Sat Naam Dear Teacher Trainers,
In this unprecedented time of upheaval and of change, staying safe and staying connected are so important. Together we can move through these times, strengthen our connection to one another globally and evolve and transform our lives and our collective culture. We believe in the power of these teachings and their importance during these times of challenge.
Staying safe right now demands that most of us stay home but it does not mean we need to be isolated from our community of trainers, teachers and students. We can support one another through these times.
KRI wants to support this growing interconnection between members of our global community. To do this we are hosting the healing meditation each day (see info and link below), and we hope that this bulletin can grow as a clearinghouse of links to other free meditations. Please send any links we could include to Hari Charn Kaur.
- Keeping all Kundalini Yoga practitioners safe – The office of EPS, led by Guruka Kaur, has been spearheading our institutional efforts to make sure that our communities are safe from unethical behavior by teachers, trainers, and ministers. This multi-year effort has yielded significant results. Among them, structures have been set in place to hear and resolve complaints, procedures have been implemented to process them, and remedies have been defined and administered to reach resolutions.
This office also recognized that education was a critical part of our collective efforts to prevent unethical behavior, abuse, and bullying. Last year an EPS culture of ethics committee, made up of volunteers from around the world, was formed to develop a Sexual Harassment & Ethics training strategy (prior to recent allegations) that would help teachers, trainers, and ministers prevent and address these behaviors. This work is still in progress, but a concerted effort is being made to have this course ready in a few months.
However, given the recent allegations and the calls from many community members, EPS and KRI recognize that the above measures are just part of the solution. We hear that more needs to be done, and soon.
We believe this work is a priority because we are committed to fostering a culture of trust and safety in our communities, free from bullying, abuse, harassment, and unethical behavior.
EPS, KRI, and a group of volunteers who have experience in this area have begun to work together to improve our collective understanding of these issues, explore how our institutions must change to support this goal, educate our communities about these issues, and improve the way we communicate these efforts to support trust in our institutions.
If you have any suggestions or comments or would like to be part of this effort and lend your expertise in this area, please email Amrit Singh.
- Webinars to support you – KRI warmly invites all Academy members to participate for free in our Aquarian Development Series: Professional Development for Teacher Trainers. Please know that you will need to log into for Sutra (an ad free platform) where we host our webinars. You can see our entire course catalogue here. You can join live, or watch the recordings. Some examples of available courses are:
- Exploring Conscious Change – Collective decision making is important to move forward. We are asking for volunteers for a small working group to research possible inclusive group processes that can be used for our collective decision making to move forward. Following the research, options will be presented to the Aquarian Trainer Academy. This working group will not be making any decisions. If you have expertise to offer in designing an Aquarian, inclusive, decision making process for us, please fill out this very short Google Form.
- Global Healing Meditation – KRI wants to support this growing interconnection between members of our global community. Reminder – the global healing meditation is happening live, on zoom, at 6:30am Mountain Daylight Time (e.g., Denver, CO) each day. You can join in here.
- Research into the effects of yoga and meditation on anxiety – In these uncertain times, our practice is more important than ever. Check out this summary article, from a previous KRI monthly newsletter, about the science behind the efficacy of yoga and meditation in dealing with Generalized Anxiety.
- Optimizing Online Trainings – As announced in last week’s trainer update, we are allowing you to hold your scheduled teacher training classroom days between now and June 30, 2020 online. It is very important that we support one another as we learn together how to do this in the best way possible. Please share what has worked and what hasn’t for your online teacher trainings in this Sutra circle.
- Important news about the European Yoga Festival – Please check out this announcement about this summer’s European Yoga Festival