Cosmic Yoga Nidra: Becoming A Being Of The Whole Universe

Preparing for Yoga Nidra,

Lying in the pose known as Shavasana,

Adjusting your position,

Your clothes,

Your coverings,

So that you can become completely comfortable,

Allowing your eyes to close,

And if they're closed already,

You can imagine closing them again.

In a moment we'll take a nice deep breath,

And as you breathe in,

You can feel the cool fresh air coming into your body,

And as you breathe out,

Imagining all of your cares and your worries flowing out of you.

So let's take a nice deep breath,

Giving yourself time to become calm and steady.

Becoming aware of your sense of hearing,

And imagining your hearing is like a radar beam.

Beginning by searching out for sounds in the far distance,

And then becoming aware of sounds in the near distance,

Outside this building.

Becoming aware of sounds arising from inside this building,

And becoming aware of sounds from inside this room,

And from sounds arising from your own body.

Becoming aware of the deep and subtle sound behind all other sounds in the centre of your being.

Remembering that we are practising Yoga Nidra,

Saying to yourself mentally,

I will stay awake,

I will stay awake.

Now is the time to make your Sankalpa,

Your resolve or intention.

Either using a previous Sankalpa,

Or coming up with a new one.

Something that you wish to bring to fruition or make real in your life.

Remembering to phrase it in the form,

First person,

Present tense.

Mentally repeating your Sankalpa three times,

With feeling and awareness.

Knowing that in the fullness of time,

It will come true.

And now we're going to move our awareness around the body in a particular order.

Noticing as we do this,

Just what you can feel at these areas.

Starting with your right hand thumb.

First finger.

Second finger.

Third finger.

And fourth finger.

The palm of your right hand.

The back of your hand.

Your wrist.

Your lower arm.

Your elbow.

Your upper arm.

Your shoulder.

Your armpit.

The right side of your ribs.

Your right waist.

Your right hip.

Your right thigh.

Your knee.

Your lower leg.

Your ankle.

The heel of your right foot.

The sole of your foot.

The top of your foot.

Your right big toe.

Second toe.

Third toe.

Fourth toe.

And the fifth toe.

Moving your awareness across to your left hand thumb.

First finger.

Second finger.

Third finger.

And the fourth finger.

The palm of your left hand.

The back of your hand.

Your wrist.

Your lower arm.

Your elbow.

Your upper arm.

Your shoulder.

Your armpit.

The left side of your ribs.

Your left waist.

Your left hip.

Your left thigh.

Your knee.

Your lower leg.

Your ankle.

The heel of your left foot.

The sole of your foot.

The top of your foot.

Your left big toe.

Second toe.

Third toe.

Fourth toe.

And the fifth toe.

Moving your attention to the back of your body.

The back of your head.

The back of your neck.

Your right shoulder blade.

Your left shoulder blade.

The space between your shoulder blades.

Your mid back.

Your lower back.

Your right buttock.

Your left buttock.

Moving your attention to the front of your body.

Starting at the top of your head.

Your forehead.

Your right eyebrow.

Your left eyebrow.

The space between your eyebrows.

Your right eyelid.

Your left eyelid.

Your right cheek.

Your left cheek.

Your right ear.

Your left ear.

Your nose.

The tip of your nose.

Your upper lip.

Your lower lip.

The right side of your jaw.

The left side of your jaw.

Your chin.

Your throat.

Your right collarbone.

Your left collarbone.

The right side of your chest.

The left side of your chest.

The centre of your chest.

Your upper belly.

The right side of your belly.

The left side of your belly.

Your belly button,

Navel.

Your lower belly.

Becoming aware of the whole of your right leg.

The whole of your left leg.

Both legs together.

The whole of your right arm.

The whole of your left arm.

Both arms together.

Becoming aware of the whole of your back.

And the whole of your front.

The whole of your head.

Becoming aware of the whole of your body.

Together.

The whole of your body together.

Moving your attention into the centre of your body.

And down into your belly.

Becoming aware of this energy centre.

What they call the sea of energy in your belly.

The horror.

As you breathe in,

Imagining the horror,

The belly expanding like a balloon in all directions.

And as you breathe out,

Imagining the belly releasing and contracting into the very centre.

Breathing in,

Belly expanding like a balloon.

