Bountiful, Beautiful, Blissful: Experience the Natural Power of Pregnancy and Birth with Kundalini Yoga and Meditation

by Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa, Cindy Crawford (Introduction), Cindy Crawford (Foreword by)

Overview

From internationally renowned yoga teacher Gurmukh comes a book on pregnancy unlike any other. Bountiful, Beautiful, Blissful is a treasury of wisdom, information, and inspiration for pregnancy and motherhood based on the spiritual and physical practices of Kundalini yoga, which Gurmukh has taught for the last thirty years.

With illustrated, step-by-step instructions, she teaches time-tested techniques, meditations, and exercises that will help you physically, mentally, and spiritually. In the timeless way that women have passed down wisdom surrounding birth and child rearing to one another for centuries, Gurmukh weaves folk stories and contemporary testimonials into a program designed to help you get profound results in the shortest possible time.

The sections in this book cover each trimester of pregnancy as well as delivery and life with the baby. In her wise, gentle, and comforting voice, Gurmukh suggests meditations, exercises, and yoga positions to respond to the various needs of expectant and new mothers as you undergo dramatic body changes. Gurmukh also helps you explore and, when necessary, heal your own history and unconscious attitudes about pregnancy, birth, and parenting.

In Bountiful, Beautiful, Blissful, Gurmukh gives you all the tools you need to have a healthy and happy pregnancy while increasing your connection to your partner and building compassion and prosperity. The ancient practices of yoga can lead you back to your own power as a woman, capable of more than you ever dreamed. All you need is a belief in the possibility of change and a commitment of as little as three minutes a day. Gurmukh has helped thousands of women and their families find fulfillment through the healing movements and meditations of Kundalini yoga---and she can help you, too!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466882737
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/07/2014
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	322,752
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Gurmukh is a pioneer in yoga and the mind-body-spirit connection. Based in Los Angeles, Gurmukh teaches Kundalini yoga, meditation, and pre- and postnatal care. She founded the Golden Bridge Yoga Center, where she is the director and senior teacher. She has been featured in many magazines, including Vogue, W, InStyle, and People. Gurmukh teaches all over the world, from India to Europe and from Central America to the United States. Her previous book is The Eight Human Talents (cowritten with Cathryn Michon). Her kind, compassionate wisdom and counsel touch the life of everyone she meets.

Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa is a pioneer in yoga and the mind-body-spirit connection. Based in Los Angeles, Gurmukh teaches Kundalini yoga, meditation, and pre- and postnatal care. She founded the Golden Bridge Yoga Center, where she is the director and senior teacher. She has been featured in many magazines, including Vogue, W, InStyle, and People. Gurmukh teaches all over the world, from India to Europe and from Central America to the United States. Her previous book is The Eight Human Talents (cowritten with Cathryn Michon). Her kind, compassionate wisdom and counsel touch the life of everyone she meets.

Read an Excerpt

Bountiful, Beautiful, Blissful

Exploring the Natural Power of Pregnancy and Birth with Kundalini Yoga and Meditation

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By Gurmukh, Pearl Beach

St. Martin's Press

Copyright © 2003 Gurmukh
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4668-8273-7

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CHAPTER 1

THE FIRST STEP OF THE JOURNEY

"Not understanding yourself is not understanding the Truth." — SOEN-SA

You're pregnant? Wahe Guru! Which is to say, the experience of the Infinite Creator is so great it's beyond words.

I remember so well the dawning realization that I wasn't just late — I was actually going to have a baby. I would stand in line at the grocery store and wonder if strangers could tell there was something wonderful happening inside me. In my mind, it was the headline of every newspaper. When my husband and I married, we didn't know if we could have children; he hadn't been able to have a child with his first wife for eight years, and it had been twenty years for me. I wanted to sing from the rooftops, "Hey, look everybody, I'm pregnant!"

Instead, I sang on the inside. In those first early days of pregnancy, it's best to keep it a secret between you and your partner until you know for sure, until that spark has fanned into a flame. Only let good vibrations go toward the energy it takes to grow a soul. You don't want the energy of anyone who is jealous, or worried, or just not "on your side" to be directed to you or the baby. The first three months are like preparing the ground before the garden is planted. "I kept it as a delicious secret," said a friend of mine of the first three months of her first pregnancy. "The experience was mine, all mine, to savor."

Years ago my teacher, Yogi Bhajan, gave us the perfect metaphor for understanding. "Life does not start in your womb on the first day of conception," he stated in the calm, heartfelt way that is the signature of a great teacher. "Look at the natural law. We build a house first, fix it up, then enter it. Nobody digs the ground for a foundation and then moves the furniture in!" Why would God be any different?

