Kundalini Yoga Glossary
Upanishads
The earliest yogic writings, sacred texts recorded as dialogues between yogis and kings.
Meaning
What Upanishads Means
The Upanishads are the earliest yogic writings, sacred Hindu texts recorded as dialogues between yogis and kings. There are 108 of them in total, written more than a thousand years ago.
The word Kundalini itself is believed to appear for the first time in one of these texts, around 500 BC. Kundalini comes from the root kundal, meaning coiled, and the Upanishads are the earliest known source for that language.
In Practice
How It’s Used
In the 200h Manual, the Upanishads are cited as a source for specific teachings rather than studied as a single continuous text. One example is the description of the Navel Point: the manual quotes the Upanishads describing it as shaped like a bird's egg, enclosing the starting point of 72,000 nadis, the body's subtle channels of energy.
Students encounter the Upanishads mainly through references like this one, as the historical root of terms and images that recur throughout the training, rather than as required reading on their own.
