Kartar Khalsa

Lana will be talking about her remarkable work with children during a Q&A hosted by Beloved Yoga this Saturday. Learn more and register for this free event at https://belovedyoga.cowtinker.com/om/spotlights

A Conversation & Celebration of Lana Reed
Date: Saturday, April 20
Time: 3pm
Location: Beloved Yoga
11109 Sunset Hills Rd
Reston, VA 20190

I'm very excited about this online workshop. You can learn more and register here: https://kartarkhalsa.com/workshops

The New Science of Mind
Saturday, Feb 17
9AM-2PM EST
$85

Start your new year with me and Lana Reed, Kundalini and Qigong.
Monday, 1/1
10am-12pm @ Radiance Yoga in Alexandria
www.radiance-yoga.net/WS

If Kundalini Yoga is Yang, Qigong is Yin. Always we seek balance — not too much, not too little, not too strong, not too soft, not too "in the heavens," not too "on the earth." Polarity, the Science of the balance of poles of energy, is embedded in the Universe itself.

Balance brings stability, and stability supports inquiry and curiosity — not too much inner, not too much outer, not too rigid, not overly changeable.

We are approaching a new year when so much old is dysfunctional and so much new is just birthing. Balance, perspective, curiosity, inquiry — are all vital tools, and a full awareness of polarity and a subtle sense of balance is invaluable.

KUNDALINI YOGA WITH KARTAR KHALSA Discovering Myself by Exploring with Others How we Find Strength and Purpose

clients.mindbodyonline.com

I was hacked. If you get a message from me with a video titled "look what I found", please do not open it.

I know that some people have had trouble registering for upcoming workshops and classes on my website. The problem has been fixed, and you can now register for those events and find information about upcoming classes I'm teaching via yoga studios on the site: www.kartarkhalsa.com

www.kartarkhalsa.com

My Statement on Yogi Bhajan and Kundalini Yoga

My History with Yogi Bhajan

I started doing Kundalini Yoga and moved into the ten member Baltimore ashram, and met Yogi Bhajan in 1975. I travelled with the ashram to a Yogi Bhajan birthday party at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden and got my spiritual name, Kartar Singh, from him. My ashram job became managing the Golden Temple Health Food store and I did it for nearly 15 years.

Yogi Bhajan died in 2004. Between 1975 and 2004 I took maybe 20-25 classes where he personally taught, was at hundreds of days of White Ta***ic Yoga that he personally led, and hundreds more that he led by video, helped to host him twice for one-night meditation classes in Baltimore, several times in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, and watched, particularly in the last 8-10 years’, dozens of his classes on video. I wrote him perhaps 10 letters when I needed help, and he answered each one. I probably had about 8-10 in person discussions with him. For me, all of the personal interactions were elevating, freeing, inspiring, and quite loving. I’ve said to several people over the years that he was the most loving person I’d encountered on the planet.

Yogi Bhajan and Sexual Abuse

Starting about 15-20 years ago I heard stories about Yogi Bhajan having s*x with 2 people. In my mind I felt that he was “above s*x”, and that he had full mastery with himself so these must surely have been for some “higher” reason. I knew of the lawsuits by Premka and Kate Felt; I purposely didn’t read the documents on the web, thinking that they were slander. I heard that Kate Felt had described her encounter as being r**e. Kate’s sister was Guru Amrit Kaur, the Secretary General. I knew and immensely respected Guru Amrit. I couldn’t fathom misconduct.

About 10 years ago, when Yogi Bhajan had been dead for 5 years, I remember standing in my home and telling my wife that I’d been depressed for the previous few days because I could no longer deny that Yogi Bhajan was having s*x with people. I think I believed at that time that he had a kind of harem with at least some of the secretaries and must have been having frequent s*x.

Over these years a few people asked me about rumors that Yogi Bhajan had had s*x with some people. I gave them straight answers with what I knew.

About 8 years ago I decided to withdraw from international community leadership and just focus on teaching and participating with KRI, the research and licensing body of Kundalini Yoga.