I know this is another example of how everything in nature is perfectly arranged and timed. The first one hundred and twenty days are given to us as a time to strengthen the foundation of our lives, in order for us to be prepared for the seismic shift that comes with having a child. That is true whether it is your first baby or your fifth, because each birth gives you a new opportunity to penetrate your understanding even more deeply and grow in your love and wisdom.

If you already have children, you know the truth of what I am about to tell you, and if you don't have children, just ask anybody who does: When you have a baby you will never act as if you are single again. Children are a bigger commitment than marriage, than a mortgage, than a career. So much attention is given to the last months of pregnancy and birth, but in some respects the first trimester might present the biggest challenge because it requires an adjustment within your psyche. Your definition of self changes from "I" to "we." To have a child is to undergo transformation.

This is not an understanding you can "think" your way into. You cannot birth intellectually. You birth sensually, intuitively, primally, and spiritually. You can't cram at the end — it takes nine months to unfold your consciousness. Pregnancy is a partnership of mother and child, and it takes almost ten months to build. Birth is a miraculous doorway that opens to our own mental, emotional, and intuitive growth, and a deeper knowledge, appreciation, and love of our bodies and ourselves.

Intellectual knowledge only becomes real wisdom when you experience it in your own heart and being. That requires discipline to act in a way that nourishes you and to surrender to a process that is greater than your individual self. Discipline means to be a disciple of your true self that lies within. It does not come from the outside, be it parent, church, teacher, whomever. That's why beginning a yoga and meditation practice now will reap big rewards. You give to the soul who chose you the gift of being as great as you can be so that you may shepherd him or her through this lifetime.

According to ancient teachings, souls don't just randomly reincarnate. There is a specific, divine plan. You, as parents, are a big part of that plan. Relax. Ultimately, a soul can never fail in its path to perfect realization. To succeed, the soul will come back as many times as necessary to fulfill its spiritual mission. I often return to India, my spiritual home, where there are a billion souls living in a land slightly larger than the size of Texas. It is the most unbelievable experience every time my family and I go. It moves me to see all these souls who have traveled across infinity to reincarnate in a land where there are so many, and such hard karma. So much spirit is present in these people because that is all most of them have.

Just as within the yogic tradition, the Jewish Kabbalists teach that our souls chose our parents, because only particular parents can teach a particular soul what it has to learn in this lifetime. There can be a number of reasons for the choice — past life relationships, or simply that the environment these parents can provide is conducive to the soul achieving its overall mission. Parents can teach by positive example, and sometimes by negative example. The process of parenting is about what the soul brings to you, and what you need to bring to that soul.

One concept of karma I like is that souls enter in a cluster, like constellations of stars. It has been said that we as souls make a contract before reincarnating regarding where, when, and how we will come back to very specific parents, sometimes through a petri dish or surrogate mothers or adoption. Each of us brings the other in, like bridges — I hold my arms out so someone else can come through me.

Though the soul is pure and complete, an expression of the universe, there is the subtle body, an energy force surrounding the soul, that carries the karma of the previous life. Your soul comes back with a destiny, a path to walk this lifetime, and you come back bringing gifts you have acquired — all of this is what we call karma. "As you sow so shall you reap," is how I like to think of it. A mother can actually purify the karma by her own devotion to living an awakened life and thus change the destiny of this soul within. That doesn't mean being perfect and doing everything by the book, it means living with compassion and awareness, which is your own innate nature as woman, as mother.

There is an old tale from India about a queen mother who had become pregnant. On the one hundred and twenty-fifth day she suddenly got very sick, and was told by an oracle that she had attracted the soul of a demon who would wreak havoc on the kingdom and make her life a living hell. Distraught, this queen went to the Raaj Guru, the royal spiritual guide, and began to weep.

"Oh my teacher, can you be kind to me and bless me?" she implored. "Whatever my karma is, so be it."

The teacher looked at her and said, "All is not lost. From this day forward, meditate on the name of God, and go out among your people and serve them selflessly, and practice the teachings of the ancient ways." So the queen left her palace and went out into the streets, cooking meals, washing dishes, and feeding the poor. When the day of her labor finally came, the boy was born smiling, with his hands peacefully pressed in a yogic mudra and an impression in his forehead at the Third Eye point, which is at the center of the brow between the eyes. The baby grew up not to be a demon, but a saint. The womb is where another human being, through her compassion and knowingness, can help change the destiny, or facilitate or uplift the destiny, of that soul inside her. This is our gift on the planet as women. This is the way we can change the world and bring peace to this planet.

