Best Practices for Trainers

This collection of best practices is meant to be continually growing and changing, so please email Amrit Singh if you have suggestions to make these pages better.

We want to collect more Best Practices on the following topics, please contribute if you have experience with a successful way of delivering them!

• How to cultivate and inspire Seva Consciousness in the students?

• How to demonstrate and teach the Identity of a Teacher?

How to behave with students…how to continually give credit to the Teachings…not the personality of the Teacher/Trainer. Teachers/Trainers also need to train students how to treat Teachers/Trainers. It is understandable how students can feel gratitude to the point of reverence for Teachers and Trainers for giving them the tools to change their lives. It is also understandable how Teachers and Trainers can fall into the role of being revered…it feels good…spiritual ego is addictive.

• One sadhana practicum and one class practicum with feedback

• Ideally have students have 2 one-hour practicum sessions (offer creative ways to do it such as to the public with a “yogathon” day, or in people’s homes.)

• One practicum to their peers and one to students new to Kundalini yoga (we call it friends and family or anyone who has not tried KY before). However, only one practicum is delivered within the regular TT weekends. The second is scheduled outside of the Training weekends, and close enough to where students live so they can teach friends, family, coworkers who have seen their transformation, etc. In rare cases we do a third one hour practicum if the student has not yet successfully delivered the kriya, also scheduled outside of weekend Trainings.

• A third practicum is recommended for students who haven’t successfully completed either of the earlier opportunities.

• Practicums may be offered in Seva environments

• Teaching from Day One: Begin right away with practicums and in-class clinics (teaching various breathing techniques, mantras, short or reduced kriyas in their small groups). They are also given a number of informal classes to teach to family and friends beginning the 3rd weekend. Some do it as assigned, others struggle with it.

• Practicums with the Lead Trainer present; the feedback session after each practicum is highly valuable for anchoring basic teaching concepts and serving to polish the students teaching methods.

• No prepared music allowed in practicums; student-teachers must chant and lead in monotone, giving them a deeper experience with the mantras.

• Offer a Communication Practicum: a 2-hour segment toward the end of the course where students have an opportunity to answer “hard” questions. That is, deliver content and consciousness on the spot. Facilitated by a trainer or trainer in training. Most of our “testing” is written; but most of the communication will be oral once they are out in the field. So this gives them an opportunity to act out their responses and resolve some insecurities around communication and hard topics.

• Build up the 40-day meditations so that the first is a 3-minute done with everyone; the second is an 11 minute 40-day; and the third is a 31 minute 40-day.

• Include several 2 1/2 hour meditations throughout the course–not just the Long Ek Ong Kaars

• Yogi Bhajan was asked personally about “The Master’s Touch Meditation” and he said this should be recommended for every level one course, not required but always recommended.

• Meditation Teacher Practicum: have students pair up and assign a meditation to their peers and then do the follow-up; asking questions, guiding through difficulties, encouraging etc.

• Continuous 40-day practices throughout the entire training

• Student check-ins are focused not on “Am I succeeding or failing at my meditation?”, but instead on, “What am I learning about myself? How does my mind work on the days when I do meditate, and on the days when I do not?” This is one of the most essential aspects of Level 1: building the self-discipline to meditate daily, or at least the understanding of how important it is.

• Assigned a meditation as homework each session beginning with the first weekend until the 31 min, 40 day meditation is assigned. We begin with 7 min meditation for 7 days, and gradually increase the times and lengths each month until they get up to about 22 min for 22 days and then they are ready to start the 40 day 31 min meditation..

• Include a portion of the Level 2 material in Level 1 to increase the students’ basic understanding of their minds: shadow, hidden self, how we sabotage ourselves with mind games, meditation for specialty groups: anxiety, depression, obsession, traumas. Level 1 graduates are encouraged to enter one of three ongoing seva projects: one in a psychiatric hospital, another in a residential facility for autism and another for other various disabilities.

• Include 31-minute meditations in the course

• Each course select a meditation that will be practiced for 3min, 11 min, 31 min, 62 min and 2.5 hour

• Have the trainee watch and practice the meditations on a Masters Touch Video each session so they get to practice 11-31 minute meditations under the guidance and energy of Yogi Bhajan.

One of the goals of the re-examination of the Level 1 program was to have it more smoothly integrate into the entire 3 level program. With Isht being such a large component of level 3, we need to introduce the topic in Level 1. Some possible areas of the curriculum that a trainer could bring the concept of isht in are:

• The five stages of learning, specifically in Shakti Pad, as Yogi Bhajan talked about Isht being the cure for spiritual ego

• Spiritual teachers and gurus – What is your Isht? Is it external or internal? how to balance Guru Dev with a place to bow.

• Mind & Meditation – Specifically in the discussion about the cycle of intellect and the will. When does “will” come from ego or from soul? How do you tell? Can you use your Isht to help you make better decisions – coming from your soul and not your mind’s (ego’s) rationalizations?

Practicum Best Practices

Meditative Mind Best Practices

Isht Best Practices