Yoga Nidra, Part 2

Kripalu is wonderful!  My only "complaint" is with the lack of air-conditioning.  It is interesting meditating when there is perspiration rolling down your forehead.  Even better than Kripalu (see the picture above) was the training on Yoga Nidra (Integrative Restoration -- iRest).  I really enjoyed it and have a greater appreciation for the process and its applicability in my personal and professional life.

In a nutshell, Yoga Nidra has two main "movements":

1) We are learning how to welcome all that is -- including our reactions to what is.

2) We are seeing that all of these "objects" that we are welcoming are not who we really are -- they are subject to change -- to birth, life, decay and death.  We therefore begin to live as our True, Unchanging, Immovable, Invulnerable, Compassionate Nature.  We begin to live our way into the answer to Byron Katie's question, "Who would you be without your story?"

One way that Richard Miller put it during the training is that our problematic sensations, emotions, beliefs, reactions, etc. can be viewed as messengers.  Our job is then to welcome them in and inquire into what they are telling us.  We will continue to dwell on the past and deal with its residues until we get the message -- until we learn how to welcome what is with all of the resulting sensations, emotions, thoughts, etc. that are triggered in us.  Until we do that we are the victims of a past that only lives as a story.
 

We can also get to the point where we realize that the abuse, betrayal, slight, etc. did not happen to "us."  It happened to our bodies (our physical, energetic, emotional, mental, bliss and ego-I bodies).  However, our True Nature can never be hurt because it is invulnerable.  When we realize our selves as True Nature we no longer resist or attach to anything.  Situations come and go, emotions come and go, thoughts come and go -- True Nature is changeless, immovable and timeless.

The actual process is perhaps too complicated to describe in a blog entry.  I recommend that anyone who is interested read Richard Miller's essay called "The Principles and Practice of Yoga Nidra" found on his website www.nondual.com. 

I asked Richard how he felt about me integrating Yoga Nidra with The Work of Byron Katie and he said he thought that would be perfectly fine since they are, "the same thing."  He mentioned Katie often in the training and said that he will be adding her book Loving What Is to his suggested reading list in the manual that he gave us.  I can certainly see how the two processes work very well together. 

I end with a quote from Richard that summarizes what regular practice of Integrative Restoration -- iRest -- Yoga Nidra does for us:

"iRest is both a technique of relaxation as well as a method that reveals our innate, physical, emotional, mental and spiritual well-being across all dimensions of our body and mind, as well as evokes spiritual enlightenment or Self-realization.  It blends together practices of deep relaxation, breathing, one-pointed concentration, emotional and cognitive healing, identification with objects, and meditative inquiry that allows us to recognize our inherent ground of Being.  When assembled together, these constitute a potent method of meditation that teaches a comprehensive approach to stress reduction as well as spiritual awakening" (from the Level I Training Manual).