Returning to Zero

Two Weeks Inside the 100-Hour Kundalini Tantra Yoga Teacher Training

Arsana Foundation & Om Ham Retreat & Resort  ·  Ubud, Bali  ·  24 May – 5 June 2026

Under the guidance of Master Ketut Arsana

There is a moment, somewhere in the second week of a training like this, when you stop counting the days. The early mornings no longer feel early. The breath has found its own rhythm. And the question you arrived with — what am I really doing here? — has quietly dissolved into the practice itself. This is the story of how that happened, over thirteen days in the sacred heart of Bali.

We gathered at Om Ham Retreat & Resort for the 100-Hour Kundalini Tantra Yoga Teacher Training, presented by Arsana Foundation under the guidance of Master Ketut Arsana — a healing yoga of the heart and of love, designed to raise spiritual energy gently and steadily, ease the emotions that sit held in the body, and let what feels heavy soften into something lighter and more alive. The whole journey, it turned out, was a passage through the three bodies of the yogic teaching: the gross body, Sthula Sarira; the subtle body, Suksma Sarira; and the soul itself, Antah Karana Sarira, the Atman. The aim, as the teaching puts it so simply, is to return to zero. And zero is not emptiness — zero is God, the infinite, God inside your own heart.

The shape that held us

Before any of the teaching could land, we had to learn the rhythm — and the rhythm became its own quiet teacher. We rose before dawn. The first act of every day was cleansing: the coconut-oil pulling kriya taken in a deep squat as the sky lightened, the neti pot clearing the nasal passages, the tongue scraped clean. By the time we reached the Shala we were already different — lighter, emptier, open. Then came pranayama and Surya Namaskar, the salutation to the sun offered with the Gayatri Mantra, our bodies waking limb by limb as the actual sun rose over the gardens. Theory and practice filled the long middle of the day, always woven together, never one without the other. And every evening drew to a close the same way: in Dharana, the gathering of a scattered mind to a single point, led in stillness by the teachers and, when he chose to be present, by Master Arsana himself, whose teaching in those sessions came less through words than through a kind of transmission you could feel in the room.

The shape of each day — cleansing, sunrise practice, theory, asana, and evening stillness.

This shape repeated until it stopped feeling like a schedule and started feeling like a life.

Into the three bodies

We began, fittingly, with the map of the whole journey. After an opening ceremony and our first salutations to the sun, Master Ketut Arsana laid out Tri Sarira and Catur Marga Yoga — the three bodies and the four paths of devotion, action, discipline, and knowledge that all lead to the same place.

The teaching of the three bodies is tender, not severe. The gross body, Sthula Sarira, is formed from the five great elements — earth, water, fire, air, and ether — and because it is of the world, it is easily touched by the world: a hard day, a harsh word, a wave of fear or sadness can ripple through it. The subtle body, Suksma Sarira, is the seat of our thoughts and feelings, shaped by the three gunas, and when it is unsettled the mind clouds over. And beneath them both rests Antah Karana Sarira, the Atman — the soul, which is always pure and sacred, only sometimes hidden from view by what gathers in the outer two. Nothing here is broken; nothing needs to be fought. The work is simply to cultivate positive energy — through practice, through kind and honest qualities, through good company and mindful, sattvic nourishment, through grounding in the earth — so that the layers come back into harmony and the light of the Atman can shine through again. This is what it means to return to zero.

That first afternoon we moved gently into practice with emotional release, and something in the group softened almost at once — not forced open, but allowed to settle, the way a body relaxes when it finally feels safe.

From there we built the foundations. We studied Ashtanga and the theory of Kundalini, took apart the Surya Namaskar piece by piece, and learned the foundation of breath — how to lengthen it without forcing it, how the simple Ahhh on the exhale opens the throat and carries stagnant emotion out of the body. We turned to the body's own architecture, learning the spine and the pelvis, the delicate nerves of the sacrum, the trigger points where tension hides — the unglamorous, essential knowledge that keeps a practice safe and lets it go deep. And slowly, flow by flow, the Kundalini Tantra Yoga sequence began to assemble itself in our bodies.

Midway through the first week, the training moved to Ashram Munivara, and the mornings there had a different quality — walking meditation, practice in that older, quieter space. Master Ketut Arsana taught the chakras and the nadis: how the three channels, Ida and Pingala and Sushumna, carry the energies of moon and sun, and how, when they finally come into balance, they meet at the third eye like a triangle of ascending light. We learned, too, what feeds all of this from the outside — sattvic eating, the play of the three gunas, the discipline of fasting on high-energy days — because the body is a temple, and what you put into it either clouds the practice or clears it.

The turning point

The most powerful day arrived quietly. After morning practice we travelled to Mengening, the holy water temple, for melukat — purification beneath the springs, carried out with the whole team. There is a particular humility in standing under cold sacred water with people you have been practising beside for a week. Something washed off that morning that no asana could reach.

The afternoon that followed went deep into the breath: Nadi Shodhana to balance the channels, Kapalabhati and Bhastrika to build the inner fire — the pranayama that purifies the nadis and moves prana through the subtle body. And then, as if the calendar itself had been listening, the next day fell on the full moon: a day of rest, reflection, and quiet personal practice. The first week had asked a great deal of us. The full moon let it settle.

Becoming teachers

The second week turned outward. The flows we had been gathering came together into one continuous sequence, refined through body mechanics and the long arc from the warm-up through Mount Pose and beyond. Classic and modern philosophy gave the postures their meaning, so that we were never just moving shapes but understanding why. And then, gently, the ground shifted beneath us: we stopped being only students. Teaching methodology gave us the principles — to observe before correcting, to ask before touching, to lead with the breath, to end always in Savasana, to teach only what we genuinely know — and then came the teaching rotations, the first nervous, exhilarating minutes of holding a room ourselves.

It built toward the final day of practice: teaching, observation, assessment, and a closing sharing in which the whole group reflected on how far it had come. And then the celebration the work had earned — a closing ceremony with a Kirtan that lifted the entire hall, and a dinner graced by Balinese dance. A training rooted in Balinese soil, ending in Balinese joy.

On the last morning there was only own practice, meditation, and the slow, reluctant business of farewells. We had arrived as a collection of individuals. We left as a sangha — and as teachers.

What we carry out

Master Ketut Arsana teaches that yoga should be the first priority in life, the foundation everything else rests upon, because to live through the heart is to live in love, and from love comes a happiness you carry into everything you do. None of this was ever about athleticism, or impressive postures, or pushing the body past what it had earned. It was about inspiring movement, transforming energy, and meeting — gently and without judgement — the feelings we all carry: the fear, the sadness, the old tenderness that settles in the lower chakras. Cleanse the nadis, balance the gunas, and the Atman that was always there begins to shine through, no longer obscured.

That is what it means to return to zero. Not to empty out into nothing, but to come home to the God who was waiting in the heart all along. The certificate marks the end of the training. It does not mark the end of the path — that, for all of us, is only just beginning.

— ✴ —

Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti, Om.

Peace in body  ·  Peace in mind  ·  Peace in spirit

100-Hour Kundalini Tantra Yoga Teacher Training

Arsana Foundation & Om Ham Retreat & Resort  ·  Ubud, Bali

www.kundalinitantrayoga.org