Please note, this is an automated transcript so it is not 100% accurate.

Kamini:
All the worries, all the fears, all the stuff that is occupying our mind. And so even though this presence is limitless, timeless, eternal, through identification, we appear to assume the limitations. Your mind can take you many places in the world, but it can’t take you back to the consciousness from which it came our biggest karmic blocks. Are the beliefs that are keeping us from seeing that we are already whole? What is the single truth that if known, would solve everything?

Guy:
Kamini, welcome to the podcast or Kamini, I should say. I do apologize.

Kamini:
No worries. You got it.

Guy:
First question for you. I love kicking it off with this. This is that if you were at the intimate dinner party right now and you sat next to a complete stranger asked you what you did for a living, how would you respond?

Kamini:
Ah, well, I would say I help people find inner peace. Um, and uh, I’ll give a little bit of background on that because actually I grew up as a daughter. Of a yoga master and, uh, but decided kind of in my late teens, early twenties, that I wanted to be a diplomat. And it was actually studying international relations and interning at the UN in Switzerland that led me to become disillusioned, um, to kind of lose my way to get depressed. And that’s when I picked up the teachings that I learned from my father as a young person. Um, and that’s what I really realized. That true peace begins with inner peace. So that’s why I would say I help people, uh, find their inner peace. I’m a diplomat. I think of myself as a diplomat of inner peace.

Guy:
love it. And like I said, I stumbled across your work, I, I had to get you on instantly and, and your message and what you share. I gotta ask you this question as well. I just came in ’cause like I grew up in the valleys of Wales and, and I can assure you there wasn’t even a yoga studio. I had no idea of any spirituality concepts or anything. And my life looks very different these days. So I have to ask you, what was it like growing up with a yoga master? Like, was that from Day Dot? You’ve always been exposed to this world.

Kamini:
Pretty much, yeah. Um, so my father started a yoga, just a very small yoga society in Philadelphia, in the US uh, before I was born. And so by the time I was born, he was already. Running yoga classes and then eventually that became a yoga center when I was seven years old. So I grew up listening to chanting every night, uh, fell asleep on my mom’s lap, listening to my dad’s teachings. So, uh, it definitely got in there somewhere. Um. And you know, it’s, so, it’s interesting because you don’t really realize at the time how different your upbringing is because of course it’s yours. It’s only in retrospect that you go back and you go, huh, I guess not everybody has, you know, evening talks or is chanting every night or is experiencing Kundalini and you’re seeing people have these experiences.

Um, so yeah. Very different and I feel very gifted to have received it and gotten it. And at the same time, I feel like even though we may be exposed to it, it’s like we have to make it ours, our own wisdom through our own sometimes painful experiences.

Guy:
What do you think the, the essence is of all that work then? Is it really to, to come back to in a piece? ’cause when I, from an outsider looking in, obviously I’ve been exploring more and more, but when I first kind of look at the yogic world and all that philosophy. Being a Welsh man, it just feels so big and it feels, there’s so many concepts and, and we get lost in even the philosophy, oh, is this just for exercise or move the body, or, or actually there’s a, there’s a much deeper connection to source that’s at the essence of, of everything, you know.

Kamini:
There really is. Yeah. And I, I would definitely agree that over time that the deeper meaning, at least in some arenas has gotten lost. And what I like to say is it’s almost like we’ve got two main paths. Um, one is what I call the armchair yogis. Who know the scriptures inside and out, they can tell you the 23 different translations of the scriptures. Um, but the scriptures are really a roadmap. They’re a path or a guidepost to a certain destination. And then you have other people who are like, there’s a path. Oh, we don’t need a, we don’t need a guidebook. Let’s just go and see what happens along the way. And oh, by the way, what are we doing again? Um. So I, but what I find is that the real beauty is where these two come together, where we understand what is yoga all about?

Is it about inner peace? What is it about? And we can talk about that. Um, and then walking the path using practices like yoga, yoga nidra, something else that I teach, um, to actually practice it, which then informs our understanding of the philosophy of yoga.

Guy:
And for you to really embody that, did you find that you had to go through, ’cause you mentioned depression, you mentioned going into studying and getting a diploma and, you know, and going down the western route. Like, almost have to feel what that feels like to then really appreciate the, the teachings.

Kamini:
I think so. I mean, I don’t know, maybe there are other people who just, you know, they get it and it’s a one and done kind of situation. But for me it definitely, I needed to move away. I needed to discover, kind of lose it. And then rediscover it on my own to make it my own. Otherwise, for me it’s just information, but it’s not something we’ve embodied it. And I do think that there’s a level of humans suffering and pain that is needed sometimes to knock us on the head and, and wake us up if we take it that way.

