Yoga Nidra For Cultivating Complete Relaxation

Hi,

My name is Gary.

Thank you so much for joining me today for Yoga Nidra.

Let's prepare for our Yoga Nidra practice by laying down on our back.

Either lay on a mat or you can lay on a blanket if you prefer.

Once you feel like your body is adjusted and resting comfortably on the mat,

Let your eyes close down.

Bring your awareness back to your breath and just feel the breath as it flows through your body.

Another couple of gently flowing breaths.

Now bring your attention to your head and just let your attention move through your head and your face,

Including the top of the head and eventually making its way to the forehead,

The eyebrows,

The eyes,

The cheekbones,

And the nostrils.

Leave your awareness on your nostrils for a moment and now become aware of the breath at the nostrils for about three breaths.

Notice what it feels like in the nostrils as you breathe in and notice what it feels like in the nostrils as you breathe out.

Just following the flow of the breath in and out through the nostrils.

Now bring your attention to your mouth.

You see how your mouth feels.

And then your jaw and your chin.

Now survey your neck,

Your throat,

Your shoulders,

Both arms,

Both elbows,

The wrists,

Hands,

Fingers,

And then the fingertips.

Now begin inhaling from the tips of the fingers all the way up to the shoulders.

When you exhale,

Exhale from the shoulders back to the fingertips.

Do that about three times.

Breathing in all the way from the fingertips to the shoulders and exhaling from the shoulders back and feel the breath come out the fingertips.

Do that twice more.

Breathing the full length of the arms.

Notice how relaxing it feels particularly on the exhale.

Now move your attention from your fingers back through the hands,

The wrists,

The lower arms,

The upper arms,

Shoulders,

Upper back,

And chest.

Now concentrate on heart center.

And then exhale and inhale several times.

Make sure they're full and complete inhales and exhales.

One more time.

Now become aware of the stomach,

The abdomen,

The lower back,

Hips,

Thighs,

Knees,

Calves,

Ankles,

Feet,

And the toes.

Now begin to exhale as if your whole body is exhaling and inhale as if your whole body is inhaling.

As you exhale,

Make an effort to let go of all tension,

Let go of all worries,

And let go of any anxiety that you feel.

And each time you inhale,

Inhale as if you were inhaling new energy as well as a sense of peace and relaxation.

Exhale and inhale in this way about three more breaths.

Exhaling,

Letting go.

Inhaling,

Drawing in new energy.

Twice more.

And one more time.

Now move your attention from the toes to the feet,

Ankles,

Calves,

Thighs,

Knees,

Hips.

Now the lower back,

Abdomen,

Stomach,

And chest.

Bring your awareness again to heart center and exhale and inhale completely a few times.

But keep your awareness at heart center as you exhale and inhale.

Now bring your attention to your upper back.

Let your attention move to your shoulders,

Your upper arms,

And the lower arms,

Wrists,

Hands,

Fingers,

And fingertips.

Now begin to feel as though you're inhaling from the tips of the fingers up to the shoulders and exhaling back down the arms to the fingertips.

Do that several times.

Inhaling from the tips of the fingers up to the shoulders and exhaling back from the shoulders down the arms and the fingertips.

Now one more time.

Now move your attention from your fingers to the hands,

Wrists,

Lower arms,

Upper arms,

Shoulders,

Neck,

The throat,

Chin,

Jaw,

Mouth,

And nostrils.

Keep your awareness on the nostrils and become aware of the breath flowing in and out of your nostrils.

Move your attention to the cheekbones,

Both eyes,

Eyebrows,

Forehead,

And then the top of the head.

Now for about a minute,

Allow your attention to be aware of the smooth,

Slow,

Serene flow of the breath.

Let your mind make a gentle,

Conscious effort to guide the breath so that it's smooth,

Calm,

Deep,

Without any noise or jerkiness.

Stay with the smooth,

Slow,

Serene flow of your breath.

Guide the breath very subtly so that it's smoother and calmer and deeper.

Now follow my words and systematically move your awareness through each of the different points of the body that I name.

We'll begin with the forehead,

The throat,

Right shoulder,

Right elbow,

Right wrist,

Tip of the right thumb,

Tip of the right index finger,

Tip of the right middle finger,

Tip of the right ring finger,

Tip of the right little finger,

The right wrist,

Right elbow,

Right shoulder,

Throat,

Left shoulder,

Left elbow,

Left wrist,

Tip of the left thumb,

Tip of the left index finger,

Tip of the left middle finger,

Tip of the left ring finger,

Tip of the left little finger,

Left wrist,

Left elbow,

Left shoulder,

Throat,

Space between the breasts,

Right breast,

Space between the breasts,

Left breast,

Space between the breasts,

Navel,

Lower abdomen,

Right hip,

Right knee,

Right ankle,

Tip of the right big toe,

Tip of the right second toe,

Tip of the right middle toe,

Tip of the right fourth toe,

Tip of the right little toe,

Right ankle,

Right knee,

Right hip,

Lower abdomen,

Left hip,

Left knee,

Left ankle,

Tip of the left big toe,

Tip of the left second toe,

Tip of the left middle toe,

Tip of the left fourth toe,

Tip of the left little toe,

Left ankle,

Left knee,

Left hip,

Lower abdomen,

Navel,

Heart center,

Throat,

Left knee,

Left hip,

Right knee,

Left hip,

Left hip,

Left hip,

Left hip,

Left knee,

Left hip,

Left hip,

Right hip,

Left thigh,

Right hip,

Left toe,

Left enter at the abdominals,

DiSubject,

Right Exhale and inhale,

Many times in this way.

