Application of the locks after inhaling and holding breath is the standard advice.

However kundalini may rise even if the locks are not applied as in the case when doing kapalabhati or bhastrika pranayama (breath infusion).

What to look for?

An electrical charge in the breath energy or down in the body. Kundalini rises on the basis of an electrical charge buildup. For example, normally an adult human being experiences flare ups of kundalini caused by sexual attraction/stimulation. Then due to the charge increases, there is an energy explosion which is interpreted as sexual pleasure from a feelings perspective. This is the same process used to rise kundalini deliberately, where it buildup and then fires into an explosion of energy.

Anuloma/viloma pranayama is not recommended in inSelf Yoga™ but I have no objection to the use of it, except that it might take many years of practice for a person to make that cause kundalini rises on a daily basis. Previously yogis used anuloma/viloma and it worked but nowadays in my view it does not work unless the student dedicates about two hours of rigid practice daily for at least a few years.

I was introduced to it by Arthur Beverford in the Philippines and then later in Ventura, California, he showed me how to do it in detail. This was based on the technique of Rishi Singh Gherwal (Beverford’s guru). I did it but my view is that it takes too long to increase the charge of energy sufficiently. But the main problem with anuloma/viloma is that one has to track the energy up and down the spine or some yogis use the track up and down the lung from bottom to top, top to bottom. But what I found is that the attention-focus on this misses and as soon as it misses one is supposed to start over again because the miss interrupts the charge increase. So I decided that currently because of our mental fluctuations it is not a practical method.

Later after I learned kapalabhati/bhastrika from Yogi Harbhajan Sing Sahib, I would do that first and then do anuloma/viloma and I was getting the result intended in that way. Thus I concluded that formerly those yogis had a different kind of body, where they began the practice at the stage I reached only after doing bhastrika. And I concluded that anuloma/viloma was not practical today by itself.

Anyone who says he can raise kundalini doing anuloma/viloma is either untruthful or he has a different kind of body which is similar to that used by some ancient yogis. My advice is to learn kapalabhati/bhastrika as soon as you can.

If you tell us where you are located, we can check to see if we know anyone who lives within reach. But also you can check some videos on it in the Video section at this site. First click Videos in the Menu bar, then click Video home and you should see Kundalini Yoga Videos.

Also check YouTube for Ramdeva’s videos on bhastrika. That is simpler. And also maybe other members of this site might have videos which they can share with you. But let us know where you are located. Perhaps someone we know might be in your area.