Guy:
Yeah, it’s certainly, I know on my journey I certainly had a feeling to, um, it helps me feel into gratitude. Like I can be fully grateful for things or feel at peace because I know what the other side has truly felt like as well, was giving me this contrast. To, to lean into and, and start to actually deeply appreciate where I don’t think I would’ve got there it on reflection.

Kamini:
Absolutely. And I think it’s also, it’s okay, which one do I wanna live in? Which is the world that I wanna live in? The one that feels like I’ve got too many thoughts in my head and getting drawn into the whirlpool of doom and depression. Um, or the one where we start to realize that we actually play a role in, we’re the creator of our own life. Um, and kind of the choice is ours and which one do we want?

Guy:
well, how do we start to get to that? To actually start to take ownership back, to really start to take our power and realize that we are the creator, we are the center point. We are the, the epicenter of creation. Because if our world is external and we’ve, and you know, it’s very easy to get sucked into the world is just going to put at the moment, you know. Uh, you know, not that I buy into that, but, but if, if I don’t develop and nurture it in a practice and realize that everything I have is within me, it’s, it’s challenging. Like where do we start? How do you look at it? Even the relationship with our consciousness, our energy, who we are, we going.

Kamini:
Yeah. Well, it’s interesting because. What I imagine is that the yogis were a lot like us. They suffered just like us. I mean they same SHIT, different day. Um, but the drama was there. The, you know, the craziness of the world was there, and they were really looking for, they were trying to answer the question, what is the single truth that if known, would solve everything? That’s what they were looking for, which is a pretty amazing question because I write, because typically we’re trying to, you know, well, I’m gonna solve this problem with money. I’m gonna solve this problem by getting more fit. I’m gonna solve the, and so and so we try to solve them individually, and they were looking at what is the cause of my human suffering and what is the one thing that if I knew it would help me out of my suffering.

And so it really speaks to what you were just saying, which is consciousness. And so if we imagine that really what the yogis were saying is that we are like the sky, we are the sky of awareness through which these clouds of human experience have been moving. Uh, even the craziness of the world are like clouds moving by or. You know that you are the one watching these things. You are there. The essence of you, the presence that you are is there before these things are there. They’re there while the clouds are there and that that presence will be there when they’re gone. But the problem is that we become so identified with the clouds moving through that we have forgotten that we are this.

Omnipresent, omnipotent, omni sea at sky, the presence itself, and we have become identified with the worry, the fear, the insecurity, the drama that’s moving through. And so even though this presence is it, uh, limitless, timeless, eternal, through identification, we appear to assume the limitations. Of whatever happens to be passing through awareness. And so the answer of yoga and all of the practices of yoga really is remember the presence that you are and you will be spontaneously, effortlessly and automatically free of all clouds moving through. That’s the the core practice.

Guy:
it. That is a brilliant question, by the way. I, I never gimme goosebumps when you said it. I was like, of course. Right. So with that in mind, what you’re saying and, and I can only kind of reflect back on my journey. Is, is that, but half the time we need evidence. We need, we need evidence that we are more than this physical vessel and that there’s far more to this vastness of, of consciousness in the universe than, than meets the eye. But if we haven’t experienced it or haven’t felt it before, it can be very challenging to get beyond. The storm clouds to rise above to know that like the, the, there almost has to be a whole lot of faith or surrender into that to, to allow, to begin to embody that, as you say. And it’s not some recited practice that we just know from, from the mind.

Kamini:
Absolutely. And well, two things. One is that it isn’t, it doesn’t work to just tell ourselves, right? I’m the presence, you know, I’m the cloud, I’m the guy, the clouds what? Moving through, it’s. It has to be experientially known. So number one and number two is that brings to the second thing that you were talking about, which is energy. And really energy is a visible, more tangible form of this consciousness that we’re talking about, this presence that we’re talking about. And we can feel this presence in our body as energy. We feel it as sensation. And I know, you know what I’m talking about that. Right.

Guy:
Oh yeah. Yeah.

Kamini:
Um. Yeah, it can feel, it’s different for different people, but it can feel like a heaviness, like a blanket of silence, descending over you. You, you can lose all sense of time, um, where things, you, you lose your sense of time because you’re out of your mind. You’re in a, an altered state. Um, you can feel streaming and tingling, moving through your body, like surges of electricity moving through. These are all signs that. The consciousness made visible as energy in your body is, is, is moving through. So it helps us because it gives us something more tangible to hold onto rather than just kind of going on faith that something’s there.

Guy:
this, it starts to open up. I mean, like, I, like I spoke to you before. I felt that Kundalini rise and that, that energy that was, I did not actually know what it, I didn’t, I hadn’t heard that word before when it was happening, and it Mm-hmm. something from. I dunno. It is as if my soul was calling me forward because I was leaning into meditation, I was leaning into different practices and this was just a byproduct of, of like you say, getting beyond the, the, the density of human form or the, the clouds passing by or whatever you like to call it.