Exhaling down and inhaling up.

Top of the head,

Down to the pubic bone.

Inhaling from the pubic bone,

All the way to the top of the head.

Continue breathing in that way.

Continue breathing in the same way and imagine that the breath is flowing in a thin milky white stream from top to bottom.

And the same from bottom to top.

Doesn't matter whether or not you literally see the stream with your inner eye,

But know that this stream of energy is actually there in the subtle body and will someday be experienced by you directly.

See the flow of the breath as a milky white stream flowing down and up.

Now release awareness from the spinal breath and bring your awareness to the space between the eyebrows.

Eyebrow center,

The third eye.

Remain in this space for several breaths.

And if you find your awareness wanders,

Just gently nudge it back.

Always returning the breath to eyebrow center.

Now bring your attention to your throat.

Keep the awareness on the throat and visualize a moon.

See the moon high in the sky.

A big,

Bright,

Beautiful,

Full moon.

Keeping awareness right at the throat.

And bring your attention to heart center and allow your awareness to empty completely of any images,

Impressions,

Thoughts,

Sensations,

Or other experiences.

Just go very deeply into stillness and silence with awareness at heart center.

Remain in this place of deep stillness and silence with your awareness at heart center.

Now release your awareness from heart center and begin to awaken a feeling of coldness.

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

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

Every breath you take makes the body colder and colder.

Concentrate on the left nostril and breath on the left side of the body.

With every breath you take into the body experience cold.

Now bring your awareness to your throat.

It is the seat of the cold experience.

Concentrate on your throat.

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

Now concentrate on creating heat surrounding your body.

Develop the manifestation of heat in the body.

Concentrate on becoming enveloped in an atmosphere of heat through your whole body from head to toe.

Feel the heat permeating the whole body.

Concentrate now 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.

Now bring your awareness to your solar plexus and from this center you can produce heat and distribute it throughout your body.

Concentrate on the right nostril and feel the heat you've created around the whole body.

Now begin to develop a sensation of pain.

Develop a recollection of pain to such a depth that your mind feels infused by the pain.

Remember the pain.

Feel it again.

You should awaken your will and feel pain real and imaginary in any part of the body or in all parts of the body.

The sensation of pain.

Concentrate your mind wherever you awaken the feeling of pain.

Assemble the energy particles of pain.

Invest the experience of pain.

Now recall the feeling of pleasure.

Maybe pleasure belonging to the sense of taste or belonging to hearing or seeing or maybe some other sensation.

Whatever the experience of pleasure is,

Whether it's a big experience or a little one,

Let it be concentrated and developed into a total ecstatic feeling.

A deep,

Deep feeling of pleasure.

Now deepen your awareness of pleasure.

Assemble the total energies of will and manifest the experience of pleasure even more deeply.

Become immersed in the experience of pleasure.

Now bring your awareness to eyebrow center.

Concentrate deeply on eyebrow center.

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

Become aware of the sound om.

Continue concentrating on eyebrow center and discover there now a small circle.

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

Discover circles growing from eyebrow center.

Growing larger and larger and larger.

Now with the breath,

See the expansion and contraction of the sound om in a circle.

Then eyebrow center with the rhythm of the breath,

Expansion and contraction of om in a circle.

Concentrate on om.

See it clearly.

Now intensify your imagination and concentration.

Imagine an ocean calm and quiet,

Dark.

Imagine you are on the surface and slowly start sinking.

Become unconscious and sink deeper and deeper.

Sink deeper and deeper and discover the secrets of the body in a world which is absolutely inside.

Examine your imagination and the power of conception.

See a deep and dark jungle.

Enter into the jungle.

Go deep into it,

Continuing on.

Now go much deeper into the jungle.

See a lonely clearing with an aura of light around.

The light comes from a small little building close by.

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

But there's a great aura of light around the outside.

From far off you see that.

You become aware now that the building is pulsating with the vibration of the sound om.

Inside the little building there's chanting of mantras and a ringing of bells.

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

There's a door of the building that's open.

You peer inside and there's nothing there.

Now step through the door into the building and see a man sitting on the floor,

Cross-legged.

He's meditating.

Sit in front of him and look at his face.

Find out who he could be.

Now systematically bring your attention back outward from the stillness and the silence.

Through the awareness of the quietness of the mind,

The awareness of the smoothness of the breath,

And the stillness of the physical body.

Bring the deep stillness and silence with you.

Simply begin to let the fingers move and then the toes.

You can rotate your wrists and your ankles.

Now draw your knees into your chest and then roll to your side.

Let your eyes remain closed down,

Just rest on your side for a moment.

Keep the eyes closed now as you come to a seat,

Moving slowly.

Stay in that gentle and still place.

And once you're seated,

You can bring your hands to heart center.

Take a moment to feel the palms pressing towards one another and just feel what that sensation is like.

And feel the pads of the fingers touching one another and notice that sensation.

I offer you loving kindness.

May you be happy and well,

And may you be safe.

May you be peaceful and may you always be at ease.

Namaste.

And this concludes our practice of Yoga Nidra for today.