Some ideas on how to retain and build bigger classes

[Guest guest]

Dear Kundalini Yoga teachers,

 

Regarding Kundalini Yoga classes, I found, but this was 25 to 30 years ago,

that when I would teach the classes similar to the sets I was learning in

Yogi Bhajan's classes, which were usually around 30 minutes to 45 minutes

with 15 minutes to relax and finish (including a snack of some dates), that

the attendance would remain pretty strong and the progress of the students

increasing rapidly. (This seemed to be the way in which classes and sets

were taught at that time in the Ashrams I was staying at in Pumona, LA,

Washington DC, St. Raphael, London, Phoenix and Tucson over a 2.5 year

period.)

 

But when I would teach the type of sets that I would do myself, which would

last 1.5 hours to 2 hours, with many intensive parts, I found that there

wasn't enough time for students to absorb and circulate the energy

generated, even between kriyas, such that the attendance would drop

dramatically. All I was doing for my students in that case was to blow them

away with too much energy, shortcurcuit their fragile nervous systems,

leaving them drained and needing to recouperate, instead of positively

charged, in short not at all the (care full) way I had been taught. The

result would be that such classes starting out with 30 or more students

would drop to an occasional attandance of 3 to 5 students.

 

One reason that KY teachers may want to teach the more powerful and longer

sets is that they feel the students may feel shortchanged if they do not get

the biggest bang for their buck.

 

In fact the fastest and greatest advacement in group settings are these

short sets that have a certain specific focus.

 

Then every day the students have some other area to focus on, and gradually

the channels purify, the centers begin to charge, the glands secrete and the

electromagnetic field gains more strength.

 

After 3 to 6 weeks, the students' minds and bodies are totally transformed,

energy circulates freely, and they have a good intuitive understanding of

the process and the efforts, and appreciate the occasional 1.5 hour

intensive, and some may even begin to do the more intense sets and kriyas

and meditations for 1.5 to 3 hours on their own or in small groups wth the

KY teacher in the early morning hours.

 

Next thing you know, the KY teacher discovers that they have their own core

ashram or center, versus 3 to 5 students that come for classes from time to

time to have a 1.5 hour heavy work out to their circulatory and nervous

systems.

 

Another important aspect in retaining the students, is that eventually,

there may develop an experience wherein the students naturally begin to have

some sense of the immanence of God, and their persuit naturally evolves from

the seeking of seeing auras and chakras and visions and experiencing various

energies and inner sights and sounds (which happen spontaneously) - to

something deeper and more profound.

 

At that time the KY teacher may want to bring in other teachers more

familiar with this inner spiritual development, if they don't have this

abiding inner connection that already absorbs them in their own mediations

and generally permeates them throughout the day and night.

 

This is important, or the KY teacher may find their students going elsewhere

to seek answers they don't even have the questions to yet, related to their

new and inexplicable inner connection (i.e., the actual experience of the

Mool Mantra manifesting silently as a single force of absorption and live

light within them).

 

After 30 years of doing an hour or 2 KY set each day, this is what I can add

to the discussion of yesterday, especially the heartfelt comments of

Gururattan,

 

Hoping that this insight is helpful.

 

Pieter