And once I started to move, but it can also be unnerving, the, the energy as well, because if we haven’t experienced it before, it’s like it. you said, the, the shit, you know, same shit, different day, day kind of thing. It brings up a whole lot of it as well. And I, I’d love to explore your, your philosophies and thoughts around what that is, what it’s actually bringing up. How is that clearing it? How does that actually affect our daily lives if we’re not even aware of it? ’cause we tend to identify with our emotions, our feelings as ourselves our past traumas. yet be liberated and actually change the way we perceive ourselves in reality very quickly.

Kamini:
Totally. Um, well first I would say like you were just given the example of how you got goosebumps, you know, when you heard it so. Whether we realize it or not, or tell ourselves we can feel energy or not, we do. Because we feel like you said you felt it in your body. There was something that was saying yes that’s on That is the energy of consciousness telling you Yes, that’s on. Um, and notice how. So if you think of energy in the body, that’s consciousness made visible. But currently for most people it’s operating at the biological level. So it is there, it’s the energy of consciousness, but it’s digesting our food, it’s healing our body, it’s beating our heart, it’s blinking our eyes, it’s running all our brain processes with an enormous intelligence we still can’t comprehend.

Um. And the reason it’s just at a biological level is because the mind that we’re identified with is kind of keeping it trapped, it’s keeping it hostage. So all of those thoughts that I’m identified with are kind of draining my, either keeping me at a status quo or even draining my life energy down and out. So think of all the worries, all the fears, all the stuff that is occupying our mind. What is that? What are all those thoughts running on? They’re running on our life energy and so if we’re, we’re very much stuck in our mind and emotions and drama, we’re losing that energy. So we don’t even have enough prana or energy to run the physical body, much less go back to source.

You know, we get sick, we get exhausted, we get tired. So in these practices, as we either release identification with a mind, or we make the mind, we use techniques to quiet the mind. What begins to happen is that the mind begins to take a backseat to this energy. So instead of the mind sort of dominating our energy, our mind is able to sort of lift off. Uh, writing roughshod over this energy and now this energy, and this is what happened for you, is that this energy is able to move from a biological force to a spiritual evolutionary force. And when it does that, it’s not just gonna heal like the physical pro. It will, it will heal the body at an accelerated level, number one, but it’s also going to carry out.

Any kind of catharsis, healing, clearing, physical, mental, emotional, it is literally gonna push it all out. And if you believe in reincarnation, it’s not just from this lifetime, it’s from lifetimes that is gonna get purged from the system and not always comfortable. A little bit scary if you don’t know what’s happening, but if you can find your way through and hopefully find, you know, the right guidance, this can literally clear you of lifetimes of of stuff.

Guy:
I, I, I just, if I had, what do you call the cheerleader things, I’d be shaking them right now. You know, it’s, um, I would, it is. It’s so true that it’s interesting because this, I’ve been actually working on my kidneys at the moment in actually going back in and working through different exercises and I only woke up the other day, felt like I’ve been punched in the back and, and I had zero energy. I was, and I’ve got two young children and I was like, to my wife, oh my God, I am. I am out. This is, but because of the work and been doing it long enough, I, I was able to hold enough space and I said, well, what do you need? I said, I need to lay down. So I did the chores with the kids and I actually laid down into Shavasana and I just felt it move and the body take over and it liberated. And I was like, isn’t our bodies absolutely And the old self would’ve put so much meaning, worry, what is this? What is that? What’s going on? And we identify with it in such a different way to what actually is happening.

Kamini:
Exactly, and that’s, it’s such a beautiful explanation because when most people have these kinds of experiences, they get scared. And, and they, they start to overanalyze it. They try to stop it, they try to do something with it. And the more we try to stop it, it starts, it wants to clear us out. And just giving the body the space and the time and the room to do what it knows, it knows what to do. We just have to get out of the way and let it do it. Um, and it is, it, it knows exactly where to go. Even if we don’t like kidneys, uh, what it needs to do. And all we really need to do is just kind of get out of the way. Um, and the example I often give is imagine that we have, you know, you have this energy that’s.

If, but if you only have a limited amount of energy, the energy in your body is only gonna go to the most important tasks. Like, just like when you’re in your house and you only have 10 minutes, you’re only gonna clean what you have to clean to make it look good. But you’re not gonna do the deep cleaning ’cause you don’t have the time or energy. But now, once this energy is freed. It can do the deep house cleaning. You know, it’s gonna get into the corners of the shower. It’s gonna clean out all the gunk. But that’s not a bad thing. That’s a good thing because you want that stuff clearing out of you because you feel lighter, freer, you know, uh, you know, more clear in your mind, your emotions. Everything becomes more balanced. Your body becomes radiant. Your skin becomes light.

