Ancient Yogic Fertility Practices

In her grandness she is stunning, generous, and full. The riches of heaven are under her feet as well as over her head. Lush and luxurious, aesthetic, cognitive, and spiritual, she resides upon the throne. With the essence of greatest completeness, all is within her. Embarking on the journey to conceive and carry a child begins with fertility. If you are one of the 6.1 million women in the US struggling with conception, you are not alone. Yet, yogically, a woman is fertile by nature. It is her natural propensity to nurture life, in the form of ideas, businesses, creativity, and babies. So if you have experienced repeated unsuccessful attempts at pregnancy, or you are apprehensive about your start in the process, let us begin with a big breath. 

Perhaps one of the crucial myths in need of breaking is that fertility has something to do with age. It doesn’t. From pop-culture examples of later-in-life pregnancy (Janet Jackson: age 49) to the biblical record (Sarah: age 90), the range of conception is much longer than is commonly broadcast.

This is a primer on yogic reproductive endocrinology. When we talk about fertility and yogic reproductive endocrinology, we’re talking about hormonal amplitudes and relational balances. Estradiol and estrogen, luteinizing hormone and progesterone, oxytocin and testosterone -- there is a proportional fullness to these bio-chemicals required to create a rich environment in which a seed can sprout. Our hormonal balance is what allows the alchemical process of conception and fertilization to occur and this balance can go off for a number of reasons including genetic-medical, genetic-psychological, emotional, environmental, food based and petroleum product pollutants.The technologies from Kundalini yoga for reproductive endocrinology are vast and sophisticated, geared to make the conception experience not only healthy and seamless, but cosmic and majestic. A full offering of these teachings would take more than is possible in one article. Nor can I cover within this piece all of the ways western and functional medicine fit in with the yogic teachings (yes, IVF, synthetic and bio-identical hormone treatments are yogic!) Instead, the following techniques and lifestyle practices are offered as four powerful ways to support the richness of your feminine system, increase your ovulation, thicken your womb lining, and entrain your psyche into a knowledgeable and majestic self-experience -- all culminating in the optimal conditions for deep pregnancy. You can conceive, easily. You can hold the royal posture of the Empress. 

Womb Architecture --

There is a yogic teaching, “If the womb is not opened, conception doesn't take place.” And it goes vice versa: if the womb is open, conception can take place. At any age. To prepare the receptivity of the womb space, balance hormones, tone the uterus, adjust the ovaries, and even brighten the skin, try this Sat Kriya practice for 3-31 minutes a day until you become pregnant.Sat Kriya: Sit on the heels. Bring the arms overhead, steeple the index fingers and interlace the rest. (Women cross the left thumb over right; men do the opposite.) Rhythmically chant “Sat Nam,” pulling in on the navel as you powerfully chant “Sat” and releasing it as you chant “Nam.” Continue for 3-31 minutes. Inhale, hold the breath, pull root lock, and imagine energy radiating from the navel and circulating through the body. Exhale and relax.*Note: Sat Kriya can be practiced back to back with a partner to increase sexual compatibility and remove blocks. It can also be practiced in a tub with warm water up to the naval point to thaw sexual frozenness. 

Eat Smart --

When you are ready to conceive, a minimum 40-day to 3-month preparation window is ideal. During this time, increase your intake of Vitamin E (200 IU creates a sticky egg and uterine lining), chlorophyll, and raw oils (almond, sesame, coconut, olive, peanut). These food supplements make the internal tissues supple, rich, and nutrient dense. Enjoying abundant fruits will help build passion and deep fertility. Mango melon, durian, and kiwi are considered the sex fruits.During this time it is also advised to take on 40-days of the “Green Diet.” Eating only naturally green foods for 40-days, this diet is a mega-dose of folic acid, transforming the uterus into a deeply nourishing environment and clearing your cells of personal infantile trauma. I love this Bright Aura Sex Hormone Masala recipe, which increases circulation of sex hormones and amplifies your overall peak fertility:Ingredients: Beets. Sweet Potato. Water Chestnut. Ghee. Onion. Ginger. Garlic. Black Pepper. Turmeric.Directions: Prepare a masala from the onion, ginger, garlic, black pepper, turmeric, and ghee. Then make a dish with the masala using beets, sweet potato, and water chestnut. Consume nightly for incredible skin and sparkling eyes.

Musical Ovaries and Ovarian Drumming --

The health and quality of a woman’s eggs (and therefore, the quality of resulting embryos) are highly influenced by the level of blood flow surrounding the ovaries. Internal and subtle, the ovaries are one of the most ignored parts of a woman’s anatomy, yet you can easily increase fertility and re-time ovulation with a bit of simple attention to this area.Before getting out of bed each morning, take your hands and lightly pat your ovaries. To find the location of your ovaries, start by putting your fingers on the protruding bones of your hips and walk your fingers two or three inches toward the centerline of your body to find a soft, sensitive area. Play the ovaries musically, as if you were playing a drum, for about 3-5 minutes. Master of Kundalini yoga, Yogi Bhajan said, “You don’t need to take vitamin D, vitamin E, vitamin Z, vitamin B, vitamin O... your vitamins are right here [in drumming the ovaries]. Your aging is not on food... your aging comes from your ovaries.”

Cosmic Cold Showers --

When you really need a mega-hormonal reset, nothing does it better than a daily cold shower. Cold shower hydrotherapy is a major yogic fertility secret. An all-time power practice for glandular health and endocrine re-balancing, cold showers detox the inner organs, increase immunity, boost neuro-chemical bliss and relaxation, increase the neuron velocity, tune the aura, and leave you with incredible luminosity. When you awaken your whole system in this way, you become more sensory to the macro-cycles of the universe. With this level of subtlety and awareness, intelligent action and royal behavior becomes intrinsic to your being -- which is the bearing of the Embodied Empress archetype you are evolving into.For this level of cosmic majesty in motherhood, follow this step by step tutorial:1 | Dry brush the body in upward strokes towards the heart. Massage the body with a small amount of almond oil.2 | Turn your shower on completely cold and step in. Massage the body, starting with the feet and hands, moving up the extremities to the torso.  3 | Allow the cold water to hit the chest and then gently massage the breasts, first in a circle to the outside, then in a circle to the inside. Allow the water to hit the armpits, massaging there as well. This will increase circulation and clean toxins out of the lymph. 4 | Massage the body until you are warm (or have had enough!), turn the water off, and step out of the shower, toweling the body briskly until you are completely dry. Prepare for a vitalized day!  *Note: When taking a cold shower, it is recommended to keep a direct stream of water away from the tops of the thighs. This area, which holds bone marrow, is very sensitive to temperature. Harmanjot is a founding teacher at the RA MA Institute for Applied Yogic Science and Technology in Venice Beach. Her fertility and prenatal training program, Infinity Ma, is hosted in person at the institute and online at RAMA-TV.com. Harmanjot is the mother of the lovely and celestial one-year-old Dass Piara Kaur. Visit harmanjot.com and follow her on Instagram at @harmanjotkaur for the latest updates on fertility programming.