Now I have read the Olive Branch Report, heard numerous reports of molestation, s*xual and power abuse of often much younger women, and men too, and read Pamela Sahara Dyson’s book White Bird in a Golden Cage twice. The detailed allegations reveal a serial s*xual predator, a person increasingly obsessed with power, s*x, and predation, a person who repeatedly used his spiritual “power” to bully people into doing things, often by telling extraordinary stories that were false, and a person who consciously created an atmosphere of spying and snitching among those closest to him. It served to keep all the s*x and abuse secret and everybody reporting on everybody. His cultivation of an aura of absolute spiritual superiority lead us to revere him and disbelieve and forcefully shun anyone who came forward to challenge him or this environment. It might not seem believable, but we gave away our power. Basically, we deeply, deeply loved him and we were also afraid of him.

It is sometimes tempting to say “I was a direct student of Yogi Bhajan” as a kind of “badge of honor”. Many students so revere the teachers who say this that they cannot fathom how we could have given away the power we did. That is the same shortsightedness that we had with Yogi Bhajan. It’s time now for all of us to look for all parts of a person and situation—hidden and apparent.

Abuse at Miri Piri Academy

For the last 20 years the community has had a boarding school in India. Dozens of young people have now come forward to talk of being abused and beaten at the hands of other students, or bullied by them or by the staff. I would guess I was aware of 15% of what has now been reported. My son went to school there for 8 years, going at age 8 and graduating there from high school. Through him we heard some stories; he now tells us that there was much he didn’t tell us because he anticipated we wouldn’t have supported him. He’s correct. I gave much license to Yogi Bhajan thinking he knew of all the abuse and he “must have known” there was a “higher” way to understand this. We trusted, I trusted, and deferred to him--- to that extent. Some have characterized this as revering and believing Yogi Bhajan over our own children. They are correct.

Standing where I do today I would say that the organization I had been so proud of now shows me many of the classical traits of a cult. We adulated and glorified a teacher, many people trusted a spiritual teacher over their own internal guidance, we went along with occasionally seeing someone berated in a demeaning way. We went along with shunning people who chose to leave the path as “weak”. There was a “party line” if you want to say it that way. I learned to take on faith many yogic things Yogi Bhajan said.

Moving Forward:

There are many changes that need to be made. Here are some of them:

KRI, the certifying body of Kundalini Yoga, is presently controlled through oversight by the Siri Singh Sahib Corp (SSSC), the body of about 15 people that is in charge of all the for-profit and non-profit entities including KRI, 3HO, IKYTA, Sikh Dharma, Yogi Tea, Akal Security, and the school in India. The SSSC is a clearly conservative religious body that has not even been willing to support Sikh gay marriage yet. KRI needs to get out from under the oversight of the SSSC. It’s time for clear separation between Kundalini Yoga and any religion.

The manuals for Level One and Two Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training need to be redone removing Yogi Bhajan’s name, his moral pronouncements, his DVD classes, and direct quotations. Any assertion of yogic fact should be removed from the manuals unless it is also supported by yogic information from other sources. The manuals currently coordinate closely with concepts from the Sikh path. Kundalini Yoga belongs to all spiritual traditions and the manuals need to reflect that.

Each person in a leadership position with KRI or any of the other Kundalini Yoga teaching or community organizations needs to make a full statement like this one—what they knew, when they knew it, what, if anything, they did about it, where they are now, and why they should be trusted to undo the culture that brought them to positions of authority.

The community must offer and pay for healing for any victims and cultivate a consciousness with a thorough understanding of trauma as a highest priority. Training in helping with trauma should be widely offered to Kundalini Yoga teachers, not only for these victims, but hundreds of thousands of others who have suffered trauma at the hands of 10,000 years of earthly conditioning.

The Kundalini Yoga organizations need to consciously articulate a new culture of teaching where everyone is learning from each other, a Piscean model of revering a teacher more than any other person is regarded as something to learn from, not to repeat. It is time to honor the capacity and gifts of each person, and also to be aware that we all have shadow sides and challenges.


In Conclusion:

Some are denying, even vehemently, that the allegations could be true. In their eyes, Yogi Bhajan is a kind of saint. Others are breaking all ties with Kundalini Yoga and Sikh Dharma because these things came to us through Yogi Bhajan. I’m doing neither. All the good things that came to me through Yogi Bhajan have not evaporated, nor are they now invalid.

It’s also true that I was blind—had multiple blind spots. Whether those get corrected is my responsibility. Without any blinders, Yogi Bhajan, if caught and convicted while alive, would have served time in a federal penitentiary.

I choose to use his failings and the cultish community culture I lived in to get better. I choose to be a lighthouse, a spiritual point of light, so that those around me might not crash on the shore of human frailty; not going out into the water to save others, just working each day to shine my own light for my own benefit; because I believe that the highest thing that each of us can do is to cultivate our own light and that it will naturally shine for others.

