Naming Ceremonies

Here is what we do at our Graduation Ceremony, for students completing their Level One Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training course.  It is a “Naming Ceremony”… in addition to being a graduation ceremony.

As I begin the ceremony I welcome our guests, who are the family and friends of the students, and thank them for sharing the Trainees with us during the eight-month program. I remind our guests of how strange it must have been to realize that their loved one had even asked for a name different from the one they were born with! Whew!  Adjusting to the new spiritual name is often quite as much a transformation for the family as it is for the Teacher Trainee!

I explain that all the women receive the name “Kaur” as part of their spiritual name, which means Princess who walks with power and grace, and all the men receive “Singh” as part of their spiritual name, which means Lion who walks with courage and grace. I explain that a spiritual name is a “pran sutra”...a name that knits their prana (life force) with their spiritual life...that they are born with a pran sutra...that everyone is born with one. I explain that their spiritual name describes the destiny their soul is to walk in this incarnation. Each time they hear their spiritual name, I remind the audience, it is a vibratory blessing that reminds their soul of the purpose for which they came to incarnate on earth at this time. It is also, however, their greatest challenge as well!

I call each Teacher Trainee, one-by-one, up to the teaching platform first by their legal/birth name, and then also by their new Spiritual Name. I explain to the audience what the individual’s spiritual name means. It is usually at this time that head nodding occurs from family and friends who know that the spiritual name of their favorite Teacher Trainee is right on target...that it speaks to the essence of the person they have known for many years.

The Teacher Trainee then shares one learning experience they received during our Teacher Training course. Drawing from deep within themselves, and often amidst much emotion, the newest Chicago-area Kundalini Yoga teachers recount their most profound learning experience from Teacher Training. Then they individually raise their left hand and take the Teacher’s Oath after which I present them with a certificate of completion. They walk off the teaching platform in the opposite direction to be greeted by the community of Kundalini Yoga Teachers as an equal.
We encourage our Teacher Trainees from the very first day of Teacher Training to send in for their spiritual names. We also ask that they share the name and its meaning as soon as they receive it, so that we may begin using it for them immediately. Some are awed by their spiritual name at first … they feel they have to “grow” into it. Others are very resistant to their spiritual name … they have to “grow” into it for other reasons. Eventually all agree that it is a unique way to leave their old baggage behind, to view themselves in a totally different perspective and to recognize their divinity and grace as a perfect creation of the Infinite.  This is made all the more concrete by including their spiritual name as a major part of our Graduation/Naming Ceremony. It is our hope that with this action their friends and family will begin to use the Teacher’s spiritual name as well, or at least not be as unfamiliar with it as they may have been at first.

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