Guy:
So I love that analogy, by the way. I’ll have to steal that one in the future. That’s brilliant. Um, the house cleaning. Yeah. No, it’s so true, isn’t it? And you feel then, from your experience, and I wanna just highlight this point, is when. Because we live in a world of distraction, it’s so easy to ring someone to just vent and judge and talk about others. It’s so easy to just turn on the tv. It’s so easy to drink alcohol. It’s so easy to take medication or painkillers when ultimately body’s actually just trying to communicate with us and we’re just suppressing it. And then the

Kamini:
Yeah.

Guy:
are, are manifesting downstream because we are, we are really so disconnected from ourselves.

Kamini:
Exactly. Yeah. And then the volume and then the body, when we just keep pushing it down, we’re like, shut up, shut up, shut up. And at some point it’s like, well, I’m just gonna increase my volume until you listen to me. And then, you know. Sometimes it has to show up as a major illness or headaches or whatever it is, so that the body can finally say, okay, pay attention to me. ’cause we could only get away with that so long.

Guy:
No, totally. What we liberate this energy then and as we work to free in that, up to coming back to that sense of inner peace, which you, we spoke about at the beginning, I, I, I always find this curious as well, so this is probably just more a question, but what is our potential then once we start to understand these principles of where can we take this our lives?

Kamini:
Yeah, so what starts to happen is that we. We start to live from presence as well as our individual self. And how that shows up, and I’m taking this from the scriptures, I’m not making this up. They talk about how when we, the mind becomes clear and quiet and balanced, it’s like if you imagine that the source is like the sun. And it’s trying to shine through all these clouds, but it’s so clouded. But when the clouds of the mind become quiet, then the sun can shine through. And so the, it’s not that your mind is completely gone, but through your individual consciousness, shine shines this. The light of this presence and the way that it’s said to show up in us is as an inner knowing, we feel guided.

Uh, we feel connected. So it’s like this energy, once it’s completed its journey. It is, it has taken us back to the presence from which it came. So energy and consciousness have now met, um, when we’re living in this place where we’re, we’re connected to source and from this place we, it’s like this energy within us. Is the voice of the presence. It can be an inner voice. It can be an inner impulse. It shows up differently, like a physical sensation that’s literally guiding us. Go here. Don’t go there, say this. No withdraw from that. We’re guided from within by this presence. So we don’t have to only rely on the mind as our only data point.

It’s a good data point, but not the only one. Um, it’s like your inner knowing, your intuition becomes more alive. You feel more and more love and compassion for people, even the people that you don’t, wouldn’t have liked before or even reacted to. It’s you start to see through the the facade of who they are, and it’s almost like you can see through to the child or to the soul of that person. So even though they’re manifesting in a particular way. You can see deeper than that, and even though you might not like their behavior, and even if their behavior may not be acceptable, you have compassion for where it’s coming from.

Guy:
Hmm.

Kamini:
Um, and then the last, so truth, and then the last is, um, a sense of bliss. You feel this inner sense of happiness arising from within you, but there’s no reason. You just feel it’s like a place that you wanna stay and you never wanna leave.

Guy:
Can that be our default state?

Kamini:
Absolutely. Yeah.

Guy:
Yeah.

Kamini:
I can. And so when somebody is called enlightened, what we call enlightened, they are connected. Even though their personality is still there, they are connected to that presence simultaneously. So it’s not that the per the personality is gone, they just know that they’re more than the personality.

Guy:
And ultimately no. It’s interesting ’cause even on my own journey, I feel. A separation between the personality and the self more and more. And I actually go vacant sometimes thinking like, I just present? Like my, my, oh, I need to think. It’s bizarre.

Kamini:
Yeah.

Guy:
is bizarre. Um, so what you’re saying is then if we, if we willing to go back to our house, start of cleaning more of the rooms and allow the, the intelligence of the body to do that with the right guidance, we can really start to nurture. Those aspects and cultivate the very things that you just spoke of. That’s it’s boiling down to.

Kamini:
That’s, that’s really it. Well said. And, and what’s beautiful is that energy naturally knows its way back to this presence that we’re talking about, this consciousness, because how are you gonna get there? Your mind can’t take you there. You know, your mind can take you to many places in the world, but it can’t take you back. To the consciousness from which it came, what it, what preceded it. It can’t take you there. So we have to find another way to those spaces. It could be through meditation, you know, where we’re observing the thoughts or through energy. Where energy merges with consciousness. It takes us home.