I’m looking forward to offering Kundalini Yoga, creating new courses, new ways of teaching, and new ways of understanding the scientific foundation of Yoga. I look forward to growing in tandem with others, helping to create a community of integrity, warmth, and healing for any person. If there was ever a time for that, it is now.

She's a Survivor: Help Fund Emma's Future, organized by Shakta Khalsa Dear Friends, A young woman who I knew when she was a child recently confided… Shakta Khalsa needs your support for She's a Survivor: Help Fund Emma's Future

Join me for Level 2 Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training via Radiance Yoga.

Do you want deeper, more meaningful, more conscious relationships with the people in your life? Do you want to know yourself in profoundly new ways, and be a catalyst for others to know themselves as well? The Authentic Relationships module of the KRI Level 2 Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training is a deep exploration of relationship to self and to others, including our relationships as teachers. This course has long been known to be a means to self-transformation, forgiveness, and healing.

Led by Gurudass Kaur and Kartar Khalsa, the program begins on August 21st. It will be available fully online, which means you don’t have to be local to learn from these two incredible senior Kundalini Yoga teachers! This course will train you to develop skills that you can use to help integrate authentic relationships into your life and your teachings. You will also explore and understand how we form, sustain and honor relationships.

The program has been carefully designed to ensure that the integrity of training you would get from an in-person course is maintained. This six-day course (six hours per day of online experience and instruction, plus extensive self-study and group work after the classroom time) gives you a broad depth of learning, and just as important, it will be as close to personal experience as possible. It will include course materials from many wisdom traditions and frequent work in dyads or small groups.

To find out more and fill out an application please visit the Kundalini TT page on our website or DM us with any questions.🤍🙏🏼

Dates & Times:
Friday, August 21 - Sunday, August 23
Friday, October 23 - Sunday, October 25

10:00am – 12:00 pm
1:00pm – 3:00pm
4:00pm- 6:00pm

https://radiance-yoga.net/kundalini-yoga-level-2-teacher-training-2/

level2

Join me on Thursday night for the first class of a four-week series on moving from independence to interdependence. The first class will focus on "Breathing for a New Body and a New Brain."

This workshop is really a clinic and is based on the new book “Breath, the New Science of a Lost Art,” by James Nestor. The class is based on ancient Tibetan practices for expanding lung capacity to affect the body and brain with two weeks of basic breathing practices. This information goes way beyond yoga and is transforming my life.

Register or learn more at www.radiance-yoga.net.

Join Kartar and explore how invisible energy can forge a deeper connection to yourself and help you develop self-reliance in order to flourish, grow, find, and nurture happiness. Each week will include strong Kundalini Yoga, information, handouts, and sometimes, homework. Spending time in nature is a requirement. After each weekly session we will also email you a copy of the LiveStream link, and will have ten days to review the material at your leisure - this is perfect if you think you might miss a class or if you want to delve in really deep and review the previous week’s material prior to your next session! See below for a note from Kartar for a fuller description of the course.

“I’m sure you’re finding, as I am, quite heightened levels of anxiety. I don’t see it abating. There doesn’t seem to be any reason why the pandemic will lessen any time soon and all of the fault lines that have been exposed are likely to get more aggravated.

Add to that the possibility or even probability that as we go, new challenges, things we haven’t even yet foreseen, will arise.

So helping people learn how to breathe, rest, engage their parasympathetic nervous systems, find solace in nature or a personal pursuit, and very importantly, move inside and get out of the Eye of the Storm is something they’ll forever be grateful for. I’m finding that this is a very fertile time for inner exploration. I wanted to teach this series—from independence to interdependence. You can see this theme playing out everywhere—“I don’t want to wear a mask”, “I want my rights”, “I don’t want……..”; so on the one hand we are finding ourselves, but without finding our interdependence—every living thing dependent on every other living thing—there is self-assertion w/o any sense of how we all fit together and are dependent on each other.

And that includes being interdependent with Mother Nature and this planet. This is not a ho-hum course.” ~ Kartar Khalsa

Week One - Breathing for a New Body and a New Brain
This workshop is really a clinic and is based on the new book “Breath, the new science of a lost art” by James Nestor. Based on ancient Tibetan practices and breath practices taught by people in the 18th and 19th centuries, whose books are now out of print, who taught themselves and thousands of others how to expand their lung capacity, to affect their bodies and brains with two weeks of basic breathing practices. This information goes way beyond yoga and is transforming my life.