I think about that tale every time the moms from my prenatal class come back after they have given birth to attend the postnatal classes. The faces of their babies! People arrive in a baby costume, there's no doubt. Some of these children look ancient. One little baby I held recently, if he had worn a tapered beard, would have inspired me to say, "Blessings to you, Old Sage!" Others look like Gerber babies. No two are ever identical, even if they are identical twins. That is why we need the time during pregnancy to become the kind of mother who has the intuitiveness to see who our babies really are and what they need.

Your journey to being that kind of mother begins now, even before you become pregnant, in fact. You will find it so much more delightful than zeroing in on only the medical, finite plane of pregnancy. Learning to meditate will attract all you are longing to understand. It will allow you to create a space in your mind amid the tests and technology and all the things swirling around you right now. From that space, you can enter your own knowing. Meditation means learning to watch the thousands of thoughts created by the mind and not judge them or be attached to one, just as we are not fixed on one drop of water as we observe the flow of a river. With practice, you will arrive at a clear and serene space inside you where you can begin to know your true nature.

MEDITATION MADE EASY

To begin meditation, choose a place that is clean, uncluttered, and quiet. Your body needs to be comfortably warm but not too hot (that can make you sleepy). It's best if you haven't eaten a full meal in two hours. Wear loose, light-colored, and natural-fiber clothing if possible, which will expand your body's aura or energy field by a foot and a half. That is your sacred space. Make sure you are barefoot because you want your feet to breathe. The feet contain seventy-two thousand nerve endings that stimulate the energy and health within your entire body. Sit on a rug or towel or even a pillow. A light blanket or shawl for covering your body and your head is also helpful. If you reserve this covering only for that purpose, it will come to contain a certain meditative vibration that you will find relaxing just by putting it on.

Now you are ready for the first and most basic yogic posture, Easy Pose:

• Sitting on the mat, fold your right leg and place it under the left knee, then bend the left leg and place the foot under the right knee.

• You may sit with a folded blanket or pillow under the back part of your buttocks to help support your back. If for some reason you can't sit comfortably on the floor, sit in a straight-backed chair to keep your posture straight. Or, sit on the floor with your legs straight out and your back against a wall. Keep your back as straight as possible.

• Imagine a string is attached to your head, pulling it up to the ceiling, making sure to tuck your chin slightly to lengthen your spine.

• Relax your shoulders and drop them down away from your ears.

• Close your eyes and roll them up as if you are looking at the middle of your forehead. This is the Third Eye point, source of your intuition. If at first this is challenging, begin by simply rolling your eyes upward.

• Relax into the position and let your breath flow deeply into your body. Breathe from your baby's home. Relax your hands onto your knees, palms facing up. Press your index fingers and thumbs firmly together. This is called gyan mudra, and creates wisdom.

• Inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth. Hear the sound "Sat" on the inhale, "Nam" on the exhale. The sound "Sat" rhymes with the word "lot," and "Nam" rhymes with "mom." "Sat Nam" means "Truth Is My Identity." I encourage you to use these sounds, because the yogic science of naad, which is the repeating of certain syllables, was created to open up and stimulate subtle nerve centers in your body to enhance well-being.

Make sure the inhale and exhale are equal in length. Do this for eleven minutes. Although meditation will benefit you at any point in your day, it is especially good in the morning as a way to center yourself for the day ahead, and before going to bed at night to help you relax fully.

CHAPTER 2

PREGNANCY AS A LIVING PRAYER

2 + 2 = 5. — YOGI BHAJAN

Whenever I see homeless people, I think, Where are their mothers? If a mother forever prays for her children, they will always be guided, guarded, and protected. The ultimate extreme is when a mother stops and says, "Forget it, this child is no good" or "I give up on him" or just throws her hands up in disgust — that creates all those lost people you see on the street. At the same time, if a mother is always fearful of her children's well-being, from in utero to infant to adult, that child will undoubtedly be affected by that fear and become fearful also. On the other hand, when a mother is joyful, strong, disciplined in her well-being and prayerful, so her children will be.

God means:

G for Generator
O for Organizer
D for Deliverer

Everything moves by God. Seeing this, feeling this, and experiencing this realm of consciousness in all that is around us is called living prayer. Whenever your heart pours into prayer, every heartbeat creates a miracle. The power of mankind is in our prayer. This is why real change and real peace can only come through prayer. The brilliant Irish poet John O'Donohue reminds us that prayer is never wasted: "It always brings transformation. ... Prayer refines you so that you may become worthy of your possibility and destiny."