Guy:
I, on a side note, ’cause I haven’t even got into yoga nidra yet, which I, I wanted to as well, um, how much are you living your life from that place of. in your intuition and knowing if it’s a hell yes or a no, just kind of, I don’t know. I’m just kind of, because even spoke to you of you’re in Iceland right now, and I’m like, oh my God, that’s amazing. Um, to the person that, you know, was studying, doing the degree, which is a very mind driven, um, form to now, like how do you live your life?

Kamini:
Yeah, I feel like it’s a combination. I, of the two, I wouldn’t say I do it perfectly by any means all the time, but certainly, uh. A good part of the time. And what’s interesting is that, um, in yogic teachings, they talk about how when you connect to the presence, you’re not just connected to your inner knowing, but your mind, the power, the processing power of your mind. It’s like it reaches to a higher level where even your thinking, your intellect is clear. Sharper, it’s more focused. There’s a certain, um, certainty, clarity, you know what to do and how to do it. Even from the rational side, the mind becomes incredibly strong because it is literally being fueled directly by the energy of the source.

So it’s like you have intellect that’s really strong on the one side, and you have intuition on the other side, both being powered, uh, by this consciousness. Um, and what, that’s what I find. I find that my intellect is stronger. My, my memory has gotten stronger. Um, even as I’m getting older, my memory’s getting better. Um. I feel like the clarity of my mind is improved on the intellect side. And then on the intuition side, I go with my gut. Uh, it, it’s literally telling me, and I, and I’ve learned through repetition to listen to it because every time I don’t, I’m like, oh, I should have listened. Right.

Guy:
Yeah. How many of those have we all had? can agree to that one. So what is, like, are you teaching Jura in Iceland this week? Is that what you’re doing there? Or

Kamini:
I am. Yes. Yes. So actually my husband is Icelandic. Um, I met him, yeah, I met him one of the times that I was coming here to, to teach. Uh, but I am here. I’ve just finished a yoga therapy program and now I’m gonna be going into a yoga nidra program.

Guy:
just on a side note before again, what’s Iceland like? ’cause I’ve always been drawn to it and I’ve, every time I look at it, I’m, I, I’m year to go there. It’s must have had a past life there or something, I don’t know. But I’ve never been.

Kamini:
Absolutely. I mean, I don’t know if this is true, but I’ve heard from mediums who say that Iceland, they’re very high souls who are here. Um. It certainly feels, what I can say is that it’s, um, there is a higher level of self-understanding in general, even among the general population. So it’s calm, it’s um, it almost has like a more, I would say a more feminine, softer energy. Um, beautiful nature. And the way that people here treat nature is as if we are the guest of nature, because in fact, we are.

Guy:
are right.

Kamini:
Yeah, and there’s a lot of, you know, everybody here, most of the people here believe in unseen, you know, spirits, um, elves, troll, you know, all these different things of unseen beings.

Guy:
Wow. Wow, wow. I’ll definitely go in there. Okay, so yoga nidra. Can you, I know nothing about it at all, so I, I’d love to know a little bit more what are the basic principles of it and what you teach.

Kamini:
Okay, so basic principles, uh, it’s meditation, but you’re lying down. So that takes out a lot of the, you know, knees and back and those kinds of issues. And it’s guided. So we guide you through a series of body breath and awareness techniques, and the purpose is to take you down into similar brainwaves, into the same brainwaves as in sleep. But over time you learn to maintain a very gentle level of awareness. So rather than kind of merging into the state of oneness, which we do every night when we fall asleep, we actually merge into the presence. But biologically so. So we emerged physiologically refreshed, but we’re no closer to enlightenment.

But in yoga nidra, you’re going into those same spaces where you’re quieting the mind enough. That the only thing that’s left to experience is the consciousness itself, your source itself, so you’re able to rest. And as the sky itself, it’s kind of like bathing in the presence of who you really are. And each time that you come out, you’re a little bit more connected to the presence and a little bit more gap between you and those clouds moving through.

Guy:
Fascinating. Fascinating. So how many days are you doing that fall when? When you’re doing it like, um, through that

Kamini:
Yeah. So I’m gonna be doing a yoga Nira immersion. It’s three and a half days, uh, yoga Nira immersion. And then, uh, in a couple weeks I’ll come back and those who wanna continue on can actually get certified through me. Um, so it’s a total of eight days, um, certification or three and a half for, for just a personal immersion.

Guy:
Interesting. And is there a framework to that then? Like what are the, the, the, the, the kind of how we get introduced to it and how we start to go deeper into ourselves to explore what’s there.

