APRIL 8, 2013

Yoga Nidra-The Blissful Relaxation

Posted by Dorothy under Community Interests, Interesting Reads, Philosophy, Wellness1 comment

Tree camping in Elk California

Most people sleep without resolving their tensions,
This is termed nidra.
Nidra means sleep, no matter what or why,
But yoga nidra means sleep after throwing off the burdens,
It is of a blissful, higher quality altogether.

When awareness is separate and distinct from the vrittis,
When waking, dream and deep sleep pass like clouds,
Yet awareness of atma remains
This is the experience of total relaxation.

Relaxation does not mean sleep.
Relaxation means to be blissfully happy,
It has no end.
I call bliss absolute relaxation;
Sleep is a different matter.
Sleep gives only mind and sense relaxation.
Bliss relaxes the atma, the inner self;
That is why, in tantra,
Yoga nidra is the doorway to samadhi.

Swami Satyananda Saraswati

(After finishing his studies with his guru, Swami Sivananda Saraswati, he left the ashram to live as a wandering mendicant and later founded the International Yoga Fellowship in 1956 and the Bihar School of Yoga in 1963. He has authored over 80 books. In 1988, he renounced his mission, adopting kshetra sannyasa and now lives as a paramahamsa sannyasin)

Meaning of sanskrit words

vrittis – thought waves
atma – one’s true self
tantra -”Tantra is that Asian body of beliefs and practices which, working from the principle that the universe we experience is nothing other than the concrete manifestation of the divine energy of the godhead that creates and maintains that universe, seeks to ritually appropriate and channel that energy, within the human microcosm, in creative and emancipatory ways” David Gordon White of The University of California
samadhi - The highest stage in meditation, in which a person experiences oneness with the universe. Intense concentration or absorption of consciousness, in which distinction between subject and object is eliminated.

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