Yoga Nidra For Abiding Inner Peace

Welcome and thank you for joining me for Yoga Nidra.

Please prepare by laying down on your back on the floor.

You can use a yoga mat to lay on if you like or perhaps a folded blanket.

Close your eyes and adjust your body until you're comfortable.

Take a moment to allow your body to settle.

Now make any final adjustments,

Bringing your body to a place where you feel totally comfortable and you're not going to need to move at all.

Now slowly become quiet,

As quiet as you can.

Take three long deep breaths and each time as you breathe out,

Feel yourself letting go.

Allow all your cares and your worries to fade away and just concentrate on Yoga Nidra.

Now become aware of distant sounds.

Allow your attention to move from sound to sound,

Listening only.

Don't try and analyze the sounds,

Just listen to them.

Now bring your attention closer and become aware of sounds inside the building and inside this room.

Develop an awareness of this room,

The walls,

The ceiling,

Your body lying on the floor.

See your body lying on the floor.

Become aware of the existence of your physical body.

Concentrate on the body as a whole.

Bring your total awareness to your body resting on your mat.

Continue with this awareness and feel yourself becoming relaxed.

Become aware that you're going to practice Yoga Nidra.

And perhaps say to yourself,

I am now going to practice Yoga Nidra.

Only two doors of perception remain open,

Feeling and hearing.

Yoga Nidra begins now.

As I name parts of the body,

Let your attention,

Your awareness,

Move from part to part.

Begin with the thumb on the right hand,

The second finger,

The third finger,

The fourth finger,

And the little finger.

Palm of the right hand,

Back of the hand,

The right wrist,

The lower arm,

Elbow,

Upper arm,

Shoulder,

Arm pit,

Side,

Waist.

Right hip,

Hamstring,

Right thigh,

Knee,

Calf,

Right ankle,

Heel,

Soul.

Top of the right foot,

Right big toe,

Second toe,

Third toe,

Fourth toe,

Little toe on the right foot,

Thumb on the left hand,

Second finger,

Third finger,

Fourth finger,

Little finger,

Palm of the left hand,

Back of the hand,

Wrist,

Lower arm,

Elbow,

Upper arm,

Shoulder,

Arm pit,

Side,

Waist,

Left hip,

Hip,

Hamstring,

Left thigh,

Knee cap,

Calf,

Ankle,

Heel,

Soul.

Top of the left foot,

Left big toe,

Second toe,

Third toe,

Fourth toe,

Little toe.

Top of the head,

Forehead,

Right eyebrow,

Left eyebrow,

The space between the eyebrows.

Right eyelid,

Left eyelid,

Right eye,

Left eye,

Right ear,

Left ear,

Right nostril,

Left nostril.

Right cheek,

Left cheek,

Upper lip,

Lower lip,

Chin,

Jaw,

Throat,

Right collarbone,

Left collarbone,

Right side of the chest,

Left side of the chest,

Middle of the chest,

Right navel,

Upper abdomen,

Lower abdomen,

Right thigh,

Left thigh,

Right knee,

Left knee,

Right ankle,

Left ankle,

Right foot,

Left foot,

Toes on the right foot,

Toes on the left foot,

The sole of the right foot,

The sole of the left foot,

Right heel,

Left heel,

Right ankle,

Left ankle,

Right calf,

Left calf,

Back of the right knee,

Back of the left knee,

Back of the right thigh,

Back of the left thigh,

Right buttock,

Left buttock,

Right hip,

Left hip,

The whole spine,

Right shoulder blade,

Left shoulder blade,

Back of the neck,

Back of the head,

Top of the head.

Bring your attention now to your brain.

Now the nasal passage between the nose and the throat,

The tongue,

The teeth,

The palate,

Right ear drum,

Left ear drum,

The throat,

Right lung,

Left lung,

Heart.

Bring your awareness to your heartbeat,

The stomach,

The liver above your navel and to the right,

The right kidney and the left kidney towards the back just above the waist,

The small intestine,

The large intestine.

Bring your awareness now to your whole right leg,

The whole left leg,

Both legs together,

The whole right arm,

The whole left arm,

Both arms together,

The head,

The back,

The whole front of the body,

All of the internal organs together.

Bring your awareness now to your whole body.

Visualize the whole body.

Now intensify your awareness of your whole body.

Now concentrate on the body lying on the floor.

Become aware of your body lying on the floor.

Begin to notice the points where the body meets the floor.

Notice the back of the head touching the floor,

The back of the shoulders touching the floor,

The back of the arms,

The back,

The buttocks,

The back of the thighs,

The calves,

The heels,

The whole body and the floor.

Now bring your awareness to your breath.

Become aware that you're breathing.

Just become aware of your breath in general.

Become conscious that you're breathing.

Let everything else go.

Continue your awareness of breathing.

And then gradually bring your attention to eyebrow center.

Imagine that eyebrow center has become porous and that you are able to breathe in and out through eyebrow center.

Feel the breath moving in and out from the forehead,

Flowing through eyebrow center.

Now imagine that your breath moves through the eyebrow center to a point in the center of the back of the head.

Maintain your awareness of the breath flowing in and out through eyebrow center and moving to a spot at the back of the head.

Now begin to count your breaths in and out through eyebrow center.

I am breathing in,

Five.

I am breathing out,

Five.

I am breathing in,

Four.

I am breathing out,

Four.

Continue counting backwards until you get to one.

