Beloved community: author, filmmaker and kundalini yoga educator Mervi Enqvist
Mervi Enqvist (formerly known by the name Inderjit Kaur Khalsa) is a Helsinki based yoga educator, film maker, author and dear friend of ours. She has written and created popular kundalini yoga books and courses — Chakrapolku (Tammi, 2014) among others. Mervi owns and runs the kundalini yoga school kundaliinijooga helsinki, a beautiful space in the heart of Eira, in which the back room served as Kuldip’s healing practice before the Healing Arts Center opened at its current location a few blocks away on Jääkärinkatu.
We talked to Mervi about her creative work, kundalini yoga as a tool for healing, self care, and the mission of her multidisciplined work: Peace, Equality & Justice.
Photography: Elina Simonen
How are you, and who are you?
I’m great, thank you! My name is Mervi Enqvist also known with my Sikh name Inderjit Kaur Khalsa. I’m a kundalini yoga teacher, educator, intuitive counsellor, entrepreneur, author and filmmaker.
As a creator of texts, education, courses, films and much more; how does your different creative work intersect; what is the core of what you do?
I have three words, ideologies that are found in all that I do. I look at them from different perspective if I’m counselling a person to understand their kundalini energy, or if I’m making a historical documentary film. The words are PEACE, EQUALITY, JUSTICE.
Peace includes knowing that we are all one. To come to this realization is sometimes a very long journey, but so needed. Equality for me means that men, women, trees, lakes, animals, insects and everything else has equal value as living beings, and we should honor and treat each other with respect. We humans are the guardians of the planet Earth. We are here to respect all life as nature intended. Most of us have forgotten our real job here. I understand justice as a righteous way of living and being. There is no right or wrong in life. But we should always choose our actions keeping these three ideologies in mind: Peace, Equality, Justice.
What inspires you and your creative process, where do you go (internally and externally) to source ideas and inspiration?
I usually get this urge to do something, and it won’t let me rest before it’s done. Many times, during my meditation or daily walk in the park I get an idea for my blog, book or film. It just appears like from nowhere. Even if I’m saying to myself that today I don’t have time to write my blog, or work for my film, eventually I find myself at computer and writing it down. I think we’re all surrounded by millions of ideas, and you just happen to tap into one. It starts to live with you, and eventually you end up being a vessel for that idea to appear. Sometimes many people around the world get the exact same idea at the same time, but how they deliver it, is always personal. They seem to be alike but different, as every living creature on this planet.
Your work as a yoga teacher centers kundalini energy and the energy centers, our chakras; how did and does kundalini yoga shift the way you see and are in the world? In which way does awareness about the energy centers work as a healing tool?
Kundalini energy is not something that suddenly appears. We live with that energy even before we are born. It is a creative power within. Its one purpose is to clear karma, I call it shadow work, and it happens while we work our 2nd-5th chakras. When this work is done, we can open to our true identity, which is LOVE, ACCEPTANCE, CREATIVITY, FORGIVENESS, WISDOM.
My work as a kundalini yoga teacher is to guide people to understand what kundalini energy is by gently introducing it into their physical body, by their own experience. You can talk about kundalini until the end of time, but only by experiencing it you can know what it is about. Many people have misunderstood kundalini, and they call it scary and dangerous. There is nothing dangerous in kundalini energy. Only when you don’t know it, when you don’t understand how it works, or why it works, you might end up thinking it’s scary.
Photography: Pauliina Salonen
As a teacher and holder of space, how do you practice self-care?
Every morning I do my kundalini yoga practice. I’ve also began studying Tibetan healing system called Prananadi, the first level of it is all about self-healing. I do that whenever I need a little boost for my energy. Almost every day I go for a walk to the park about 30-45 minutes. Most of my ideas I get during my walks, or as I’m cleaning the house. I think it’s so important to take care of your physical body as well as your mental body especially when teaching, counselling or other ways being around people.
What are you dreaming about for the future; individually and collectively?
My collective dream is that kundalini yoga would be mandatory at kindergartens, schools, and workplaces globally. We’re already at the center of transformation as humanity. It would be so much easier for everybody if our entire body-mind-spirit system was prepared for the changes that are happening. Individually I wish to continue educating people globally about kundalini energy and how to gradually introduce it to our energy system. I also wish to continue my career as an author.
