Me and Kundalini Yoga

I started doing Kundalini Yoga off and on a few years ago.
I remember my first transformative experience of it...it must have been 2004'ish or so.
I went to Siri Gian Singh in Sacramento...at his house on T and 20 something street.
It was a lovely old Victorian and inside it was very minimalistic. There were candles, rugs, pictures of gurus, flowers and music playing in a room that had stained glass windows.

I sat down to the class, glad to be in such a peaceful environment.
I have always viewed the 'white' Sikh community with a mixture of awe, respect and deep curiosity. What an interesting group of people. What made them come to this path? Why did the convert?
They have chosen a path that i was born into. I think there is something unique in choosing a spiritual path that you are not born into, because you have come to it on your own accord, b/c you truly desire it and not because you have inherited it. You absolutely must want to be on it...i'm sure questions still arise..but you get the point.

I had done my own experimenting with different religious and spiritual paths around 19. I was taking a compartive lit as well as world religions class and found through my writings, how many of my thoughts were inherited from my parents. Not only did i inherit their thoughts, but i also inherited a 500 year old spiritual path...not sure how far back Sikhism goes in my own family, but the last 4 generations have been accounted for and they were all Sikh, so I think a fairly long time.
So I went about trying on different religions for size...to see how they fit. The western religions, Judaism, Islam and Christianity, all related and born from one another, left me wanting more. Then I toyed with the idea of, "is there really a higher spiritual power" could I be an atheist...do i really believe in a higher power or no....this thought continued to make apperances in my life even after i had found my spiritual path.
So the western ones...ok, but no bells were ringing for me. So I found myself heading back toward the east (I think we may have covered Native American spirituality/religion, and shamanism, and although the energy work and respect for nature the community had resonated with me...I wasn't exactly running toward it)....so where was I...ah yes, looking east.

So there i was attracted back to the eastern philosophies, buddhism, hinduism and yes, sikhism. I guess it truly was a chicken/egg question, was I simply attracted to these philosophies because they were familiar to me, and thus made sense, or was I truly attracted to them for the ideas they espoused? At this point it didn't make a difference anymore...I just knew my belief in re-incarnation was too great to not be acknowledged...so here I was and home to Sikhism I came...and I felt like I now owned being on my spiritual path...because I chose it...(that and my parents would have been very upset otherwise!)

Ok, that was a long aside from the tranformative Kundalini Yoga class I had set out to talk about from 2004'ish or so.

So Siri Gian Singh, Sacramento, dim lights..back at the house.
SGS comes in and he is a slightly older than middle age man, with a white turban, almost white beard and all white clothes. It is always so hard to tell how old the Goray (punjabi word for white) sikhs are because of all the deep breathing they have done with Kundalini Yoga.

Start Disclaimer Here:
Now I know there are also many individuals who have come to Sikhism who are not white and there are many african and brazilian sikhs, but because while growing up I did not see any of these individuals, i will refer mostly to the goray sikhs, b/c they are my reference community and the ones I saw a lot of while growing up in Vancouver and California.
There is no disrespect intended for any other Sikhs...pink, brown, black, bronze et al.

So SGS starts the class, and I find that he is speaking directly to all of the issues I am experiencing in my life at the time. Lackluster feeling about my work....finding our own path and going there, following our heart, appreciating what we have who we are...these are the only ones coming to mind right now, but I know there was so much more than this.

The class was a mixture of yoga poses, deep breathing, meditation and relaxation.
During the relaxation time he put on a CD of Sikh Kirtan in which I was familiar with the words. I remember feeling so much gratitude at that point. So much gratitude for my family, for my parents and for being born into a Sikh Family. (Yes, Family...mine is a proper noun!) I was so thankful that I was a part of this beautiful community and I had no desire to be a part of anything else. not any other spiritual community, not another family, not another set of parents...nothing, I was thankful for it all.
As the tears streamed down my cheeks and into my ears (!) i lay there in corpse pose, taking it all in...the gurmukhi kirtan, which i understood for aforementioned reasons, the smell of incense the beautifully candle lit room.

Once the class ended, and we had some time to talk, I approached Siri Gian Singh and with folded hands, said Sat Siri Akal. He replied in same.
We started to speak and I asked him why he had become a Sikh. And as he began his story he started to cry! As he was crying and telling me the story, he also mentioned how he normally never shares this story with anyone and how if he does happen to, he doesn't cry while telling it! I started to laugh and say, yes it's interesting I just finished crying, so maybe you are picking up on that from me!
Anyway, we had a wonderful bonding moment and I was forever turned onto Kundalini Yoga.