The Law of Opposites
When you live identified with the belief of being a separate ego-I, you are governed by the Law of Opposites in which all that is seen as positive is held captive by its opposite. Darkness cannot exist without light, or good without evil. Pain cannot exist without pleasure, or conflict without its opposite, peace. Opposites are complementary polarities arising within a unified field of awareness. Opposites are always paired, and our suffering is sustained by our inability to experience and transcend any pair of opposites.
As you explore the Body of Feeling and Emotion, you are playing in fields of opposites where you invite into awareness the myriad array of feelings and emotions that you will likely experience during your lifetime. You can, for instance, welcome the feeling of comfort and then invite its opposite, discomfort, into the body. You then swing back and forth between these two feeling, going first to comfort, then to discomfort and back again, until finally you experience both simultaneously. You will do this with naturally occurring feelings such as warmth-coolness, lightness-heaviness, and pleasure-pain. Then you play in the opposites of emotion. You may take the emotions of calmness and peace and then explore their opposites of agitation and anger. Or you may choose the emotions of joy and happiness and then find their opposite in sadness, despair, and hopelessness.
When you work with opposites in this manner, you explore where specific feelings and emotions are experienced in particular areas of the body. For instance, the perineum and legs are often associated with opposites of safety-fear, security-insecurity, and groundedness-ungroundedness. You move back and forth between these pairs of opposites while noting the sensations that arise in their associated areas such as the legs, pelvis, sexual organs, solar plexus, heart, arms, throat, and head.
When you work with the opposites, you are awakening the discriminating insight that every experience, when fully allowed, is both an expression of, as well as a pointer to, your underlying nondual True Nature. Yoga Nidra respects the transformative power that opposites play in sustaining and resolving disease and suffering and how they are utilized for the purpose of enlightenment.
Fearlessness
Repressed and unresolved feelings and emotions, stored in the unconscious, give rise to physical and mental unrest. There are many feelings and emotions that we do not want to be with. We refuse them when they come uninvited into our environment. When they arise, we move away, often with reactivity and defensiveness.
The process of Yoga Nidra helps us acknowledge, welcome, and accept these pockets of repression and aversion. When so-called “positive” or “negative” emotions rise up, we meet, greet, and welcome rather than refuse them. Yoga Nidra teaches us not to be afraid of feeling afraid, not to be insecure about feeling insecure, and not to resist feeling joyous, open, and vulnerable.
When we welcome opposites of feeling and emotion just as they are, they move naturally through their stages of birth, growth, decay, and death, ultimately dissolving back into their home ground of Being. Feelings and emotions are only passing phenomena, naturally occurring movements in the body and mind. Yoga Nidra introduces us to our ground of innate stability that is present whether strong feelings or emotions are present or absent.
In time, with consistent practice, Yoga Nidra helps us recognize that our natural ground of Equanimity is always present through everyday affairs. You will realize that fearlessness pervades your life when you are no longer afraid of feeling fear or joy. When you are open to feeling whatever is present, attachment and aversion no longer control your life and you live the ease of Being, which evokes profound relaxation and clarity in both your body and mind. Judgment loses its grip, and compassionate love of self and other blossoms.
Here is what one participant had to say after a retreat where she was able to engage various feelings and emotions during Yoga Nidra.
Little did I know that hugely embarrassing thoughts and feelings would come up during Yoga Nidra: thoughts about sexuality, unmentionable body parts, all kinds of things one isn’t supposed to feel! At least not polite ladies like me! Ha! Richard explained that words in and of themselves were not the issue, but the emotion that the words evoked, like shame and embarrassment. However, even the words themselves were bristling with power and embarrassment, so I had to feel them, otherwise I was censoring myself and not being with my truth. Each time I felt one of these forbidden parts, my heart would pound. I was scared. I was embarrassed. But feel them I did. Not feeling them was just too painful. I wondered, “How many forbidden things will I have to feel before I run out? Is this ever going to end?” So, I spent a lot of Yoga Nidra dealing with these unmentionables. Who said Yoga Nidra is bliss? It felt more like going into battle.
So, what good came of this? As I stayed with the truth of what I was feeling, I felt empowered. I got to practice being with my truth without skirting, without looking away, and it felt liberating. Now I notice that I am more at ease and comfortable with people. Instead of avoiding them, I can look them in the eye without feeling shame or embarrassment. Before I never knew what was the source of my discomfort in being with other people. During Yoga Nidra, rejected parts of myself that made me feel separate, my sexuality, for instance, came knocking on my door saying, “Let me in! I am YOU! Stop rejecting me.” So I let these parts in and now I understand what Richard means when he talks about messengers wanting to come in for “tea and conversation.” When things that I reject, my very self, come knocking urgently on my door, they ask me to let them in so that I can feel healed, whole, and complete.
