Is Yoga Nidra only for physical relaxation?

Is Yoga Nidra only for physical relaxation, or does it hold a deeper meaning that we must discover?

Although Yoga Nidra is associated with deep physiological relaxation, it is not a practice devoted to that alone. Physical relaxation is only the first step. Nidra means sleep — yogic or psychic sleep — and so Yoga Nidra means a form of conscious sleep.

There is a difference between conscious or psychic sleep and ordinary sleep. In ordinary sleep, we become completely unaware of everything happening around us and of the experiences we are having. We don't know what is happening to our body. Nor do we know what is happening to our mind, or how time is passing. There is one thing we do know, though — the mind does not relax! Even during ordinary sleep, the mind keeps working ceaselessly. As a rule, people never even try to still it or relax it.

One of the conditions for optimal health of body, mind, and emotions is the ability to still the fluctuations or movements of the mind for a while. Those who are able to still their mind for a time will certainly improve the quality of their life, thought, and action. Ordinarily, however, we pay very little attention to our mind and its experiences. We take everything for granted. We wake up in the morning, go about our daily activities, and go to sleep in the evening, without ever once thinking about what we feel. We tend to become aware of ourselves only when problems arise, only when we feel conscious tension, only when we feel frustration, anxiety, depression, nervousness, and insecurity.

It is common knowledge that when we go to bed in the evening, even once in bed, we keep thinking about the day's problems and about what we will do the next day. We go to sleep, but when does sleep actually come? We never know. We keep thinking about the problems, conflicts, and tensions of life; the mind keeps circling around the same things. That is why the quality of our sleep is never truly satisfying.

Over eighty years of life, we spend forty per cent of our time asleep, and the remaining sixty per cent awake. We are unable to make creative use of that forty per cent of sleep time for our own growth — for our material, psychological, and spiritual development.

Let us first uncover the most pressing benefits of Yoga Nidra, connected with our everyday life. In this process of deep, conscious relaxation, beyond the loosening of the body and the experiences of the mind, something is still missing.

What is missing?

What is missing is proper preparation of the mind, which can help us grow. We all crave relaxation, rest, and sleep, and if we can organise our sleep in such a way that it becomes creative rather than unconscious, that it becomes a conscious sadhana, then our whole life will undergo an enormous change. We will be able to deal with the everyday problems and conflicts of life with far greater ease. We will flow through life effortlessly.

In the initial practice of Yoga Nidra, there is awareness of the body, the breath, sound, and various experiences within the mind, such as visualising, experiencing, and remembering certain things. Eventually, however, we go deeper, into the realm of the subconscious. There we are asked to awaken the dormant faculties of the mind. We become able to block out the external experiences that disturb a harmonious personality, and to develop the creative aspect of our nature.

A great deal of research has been carried out into the practice and principles of Yoga Nidra, explained in detail in Paramahansaji's book Yoga Nidra. If you want to improve the quality of your mind, your sleep, memory, willpower, creativity, and so on, you should read this book. If you learn to practise Yoga Nidra correctly, you will not need to seek anyone else's help. You will have no physiological or psychological problems, because this practice will give you the ability to separate the inner mind from the outer mind.

In Yoga Nidra there are two kinds of experience: one belongs to the outer mind — the things we perceive, which we experience externally through the senses and the intellect. The other is the inner mind, which is responsible for shaping our personality, behaviour, beliefs, thoughts, and actions. Ordinarily, however, we don't know where the outer mind ends and the inner mind begins. There is never a moment's respite for the mind to relax and think through solutions to these problems. Through rationalising, we may find some kind of solution.

There is yet another faculty of the mind, known as the sixth sense. We don't know what it is, because we have never experienced it. Yoga Nidra is a practice that allows us to become aware of this, and of many other dimensions of the mind.

On the Wings of the Swan, Swami Niranjanananda Saraswati

Piyush Mittal

Nirmala Institute of Yoga and Ayurveda