And once you arrive at one in your counting,

Begin to count forwards to five.

Continue to breathe in and out through eyebrow center.

Continue counting the breaths.

Stop the counting,

But maintain awareness of breathing.

Stay aware of your breathing.

Stay aware that you are lying on the floor.

Nothing else besides those two things.

Now bring your awareness back to your body and awaken the feeling of cold.

Concentrate on your spinal cord and develop the feeling of coldness and shivering.

Concentrate on the breath in your left nostril and develop the feeling of cold in the whole body.

Every breath you take in makes the body cooler and cooler.

Concentrate on the left nostril and the left breath.

With every breath you take,

Experience the cold.

Now bring your awareness to the throat.

Concentrate on the throat.

This is the seat of the cold experience.

Now allow your whole body to be enveloped in the absolute feeling of cold.

Concentrate now on creating heat around the body.

Develop the feeling of heat in the body.

Concentrate on becoming enveloped as an atmosphere of heat throughout the whole body from the head to the toes permeating the whole body.

Concentrate on the breath in the right nostril.

And each time you inhale,

Increase the feeling of heat in the whole body from head to toe.

Develop the feeling of heat in the body by concentrating on the solar plexus just above the navel.

From the center you can produce heat and send it throughout your body.

Feel the breath in the right nostril.

Feel the heat throughout the whole body.

Now bring your awareness to the dark space in front of your forehead.

This space is called Chidikasha.

Imagine yourself seated in meditation with your legs crossed and your eyes closed.

Imagine that you're seated in meditation in a hall and there's someone seated in front of you.

They are an important person.

This is an important event in your life.

You are sitting in meditation and the other person is sitting in meditation as well.

Your eyebrow center and their eyebrow center are one.

Both of you are breathing in and out through eyebrow center.

When you breathe out,

You touch their eyebrow center.

And when they breathe out,

They touch your eyebrow center.

The two of you have established a link.

Keep your awareness at eyebrow center and begin to become aware of waves surging over a large ocean under a dark sky.

The waves are symbols of your unconscious.

See the dark sky,

The vast ocean,

And the waves.

Now intensify your concentration and imagine a well dug in the earth.

It's a very,

Very deep well.

With the help of a rope,

Climb down as far as you can,

Touching the bottom of the well.

And then when you're ready,

Climb out of the well.

Savor the experience of traveling into the well and then back out.

Return now to Chittikasha and begin to become aware of your thoughts.

Notice spontaneous thoughts.

Watch them arise and then dissipate.

Try not to become attached to any thoughts.

Just watch them come and watch them go.

And then await the next thought.

And then let it go.

Maintain your awareness of thoughts arising and then dissipating.

Return your awareness now to eyebrow center.

Concentrate on eyebrow center.

Discover there a nerve pulsating in a rhythmic way and with the rhythm of that pulsation,

Become aware of Aum.

Continue concentrating on eyebrow center.

And discover there a small circle,

A small circle which becomes bigger and bigger until it merges with the infinite.

Discover circles growing from eyebrow center and radiating outward until they eventually merge with the infinite.

Concentrate on the circles of Aum.

Maintain your awareness at eyebrow center.

The next time you breathe out,

See the circle of Aum getting larger.

And when you breathe in,

See the circle of Aum get smaller.

Continue following the expansion and contraction of the circle of Aum as you breathe in and breathe out.

Now release your awareness of eyebrow center and begin to imagine an ocean,

Calm and quiet and dark.

Imagine you are on the surface of the ocean and then slowly start sinking below the surface of the ocean.

Sink deeper and deeper.

Sink deeper still below the surface of the ocean into its depths.

Now see a deep and dark jungle.

Enter into the jungle and walk deeply into it.

Continue on.

Now go much deeper into the jungle.

See a lonely clearing with an aura of light around.

The light comes from a temple close by.

The temple is like a house lit from the inside at night.

But there is a great aura of light around the outside.

From far off you can see it.

Now you become aware that the temple is pulsating with the vibration of the sound Aum.

Inside the temple there is chanting of mantras and the ringing of bells,

The smell of incense.

Draw closer to the temple and feel the atmosphere of peace.

Notice the door of the temple is open.

Peer inside and see nothing there other than a monk in an orange robe.

See him sitting in a lotus position with his eyes closed.

Now walk over to the monk and sit in front of him.

Look at his face.

Find out who he could be.

Concentrate.

Now bring your awareness to your whole body.

Become aware again of your whole body.

Relax all effort and become aware of your body.

Bring your awareness to your breath.

Begin to notice the natural rhythm of your breath.

The quiet breath.

Deepen your awareness of your quiet breath.

Now become aware of your physical presence.

Become aware of the physical existence of your body and your state of physical relaxation.

At the same time your breath is growing stronger.

Take a long,

Slow,

Deep breath in and then just let it go.

Continue developing awareness of your body,

Deeply relaxed,

Lying on the floor.

Then begin to visualize the room.

Remember the walls and the ceiling and the floor.

And when you're ready,

Begin making small movements in your body.

You can bend your fingers.

Move your toes.

Move your arms and your legs.

Let your eyes remain closed.

Now take a few deep breaths and stretch yourself thoroughly three times.

You can bring your arms above your head if you like and stretch.

Please take your time.

There's no reason to hurry.

When you're sure that you're awake,

Sit up slowly and then open your eyes.

The practice of Yoga Nidra is now complete.