Vol 2: Kundalini Whiteout; Turbans, Kaftans and Body Hair
I initially trained to teach Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan. If you’re not familiar with this school of yoga, Google it. You’ll find teachers in various costumes – dressed all in white, some with head coverings, some with long beards, and some with towering turbans and veils. It’s one of the weirder arms of yoga, maybe the weirdest. It’s difficult to explain to people how I ended up there although it did follow a logical path at the time.
The Hook
By the time I wanted to train to teach yoga, I was bored with sun salutes, contortion and Lycra. I was always more interested in the meditative part of yoga. I studied philosophy at university and loved the big questions like the nature of consciousness. I used yoga to create stillness, so I could sit in meditation and explore. Hot Yoga, Vinyasa and the like weren’t really doing it for me.
I was almost 40 when I found Kundalini yoga. I wasn’t sure what to make of it to start. I got given a DVD and it wasn’t like any other type of yoga I’d tried before but it hooked me. Within 6 weeks I felt I’d made more progress than the 20 years of practising other styles. It was exactly what I’m been looking for – breath and movement to create meditation.
I found a local class after some searching - it was a niche practice back then. The class was held in a purpose built shed in a woman’s garden. It was pretty exotic by Hertfordshire standards! Each week between 5 to 15 of us would pile into this shed. An elderly English woman (dressed in white) would instruct us (very strictly – she made me cry a couple of times). Sometimes she’d play the gong that hung behind her. Every week we’d have to chant – we’d sit in a circle, hands on heart, and chant mostly Sikh stuff. I was never comfortable with the chanting. Sometimes I’d sit and snigger, mostly I’d fake it. But I loved the effects I was getting from the yoga, so I put up with the chanting. Not long afterwards I signed up for the teacher training.
Whiteout
I couldn’t afford a training abroad, so my teacher training course was in London. In the heart of Camden Market to be precise. Camden Market is pretty out there in terms of people and style. The studio was just opposite the Cyberdog shop which I used to think was quite weird, with it’s club clothes and loud music. But nothing prepared me for the first day of Kundalini teacher training. Of course I’d done some reading on the internet about Kundalini Yoga so I knew there would be robes and beards. But the spectacle of total white-out was still startling.
The course was run by a group of Brits who’d gone native. They all wore turbans and white robes, Indian style, cotton trousers and long tunics. The men had long wiry beards. The faces of the women were scrubbed clean of any make-up and pulled back by the fabric of the turban. It was clearly a look designed to be worn with sandals. But this was autumn in London, so the white trousers were more often combined with dark coloured boots or trainers which looked vaguely ridiculous although I’m not sure anyone got passed staring at the turbans.
And they had all taken spiritual names from the Sikh tradition – names like Simrat Kaur or Tej Singh that translated as golden nectar or morning yoga practise. We never did learn their birth names although I spent many a bored hour guessing at Colin, Keith and Mavis.
Positive Vibes Only
It was explained to us that wearing white would boost our aura and make us more radiant and elegant as teachers. The idea was that white contained the full spectrum of other colours. It is reflective and would thus reflect back any negative vibes. Yogi Bhajan also said that “Wearing white demands that the other person deal with you on a higher level, because that person has to concentrate himself in order to advance.” So by wearing white anyone conversing with you has to change their manner and perspective. I can’t say this was ever my experience. I just thought it was weird, and deeply impractical since most of the life of a yoga teacher is on the floor. But perhaps this was me not able to work on a higher level.
The turban wearing is to honour the seventh chakra at the crown of the head. We had a lesson on how to put one on. My head looked like a pea and I wanted to cry with shame. I never wore one again. We had to wear a head covering a couple of times, like when we visited the Gurdwara, or when we were tested on our teaching ability. I bought a white woolly hat that matched the brief. My husband, a former sergeant major from Glasgow, laughed so hard I thought he’d pass out. Then he freaked out that I was being radicalised. With hindsight I can see that it must have looked strange.
Losing My Religion
The most disturbing thing about the robes was the ease with which my fellow students took to it. By the second weekend of the training there were only a handful of us still in colour. Everyone else was fully kitted out in white robes. Some started wearing turbans. Some just tied scarves around their head. One man tied a handkerchief like you’d find on a 1970s British beach. Everyone seemed really comfortable with it, proud even. They would even venture out dressed like it at lunchtime. I always changed into civilian clothing for lunch even though it was Camden Market. Once I had to travel on the Tube with one of the trainers and was deeply uncomfortable.
Some of the trainee teachers even started identifying as Sikh on the third weekend, memorising the Japji Sahib and enquiring about wearing knives. People stopped cutting their hair. I even heard of a girl on another training course who stopped cutting a hair on her chin and let it grow really long. Adopting a religion seemed a pretty big deal to me and a considered life choice. I wasn’t entirely sure how people had arrived at the decision so quickly. There was a moment when I wondered if I wasn’t trying hard enough.
Incognito
Years after I qualified I met a senior Kundalini teacher who had been a member of Yogi Bhajan’s original ashram. He was one of the more normal Kundalini trainers I’d met and I got to ask a bunch of questions nobody would answer on my teacher training. He said that the white and turban wearing was introduced initially as a disguise for people in the ashram hiding from the FBI! What better way to hide than to adopt a Sikh name, grow a long beard and wear robes & a turban? It was reflective but not in any spiritual sense.
Who knows what the thinking behind it was after that. From what we know of Yogi Bhajan, he made people feel special to command loyalty. Perhaps the loss of family name and westernised clothes was an attempt to sever ties with the outside world and forge a new identity in his world. My reflections on watching my fellow students adopt this uniform so easily are that they were looking for something. Anything. Wearing white and a turban was novel, different. Identifying as a Sikh gave them something to worship, ritual, and identity.
Some of my fellow trainees still follow that lifestyle. The vast majority though moved on to something else, CBD oil and cacao ceremonies. One of my best friends from that time reminisced last year “what the hell was I thinking?”. It has that feel about it. I look back on it variously with incredulity, hilarity, and severe embarrassment.
Since qualifying I have never worn a head covering to teach. Other than the odd white top, I haven’t worn white either. I tend to think if you need to wear a turban to teach well, then maybe you’ve missed the point. In choosing not to dress up to teach I like to think I’ve made my classes more accessible. I don’t include the Sikh stuff either because I’m not a Sikh (despite the great respect I have for the religion). Yoga for me is not religious. It is an exploration of self and consciousness. It can provide wonderful self-help tools for people who practise it. And those tools are not enhanced or best promoted by dressing up like a wizard.