Week Two - Speaking Authentically and Compassionately
Sounds boring and like you already know this perhaps from the Level Two Conscious Communication Course. You don’t. Or you know some of it. This is also a clinic meaning we’ll learn AND practice (over and over) these skills so that in 90 minutes you can learn. This is based on yogic information about speaking with impact and the work of Kim Scott who wrote Radical Candor.
Speaking the truth and “being able to get away with it” i.e., “being 100% compassionate” is a crucial skill these days when it’s so hard to speak across the divides—in your family or in your world.

Week Three - Deeply Listening
Again, boring, you might say. “I already studied this”. Perhaps you have. I’ll be honest. I studied it and practiced it over and over in a training course for months and months. Now I teach it. I also have to do personal practice so I can use it. EVERY time I offer this I learn. This is a huge skill and I’ll bet it will need to be practiced over and over and over………….

Week Four - What We Can Learn From Nature’s Social Network
It’s getting more and more known that under the forest floor, for example, a huge forest of trees, many football fields wide and deep, is connected through the fungal mycelial networks so older trees feed the younger trees, well trees feed sick trees, trees with water feed thirsty trees, etc. It’s fascinating. AND now science is beginning to find the same type of connectivity in the mineral kingdom—what we call rocks and boulders and mountains and granite. That is, everything has vibration and is connected.

Sign up here https://clients.mindbodyonline.com/classic/ws?studioid=4327&stype=-8&sView=day&sLoc=0&sTrn=100000057

Cracking Open

There comes a moment when a seed, even if it has lain dormant for 5,000 years, breaks open. There comes a moment when the tiny bird just pressures the shell that last bit and it cracks open.
Today, like the sprout moving past rock and through soil, impelled towards daylight, I know I cannot go back—I trust I will not go back.

I can’t guarantee I won’t fall into confusion and anger again, after all, I was exhilaratingly clear just yesterday and by last night I was angry again.

There is just something about this that feels like destiny, that this is part of what I came here to explore.

My theme this time, I’ve just come to know, is love – what is love –what is love in a relationship with a partner and what is love for myself.

Sounds easy, but what about when I’m backed into a box, acutely feeling a piece of what seems like agonizing confusion between my own clarity and timing and another’s. And what about when I feel bifurcated between anger and a compelling urge to be open, kind, loving, free. What about that?

Real stuff.

Growing gets real. Some say, and I say –particularly when I’m feeling good – “Growing gets good."

Here’s what I find. There’s just this underlying force—pulling me towards the future, pushing me up and out of my past. It’s as relentless as that energy willing to wait 5,000 years for its time.
It’s in me and it’s in all of us.

The other day I saw an interview with an eminent medical historian. “Pandemics,” she said “World Wars, catastrophic events, get people thinking different. When 1/3 of the population of Europe dies a horrible death of ugly sores and bodies turning black, and there is no remedy, you just think different.”
And after that experience in Europe, the Renaissance was born—economies organized differently, the feudal system collapsed, medicine and science changed, everything changed.

We’re in a pandemic. The same force is in me, and seemingly, in all of us, and certainly in the world

Time to do what any seed does. It doesn’t know it contains a tree, it just knows it must reach daylight.

Happy New Year all! Here is the handout from the 2020 workshop at Radiance Yoga today. Message this account if you have trouble accessing it or have questions. https://www.dropbox.com/s/51tzovdneaitb9v/Yoga--The%20Art%20of%20Creativity%20Worksheet.pdf?dl=0

Yoga--The Art of Creativity Worksheet.pdf Shared with Dropbox

Hope you will join me on Sunday!

Do you love yoga? Do you also love being creative? Combine your love of both in this exploration of art, and yoga with Kartar on Sunday, November 17 at 1:30pm in his workshop “Art, Personal Change and the Power of Imagination”. Creativity is not just about painting a beautiful picture, it is so much more; each day you create your life with every thought and every decision you make. Creativity helps you to problem solve, think for yourself, and create the path in life that is true to you. Unleash your creative side and allow your self-expression to shine! Included in the cost of the workshop is a $12 fee for paint, brushes and paper for each participant to use and take home. Sign up by November 15 for early bird pricing. Visit the workshops page of our website to find out more.

