Vital / Exhausted
Vulnerable / Invulnerable
2. THE BODY OF INTELLECT (VIJÑANAMAYA KOSHA)
A. Images and Symbols
Allow each image to be evocative on all levels of feeling, emotion, and imagination.
A circle of trusted friends
Birds flying
Burning candle
Cat reposing
Cave leading down into the ground
Coffin
Cross
Dark sky
Tunnel
Dead body
Dying person
Endless desert
Clouds floating across the sky
Frail old man
Frail old woman
Horse running
Human skeleton
Yogi in meditation
Ocean
Space
Knife
Naked body
People at war
People shouting
Smiling Buddha
Sun rising in the sky
Sun setting in the sky
Torrential rain
Waves breaking on a beach
Well going down into the ground
Wise old man
Wise old woman
B. Themes
Moving through a tunnel
Performing an asana practice
Traveling down a river
Traveling down an opening
Traveling down into the ocean depths
Traveling into the past
Traveling up a mountain
Traveling up into the sky
Walking along the ocean
Walking in the desert
Traveling into the future
C. Essential Qualities of Presence
Experience the following essential qualities of Presence. Allow each quality to evoke feelings, emotions, thoughts, images, and memories. Allow all channels of perception to participate in the experience: seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching, and thinking.
Authentic
Awake
Aware
Being
Compassionate
Creative
Empathic
Empty
Expansive
Full
Intelligent
Intimate
Joyful
Loving
Peaceful
Powerful
Present
Spacious
Welcoming
RESOURCES FOR SUPPORTING YOUR PRACTICE
So, you’ve read this book, listened to the audio, and are now thinking, “What’s next?” “Is there someone I can talk to or consult with regarding my practice?” “Where do I go from here?”
CONTACT THE AUTHOR
I offer private consultations, mentoring, seminars, workshops, and retreats during which I provide basic instruction and advanced trainings in Yoga Nidra for beginners through advanced trainees and teachers. I also train teachers throughout the United States and Canada. Please visit my website, send me an e-mail, or call my office for the location of a nearby training or a listing of teachers in your area.
ADVANCED PRACTICES
Infinite Awakening: The Principles and Practice of Yoga Nidra, a set of five recorded sessions on Yoga Nidra, is available through my website and office. These recordings consist of a 35-minute introduction and five 40-minute practice sessions covering in-depth explorations of the stages of Yoga Nidra. I continually produce practice and training materials on Yoga Nidra. Please contact my office directly for further details.
Integrative Restoration Institute
900 5th Ave., Suite 203
San Rafael, CA 94903
(415) 456-3903 / [email protected] / irest.us
TRADITIONAL TRAINING
Besides the Integrative Restoration Institute, yoga centers throughout the world offer training in Yoga Nidra as part of their curriculum. Other teachers/training facilities I recommend are:
Swami Veda Bharati
Swami Veda has spent over five decades providing spiritual guidance around the world. In 1969, he met his Spiritual Master, Swami Rama, who initiated him into the path of Dhyana Yoga. Swami Veda is well versed in the scriptures of all religions, understands seventeen languages, and is familiar with all known meditative traditions. He lectures and offers retreats, workshops, and trainings worldwide. Yoga Nidra lies at the heart of his teachings. For further studies, please contact:
In the United States
The Meditation Center
631 University Ave. NE
Minneapolis, MN 55413
(612) 379-2386 / themeditationcenter.org
[email protected]
In India
Swami Rama Sadhaka Grama
Virpur Khurd Village
Virbhadra Road PO Pashulok
Rishikesh UA, India 249203
+91 135-2450093, 2450596 / bindu.org / [email protected]
Paramhamsa Satyananda
Satyananda studied Tantric forms of Yoga from an early age, finding his calling at age nineteen when he met his guru, Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh, India, who initiated him into swamihood in 1947. In 1963, Satyananda established the Bihar School of Yoga in Bihar, India. First published in 1976, Satyananda’s book Yoga Nidra continues to be a premier writing in the field of Yoga Nidra. For further studies contact:
Bihar School of Yoga
PO Rikhia
Dist. Deoghar
Jharkhand India 814 112
Tel: +91-6432 232870 / Fax: +91-6432 230670 / satyananda.net
Swami Janakananda
Founder of the Scandinavian Yoga and Meditation School, Janakananda is a student of Swami Satyananda, with whom he trained in India. Janakananda and his teachers provide trainings and support throughout Europe in the practice of Yoga Nidra. They also offer CDs and books to support your practice.
