along the west side of Central Park, I knew something was vibrant in the energy of the room. The workshop was held in a large sort of synagogue or church with beautiful open space and chasms. Everyone was dressed in full white and our heads had to be fully covered with a white hat or clothe so that no hair could be shown.
The people were very nice and my partner was as well. I was a little worried that I might be walking into a cult or very spiritually stuck up community. Of course, this exists in all spiritual communities and this was present here as well, but for the large majority, everyone was very welcoming of all backgrounds and open to all kinds of cool stuff outside of white tantra. I was one of if not the youngest male in the room, with most of the guys being older than me. The room seemed about 60–70% women and it felt like the feminine energy in the room was strong. It seemed like many people knew each other already and the space was filled with chatter and laughter.
We began by sitting across from our partner and doing a few chants. The entirety of the exercises consisted of 30–60 minute periods of looking directly into our partner’s eyes while chanting mantras and holding various postures. Yes. It was quite intense. Some of the postures were incredibly difficult to hold but we managed not to give up. I noticed that my thoughts were virtually incessant and had no basis in actual reality. It was like watching a film recorder moving slowly over the thoughts. I am not my thoughts, but rather I am an observer of my thoughts and have the power to choose whether to act on them.
It was like a wave of calmness and vibrancy took over my being after each exercise, sinking deeper and deeper with each round. I was so high off the retreat that I was literally eating an orange rind by the end of it! It was crazy, it’s like I knew I had finished the orange but I just ate the rind anyways! Different thoughts and emotions would arise during the actually kriyas. Sometimes I would become anxious or elated or happy or sad or bored or angry and the feeling would consistently change (same with the thoughts). It allowed me to see that so often our minds are just dead wrong about reality. We don’t know what other people are thinking. We know how they are feeling, but we don’t know what’s going on in their head. We can only speculate.
Afterwards, I went with some of the other practitioners to go get food. My brain was soooo spaced I couldn’t quite tell what was going on but it felt good. I felt heat and cold sensations through my body and it felt like I was buzzing with electricity or some kind of intense energy, both during and after the workshop. The whole next day was amazing as well. I ran 14 miles from Central Park to the Brooklyn Bridge and back. In the middle of my run, I ran a 4:30 mile across the Brooklyn Bridge! I felt like I was flying! I am hesitant to put 4:30 to the mile time though because much of the run was downhill from the apex of the bridge.
Overall I found the experience to be quite interesting and rejuvenating. I would fully recommend it to any yogis out there and it’s also an excellent date idea. I would be careful about believing in all the z-diagonal energy jargon but honestly no one there is forcing anything on you and it’s very chillax. It’s a beautiful experience and helped me tremendously in letting go of frustrations and relaxing into flow, as hippy dippy as it sounds :). You can find out more at: http://www.whitetantricyoga.com/pages/workshop
