• Table of Contents
  • To That Guru
  • Guru Purnima Message by Swami Rama
  • Guru by Swami Rama
  • Mastering Yoga Nidra by Swami Veda Bharati
  • Anniversary Celebrations by Dr. Shirin Venkat
  • The End of Children's School Year by Mónika Bertalan
  • The Grace of the Guru by Aditi M. Gaur
  • An Intangible Beauty by Daniele Belloni
  • Dear Yoga Mentor, My Question Is ...
  • Walk Up to Guru Purnima 2014 by Joanne Sullivan (Divya)
  • What Is Mastery in Yoga? by Swami Veda Bharati
  • New Book Published: Anant Ki Khoj by AHYMSIN Publishers
  • Some Coming Attractions at SRSG
  • 2014 Events and Beyond
  • Full Moon Meditation Dates
  • Location of our SRSG ashram
• AHYMSIN Newsletter Archive

Mastering Yoga Nidra

by Swami Veda Bharati

Many people write me asking if they can learn a language or complex mathematics in a very short period of time by applying Yoga Nidra.  Here is my answer.

Yoga Nidra is not quite that much of a magic.  One still has to study a subject in the regular way, then go into the Yoga Nidra state.  Without disturbing the rest of the mental field, select the topic to be reviewed.  The images or words and the topic come popping up in a proper sequence.  One simply observes that.  It is a difficult process to learn and even more difficult is to do conscious recall of the imagery that had emerged from the unconscious, when one comes out of that exercise.

This is easily described but not easily learnt.

It is difficult enough for people to go into pure Yoga Nidra and then more difficult is to selectively make a certain topic emerge from the reservoir of the unconscious into which it was earlier sent into storage while learning consciously.

So here are the steps:

• Mastering pure Yoga Nidra
• Conscious learning in a very relaxed state of body and mind so that the subject studied, read or heard sinks down into the unconscious.
• Going into pure Yoga Nidra
• Very gently, very very gently, inviting a select topic to emerge from the unconscious into the field of the Yoga Nidra mind.
• Observing the images, words or (if you are learning music or have learned a language by audio) sounds, as they appear in the Yoga Nidra field; caution – the rest of the field must not be disturbed.  Let the ripples in the calm lake remain confined to where the ripples are supposed to remain.
• You will know when the desired image has played itself out.
• Lying there conscious and relaxed
• Doing a conscious recall of the same ‘audio’ or ‘video’ that was played out from the unconscious mind.
• Get up and make conscious notes of what you have learned.
• To reproduce it for a lecture, or using a language, or writing an exam, test or essay, put the mind in a relaxed state and not struggle to remember.

This involves a mastery of conscious mind, Yoga Nidra, area of the knowledge storage in the unconscious and finding channels of communicating among these layers.

I never learned how.  I was never given a lesson except in the basic exercises leading to Yoga Nidra.

I have been using it from childhood, from the initiation into Yoga Nidra proper from the Guru and from what I have been doing (a) to learn and (b) to discover new knowledge.  I am only giving a description of the processes I undergo. 

We could try to do this in a workshop on a very rudimentary basis.  Some lucky ones will catch it.

My own emphasis remains on pure meditation and pure Yoga Nidra.  I do not teach curing headaches or learning languages.  My shukla, shuddha-vidya goals are very clear to me.

I am now not going to open a language school in New York or Hollywood to speak French for French movies!  I will not train my teachers to do that either.

svb

Editor's Note:

There will be a Silence, Shavasana Practices and Yoga Nidra Retreat 22nd March - 5th April 2015 at Swami Rama Sadhaka Grama in Rishikesh, India.

"For decades we have guided the shavasana practices and yoga nidra in sessions where the teacher does the ‘recital’ and others listen and follow. But we have not TAUGHT the procedures.” — Swami Veda Bharati

The purpose of this retreat is for participants to learn the procedures.

For more information, please read http://ahymsin.org/main/ashram/silence-shavasana-practices-and-yoga-nidra-retreat-in-2015.html

To read My Experiments with Yoga Nidra: Inward Perceptions by Swami Veda Bharati, a short excerpt from a book/booklet that will soon be published by AHYMSIN Publishers, please use this link: http://www.ahymsin.org/docs2/News/1406Jun/02.html