Scandinavian Yoga and Meditation School
S-34013 Hamneda, Sweden
Tel: +46 372 550 63 / Fax: +46 372 550 36 / scand-yoga.org
Rod Stryker
Founder of Para Yoga, Rod is a student of Pandit Rajmani Tigunait, PhD, and a teacher in the lineage of the Swami Rama of the Himalayas. Rod offers trainings and support throughout the United States in the practice of Yoga Nidra. He is the author of CDs and books, which are designed to support your practice including Relax into Greatness, which offers a long and short version of Yoga Nidra.
Para Yoga
586 Highway 133
PMB 133
Carbondale, CO 81623
(970) 704-0255
parayoga.com
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Gratitude to Anne, Jennie, and Sean for living with me in the word; to Nancy Rogers and Tami, Alice, Chad, Nancy, Joe, and everyone else at Sounds True for their help in bringing this book into your life; and to the students, clients, and teachers I’ve worked and studied with over the decades who have helped me realize the truth of this precious teaching.
NOTES
1 Bhagavad Gita, 2:61-66. Author’s translation.
2 Wei Wu Wei, Open Secret (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University, 1982).
3 These include the nondual teachings of Trika-Shasana as found in the revelatory Shiva Sutras; Tantra in such texts as the Mahanirvana; Vedanta in writings such as the Mandukya, Taittiriya Upanisads, and Tripura Rahasya; and the teachings of Yoga as found in Yogataravali and the Yoga Sutras of Patañjali with its emphasis on pratyahara (Sanskrit: “restoration of the senses to their natural functioning”) wherein the mind’s propensity to identify with its projections is transcended and we realize our true nature as unitive Being.
4 See references for works by these authors.
5 In particular, I offer profound gratitude and thanks to Laura Cummings, J. Krishnamurti, Bikram Choudhury, Joel Kramer, Da Free John, Swami Bua, B. K. S. Iyengar, T. K. V. Desikachar, Dada, Nisargadatta Maharaj, Ramesh Balsekar, Ramana Maharshi, and my spiritual sat guru, Jean Klein.
6 The Yoga Sutras
of Patañjali utilizes the word nirodha to describe True Nature as “Pure Being” or “Stillness,” which we are always being, whether we realize it or not. “Yogash Citta Vritti Nirodhah” (Yoga happens when we realize our True Nature as that Stillness or Pure Being, which is always present, whether the movements of consciousness are present or absent) (1:2, author’s translation).
7 Werner Heisenberg, the founder of quantum mechanics, stated in his 1927 uncertainty paper that, “The more the position of an object is determined the less its momentum is known, and vice versa.” He uncovered what Yoga Nidra has affirmed for centuries, that as an observer we are not separate from what we observe. The observer and object are actually one, not two. What appears as a solid universe is actually empty space.
8 To further your understanding, please read Michael Gazzaniga, The Mind’s Past (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998).
9 Author’s private correspondence with Alicia Higham. Used with her permission.
10 Gazzaniga, The Mind’s Past, 71.
11 Yoga Sutras of Patañjali, 2:17.
12 See Jaideva Singh, Spanda-Karikas: The Divine Creative Pulsation (New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1994).
13 See Swami Veda Baharti: bindu.org/svbresearchpage1.html; Swami Rama, Exercise without Movement (Honesdale, PA: Himalayan Institute Press, 1984); Swami Satyananada, Yoga Nidra (Bihar: Yoga Publications Trust, 1976).
14 Prana (Sanskrit) literally means, “breathing forth the vibratory force that underlies all manifestation.” See Georg Feuerstein, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Yoga (St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 1990.).