Tailoring the Practice to Your Needs
As you become familiar with the process of Yoga Nidra, you will want to tailor the practice specifically to your individual needs. For instance, while preparing to work in the Body of Feeling and Emotion, pick several feelings and emotions that you are having difficulty being with, as well as several that you enjoy experiencing. Pair opposites of feeling and emotion before going into your practice, and then work with them during Yoga Nidra. For instance, while you are listening to “Practice 1: Sensing Feelings and Emotions” on the enclosed audio, replace my words of feelings and emotions with your words so that your practice is creatively structured for your own needs.
The Myth of Separation
Duality is made up of the entire spectrum of opposites and arises within the unified field of True Nature. Duality arises when the senses and mind split nondual Being into separate objects. This is their natural function. It is only when your mind believes that this split is real that difficulty arises. Suffering and conflict coarise when separation is believed to be real and the only reality that exists. Yoga Nidra is an effective tool for healing this myth of separation. The power of Yoga Nidra, with its focus on welcoming opposites, is based on the insight that, without healing, the root belief in separation, conflict, anxiety, fear, dissatisfaction, and suffering will never be dispelled.
When we experience only one-half of a pair of opposites, for instance, grief versus joy, or shame versus potency, we remain stuck in our experience, unable to move forward. By learning to experience the entire spectrum of opposites of sensation, feeling, emotion, and beliefs (shame and potency, grief and joy), we are able to deconstruct and move beyond limiting beliefs and experiences. Psychological, physical, and spiritual integration unfolds naturally when we cease trying to rid ourselves of our experience and instead open to the full spectrum of opposites.
Ego-Identity Maintains Division
The ego-I is the product of the dividing mind that splits the world into self and other. Ego-identity does not accept the interdependence of opposites; this would mean the end of its separative existence. So the mind, as the ego-I, attaches to and tries to avoid various opposites, which leads to discord and suffering as any attempt to eliminate one pole of opposition only creates conflict.
Meditation based upon the premise that you need to change begins and ends in conflict. Stances that suggest you need to be other than you are promote the belief that t
here is something wrong with you that needs to be fixed. These stances ultimately fail. These attitudes are a product of the dividing mind. It is only when you welcome every movement of life, grief and joy, shame and potency, sadness and happiness, fear and safety, that you are able to go beyond the pairs of opposites and uncover true freedom.
The Tyranny of the Shoulds
The mind inherently identifies with whatever thought, feeling, or emotion is present. And the mind’s most deeply held conviction is that of being a separate ego-I. This belief births defensive reactions against perceived threats, which are expressed as “I [you] should or shouldn’t . . .” The tyranny of these “shoulds” is the mind’s way of maintaining an unstable equilibrium, based on its tendency to hold only one pole position of any pair of opposites. For example, holding on to guilt or shame prevents its resolution in potent, responsive action. Holding on to despair prevents its resolution with joy. Holding on to one-half of any pair of opposites maintains the mind’s belief in being a separate ego-I.
Welcoming Opposites
Yoga Nidra emphasizes welcoming the entire content of consciousness, allowing each experience of psychic material to arise complete with its attendant movements of sensation, emotion, and belief. As you engender the attitude of welcoming, defensive strategies are uncovered. Welcoming evokes insight into self-defeating patterns that are based on refusing to be with confusing, disorienting, overwhelming, or threatening sensations, feelings, emotions, and beliefs.
Welcoming is not an action undertaken by an ego-I. Welcoming is an essential movement of your innate nondual Being. While at first you may believe that “you” are the one “doing” welcoming, during Yoga Nidra you will recognize that Welcoming is your True Nature, what you are always Being.
As opposites are welcomed, attention is freed to inquire into the form and substance of Welcoming itself, and the quality of Equanimity that it brings. Then the emphasis shifts from focusing upon the changing content of consciousness, to the nature of welcoming Presence. What has been background, Presence, moves foreground, becoming both witness and witnessed, subject and object.
STAGE FOUR—RIDING TRUTH HOME: AWARENESS OF THE BODY OF INTELLECT
Investigate the nature of mind and it will disappear.
Thoughts change, but not you.
—RAMANA MAHARSHI
As we explore pairs of emotional opposites, beliefs, images, and entire stories spontaneously arise. This is the signal that we have entered the Body of Intellect (vijñanamaya kosha). Here, beliefs, images, and memories emerge that are associated with unconscious personal, collective, and archetypal forces. Beliefs and images that arise vary across a wide spectrum from positive thoughts, images, and memories to very dark and negative ones. You may experience beliefs and scenes that evoke fond and loving memories or encapsulate chaos, destruction, and death. As before, we intentionally pair positive with negative beliefs and images, and move back and forth between the pairs of opposites until we are comfortably capable of being with either side with neither attachment nor resistance. Then we invite both to be present simultaneously. Here they resolve into a higher order of understanding that you may have never considered.