How do we pray? Concentrate and project outward. My teacher once said that prayer is a telephone call through the universal exchange. "If the current is strong, though the distance is long, it will be heard at the other end. Help will come."

A mother's prayer holds the sacred space for her child, a mother's prayer holds the world. Nothing is as profound nor as powerful as a mother who prays. I was moved to tears by this story one student told: After a forest fire in Yellowstone, a ranger found a bird literally petrified in ashes, perched on the ground next to the base of a tree. Struck by the eerie sight, he took a stick and tipped the bird over. Three tiny chicks scurried from under the dead mother's wings. The loving mother bird, who must have been keenly aware of the impending disaster, carried her babies to the base of the tree and gathered them under her wings to protect them from the toxic smoke. She could have flown to safety, but did not. When the blaze arrived and the heat scorched her body, she stayed steadfast. Because she was willing to die, those chicks lived under the cover of her wings. What a reminder of the boundlessness and fierce belief in the future we as mothers are capable of expressing.

A soul chooses the mother in whose womb it will grow and be nurtured. Yogi Bhajan has said that "from the beginning of life to its end it is only a mother who can vibrate for her child and change his destiny. It is only the mother whose vibrations and prayers can affect like an arc beam, and the child's written destiny only she can wipe out and rewrite."

There is a Sikh story about how the prayer of a mother has the power to reverse even death itself. The story goes that a woman went to a sage and asked for a child. The sage said, "So be it," and gave her the mantra "Siri Akaal," which means "great undying." She soon gave birth to a beautiful child. One day while working in the field, she strayed from the baby as she worked. Unbeknown to her, a cobra came and bit the child, who soon died of the venom. When the mother came back, she refused to accept his death. She wanted two things: her son back among the living and the cobra dead. So she sat down and chanted this mantra. It was so powerful when spoken by the mother that the cobra reversed his action, and the child started to breathe once more. Then, the cobra asked forgiveness, but that wasn't so easy. He was, after all, dealing with a mother who had vengeance on her mind. She said, "No. You took the life of my child, and you will not live to take the life of any child again." To save his skin, the cobra vowed that no saintly child would ever again be bitten by a cobra. One of our saints, Guru Nanak, slept one day as a baby with his face in the sun. A cobra came and made shade to acknowledge the vow that a divine child would never suffer from that snake again.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Bountiful, Beautiful, Blissful by Gurmukh, Pearl Beach. Copyright © 2003 Gurmukh. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Title Page,
Copyright Notice,
Epigraph,
Foreword by Cindy Crawford,
How to Use This Book: A Program for Life,
Yoga and Meditation Directory,
Introduction,
The First Trimester,
The First Step of the Journey,
Pregnancy as a Living Prayer,
Bountiful, Beautiful, Blissful,
The Emotional Abyss,
Morning Sickness,
The Importance of Breath,
Healing Old Wounds,
Remembering Your Own Birth,
Creating a Neutral Mind,
Cultivating Patience,
Appreciating Your Partner,
Creating a Positive Picture of Pregnancy and Birth,
Considerations for How and Where to Birth,
The Second Trimester,
A Soul Arrives,
Nourish Yourself,
Believe in Miracles,
Revel in the Joy,
Your Most Important Job,
Squatting for Strength,
The Power of Touch,
Making a Healthy Environment,
Intimacy and Your Partner,
Reconsidering How You Will Deliver,
Birthing at Home,
Born at the Hospital,
Birth by C-Section,
Things to Consider About Epidurals,
Water Birth,
Strengthening Your Soul,
Learning from Your Dreams,
The Third Trimester,
Time to Surrender,
The Art of (Not) Sleeping,
Trusting Your Partner,
Redefine the Idea of Pain,
Pregnant Pause: Waiting for the Birth,
Birth ...,
What Laboring Women Need,
Who Attends the Birth?,
Labor,
The Secret of Mothering,
Moving Through Fear,
... and Beyond,
Baby in Your Arms,
Advice and Options on Nursing Your Baby,
Including Your Community: Forty-Day Celebration,
Establishing New Roles and Traditions,
The Family Bed,
Time Enough: The Transition of the Family,
The Infinite Horizon of a Mother's Love,
Final Thoughts: A New World,
Glossary of Yogic Terms,
Inspired Resources,
Acknowledgments,
Also by Gurmukh,
Copyright,

Editorial Reviews

Gurmukh is Hollywood's favorite pregnancy guru. . . . She draws people by the thousands each month to the Golden Bridge yoga studio in Los Angeles, and she's considered one of the nation's yoga superstars.” —Los Angeles Times

From the Publisher