Karuna aka Caroline Ashley

"What advice would I have for people looking for their purpose? When you want to run from it, it's calling you. Answer the phone. It's like, I'm trying to get a hold of you. Come on, you've got to make an effort. Wake up, grow up, clean up, show up. To show up, to open up, to lift up."

"I never lived on a mountain alone, and I'm there now, thirty years. The elements of nature will come back and teach you how to be here if you embrace her and befriend her. Releasing your fear. When there's a big windstorm, you think the whole house is going to blow down, or there's a bear, or four feet of snow."

"Take that step to finding what makes your heart really beat. What is that? My body secretes it, right? It's talking to you all the time. Are you listening? Do a lot more movement. You won't be so lazy. You might find little pains here and there, but they're shifting you. Your back goes out, oh, I need more support."

"How are you digesting your food? Because if your gut brain isn't working with your head brain, and coming from your heart brain, we're missing something, we're out of balance. I became a vegetarian when I was sixteen because I didn't like my complexion, and I didn't like what I was looking like and feeling like. You can't go on eating that hardcore stuff to be a yogini. You can't digest it anymore."

"We have to go back and look at that seven-year-old, and we have to embrace our inner child because if we don't speak to her, in my case, she's going to be like kicking you in the shin, going, I don't feel safe here. It's a part of us."

"Patience pays. Let the hand of God. Patience. Hands down. No one has tolerance for patience. All we want is tolerance and patience because patience is timeless. Eventually, you'll break through, and if you're listening, you'll break through. Be patient because you're healing. If the arm's broken, you're healing. Give it a minute, a month, or three months. Do not medicate. It's too easy. Pain talks to you. It loves you."

"Going to New York, Paris first, and then New York was very scary. In India, when I went, when I changed my life after Paris, after Paris and New York, suddenly now years in India, every year going back for more. Torture, more walking on the matanga by yourself, not gossiping, just figuring, dipping in her and coming back out. It's very awakening."

"When we do things consistently with devotion, bhakti, we find a way through every block. To change your habit, do a forty-day meditation. It balances all your tatvas. We change the pattern with forty-day meditation, consistently, continuously. You don't have to do it at the same time. Just sit, scroll through your fingers, and allow. You can do this on your own and find balance."

"How I got to where I am with my yogic practice: survival, second chakra, negative mind. Where did all the hatred come from? Where did all this anger come from? I started looking at myself. Early on, since I was eight years old, I could see the sensitivity. I thought very quickly early on in my career that I have to change this. There's something I don't like about myself. I could see the mirror."

"You say, how do you change the world to make it a more peaceful place? Get everybody to do Breath of Fire. When you pump your naval, it starts to really get all the aggression out of you. I'm pumping that naval, so Prana is super aggressive but subtle. I do it this way, I do it correctly, but it suits me this way to do this breath. You learn how to be discerning with Kundalini Yoga, and it teaches you."

"The sadhana before the sun rises gives you the capability of hearing and listening, seeing how you're doing throughout your whole day. It stays with you. If you can do a sadhana, which is the Aquarian sadhana, which starts with Ji, the Song of the Soul, Gurunanak, and you just listen for twenty minutes, then you move the body through all the ten bodies. You walk with grace. You look great, from the inside out."

"When I was in my first career as a model, the most beautiful, stunning exteriors walked through the door, sat next to me. If there was any kind of envy, jealousy, I thought very quickly early on in my career that I have to change this. There's something I don't like about myself. I could see the mirror. Instead of medicate, meditate. Hands down, line up all those demons every morning before the sun rises, because that's when they come out. Self-love, self-care is work, but it's possible for everyone, no matter what the condition. This has helped me find my purpose. Believe me, I'd rather run out the door, see you, ciao. It's a lot of work, but it's such pleasurable work because it really turns itself around pretty quickly, instead of sabotage."

Light on Kundalini: Your Lifestyle Guide to Yoga and Awakening [Karuna, Johnson, Kurt] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Light on Kundalini: Your Lifestyle Guide to Yoga and Awakening

"Kundalini Yoga is the science of awareness. My book is called Light on Kundalini, and it's the yoga of awakening. It's a lifestyle, a life cycle book on my experiences of how, through the stages, Kundalini Yoga has helped me through this last decade of awakening. The other yogas prior, that I've done 30 years of them, got me to a stage where I could sit with Kundalini Yoga and long to develop a relationship with my brain and my third eye point and my neighbor. Three minutes changes your electromagnetic field. You become yourself. Hi, I'm present. I don't need 500 coffees. I'm good. It unleashes you, it sets you free, liberates you, and the appetite changes. Your awareness changes, your kindness comes in, and you don't want to harm. There's a lot of understanding and compassion that goes with this."