the snake that eats its own tail: kundalini yoga, Akal security, and the paradox of practicing

Oh hi, Fear.I am afraid of speaking out and writing because I am afraid of being criticized. And this fear, while not irrelevant, is so very misplaced. You see, the fear comes from a side of me that thinks I’m static. I am not static. I am quite un-static. I am instead often plastic to the point of discomfort. I am afraid of being judged and of being called out. I am afraid of making mistakes. I am afraid that I am doing more harm than good, because I know that in present times and historically, it’s really easy for people (often white people) to fall into this category without even knowing it.And still, my fear remains misplaced. Because I am plastic. Because I am not static. Because I am not interested in speaking for the sake of hearing my own voice. My fear remains misplaced because it comes from a part of me that assumes I will not make adjustments and grow and shift and change and be open to hearing what people have to say. My fear wants me to believe that if I make a mistake or do or say something racist or oppressive that I will lambasted and have my digital head placed on a digital pike. Maybe so, but I have this internal current that’s been building potential energy for the last few days, and it’s telling my fear, You’d better get out of the way because she’ll be releasing me one way or the other. So yes, my fear is misplaced and it is here and (to borrow a concept from Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Big Magic, which I enjoyed in spite of myself) it is allowed to come along for the ride but it is not allowed to drive. Not even for an instance. And so with this in mind, I dive into an uncomfortable wellspring that won’t let me go until I let it out. No one thing has changed me moreI practice kundalini yoga. I teach kundalini yoga (KY). I love the practice, and I love to teach the practice. No one thing has changed me more, or offered more perspective, internal or external freedom than this practice. It helped me to transform my being. To connect with myself, to Source, Universe, God - whatever you want to call it - in a way that the Catholic Church never could. When I started practicing KY a bit more regularly, my stagnant digestion switched gears and I became worlds more comfortable. I was able to shift from about two decades of often-debilitating depression & anxiety, get off psychotropic medication, and make better choices all around. Of course I’m a believer. The practice works. And because I am the way I am, it’s become a main goal in my life to spread this practice to whoever wants transformation. The snake eats its own tailSo with all of this in mind, I’ve been aware that Yogi Bhajan, the fellow who brought his own brand of KY to the US in 1968, has all sorts of cloudy, unpleasant baggage. I’ve looked into it enough to know that for me, it carries weight. I have a general principle that I apply to the big-time yogis: if they don’t come up clean in terms of allegations, they probably aren’t. Do I have proof? No. Do I need proof? No. Not for my purposes. A sense must be enough in these cases. Especially for people who, like Yogi Bhajan (YB), aren’t even living anymore.So there are plenty of abuse-of-power allegations and sexual/ misconduct/rape allegations towards YB that I have no interest in learning more about. It’s not good information to know more about once I have the gist. I have been working for years in the field of emotional trauma - I know where to draw boundaries. And so I have been hanging out in this place of limbo, where I benefit tremendously from the KY practices that YB handed down, and am deeply uncomfortable with the way he’s held up as a master, without much open critique of the harm so many claim he did. I am a creature of paradox. I am more comfortable swimming in murky waters than in being certain that choosing black or white will actually lead me to the truth. A Lake Street Dive line has been front-and-center these days: “Better than pretending to know what’s wrong and what is right.” So I have been swimming in these waters for a while. It’s gotten easier, but it remains uncomfortable. I am no more willing to give up my practice and teaching what I find to be a deeply empowering practice than I am willing to forget about allegations against YB (or the swami who started the ashram where I’ve done my teacher trainings). If I didn’t have these practices, I wouldn’t be able to do the work I do in the field of trauma and around survivors of sexual abuse the way I have been able to. They help me to clear my energy and to gain vitality. And yet, the lineages of yoga I’ve ended up loving are lineages that passed through what many have called predators. Perpetrators. So how much compassion do I have for their humanity, knowing that they left their bodies without making admissions of this? It’s very hard to muster compassion. To keep myself viable, I have a practice: when I have anger (and over the years, what I’m writing about has made me so angry that I’ve lost sleep and been sick over it), I channel it. I process it diligently until I can use it for action. Because if I let the anger live in me, it will burn me in that horrible caustic way that only anger and its friends resentment and shame can. And how do I process it? BY USING KUNDALINI YOGA! AND IT WORKS EVERY TIME! Can you believe it? This is a snake that eats its own tail! And I’m actually pretty okay with that. So far, I can’t be comfortable for very long around these topics. Sometimes I receive some grace, and it gives my nervous system time to chill out around these topics, which are just so triggering I could scream. One bit of grace came from an interview with Rod Stryker, who happens to come up relievingly clean. Discomfort demands processingAnd then the grace period ends. In this case, because a friend pointed out to me an Instagram account run by indigenous Aztec activist Pilar Mejía (@adecolonizationmovement). Mejía used to be involved in the Kundalini Yoga as Taught by Yogi Bhajan community (3HO), and is now outspoken against 3HO. She’s got no time or patience for the cultural appropriation and some deep hypocrisy happening in the organization (and if not hypocrisy in all instances, at least deeply concerning inconsistency). Basically, YB, who died in 2004, had a lot of followers and some of them started a company called the Siri Singh Sahib Corporation (SSS). SSS is the parent company of 3HO and the Kundalini Research Institute (KRI), the main organizations affiliated with Kundalini Yoga as Taught by Yogi Bhajan. In addition to having a non-profit branch, which KRI and 3HO organizations fall under, SSS also has a for-profit umbrella, under which stands Akal Security. You can see the organization chart here. Akal Security (which happens to have a fraught legal history) is one of the largest private security contractors in the U.S., and is currently working with the federal government to guard the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) concentration camps used to detain migrants. Do I have to explain more? It’s an unsettling circumstance, to say the least: an organization nominally dedicated to spreading love, light, and connection to Source, with deep connections to one of the gnarliest situations in the U.S. at present. I’m seeing a Venn diagram for myself: two deep interests (human dignity - specifically in regards to the border, and the yoga community) overlapping. Drawing attention to the creepiness and hypocrisy of 3HO’s connection with Akal Security is an opportunity to speak out and make waves in a way that’s more than symbolic. For the last few days, I’ve been sitting uncomfortably with the information and perspectives that Mejía has put forth. She’s got a radically decolonizing perspective on yoga, which I imagine I’ll be sifting through for some time. She has also done a diligent job of outlining the issues at hand and engaging with the 3HO teacher community around them. Responses have been mixed at best - some support, and also spiritual bypassing/general irritation and attacks. For the sake of transparency, I became aware several months ago that Akal Security was involved with ICE contracts. I looked into it a bit, became deeply disturbed, and was like, I’m not involved with 3HO for any number of reasons, and this is just another one, and kind of let it go. I’m not proud of that, but I’ve also learned that I can’t solve every problem at every moment. Now, after having it brought to my attention again, and this time with activists having done more definitive research (see the Facebook group Akal Security, Ice, and Sikh Dharma), I’m compelled to communicate about it beyond conversations with friends. As an FYI, a petition exists supporting the separation of Akal Security and Ice. For more reading on Akal Security and ICE, see Phillip Tanzer’s thorough piece on Medium, Questions About Akal Security.A requestIt would be easy for me to sound the alarm and demand action from people who are involved with 3HO. That’s one of the things activists do best; reactivity can create a demanding call to action which sometimes leads to promising results, though in my experience can lead to fizzling burnout. Instead of a demand, a request. Since I’m really into flow charts and I think people actually like to read them, my request is that you spend a minute or two with this one. Maybe just like, sit with it for a minute? See what happens.