Breathing out,

Belly releasing.

Centring.

And beginning to count your breath from fifty-four down to one.

Like this.

Breathing in,

Belly expands.

Fifty-four.

Breathing out,

Belly releases.

Fifty-four.

Breathing in,

Energy,

Belly expanding.

Fifty-three.

Breathing out,

Releasing.

Fifty-three.

Counting your own natural breaths at your own pace.

From fifty-four down to one.

Now we can let go of our awareness of the breath.

And become aware of the space known as Chidaksha.

Your inner mind's eye.

Your imagination.

Developing an awareness of this dark space of infinite potential.

And how very naturally shapes and colours,

Patterns,

Images can just form and dissolve in this space.

Imagine you're standing in front of a giant rocket ship.

About to head off into space.

You're an astronaut.

About to go on a journey.

To the edge of the universe.

You put on your space suit.

Preparing to board the spaceship.

You say farewell to all of your friends and family.

They wish you well on your journey.

The rocket launches.

It's very noisy.

Lots of vibration.

Up through the clouds.

Up,

Up into the blue sky.

The sky fades to dark blue.

And then to black.

The vibrations die down.

And suddenly it's all quiet.

You turn and look back at our planet.

A stunningly beautiful ball of blue and white.

And touches of green.

And as you continue to move away from the planet,

It gets smaller and smaller.

You start to see the vastness of space all around.

A rocket speeding away past the moon,

The planets.

Our bright sun fades until it looks like just another star.

Now you're zipping past countless stars,

Appearing like sparkling diamonds.

Catching glimpses of their planets.

Worlds upon worlds,

Existing like islands in the sea of space.

You see a huge,

Wispy,

Colourful nebula,

Where new stars and planets are being born.

You pass through the expanding wave of gas,

Blown off by an ancient supernova explosion.

You pass enormous clusters of stars.

And as the rocket emerges from our galaxy,

You start to see how these countless stars form the shape of a vast Catherine Wheel.

A pinwheel,

Whirlpool of stars.

Now you're in the empty space between galaxies.

An all-enveloping darkness.

You suddenly feel very alone.

Surrounded by emptiness.

Nothing.

But looking closer,

You see that the empty space itself is shimmering.

On the tiniest scales,

Material is popping in and out of existence,

Constantly.

The blackness doesn't feel so black anymore.

You become aware that there's so much light around.

Light that we normally can't see.

Waves of energy.

You feel the energy of space itself.

Whole galaxies now zip past the window.

Tens,

Hundreds,

Millions of galaxies.

You see now how everything is so connected.

These galaxies embedded in the fabric of space.

This shimmering space.

Overlapping,

Interconnected waves of light and energy coming from all directions.

And you yourself are enmeshed in these waves of energy.

You're no longer an observer looking from one point.

But you can now see all perspectives.

You're seeing it all at once.

The sparkling,

Scintillating,

Dynamic movement of the whole universe.

Evolving and changing,

Transforming.

This is the living being of our universe.

All your friends and family you left back on Earth,

They're here too.

Earth,

The planet Earth,

All the other planets,

All the other stars,

The galaxies,

They're all here too.

You realise that you were never really separate from them in the first place.

You're home.

You never really left.

The whole universe is our home.

Letting these images and sensations dissolve.

Returning to the darkness of potential,

Your imagination.

Letting any more images or shapes,

Memories,

Just form and dissolve here.

And into this space we can bring our sankalpa,

The resolve you made at the beginning of this practice.

Bringing it to mind and mentally repeating it three times with feeling and awareness.

Becoming aware of your physical body lying here on the floor.

And the feeling of the meeting points between your body and the floor.

Also noticing the space around your body.

And the feelings in your skin,

Of your clothes and coverings and of the air.

Becoming aware of the level of light coming through your eyelids.

And of the sounds arising from your body and around your body.

And the sounds arising from outside this room,

Into the distance.

And in a moment we're going to introduce a little bit of movement back to your body.

Very slowly and gradually.

Maybe starting by deepening your breath.

Very slowly,

Wiggling your fingers and toes.

And as the breath deepens and the body begins to move,

If you feel like a stretch coming on,

Just allowing that.

Taking all the time you need,

Only when you feel completely ready,

Making your way up into sitting.

Your practice of yoga nidra completed.