Kamini:
Absolutely. Well, the first day I’ll say we start with what is the single truth that, if known would solve everything and uh, and really showing how as we, uh, go into yoga nidra, we’re actually. Working backwards through energetic layers of our being. So the physical body being the grossest, visible aspect of ourselves, but subtler than that, kind of like the aura. Um, we kind of work backwards with these techniques from the physical body to the energy, to the mental, to the wisdom, to the bliss body, which is closest to the source that we are. Um, and as we go into these very, very subtle states of being. Where, uh, the mind gets quiet, your energy gets strong, it starts to move from that biological to evolutionary force.

Um, and this is also an opportunity. So according to yoga, many of our core patterns or our karma are held at the very subtlest level of being at. The closest that we can be to our source nature, it’s like the finest veil between us and the source that we are. And in that finest veil, the bliss body is where our karma, our unfinished impressions from previous lifetimes are there. And, uh, yoga nidra. You could, it’s not, it’s deeper than lucid dreaming, but just to give you a sense of what we’re talking about, we can actually be more deliberate if we want to. If there’s a particular issue or something that’s not working for us, we can actually help shift that karma, uh, from these subtle states of being as well.

Guy:
Wow. That sounds incredible. Are you coming to Australia anytime soon? I, I’d love to come and hang out.

Kamini:
I’m coming in 2027, so it’ll be a little while, but definitely would love to have you come.

Guy:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can, I can definitely help support you there. Um, so. Wow. Where to go with that karma. have you, would you describe karma and what have you even just witnessed through holding space for so many other people? ’cause it can feel such a esoteric off the cuff word that gets thrown around and used, but there’s a practicality to it of what you are actually doing.

Kamini:
Absolutely. So I would say in Western terms that karma is really, or you could, some people call it subconscious, I use unconscious. So there are unconscious impressions or imprints beliefs. That we have picked up not only in this lifetime, but in other lifetimes, and these beliefs are like the core programming that then shapes our subconscious mind. So if I picked up a core unconscious programming. Of whenever my mom was sad, I saw her eat, for example. That becomes an impression in my mind that then gives rise to my own habits and behaviors. So let’s say whenever I’m upset, I eat, for example. So the unconscious, these imprints are sort of the core programming that then creates the kinds of patterns and behaviors, attitudes, ways of behaving in the world that.

Are or are not serving us. And so that’s really what karma is. And at its biggest, I would say the biggest karmic blocks are the things that are keeping us from seeing that we are already whole. I know I’m going big,

Guy:
please go big.

Kamini:
that’s okay.

Guy:
repeat that please?

Kamini:
Yes. So our biggest karmic blocks. Are the beliefs that are keeping us from seeing that we are already whole. So it’s like through these lifetimes we have picked up these sort of illusions of incompletion that are keeping us. It’s like all these clouds that are clouding us from seeing, oh my God, I’m already it. I’m already the wholeness that I have been seeking. And so really the process of clearing our karma is process of clearing the illusions to see truth through to the truth that you are already. You’re already the presence.

Guy:
Is it possible for people to clear, clear all this in one lifetime or is this a a just a process? We are where we are on our path, and as we get drawn into it, we, we, we clear all what’s ready to be cleared, if that makes sense. If.

Kamini:
Yes, it does. I believe it can happen either way. Um, there are people who just. Little by little lifetime, by lifetime we clear one and we clear another and so on and so forth. Or sometimes it’s like suddenly we see, we see through the story of the incomplete self and once we see through to the story, to the truth of the wholeness that we are, once you see the truth, you’ve had that glimpse, everything that is not, that begins to burn away. Right. You know, it’s like the way I imagine it is like a light bulb behind a film and the light bulb is a source. And this film, this film is my unconscious programming. I wasn’t good enough. My mom didn’t love me, my dad did this, all this stuff. And the moment that the film quiets down enough and you have a moment, a split second, where you see through to the light bulb, you see the source, you see the truth, and you know, oh my God, I’m the light bulb, not the film. That’s the truth.

Guy:
Yeah, because when I, when I had the light bulb moment. There’s no going back. It’s like, oh shit, I can’t unknow that now. Uh, and it’s almost like, oh, I gotta go. I just go with the flow almost. Because it was like, um, this river that starts opening up and if you, the river’s getting stronger and if you keep trying to swim upstream against it, you know, you’re in trouble. It was like, okay, I’ve, I’ve gotta let go of who I think I am and see where this goes. Which is ter

Kamini:
Yeah.

Guy:
but exciting at the

Kamini:
Yeah.

Guy:
Like it was everything all in in one, know.

Kamini:
That’s beautiful. You know, it reminds me of the, in one of the yoga sutras, it says, once you’ve seen through to the self, it creates an impression that begins to wipe out all other impressions, right? Like you’ve, it, it literally, and then it takes you, like you can’t unsee that. And no matter how long you leave it, you can’t unknow it. It’s like riding a bike. You had that, you know, somebody has a glimpse once 20 years ago when they were a kid. They can’t unknow that. They will forever know that.

