Rising Tide Yoga

We were talking about Yoga Nidra and Amrit Desai after class today. I searched for a YouTube Nidra Script read by Desai, but there is none. The best I found was an interview titled, “Buddha and the Gas Tank.”

But there are yoga nidra scripts on YouTube—in fact, there are several of them. I’ve listed links to three that I do like. The LINK on my website is a bit sketchy lately. If the link doesn’t work, copy and paste the URL in your address box.

The current “financial leader” of Yoga Nidra is Richard Miller. He has trademarked “iRest” nidra. It is the company that the Veterans Hospitals and the Department of Defense uses as part of PTSD treatment. The third link is to a reading of one of his scripts. It’s listed as “non-official” which, in my old librarian days I would get upset about, knowing that means it’s non-authorized use of intellectual property. However, these days—I’m just not fighting any intellectual rights battles in an Internet age.

If you are interested in buying guided meditation Nidra CDs, I think Rod Stryker of ParaYoga has the best one out. It’s on his “Meditations to Greatness” CD. It is a traditional Yoga Nidra script–breath work, body scan, guided imagery, floating body, opposite concepts, breath work and rest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hs6UAJZ_kEo>

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQKOJvnC01Q Richrd Miller’s Nidra.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDcjjWRteeU

Some of the Yoga Nidra scripts on YouTube are a bit “New Age” and have a “Hallmark” feel to them. But t really is all about taste. I like the more traditional, less descriptive scripts.

Listen to a few, if one appeals to you, bookmark it as a favorite and give it a few listens.

Namaste

Here is a photo of a woman in “corpse pose.” It’s the traditional pose—arms and legs at forty-five degree angle, chin at the appropriate angle, a relaxed appearance.

So what’s wrong with this picture? Nothing.

But, for me, the yogini looks “naked.” Somewhere (Satchidananda Ashram) along the line, I’ve become the queen of props. I can’t let “good” be good enough. I have to prop under the thighs, (not the knees because they may create joint pressure), I have to put neck rolls under my students, give them a blanket under the head, sand bags on the hands, a back support, perhaps a meditation scarf over their bodies for a sense of safety and warmth. Enough already!

My only defense is that at least I have stopped putting light pillows on the belly of my students. And, I have stopped putting mini-pillows under the shoulders of yoginis. (It was causing some people to have numb arms.)

There are times I wonder what Sri Swami Sathchidananda would think of all this propping and primping, then I remember, I learned how to do this at his Ashram. And, while this might not be “traditional” yoga, is part of the evolution to make yoga part of our 21st century world.

My “guru” Satya Greenstone, a former monk, and an Integral Yoga teacher for forty years or so, was my teacher. (This is a photo of Satya.) She is precise, professional and has a very dry sense of humor. I imagine that there are times she looks at the piles of eight blankets, six blocks, two belts and a partridge and a pear tree and smiles, too.

Thanks, Satya for just being who you are.

Photo Credit: www.yogaville.org For more information about Integral Yoga, and Swami Satchidananda, go to their website.

If you go to www.ReadPlease.com, there is a free downloadable software that converts text into synthesized speech.

ReadPlease offers several versions of their software. The most streamlined is the one that is offered for free. (It’s the ReadPlease 2003 version.) There are four voices from which to choose and there is a speed control. It’s a great little tool for lots of things–including listening to a post before putting it up on the web! It catches errors that you can’t “see” in the text.

So, what does this have to do with yoga?

Well, if you do an internet search on “YOGA NIDRA SCRIPTS” you can save that script to your computer, then when you want to listen to it, just COPY and PASTE the script into the ReadPlease software and it will read to you.

You can lie on a mat and have the Yoga Nidra experience. Of course you can purchase CDs, that’s a given. The purpose of ReadPlease is to tranform those SCRIPT texts to audio. With ReadPlease you can cut and paste paragraphs from different scripts and make your own relaxation “tape.”

I have a warning about ReadPlease. If you want to change the voice you hear, do not click on the face of the person “speaking.” If you do, you’ll get scolded by that person. Click on the button for changing voices.

I’m a great fan of ReadPlease. I know for myself, once I hear my words, I can pick up a tone or attitude in my writing that I did not want to convey. Try it out.

CHITTAPAWAN KRIYA video of Yoga Nidra

The first time my husband went to Yoga Nidra he won the prize for the loudest snoring. Well, that’s not the truth, but he did nod off, and that’s more common than not.

Yoga Nidra is a practise of total body “sleep” (the translation of Nidra is “sleep”) while keeping the mind awake. It is a guided meditation.

The spoken words of the yoga instructor follow a fairly ritualistic pattern. There is relaxation introduction, a call for a sankalapa (I’ll explain that in a minute), a call to awareness of specific body parts, a visualization exercise, then the sankalpa call, and a transition back to awakeness and total awareness.

The idea of a sankalpa is a resolution, not like a postive-thinking resolution, it’s not “active.” There is no visualization of what or how you’re going to get to the goal, there’s no motivational approach.

My understanding is that the sankalpa is embedded in the sub-conscious and after repeated pracitse of yoga nidra over months, or years, it will, in fact become real.

No matter what you’re belief about yoga nidra, the bottom line is, that it is at the least, a calming, meditative experience, that in a mere 20 minutes has you feeling like meltinga cotton candy.

If you search online videos, you will find several videos and audios of yoga nidra. I use http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6097261061531748663# It’s about 25 minutes long, the guide is Indian and his voice is not radio announcer mellow but any means, but it’s short, and there are no commercials to buy anything.

As for a purchased CD, I do have Rod Stryker’s MEDITATION TO GREATNESS because my teacher in Hawaii comes from his tradition and she used Stryker’s Pure Yoga methods in her class. I’m not endorsing it in particular, I’m just mentioning it as a good CD. It has 2 meditations, one is 45 minutes the other is 28.

Yoga Nidra is also marketed as Restorative Yoga and some methods are trademarked. It should be noted that yoga nidra is being used as part of support services for veterans returning from war. PTSD patients have also shown benefit from nidra practise. In 2006, the U.S. Department of Defense researched the iRest program (based on yoga nidra) as a treatment for soldiers returning from Afghanistan and Iraq with post-traumatic stress disorder – a major symptom of which is insomnia. The success of the program led to its adoption at Veterans Affairs facilities across the country.