Kundalini yoga aims at awakening kundalini or atma shakti. This mighty power has to be managed in a proper way and it is essential to prepare body and mind in order to avoid troubles or damages.

Kundalini yoga and kriya yoga are higher practices of yoga and meditation. They aim at stimulating chakras and nadis, the psychic centres and passages, and then at awakening the kundalini shakti. This demanding and advanced form of yoga requires a preliminary training, knowledge and experience of the whole set of hatha yoga techniques.
Numerous practices are considered to be an integral part of kundalini yoga. One of them, the nada yoga techniques, are using sounds to awaken and harmonize the chakras. Kriya yoga as finalized by Swami Satyananda belongs also to kundalini yoga, it is a systematic work on chakras in order to activate them and to channel the energies in the psychic passages.

The first aim of kundalini yoga is preparation of body and mind for the awakening of the primal force and its arising in sushumna nadi, the central passage of the spiritual energy. Chakras and nadis must be balanced and activated, to bring about a positive awakening and to avoid blockages or psychological problems linked to the different levels of consciousness. Kundalini yoga aims also at knowing and using in a better way the psychic abilities of our personality. Ajna chakra has to be awakened at first. This psychic center is located in the middle of the brain and considered as the command centre. The ajna chakra awakening allows to face positively the transitory manifestations arising during the activation of the other chakras.
The stages of kundalini yoga are : the awakening of ajna chakra, a systematic and progressive work to stimulate and harmonize the whole set of chakras, the balancing of ida and pingala nadis, the opening of sushumna nadi and the awakening of kundalini.