Yoga Nidra - the yogic sleep
Yoga Nidra made a deep impression on me during my training: many people confuse this very special type of yoga with meditation or simply "lying there". But there is so much more to it. Come with me on a little journey through our body, which according to Yoga Nidra - similar to the principle of the 5 Koshas - consists of 3 layers that envelop our soul.
The physical body is our outermost shell of the body; everything that is visible to us and others. It consists of the 5 elements (water, fire, air, earth and ether). It can be equated with the 1st Annamaya Kosha.
It is followed by the other 2 shells: The astral or energy body and the spiritual body.
In Yoga Nidra, we focus all our attention on our energy body (the 2nd layer). Because this is where our energy lies, which fills our elements with life: the 5 pranas, the life energies that make us alive. With pranayama (breathing exercises), we aim to keep these pranas in our body for as long as possible and thus increase our prana capacity for a long life.
The decisive 3rd shell is the spiritual body, which stores our experiences and impressions of our previous lives. We could also call it the soul. This soul fills us with life and contains the qualities of karma, samskar and free will.
Karma is all the opportunities and options that are given to us - through previous actions in our previous life(s). What we have received and can give.
Samskar is the essence of all learning from our past experiences. It means that we can still feel or sense things that happened to us in a past life. Samskar is deeply anchored and cannot be removed. However, through Yoga Nidra we can learn to deal with it and let go of the past.
Free will empowers us to choose - we always have a choice and depending on karma the options are limited.
Yoga Nidra helps us to find out who we really are: Not our body, not our possessions, but to look into the innermost part of our body. Yoga Nidra separates the two outer bodies from each other and thus reveals our soul. So that we realize again that we are more than these shells and find peace by observing.
Before every yoga nidra session , you should prepare yourself with pranayama or asanas so that you can better perceive your body and the energies. And everything you have done before becomes less important and does not interfere with your yoga nidra practice so that you can relax completely. We ground ourselves and "disconnect" from the outside world.
If you would also like to try yoga nidra, book one of my yoga classes, in which I incorporate yoga nidra elements at the end of the class - depending on the alignment - to ensure absolute relaxation.
