So welcome,
Welcome to today's practice of Yoga Nidra.
Come to lie down on your back.
Be comfortable.
Be warm.
Let your feet fall open,
Your arms rest a little away from your body.
Your palms facing upward toward the sky.
Allow your eyes to close.
Take one long slow breath in through the nose.
And sigh it out through your mouth completely.
Let everything go.
And simply arrive.
Feel the weight of your body meeting the ground,
The earth beneath you.
You don't need to be anywhere else.
You don't need to do anything else.
This is the one place in the world you're meant to be right now.
Today's practice has been created to guide you into the deepest layers of yourself,
Into that luminous borderland between being awake and being asleep,
Where rest becomes restoration and transformation becomes not something you pursue,
But something you allow.
Where the seeds you plant in stillness become the life that you return to.
The great wisdom traditions of the world have all taught,
In different languages across different centuries,
One thing in common.
That the universe is a living,
Breathing,
Luminous intelligence and you are not separate from that intelligence.
You are made of the same substance as the stars,
The substance of consciousness itself.
So let this be the ground for your practice today.
Everything that arises,
Sensation,
Image,
Feeling or silence is mind meeting mind.
The great ocean recognizing itself in a single way.
Now set your body in stillness.
And resolve not to move again.
Until the practice is complete.
Begin to descend.
Resting here.
Allow the world outside to continue without you just for this time.
Sounds may still reach you.
Let them be exactly as they are.
You are not blocking them out.
Simply step back from them.
Let the feeling of air on your skin.
Recede to the edges of awareness.
It is still there.
You are simply no longer leaning toward it.
Let the weight of the body.
The pressure of the ground,
The small pull of gravity,
Soften into the background.
Let the light behind your closed eyelids.
Any shimmer,
Colour.
Echo of the outside world.
Simply be there.
Without.
You're watching it.
Notice what is here when the senses rest.
Something that doesn't need to see or hear or feel to know it exists.
Something still.
Something prior.
Something that was here first.
From here.
Everything in this practice.
Becomes.
Possible.
Continue to descend.
Bring your attention to the center of your chest.
To your heart space.
Every intention planted in the fertile soil of a relaxed open mind sends ripples outward through all the planes of existence.
Everything begins as an inner movement before it becomes an outer one.
In Yoga Nidra,
We call this Sankalpa.
A short,
Positive,
Present tense resolve.
A sea dropped into the deepest layers of the self.
Bring your Sancalpa to mind.
It may be something you wish to cultivate,
A quality you wish to embody.
Let it arise as a simple,
Clear statement,
Beginning with the words I am.
Whatever your sankalpa,
Hold it now in your heart and repeat it silently to yourself three times with full feeling.
As if you are planting a seed.
Into warm.
Dark Earth.
Now we move awareness through your body.
Your only task is to follow.
Don't search for sensation.
Simply name each part to yourself.
And move on.
Like a lamp.
Passing through a darkened room.
We begin at the right hand.
And the right hand thumb.
First finger.
Second finger.
Third finger.
And little finger.
The palm of your right hand.
The back of your hand.
Your right wrist.
Forearm.
Elbow.
At the arm.
Right shoulder.
Armpit.
The right side of the chest.
The right side of the waist.
Right hip.
Thigh.
Kneecap.
Back of the right knee.
Right car.
Right ankle.
Right heel.
The soul of the right foot.
Top of the foot.
You're right,
Big toe.
Second toe.
Third toe.
Fourth toe and little toe.
Now move your awareness to your left hand.
And to your left hand thumb.
First finger.
Second finger.
Third finger.
And your little finger.
The palm of the left hand.
The back of the hand.
Your left wrist.
Forearm.
Elbow.
Upper arm.
Your left shoulder.
Armpit.
The left side of your chest.
The left side of your waist.
Your hip.
Your thigh.
Your kneecap.
And the back of the left knee.
Car.
Ankle.
Soul of the left foot.
Top of the foot.
Your left big toe.
Second toe.
Third toe.
Fourth toe and little toe.
Moving to the back of your body.
Your right shoulder blade.
Show the play.
The whole of the upper back.
The middle back.
The lower back.
Right glute.
Left glue.
Now,
The crown of your head.
Your forehead.
Rite Temple.
Left temple.
Right eyebrow.
Left eyebrow.
In this space.
Between your eyebrows.
Ripe's Eye left eye.
Right ear.
Left ear.
Right cheek.
The nose.
The upper lip.
The lower lip.
Your mouth.
Your whole mouth.
Your jaw.
And your chin.
Thrill.
Right collarbone.
Left collarbone.
The center of your chest.
The entire right side of your body.
The entire left side of your body.
The entire front of your body.
The entire back.
Of your body.
Your whole body.
At once.
Your whole body.
Your whole body.
Feel how alive the body is.
Even in stillness.
Alive.
With your awareness.
Bring your attention now to your natural breath.
Let it be.
Natural.
Effortless.
And observe it.
Notice how it moves in.
An out.
In.
And out.
Like the tide of an ocean.
That has been breathing before you were born.
This rhythm was here before your first breath.
And it will continue.
After your last.
You have now joined in the breath.
A beautiful participant in a rhythm.
That belongs to the cosmos.
Rhythm is one of the great laws of existence.
Everything swings.
Everything oscillates.
The wise person.
Learns not to fight the rhythm.
But to rise above it.
To observe the tide without being swept away.