Meet the Radiant Child Family Yoga Certification Teaching Team!!
Kartar Khalsa is an IKTYA certified lead Kundalini Yoga Teacher Trainer and travels extensively working with hundreds of students each year. He has been practicing and teaching yoga and meditation for the past 45 years. He, along with his wife, Shakta, are direct students of Yogi Bhajan, master of Kundalini Yoga. Kartar was named Kundalini Yoga teacher of the year in 2016. He often teaches the practical skills of meditation, as well as workshops on personal transformation, successful communication, conscious relationships, and deep listening. buff.ly/2VcmNcx
Teaches: Basics of Kundalini Yoga, Deep Relationship work with Self and Others, Yogic Lifestyle, Maintaining Sadhana Practice.

Celebrate 50 years of Kundalini Yoga in the US THIS weekend at Radiance in Alexandria, VA.

I will lead Aquarian sadhana on Sunday morning, 6 January, starting at 5am followed by a special class together with Masuda in my usual time on Sunday morning, 8:30-10am.

More details included in the link below.

Happy New Year!

Conclude your Thanksgiving weekend with peaceful mantra... Gurunam Singh will join me AGAIN at my Kundalini class at Radiance Yoga this Sunday, 25 November, 8:30-10am. Live mantra with Gurunam is always a treat. This will be his last time in this area for the coming months - so if you missed his chanting a few weeks ago, join us on Sunday!

Gurunam Singh, gifted mantra singer and yogi, will be my special guest at my weekly class at Radiance Yoga in Old Town Alexandria, VA. Hope to see you on Sunday, 11 Nov - 8:30-10am.

Seeking to go deep to explore your relationship to yourself and others? Join me and Gurudass for Level 2 KYTT Authentic Relationships at Pandora Healing in Hawthorne, NJ. Two weekends: 7-9 Sept and 30 Nov-2 Dec. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/kri-level-two-teacher-training-authentic-relationships-6-days-sept-7-9-and-nov-30-dec-2-tickets-47041801294?aff=utm_source%3Deb_email%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnew_event_email&utm_term=eventurl_text

YOGA in NJ Kundalini KRI Level 2 Teacher Training - Authentic Relationships - 6 days - Sept 7-9 and Nov. 30 - Dec. 2 Hello NJ area Kundalini Teachers, The Authentic Relationships module (KRI certification) is being offered in Hawthorne NJ at Pandora Healing. Gurudass Kaur and Kartar Singh will be the instructors. Authentic Relationships – Unfold your true identity in the matrix of conscious relationship. Save ti...

Yes.

"God has no separate hands, legs, eyes or body other than our own. The Cosmic Power inside each one of us is God." -Amma (Mata Amritanandamayi)

I have a full schedule of teaching this coming weekend in . The community in Chicago is so wonderful. I am looking forward to seeing many of you!
Thu, Sept 15, 6pm at Sat Nam Yoga Chicago​
Fri, Sept 16, 6-9pm at Heaven Meets Earth family yoga studio​
Sat, Sept 17, 6pm at Sat Nam Yoga Chicago
Sun, Sept 18, 2-5pm at yogaview​ with Quinn Kearney

Excited to share Kundalini technology this weekend at Sat Nam Yoga Chicago!

Communication is through the eyes, through the skin, and through the heart. It is listening with the heart in the mind; it is tactile, it is telepathic. When you understand communication your heart coherently signals your mind, your heart sits in reverence for all others and all life, and you can read and feel all signaling. Join us next week for two Kundalini Yoga Intensives and create extraordinary openness and clarity. Kartar Khalsa is back at Sat Nam Yoga Chicago Sept 15 and 17 Cultivating a Healing Heart and Finding the Heart in All Others We hope to share this space with you.

Have you reserved your spot yet for my class on Sunday morning with Gurunam Singh at Radiance Yoga?

You will not want to miss practicing in Gurunam's sacred sound current. We will chant, do yoga and meditate with his live music, which is a real treat.

Sunday, 24 June, 8:30-10am - register today and arrive early. The class is expected to sell out.

: it seems to be a fleeting concept in our lives. But what if we could break through our inner conditioning, neutralize the negative self-talk and connect with a consistent state of happiness? At Santosha Yoga Studio in Cranston, RI on Tuesday evening, 12 July, we will explore the habit of happiness through and . I am so pleased to be returning to RI - please join me!