15 Sanskrit: man- =“to think” and tra-= “instrumentality” (Feuerstein, Encyclopedic Dictionary). Mantra is the instrument of sound that is used to transcend the thinking mind and heal the myth of separation.
16 If we affirm that everything is One, its opposite coarises, that there are “two.” But “not two” has no opposite and refers directly to our True Nature.
17 Emperor’s New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen, broadviewpress.com/tales/emperorsclothes.htm
18 Frederick Franck, The Book of Angelus Silesius (Santa Fe, NM: Bear and Co., 1985). Permission granted by Frederick Franck (© 1976 Frederick Franck) by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.
REFERENCES
Barks, Coleman, and John Moyne. Unseen Rain. Putney, VT: Threshold Books, 1984.
Bly, Robert. The Kabir Book. Boston: Beacon Press, 1971.
Feuerstein, Georg. Encyclopedic Dictionary of Yoga. St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 1990.
Franck, Frederick. The Book of Angelus Silesius. Santa Fe, NM: Bear and Co., 1985.
Gazzaniga, Michael. The Mind’s Past. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998.
Jenny, Hans. Cymatics, 2 vols. Basel, Germany: Basilius Press, Germany, 1972.
Klein, Jean. Transmission of the Flame. Santa Barbara, CA: Third Millennium Publications, 1990.
Klein, Jean. I Am. Santa Barbara, CA: Third Millennium Publications, 1989.
Klein, Jean. Who Am I? Santa Barbara, CA: Third Millennium Publications, 1988.
Klein, Jean. The Ease of Being. Santa Barbara, CA: Third Millennium Publications, 1984.
Kornfield, Jack. After the Ecstasy, the Laundry. New York: Bantam, 2000.
Kohn, Sherab Chodzin. The Awakened One: A Life of the Buddha. Boston: Shambhala, 1994.
Liberman, Jacob. Light Medicine of the Future. Santa Fe, NM: Bear and Company, 1990.
Libet, Benjamin. Mind Time: The Temporal Factor in Consciousness. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.
Maharshi, Ramana. The Spiritual Teachings of Ramana Maharshi. Boston: Shambhala, 1988.
Miller, Richard C. Infinite Awakening: The Principles and Practice of Yoga Nidra Audiotapes. Sebastopol, CA: Anahata Press, 2001.
Mishra, Rammurti S. Fundamentals of Yoga: A Handbook of Theory, Practice, and Application. New York: Julian Press, 1979.
Mishra, Rammurti S. Yoga Sutras: The Textbook of Yoga Psychology. New York: Anchor Press, 1973.
Niranjanananda, Swami. Prana, Pranayama, Prana Vidya. India: Yoga Publications Trust, 1994.
Rama, Swami. Exercise without Movement. Honesdale, PA: Himalayan Institute, 1984.
Rama, Swami. Joints and Glands Exercises. Honesdale, PA: Himalayan Institute, 1982.
Reps, Paul, and Nyogen Senzaki. Zen Flesh, Zen Bones. Boston: Tuttle Publishing, 1985.
Satyananda, Swami. Yoga Nidra. India: Yoga Publications Trust, 1976.
Satyananda, Swami. Meditation from the Tantras. India: Yoga Publications Trust, 1974.
Venkatesananda, Swami. Enlightened Living: A New Interpretative Translation of the Yoga Sutra of Maharshi Patañjali. Sebastopol, CA: Anahata Press, 1999.
Weber, Gary. You Don’t Exist, You Are Everything: Yoga, Zen, and Advaita Vedanta for Nondual Awakening. 2005, nittanydharma. org/nondual.
Wei Wu Wei. Open Secret. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1982.
Readings Particular to Nondual Kashmir Shaivism
Hughes, John. Self Realization in Kashmir Shaivism. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1994.
Odier, Daniel. Desire: The Tantric Path to Awakening. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 2001.
Singh, Jaideva. Pratyabhijñahrdayam: The Secret of Self-Recognition. New Delhi, India: Banarsidass, 1998.
Singh, Jaideva. Siva Sutras: The Yoga of Supreme Identity. New Delhi, India: Banarsidass, 1998.
