Nidra yoga is a very powerful discipline developed by Swami Satyananda Saraswati, and has its origins in the tradition of tantra yoga, it is about learning to relax consciously, to free our creative skills and to develop our inner potential.
Nidra yoga is a physically passive practice practice practiced in an elongated and silent way, however, one of its essential conditions is to stay awake by the attitude of witness and active consciousness.
- Thanks to the yoga nidra.
- The mind reaches an unconscious state usually associated with deep sleep.
- In addition to achieving a state of calm and tranquility that allows us to reach the inner silence.
- In Sanskrit antar mouna.
- We will immerse ourselves in this wonderful discipline.
The word yoga comes from Sanskrit and means “join”, “effort” or “union”. The purpose of this vast discipline is to realize that we are united with everything that exists in the universe and, as a result, we have managed to change the way we perceive the world around us, as well as our way of life.
Nidra yoga is one of the variants of yoga and, among other things, helps us understand what the mind is. The term nidra in Sanskrit means “sleep”. From the point of view of nidra yoga, we are asleep when we realize that the world is made up of solid and separate objects.
So when we dream, we take pictures of dreams as real. When we woke up, we realized that these objects of dreams are empty of substance and were just inventions of the mind.
During wakefulness awareness, we believe that the world’s solid thoughts and objects are as real as images of dreams; Now, the thoughts and objects that appear in the wake state are as empty as the images of sleep. In this way, nidra yoga is a process that helps us to explore this experience and, above all, to discover the truth of this fact.
When we practice nidra yoga, we carefully and systematically study the nature of the structures and beliefs that define our personal identity, these structures are: physical body, energy, sensation, emotions, bodies of thought and images and personal identity of the ego.
In general, it is a matter of believing that these elements are solid and real structures, during the practice of the yoga nidra we investigate the reality of these beliefs to examine each of them in depth, the goal is to develop a deep and first-hand experience on the structure of our real identity.
In addition, it is also immersed in the field of consciousness, where all beliefs come from, so this type of yoga is an investigation into the real substance and nature from which everything is made, its purpose is to answer the last question about the essence of our intrinsic spiritual identity.
Nidra yoga asks, “Are we separate or finite entities, or are we something infinite and eternal?”And if we go, can we recognize ourselves as “this”, not intellectually, but as a truly integrated experience at all times?
The experience that occurs during the yoga nidra inevitably leads to the deconstruction of our fundamental beliefs about who we are. As we dissolve, we see our essential nature as a presence and come to the conviction that we are not limited and finite creatures that we mistakenly consider. ourselves to be.
Instead, we discover that we are an unsinkable immensity to the mind, a joyful being that is always present, even in the midst of the greatest difficulties.
Swami Digambarananda Saraswati (Danilo Hernandez), one of the most renowned teachers in the world of yoga, explains some of the benefits of nidra yoga, which are:
In addition, we can point out that, from different studies and research with people who practice nidra yoga, it is known that this branch of yoga has a number of physiological benefits, these are:
In addition, the practice of nidra yoga promotes and strengthens the connection with our internal organs and external muscles, this allows us to develop an increasingly defined perception of the state of each part of our body, in this way we can have more body awareness. implies an increase in the awareness of being, which stimulates behaviors oriented mainly to self-care.