So watch the breath now from a slight distance.
Observe it.
Become the awareness noticing the breath.
Not the breath itself.
The inhale comes.
And then.
Without any effort on your part.
The exhale.
Begins.
There is a moment.
A still point.
At the top of the inhale.
Just before the turn.
Find it.
And there is another still point at the bottom of the exhale.
Just before the next breath rises.
Find that.
In those two still points.
You are at the pivot of the pendulum.
Neither here.
Nor there.
Neither in.
Or out.
Resting.
In the center of the rhythm.
I'm going to now offer you a series of opposite sensations.
For each one,
Allow yourself to actually feel it as vividly as possible.
Even if you have to imagine it in your mind's eye and in your body.
But then let it dissolve.
And move to feel the opposite.
Learning the range of the spectrum.
Feel your body become extraordinarily heavy.
As though you are made of stone.
Sinking.
Dense.
Immovable.
Heavy.
Heavy.
Now feel the body become weightless as though you might float upward from the ground light as smoke.
Light as breath.
Barely there.
Now feel warmth spreading through the body.
A golden heat.
Soft summer sunlight soaking onto your skin,
Deeply warm all the way through.
And now feel the body cool.
A winter stillness,
A fresh clarifying coolness that moves through you like a clean wind.
And what might it be like now to feel a sense of being small?
Enclosed,
Held tight,
Pulled inward.
And then to the opposite.
Expand.
Feel the awareness spread beyond the body's edges.
Beyond the walls.
Into the sky.
And rest here in this expansion,
Open,
Wide.
And boundless.
Allow the mind to become soft and receptive.
Like dark water beneath the starlit sky.
Images may come quickly,
One after another.
Follow each you hear just for a moment and then release it to make room for what comes next.
Trust what comes.
A golden key lying on a stone floor.
A mirror reflecting a mirror endlessly.
Roots pushing down through dark soil toward fire.
The ocean at the moment before a wave forms.
A spiral staircase,
Descending.
Into deep.
Blue light.
A single candle flame.
In an enormous,
Dark cathedral.
Two rivers meeting.
And becoming one.
A hand reaching upwards.
Through dark water.
Toward light.
A door standing alone in an open field.
The night sky reflected perfectly in still water.
Stars above.
And stars below.
Stars Above.
And stars below.
Stars above.
And stars.
And beneath it all.
Beneath the body.
Beneath the breath.
Beneath even the witnessing awareness.
Is the great ground.
Of oneness.
The infinite consciousness.
In which all of this arises and dissolves.
Like dream figures.
In a divine.
Dreaming mind.
You are not separate from that.
You have never.
Been separate.
From that.
Repeat silently to yourself.
I am that.
I am that.
I am.
Remain still.
Remain.
At the threshold.
I want to invite you to bring to mind.
Gently and without force.
One quality within yourself.
That you have been working to transform.
Not to judge it.
Not to fight it or evaluate it,
Simply to name it.
Perhaps it is fear or doubt.
Perhaps a heaviness.
A contraction or a story that you've been telling yourself about who you are,
Name it quietly in your mind.
The alchemist does not destroy the lead.
They transmute it into gold.
So now feel that quality fully,
Just for a moment.
Where does it live in the body?
What is its texture?
Its temperature.
It's weight.
Meet it.
And remember that this quality exists on a spectrum.
And on the other end of that spectrum is its higher counterpart.
Fear's counterpart being courage.
Doubts count apart.
Trust.
Contraction's counterpart,
Openness.
Feel the higher quality now.
Not as something foreign.
But as the same energy.
Refine.
You are not reaching for anything new.
You are remembering something old.
Let that higher vibration move through your body.
Like warm light.
Through your chest,
Down your arms,
Through your belly,
Down through your legs.
You are the alchemist.
This is the goal.
Now there is nothing to do.
Nothing to understand.
Nothing to become.
Allow all thoughts.
All concepts.
That is all.
Let even the practice itself.
Disappear.
And notice what remains when there is no thought.
What remains when there is no sense of I am.
This is the ground of all things.
The forever undeniable presence of your own.
Awareness.
As above,
So below.
As within.
So without.
As the Universe.
So the soul.
Gently now.
Without disturbing the depths of your rest.
Bring your Sankalpa back to mind.
The resolve you planted at the beginning of practice.
And repeat it again three times to yourself.
From the deepest place within.
Not from the thinking mind.
But from the knowing.
That lies beneath thought.
What has been received here need not be spoken.
It only needs.
Feel it.
Slowly,
Gently begin to bring your awareness back to the physical body.
Feel the weight of your body.
The contact with the ground beneath you.
Keeping your eyes closed.
Become aware of the room around you.
Any sounds?
The temperature of the air on your skin.
Taking a full,
Slow inhale.
And a long,
Slow exhale.
Gently begin to move your fingers and toes,
Small movements,
Waking the body slowly,
The way that morning arrives,
Not all at once,
But gradually.
Bring one hand to the centre of your chest and feel your own heartbeat,
This faithful rhythm.
When you are ready,
With no hurry,
Roll to one side and just rest there for a moment before you sit up.
Carrying the stillness with you as you return gently and wholly to your world.
May the peace which passes all understanding.
Keep your heart and mind.
In the knowledge and presence of love.
This practice of Yoga Nidra is now complete.
Thank you very much for taking your time to practice with me today.
I wish you a wonderful rest of your day or evening ahead.
Thank you.
