Customer Reviews

The Art, Science & Application of Kundalini Yoga

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I use this book as a text for my classes at the University of Alaska Anchorage and is the product of my 25 year yoga teaching career at UAA. I teach beginning, intermediate and yoga for runners and skiers. The book serves all my classes. It includes ninety two basic postures pictured and explained. Hand, eye positions and locks pictured and explained. Breath overview and eleven breathing techniques. Thirteeen beginning exercise series pictured and explained. Seven intermediate exercise series pictured and explained. Meditation overview and thirteen meditations and kriyas. Healing through energy transfer techniques. Waking and preparing for sleep information and series. Foot massage chart and explanation. Staying healthy with food and recipes. How to create your own warm up series. Deep Relaxation and healing techniques.

This is a university textbook from the University of Alaska, from classes taught by Yogi Nirvair Khalsa. If you have had the opportunity to view these classes (also available through Amazon), which were part of an actual Distance Learning college-level course, you know you are in for a treat. Nowhere else will you find such a complete guidebook to Kundalini Yoga. All of Nirvair's video workouts are contained within this book in their entirety, along with other goodies. Suitable for beginners, with intermediate and advanced series, as well as targeted series such as "Heal Your Back Now!", and a complete listing of all postures used individually. Best book on yoga out there!

If you've never tried yoga before and feel intimidated by the more advanced moves of other types of yoga this is a great book for you. I took the class back in college and still use it now that I am in the military. All I have to say is wow! After coming back from training and trying the sets again I realized how great it really was.
He also includes a section for runners and skiers in this book that athletes might find helpful.
If your ever attending UAA make sure to try and attend the class!

I teach kundalini yoga and use Nirvair's book heavily with students and in my own practice. The book is very well organized:

Basic postures
Basic breaths
Structure of class
Exercise series (includes 13 complete yoga sets)
Meditations, kriyas, and mantras (instructions on how to meditate, an overview of mantras, and includes 13 meditations--meditations for centering, anti-anxiety, etc.)
Intermediate practice (includes more physically challenging yoga sets and some more advanced meditations)
The ten light bodies of consciousness (yogic philosophy, with yoga sets to help you strengthen any of these ten bodies)
Staying healthy (info on diet, some recipes, etc.)

This book is heavily illustrated with photographs of all the yoga postures, photos of each yoga set, the meditations, mudras, As well as the photos, there are step-by-step instructions for each yoga set and meditation. A great thing for me as a teacher is that the pages are detachable so that I don't have to bring the whole book with me when I teach a class. I can just bring the pages for the yoga set and meditation I want to teach. His prose is clear and understandable, and he has a really mellow, gentle vibe (very apparent in his videos but it also shines through in his writing.) His yoga sets are safe and really good for total beginners--I have successfully used Nirvair's yoga sets to teach older yoga students who were new to kundalini yoga.

Nirvair has been teaching yoga for over 30 years; he's a real pro, he walks the walk in terms of living a yogic lifestyle, and this book is the fruit of his decades of experience as a teacher. It's essential in my yoga practice and I'm very grateful to Nirvair for this book as well as for his yoga practices on DVD. He's one of my favorite yoga teachers, bar none, and his book is absolutely the most-used kundalini yoga manual that I own (and I own many).