Guy:
Yeah. Why? Why do we carry that in with us? Why is this this, this karmic loop, if you like that? Is that for us to evolve as souls or consciousness? Like how do you see that operating from? ’cause I know people would say, well, why can’t I just come in seeing the light bulb, you know?

Kamini:
Yeah, absolutely. That would be nice. Um, so. What’s said is that think of creation like an ocean and, sorry, think of source like an ocean or a presence like an ocean. And from that, all of creation is like waves arising out of this one ocean. So there is nothing that isn’t source, nothing that isn’t the ocean. They’re all just different manifestations of that same one source. So. What’s said is the source, because the source is everything. There’s no way for it to experience its own nature except to embody, to Trav, to forget its own nature, to travel away from itself, only to rediscover itself again. This is really what the yogis tell us is why, why we were put here is it was supposed to be, we were supposed to forget our own nature to travel away so that we can experience who we really are anew. And in that way, it’s like the presence gets to discover or experience its own nature over and over and over again.

Guy:
Hmm. So we truly have to create a separation to experience that. And they say the greater the separation, the greater the suffering. Right. And

Kamini:
Yeah.

Guy:
And then there’s like a mag. It is almost like a magnetism though, isn’t it? There’s a point where it’s, it’s just an innateness to, to, to be called home. That’s what I, I feel like.

Kamini:
And sometimes people feel the call to be called home, but they don’t know what it is. And sometimes, you know. It can show up as addiction because we didn’t. We’re seeking wholeness. We’re yearning for that oneness, but we don’t know where to find it. Um, and I’ve often found that some of the people who are the most spiritual that you will ever meet are, are people who have be, who ended up becoming addicted because they were seeking that oneness, but were never taught or knew where to find it. So, but of course with the spiritual work, it’s the ultimate wholeness. It’s not a temporary wholeness or a temporary solution. It’s the ultimate.

Guy:
Yeah, I never thought of it like that. So ultimately when we, when we break this down, then it be fair to say that. Whether the, the experiences when we come back to the body and the energy and consciousness and the biology as you spoke of, and yet when, when we’ve got a, the thoughts and the mind that is so active, it’s draining our energy and we’ve got a hierarchy of needs within the So only the things that have the highest attention to keep us alive are getting the energy required, which is allowing everything else to be well dying. Essentially. There’s no life force energy in it. And then so through our experiences of this lifetime, through Kar experiences of other lifetimes, through, uh, traumas, busy minds, distractions, all of this essentially is denying us from our wholeness. And it’s not

Kamini:
Mm-hmm.

Guy:
still to go through different processes. And it doesn’t matter how, because the body’s intelligent enough to know exactly what to do. We just need to set up an environment for the body to do it. if we don’t believe we can do it, ’cause we’ve been taught that our whole lives that we’re not good enough or whatever that might be.

Kamini:
Mm-hmm. Exactly, and it could be anything. It could be, I love that, where you were just, you captured it perfectly, by the way, and it, it could be any space that we give ourselves where the mind becomes quiet. It could be, you know, just a few minutes a day where you just go to your room and lie down and not fall asleep, not be on the phone, not call your friend, you know? But just if I were to be quiet. What would happen if I were to be sit for five minutes? If I were to watch the sunset? What would happen? And you might feel, I’m sure everybody’s felt this, where you’re sitting on the beach or you’re wa watching a sunset and you feel this sense of incredible happiness come over you.

That’s a connection to the presence or this subtle tingling in your body. You can, you can literally feel it, but we can’t feel it if we don’t give ourselves the time. If we’re so distracted with all this stuff, we can’t, even though it’s there, we can’t sense it.

Guy:
Yeah. wonder, I often wonder, and I’ve mentioned it on a podcast before, I’m sure, but what the world would look like if we were actually taught these principles from day dot. You know, with no real agenda, no, or, and imposing the human condition of different belief systems and religions or whatever, but actually just get to the essence of the core of what this is actually all about. ’cause all different paths lead to the same mountaintop, right?

Kamini:
Absolutely they do. And you know. Yes. And it’s how much time do we even spend just figuring out, well, what am I doing here? Like, what’s my purpose? Even though it might not change the circumstances of our life, just knowing what we’re supposed to be doing here would be helpful. Right. And, and how to work with it. Um, so there’s a, yeah. there’s a beautiful first line of the Yoga sutras, um, which has many interpretations, but it’s yoga happens now or now the practice of yoga begins, and how I like to interpret this for myself is. Now that we figured out happiness isn’t out there, it’s not in more money, a better job.