During Yoga Nidra, we learn to welcome every possible experience that life brings to our table, while we live in the understanding that everything is a facet of the diamond that is True Nature. The mind may resist this understanding by exclaiming, “How could this be a facet of True Nature?” This is the way the mind divides what is One into the many, and maintains separation through the Law of Opposites. But remember, every situation is paired with its perfect response. Your mind’s resistance falls away when you recognize truth. Then right action is always revealed. When we don’t resist opposites, when we welcome each moment and engage action that our heart knows is true, opposites always resolve into the deeper truth that they veil. And when we are oriented, truth is always an exquisite pointer to its home ground of True Nature.
Messengers of Truth
Our beliefs and expectations contain opposites of positive and negative. The expectation that I hold that you will show up on time for our appointment allows me to go about my week in a relaxed and organized manner. This is the positive aspect. If you consistently show up late, or constantly miss appointments, I will feel irritated, which is the messenger informing me that I am running into an expectation that I need to clarify. This is positive. The negative occurs if I become righteously indignant with you for “breaking your agreement” as a result of my mind clinging to the expectation that you “should” show up on time each week. Then, I am blaming you for my expectation. It is my mind’s clinging to expectations that causes irritation to arise, not your behavior.
During Yoga Nidra, as you live in the Body of Intellect, you learn to welcome and explore all negative and positive beliefs with the understanding that any belief divides and limits when you attach to or refuse one pole of opposites. By learning to listen to your opposites of thoughts, beliefs, expectations, and images, you are learning to welcome them as messengers that are always pointing you to truth and right action.
As you listen to the accompanying audio, I invite you to bring in your personal beliefs and their paired opposites that you find when you work with the Yoga Nidra worksheet following chapter 3. Beliefs can be a simple expectation such as “You should show up on time,” or long-term attitudes such as “I’m a fake,” “It’s dangerous to express my real feelings,” “I’m flawed, worthless, and unlovable,” “No one listens to me,” or “I always know what’s right.” When you locate a belief, pair it with its opposite. “I’m unlovable” might be paired with “I love and value myself.” And “I’m not good enough” might be paired with “I am always doing the best that I know how in every moment.”
During Yoga Nidra, Susan is learning to welcome sensations of shame and lack of energy without attaching to or pushing them away. After a few minutes, she seeks out their opposites, remembering a time when she was five years old, her body full of energy and vitality. She welcomes these feelings without attaching to them. Then Susan begins rotating her attention between these opposing experiences of shame and potency. After several rotations she experiences these opposites simultaneously. Integration is taking place as she experiences her generative, potent playfulness even as she is experiencing the powerlessness and confusion that led to feeling shame and overwhelm. Susan later reports feeling an energetic shift as she is holding the opposites that enable her to recapture and embody her potency and aliveness, even as she experiences the memories that led to her feeling shame. After Yoga Nidra Susan radiates a newfound confidence and sense of loving compassion toward her self and her memories.
It is important to match beliefs with their accompanying images and memories. During Yoga Nidra we intentionally bring in disquieting memories and images in order to recover our innate capacity to be with whatever life brings to our table. We cannot stop the tumultuous waves of turmoil and confusion, but we can learn to sail through them. The practice of Yoga Nidra is your sailboat, instructor, and sailing lesson all rolled into one. Be willing to be surprised. You will fall into delight, wonder, and astonishment with the creative resolutions that True Nature evokes.
Essential Qualities of True Nature
During this phase of Yoga Nidra, we may also invite, welcome, and embody essential qualities of True Nature such as gratitude, love, and compassion (see the lists of opposites following the Yoga Nidra Worksheet). For instance, you may embody the quality of transpersonal will by surrendering into the feeling evoked by the phrase, “Not my will; Thy will be done.” Or you may invite in the feeling of compassion, “I am compassion, Itself,” and pair it with its opposite of jealousy or judgment.
As you explore essential qualities and their opposites, deep residues that lie in the unconscious are liberated and bubble up into awareness. When these residues move into the light of awareness and are met with welcoming, they expand, dissolve, and reveal their Source, True Nature. As residue
s of stress, tension, and conflict release, they give way to feelings of relaxation, peace, and joy.
STAGE FIVE—TRANSCENDING TRUTH: AWARENESS OF THE BODY OF JOY
When welcoming receives everything just as it is, love blossoms and joy abounds. What wonder, astonishment, and delight.
—RICHARD MILLER
As we encounter the movement of desire, pleasure, peace, and joy, we enter into the domain governed by the Body of Joy (anandamaya kosha). Evoking their associated opposites helps liberate these movements into awareness. But, ultimately, Yoga Nidra reveals that our real equanimity exists independent of all movements of emotion, belief, memory, and even joy.
Our conditioning informs us otherwise. We are taught that joy is dependent upon possession of some object: a toy, a lover, a job, a car, chocolate, or . . . you name it. But true joyful equanimity is our birthright and is always present, albeit hidden behind the veil created by the dividing mind.
When we misperceive True Nature, we live identified with thoughts and emotions that inform us that contentment is dependent upon our circumstances. When you believe that you are a doer who lacks something and needs to do in order to be happy, you can rest assured that you’ve separated from True Nature, and that messengers are knocking at your door trying to inform you that you are caught in the belief that your happiness is dependent upon some object.
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