Marjorie's World of Books

This is my first experience with Kundalini Yoga and Meditation. Kundalini Yoga is designed to raise complete body awareness.  There’s a lot of attention on the spine, the navel and breathing.  There’s no need to get into complicated positions and most of the exercises are fairly quick.  The meditations are mostly breathing with silent mantras.  Even practicing just a few minutes a day is said to bring you much benefit.

I did receive benefit from one I tried. When I was reading this book, we were having a particularly warm October and while it was cooling off at night, the house was still quite warm at bedtime.  To cool the body, breathe only through the left nostril, which will help you sleep.  I did feel cooler breathing that way.  There’s another one I want to try for sleep but I was just too tired to remember all the steps and the mantra.  It just doesn’t work well with the light on reading the instructions from the e-reader!  And it said you should sit with your spine straight and to continue until you fall asleep.  I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to fall asleep sitting up and when I fall over onto the bed, I’m pretty sure that will wake me up!

I’ve been doing the Cat-Cow Pose that they recommend because I know how important it is to keep the spine flexible. I’ve always heard that yoga moves should be done slowly but this one says that the more quickly you move, the more anti-aging benefits you receive.  I can’t say that I enjoyed doing this quickly.  Maybe it’s something that you need to get used to doing.

The book does seem to be geared to people who have a bit more yoga experience than I do, though it’s advertised for anyone at any age. It mentions several times “vibrating the mantra at the brow point” with no explanation as to what that meant.  I looked it up online and apparently repeating mantras creates an energy vibration.  One pose said “inhale, pull root lock, exhale and relax”.  It completely lost me there.

If you do try this book, I would recommend the print edition as it’s not easy going back and forth in an e-reader looking up the different yoga and meditations that you want to try. I also couldn’t read the photos with writing.

There’s quite a bit in here that has intrigued me so I’ll be dipping into this book again and try to work through some of my confusion with the instructions. I think it’s the type of book that you learn more from over time.

This book was given to me by the publisher through Edelweiss in return for an honest review.