“It’s not easy to comprehend that one’s ego is a particular constraint and that planet earth is the way to experience the infinite”. (Yogi Bhajan) “Kundalini, literally “the lock of hair of the beloved” in Sanskrit, is a yoga technique of self-therapy rooted in an ancient tradition originating in the Punjab, having the facility to influence our lives in a rather special way, inviting us to follow a path within ourselves which promises to conduct us, or perhaps better still, to take us back once more along the universal flow to which we have always been a part.
The Kriya (sequence of positions), breathing techniques, meditation and mantras (sound and thought patterns) are the distillation of thousand year-old practices that allow you to discover a new equilibrium through a more profound self-awareness. In the last half-century Kundalini Yoga, together with other forms of yoga, has become ever more widespread in the West, finding a considerable congruence with the scientific approach to the study and care of the human body. From a personal viewpoint I first became acquainted with Kundalini more than a decade ago. Sheer curiosity drew me towards a world hitherto completely alien to me, despite having had the opportunity - post-university - to visit and linger in some of the places where yoga was keenly followed.
Despite inevitable and profound transformation, that particular East Asian part of the world remains devoted to a spirituality which permeates throughout the dayto- day existence of its billions of inhabitants. It’s a substantial spirituality existing even within the chaotic life of the streets of New Delhi or Phnom Penh, and quite impossible to ignore.
The fact is that somewhere within me a residue of these trips away remained; not only in India but also along the Indochina peninsula, from the magical Myanmar (Burma), inhabited by some of the most gentle and hospitable people you could wish to meet, mysterious, desperately poor and sadly bereft of any civil, political or social rights.
Hence each and every time I returned to our Alpine region to re-open our familyrun hotel in Montespluga, something nagged away at me, asking to be heard in an increasingly urgent manner, fuelling a fresh desire to find a means of expression for that which was exercising my soul.
Maybe it was this, or indeed fate itself, which led me to meet up with Sangeet Kaur in 2003, who was to become my Kundalini Yoga instructor; a pupil herself once of Maestri Yogi Bhajan and Guru Dev Singh, and founder of the Cerdi Kala Yoga Centre in Milan.
Attending Sangeet’s weekly classes, there was no doubting my perception of the profound and positive change in the way I viewed the world, of how I interacted with people, and how I related to my very self. But we’re not talking about revolution of a Copernican nature, or indeed a mystical eureka moment. It was to be a slow and steady transformation, not without dialectic, and hence I believe a lasting one. It was enough to prompt me to head off along the demanding road towards teaching. What followed was a one-year teacher-training course to gain the KRI-Ikyta Certificate, based on the teachings of Yogi Bhajan.
Acquiring the diploma is by no means the end of the learning process, but I was encouraged to begin teaching and was rewarded by encountering the enthusiasm of people of all ages, types and professions. So I thought it might be interesting to try to somehow introduce this spiritual activity within the rather more matter-of-fact world of hotel management. The availability of interior spaces of the Vittoria, eminently suitable to create an appropriate ambience, was a further impetus, but more than anything I was inspired by the genuine harmony of Montespluga itself. I’m talking about a place in which I have spent a vast part of my very existence and which even today fosters powerful emotions within me. I feel an innate attachment, one that is quite often completely at odds with the problems involved in running a hotel!
Montespluga will always be a magical place, with a vital attraction all of its own¸ far distant from the extraordinary Eastern kaleidoscope but by no means less appointed with subtle powers of suggestion or a seductive spirituality. All too often it’s overlooked – when for example it becomes a mere mountainous backdrop to some sporting event or if reduced to a natural playground.
For me, proposing Kundalini Yoga within the context of a hotel sojourn provides a key, a sense of opening up some of one’s own private ‘interiors’, “breathing in” the locality, appreciating it through one’s “third eye”, the focus of intuition and inner light, source of our awareness and a sense of the infinite. Offering such an experience within the legendary Ca’ della Montagna, or indeed the generous pastures of Spluga, is a means of inviting guests to embark along the path towards dharma, releasing the latent energy in order to alleviate the stress and tensions of everyday life.”
There was a time when the bell sounded out from the old refuge. Wayward travellers would seek its shelter during blizzards in the depths of a wild Montespluga winter. Fast forward. In 2015, there will be an equally warm and hospitable welcome at Ca’ della Montagna – this time – thanks in part to Kundalini - to guests perhaps in search of enriching their journey through life itself.
text and photo di ENRICO MINOTTI
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Informazioni ex art. 1, comma 125, della legge 4 agosto 2017 n. 124
Relativamente agli aiuti di Stato e aiuti de Minimis, si rimanda a quanto contenuto nel
“Registro nazionale degli aiuti di Stato” di cui all’articolo 52 L. 234/2012 (www.rna.gov.it).
