This post is in response to a question a lot of women ask me :
How is Shakti Yoga different from Kundalini Yoga?
First up, I need to confess that I haven’t done a lot of Kundalini Yoga. Though I have done a few classes over the years – enough to get a good sense of it, and enough to know it’s not really my jam!
So I will speak more to Shakti Yoga here, which I live, breathe and happen to be the humble vessel for. Also, I know that many women who love and have benefited from Kundalini Yoga – this is in no way intended to discredit that – only to describe how Shakti Yoga is different. In some ways, they could be considered different ways of working with the same energy. Kundalini is, after all, a manifestation of shakti. More about that in another post!
Kundalini Yoga, I believe, is focussed on the ascending current. It emphasises raising the kundalini energy. Shakti Yoga is more focussed on the descending current; what we might all “the Deep Feminine”. This is the energy that grounds, that births, and supports our embodiment.
Shakti Yoga is about entering the body more fully to know one’s self and Life more deeply.
It’s a coming in and down into the womb, as a portal to the Womb of Creation.
It’s about rooting into the ground of being, the earth, and the embodiment of our femininity
In Shakti Yoga, we relax and receive the heavenly energies from above. There’s no striving. We don’t attempt to raise the kundalini energy – we come into right relationship with her and open to her presence with reverence.This is a devotional, or bhakti practice.
We practice to ground and create balance in the body so that when this energy arises in its own timeline we are better prepared to withstand the voltage, staying grounded so we don’t blast off into space.
Paradoxically, the willingness to descend allows for a natural rising of the kundalini energy, which I don’t consider as straight up and down (as in the rising serpent through the central channel), but as swirling, spiralling and all-pervasive.
Kundalini Yoga was brought to the west by a man (Yogi Bhajan- unfortunately his reputation has damaged the Kundalini Yoga community ) was whereas Shakti Yoga descends from an ancient yet timeless lineage of wise, wild women who were intimate with the secrets of life, and the mysteries of the female body.
It is a living, breathing wisdom stream that any woman can tap into, if she chooses. It’s about harnessing our womanly superpowers for awakening, rather than needing to transcend the body.
Shakti Yoga is a sumptuous body of work that I feel proud of and humbled by. It doesn’t have a huge following (yet), but the women who discover this practice absolutely love it and sing its praises.
I’d love to see more women discovering this practice! Which is why I’m calling on sisters who resonate with this path to consider training as a Shakti Yoga Teacher Training.
Apply here for the next intake, and I’ll be in touch to set up an interview!
Love,
Jasmine Rose
Foundress of Shakti Yoga School