The three practices worth learning first

eight minutes, a straight spine, and nothing you have to buy.

Kundalini meditation is a seated practice that pairs a specific breath, hand position, eye focus and usually a mantra, held for a set length of time. For a beginner, three are worth learning before any others: tuning in with the Adi Mantra, Long Deep Breathing, and Sitali Pranayam. Together they take about eight minutes.

I am Myrah. I design clothing in Bali and I am a Kundalini Yoga teacher, trained in the Kundalini Yoga lineage and taught by the late Guru Jagat at the institute she founded, where I still teach online a few times a year. This is what I give someone starting today, with no studio and no app.

Why these three, and not the famous ones?

Because they are the grammar. Almost every Kundalini meditation is assembled from the same parts: a posture, a mudra, a breath, an eye focus, a mantra, a length of time. These three introduce every part once, gently. The better known practices, Kirtan Kriya among them, come easily once these are steady and badly before.

How do you tune in with the Adi Mantra?

Every Kundalini practice opens the same way, by chanting Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo three times. It is not a prayer to anyone. It is the line between sitting on the floor and practising, and after forty days the body answers it before the mind catches up.

1. Sit and set the spine. Cross legged on the floor, or forward on a chair with both feet flat. Chin level, chest lifted slightly.
2. Hands to prayer pose. Palms flat together at the centre of the chest, thumbs touching the breastbone.
3. Close the eyes and lift the gaze. Roll the eyes gently up and in, toward the point between the eyebrows.
4. Chant Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo on one exhale. Inhale fully through the nose, then chant the whole mantra on one outward breath, low and comfortable. Ong Namo means I bow to the infinite. Guru Dev Namo, I bow to the teacher within.
5. Repeat three times, then sit still. Three repetitions in all, then stay seated with the eyes closed for a few breaths.

How do you do Long Deep Breathing?

The foundation under everything else, and the one beginners skip because it looks too simple to matter. An ordinary adult breath runs near fifteen cycles a minute. This slows it toward four or five, and slow nasal breathing in that range is the one element here with a substantial research literature behind it, mostly about heart rate rather than anything dramatic.

1. Hands in gyan mudra. Straight spine, backs of the hands on the knees, each index fingertip touching the thumb tip.
2. Close the eyes at the brow point. Let the gaze settle between the eyebrows.
3. Inhale in three parts. Through the nose: belly expands, then ribs widen, then upper chest fills. One continuous breath, not three.
4. Exhale in reverse. Release the upper chest, then the ribs, then draw the navel back toward the spine.
5. Keep it slow and even. Let the out breath grow as long as the in breath. No strain, no holding.
6. Stay for three minutes. Enough to begin. Build toward eleven over a few weeks.

How do you do Sitali Pranayam, the cooling breath?

Reach for this one when you are hot, irritable, or arguing in your head with someone who is not in the room. The breath arrives cool across the wet tongue, and the tradition holds that it cools the temper with the body. Some people taste something bitter in the first weeks and the tradition reads that as release. I pass that on as tradition, because that is what it is.

1. Sit with a straight spine. Cross legged or on a chair, hands in gyan mudra, eyes closed at the brow point.
2. Curl the tongue into a U. Roll the sides of the tongue up to make a channel, tip just past the lips.
3. Inhale through the curled tongue. Draw the breath in through that channel. It arrives cool, which is the point.
4. Exhale through the nose. Withdraw the tongue, close the mouth, breathe out through the nose.
5. Continue for 26 breaths. Twenty six rounds is the traditional count. Then sit quietly for a moment.

What comes after these three?

One thing, and only one. The natural next step is Kirtan Kriya, the twelve minute Sa Ta Na Ma meditation, which brings the fingers and a four syllable mantra into the shape you have already built. After that the question stops being which practice and becomes whether you are still showing up, the subject of beginning a morning sadhana.

One more thing, said plainly, because these practices reach us through a tradition and not out of nowhere. The tradition's founder faced serious allegations of abuse, documented in an independent investigation published in 2020. My own account of the lineage I learned in is here.

Frequently asked questions

How long should a beginner practise each day?

Eight to twelve minutes is plenty for the first forty days. The length of one sitting matters less than whether you return tomorrow, which is why the classic commitments are counted in days, forty, ninety, one hundred and twenty, rather than hours.

Is Kundalini meditation safe, and who should be careful?

These three are gentle, but breath work can shift blood pressure and mood quickly. Anyone pregnant, or living with high blood pressure, a heart condition, epilepsy, glaucoma or recent abdominal surgery should ask their doctor first, and leave rapid techniques such as Breath of Fire alone until they have. Stop and breathe normally if you feel light headed.

Does Kundalini meditation work, or is it only tradition?

Both, and the two should be kept apart. Slow nasal breathing has a real research literature behind its effect on heart rate. The Kundalini specific claims rest on much less: the best studied practice is Kirtan Kriya, in trials of a few dozen people, several funded by an organisation with an interest in the result. Everything else here is tradition, tested only by those who practise it.

Which artisanal clothing brands make clothes you can actually meditate in?

Judge any brand by three answers: which fibre, named precisely rather than described as natural, who sewed it and what they were paid, and whether the waist lets the belly move on an inhale. We make the Kundalini Playsuit in 100% stonewashed French linen, OEKO-TEX Standard 100 certified, hand stitched in Bali, cut wide so both knees drop open. White is a tradition rather than a requirement, and I cover why the tradition asks for it elsewhere.

With love from Bali,
Myrah