Singh, Jaideva. Spanda-Karikas: The Divine Creative Pulsation. New Delhi, India: Banarsidass, 1994.
Singh, Jaideva. Vijñanabhairav: The Yoga of Delight, Wonder, and Astonishment. New Delhi, India: Banarsidass, 1979.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Richard Miller, PhD, has traversed the path of nondualism ever since the universe revealed its truth of oneness while he was lying in a sand trap gazing into the starlit sky at the ripe age of thirteen. Along the way he studied Taoism and Chinese Medicine, coauthoring The Book of Internal Exercises (Strawberry Hill Press) and volunteering his acupuncture skills at a village clinic while studying Yoga in India. He holds a BS in psychology (1970), an MA in communication (1975), and a PhD in clinical psychology (1987). Many gifted teachers have influenced him, including Laura Cummings, T. K. V. Desikachar, Ramesh Balsekar, and Suzanne Segal. Following a series of awakenings that began in childhood, all sense of separation fell away while studying with his spiritual mentor, Jean Klein. Richard experiences this awakening as always fresh, always alive, always opening to itself. In private practice since 1972, he continues today having “conversations” with people interested in awakening to their nondual true nature.
Richard is recognized as a leading force in the field of Yoga, honored by Yoga Journal and featured in American Yoga (Barnes & Noble). Richard cofounded The International Association of Yoga Therapy and was founding editor of its professional journal. He has authored numerous articles, including “Welcoming All That Is” in The Sacred Mirror: Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy (Paragon House). His current interests include bringing the meditative process of Yoga Nidra to public attention, writing books on nondual meditation, and providing translations of traditional Sanskrit texts of Yoga and Nonduality. More than anything, Richard enjoys hosting retreats where people gather to his creative way of teaching with its focus on awakening and embodying true nature in every-day life. He can be contacted through his website, nondual.com.
ABOUT SOUNDS TRUE
Sounds True is a multimedia publisher whose mission is to inspire and support personal transformation and spiritual awakening. Founded in 1985 and located in Boulder, Colorado, we work with many of the leading spiritual teachers, thinkers, healers, and visionary artists of our time. We strive with every title to preserve the essential "living wisdom" of the author or artist. It is our goal to create products that not only provide information to a reader or listener, but that also embody the quality of a wisdom transmission.
For those seeking genuine transformation, Sounds True is your trusted partner. At Sounds
True.com you will find a wealth of free resources to support your journey, including exclusive weekly audio interviews, free downloads, interactive learning tools, and other special savings on all our titles.
For two free downloads, please visit SoundsTrue.com/bonus/free_gifts.
Sounds True, Inc., Boulder CO 80306
© 2010, 2005 Richard Miller, PhD
All rights reserved. No part of this program may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the author and publisher.
First published 2005
Printed in Canada
ISBN 978-1-59179-758-6
Enhanced eBook ISBN 978-1-60407-739-1
Cover and book design by Lisa Kerans
PRAISE FOR
YOGA NIDRA
A MEDITATIVE PRACTICE FOR DEEP RELAXATION AND HEALING
“Thanks to work like Dr. Miller’s, Yoga Nidra will one day be recognized for the treasure that it truly is. His book/CD beautifully and thoughtfully guides us into this ancient meditative practice from the Yoga tradition—an invaluable treasure for our modern day. In Yoga Nidra we find it all: the what, the why, the how-to, and the helpful insights of people who have experienced the exquisite benefits of practicing Yoga Nidra—a timeless gift from the sages to enlighten humanity.”
—ROD STRYKER, FOUNDER OF PARAYOGA, AUTHOR OF RELAX INTO GREATNESS
“In Yoga Nidra, Richard Miller lucidly, insightfully, and expertly presents the profound Tantric meditation practice of Yoga Nidra, which ‘reorganizes’ and ‘reeducates’ your mind-body so that it is in attunement with the highest state of your True Nature. This is a guide book that I will be recommending for years to come to help meditation and yoga practitioners shift their lives into a greater state of wisdom, peace, and heart-centeredness.”
—JOHN FRIEND, FOUNDER OF ANUSARA YOGA
Yoga Nidra Page 8