Kundalini and Clothing Colors

Meditationtime Forum Post

Date:  Posted 5 years before May 31, 2017

MiBeloved 5 years ago

A question was asked about wearing white when doing kundalini yoga. This question comes up because Yogi Bhajan always wore white.

There are different systems and traditions of Kundalini Yoga practice. In India people who wear white are usually married, while those who wear saffron are single.

Since kundalini concerns what is internal, it has little to do with the color of external appearance. I feel it has to do with the internal coloring which is not always related.

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There is a certain nonsense in the West where people cast opinions whimsically all based on their Western conditioning, while pretending that they have no bias. It is not possible for anyone to be completely bias-free. In fact the whole idea that you are liberal and bias-free is itself another type of bias. It is more honest to just state your bias and then let us agree to work together where our opinions reinforce one another, and to remain at a distance when we are in conflict. That is the honest thing to do.

Now as to wearing certain colors, for those who never lived in an ashram in India or one in the West where Indian culture was enforced. Ashram life is a segregated life. For instance males are not allowed to mix casually with females. Also certain colors means certain things and this is enforced.

For instance if you go to a Hare Krishna temple you may not know that the man wearing a saffron dhoti is either a person who has taken a vow of lifelong celibacy or a person who is not married and whom if he marries must change from saffron to white.

All those in the society who wear white are married or were married.

Some who wear saffron have a particular style of dhoti which only they are permitted to wear. These are senior people who are sannyasi who have taken a vow never to have sexual intercourse.

So the colors have that meaning. And it is enforced. It is not like in American where we wear what we like, when we like and no one can tell us anything about it.

Yogi Bhajan was from the Sikh community. There you must wear a turban if you are a male. There is no choice in the matter. It is not a free society. Since he is a married man he has to wear white. It is as simple as that. It has to do with your sexual or non-sexual status. In India if you are not married and if you took a vow of celibacy, then you are a Swami and you are considered to be in the highest most honorable position in society. In the West we have no use for such things. In fact in our way of seeing it, the more sex you have the better it is, and in some places the more honor you are given.

Anyone who feels that wearing white has to do with raising kundalini have come up with that idea without considering the clothing and color restrictions of clothing in India. In fact a yogi who goes off to be isolated to complete austerities is not even supposed to ever be concerned with the color of his clothing. For that matter the whole idea of celibate monks wearing saffron came about because such persons were prohibited from bleaching and taking care of their clothing and as a result of washing their clothing in muddy or vegetation-stained water of a river, their clothing got the saffron mud color of the Ganges or some other river. Later it became a formal code that a celibate monk had to wear clothes which were dyed in saffron.

Yogi Bhajan was a Sikh. He is also a Kundalini Master for sure. But the mix of those two aspects may be sorted in the sense that you can be a Kundalini Master and not be a Sikh. His code for clothing is more something from the Sikh tradition than it is from the Kundalini practice regiment.

I hope this information clears up the issue somewhat.