Now that I realize that even now that I’ve hit myself against the wall enough now that the pain is so great, now that I’m in a state of despair, now I’m ready to look for the answer where it really is. And now. Yoga can begin. Now when I’m ready to look for my real purpose and where the answers where they really are to this pain, we all feel inside. Now yoga starts.

Guy:
Yeah. Beautiful. When you, when you, um, look out at the world what’s happening right now, there’s obviously, there’s a lot of noise going on. There’s a lot of. Different events happening and things. I mean, in the conscious space, even just following different podcasts, there’s a lot of talk about humanity is, is waking up and and so forth. What do you see? What do you witness? What, what do you feel is, is is going on? Do you think we be we are becoming more consciously aware as a, as a, as a race.

Kamini:
I do. Um, it doesn’t always, clearly, it doesn’t always feel that way. Yeah. But you know, it is, it does seem like if we just take it back to the personal level for a moment. At least for me and most people that I have worked with, actually everybody I’ve ever worked with my entire lifetime, most people change when they’re in pain. That’s just it. When it hurts enough, we’re willing to change. If everything’s going well, nobody’s gonna look at themselves. Nobody’s gonna change. Nobody wants to ’cause everything’s going fine. So if we multiply that by humanity. It means we’re gonna have to suffer in order to wake up, because that’s what it takes to get us out of our old way of doing things.

Our old patterns never questioning. Then when we’re, it’s like when we’re sick and tired of being sick and tired, then we’re ready to wake up and say, okay, now I’m ready to look for those answers. Where they really are.

Guy:
Yeah, it certainly feels that way, that’s for sure. You know, Mm-hmm. from sitting this side as well. But, um, a couple of questions before we wrap up the podcast is, what is your kind of routine look like? Or do you have a morning routine? Is, is there things that you just kind of, know, chip away at it each day to ensure that you’re. Don’t stray too far from the middle.

Kamini:
Yes, yes, absolutely. So in the morning I usually do a combination of some body stuff. And I don’t do like, this might shock people, but I don’t do like a heavy ash tanga yoga practice. I don’t do anything like super physical. I just spend time with my body. Um, I move, I do, you know, I exercise, but I also, after my exercise, I just spend time breathing, moving my body, listening to my body and feeling how it wants to move. Um, and not just doing a stretch because I’m told I should do it, but, um, but actually kind of going in and letting my body guide me. So that, because it’s helping me connect with that inner energy and just sort of saying to it, you know, you’re welcome to wake up and tell me what to do sort of thing. We, I call it meditation in motion.

So you’re moving, but you’re so focused. I’m, so I try to be focused on the sensations and the feelings in my body and let them draw me in to a state of meditation. Um, and then. It. So that’s my morning practice and then usually in the afternoon, right around two o’clock, around, you know, when I want coffee or something like that, I do my yoga nidra, uh, which is excellent for balancing my blood sugar. It clears, my mind helps, it helps clear and rebalance emotions. So whatever’s happened through the day, it just kind of helps me reset and take on the rest of my afternoon and evening.

Guy:
how long do those sessions normally go for? Like, or can they go for when you, when you guide people, when you lay down.

Kamini:
Yeah. So yeah, the A nidra, because you wanna take them down, you wanna go all the way down through all the brainwaves, so beta, alpha, theta, delta sometimes, and then all the way back up. So for most people it takes a minimum of 20 minutes. Um. But most yoga nras last like 35 minutes, something like that. However, they can go as long as 45 minutes. And sometimes I’ve seen even, you know, an hour or longer. Some people like to just, like I said, they just wanna be in that space. You just wanna be there forever. Um, so I would say minimum 20 minutes, usually maximum 45 minutes.

Guy:
it. Got it. I’ll definitely explore more now that I’ve had this conversation with you. That’s for sure. Um, and just to wrap it up with everything we covered today, is there anything you want to leave the listeners to ponder on?

Kamini:
Well, I think I’ll, I’ll leave it where we started, like by saying, you know, we are the creators of our experience of life, and part of it is what we choose to put our attention on. You know, we can put our attention on all the crappy things going on, or we can put our attention on friendship, connection, love, and whatever. We put our attention on gross. We’re not denying the other, but where attention goes, energy flows, and often we put our attention on the things we don’t want. And just whenever we remember, the best way to create our experience of life is, okay, let me, what do, what experience do I wanna create? Let me focus on that.

Guy:
Yeah. Beautiful. thank you so much for being on the show today. I’ve really enjoyed chatting to you, connecting with you, and getting to know you a little and um, yeah, enjoy Iceland. be amazing.

Kamini:
Thank you. Come visit me sometime.

Guy:
definitely. Thank you so much.