Yoga Nidra – The blissful relaxation. Most people sleep without resolving their tensions. This is termed Nidra. Nidra means sleep, no matter what or why. But Yoga Nidra means sleep after throwing off the burdens. It is of a blissful, higher quality altogether. When awareness is separate and distinct from the vrittis; when waking, dream, and deep sleep pass like clouds and yet awareness of Atma remains – this is the experience of total relaxation.
Relaxation does not mean sleep. Relaxation means to be blissfully happy. It has no end. This is absolute relaxation. Sleep is a different matter. Sleep gives only mind and sense relaxation. Bliss relaxes the Atma, the inner self. That is why in Tantra, Yoga Nidra is the doorway to Samadhi.
We share with you here a 31 minute guided Yoga Nidra practice offered by Shweta Rajurkar. Find a quiet space where you will not be disturbed for this time, lie down and kindly do this practice.
“The external shivalingam is responsible for the awakening of your inner shivalingam. According to the science of tantra, kundalini and yoga, there are twelve places in the physical body where shivalingam is located in the same shape. Out of those twelve, three are considered very important. One is in mooladhara chakra (swayambhulingam), the second in ajna chakra (itaralingam) and the third in sahasrara chakra (paralingam). It is said that in sahasrara chakra the finest consciousness resides in the shape of an illuminated shivalingam. Maybe after some time, scientists will discover it, and certainly they are going to discover that man’s body and his evolution, man’s nature and its transformation, man’s consciousness and its awakening, are not influenced by external social factors such as religion, politics, ethics and morality, but they are manifested from somewhere within you. That somewhere is the Shiva in you, the finest matter in you, you in the physical body.
Lingam refers to the causal body.”
~ Swami Muktibodhananda
Hatha Yoga Pradipika – Bihar School of Yoga
INSIGHTS
When we do the deeper body work and take our awareness deep within the substance of our body in search of pure matter and pure substance, often people see the body’s substance in a subtle and soft colour. This region when discovered seems to be lit on its own and has its own inherent joy and love. Love itself is observed to be present as white soft substance, or in other soft subtle colours too. Some people see a lingam with their inner eye within the depth of substance of our body.
In our deeper body work we can wait within our body and keep offering our body’s cells to the Divine. This can be done by keeping our awareness both within our body and above our head, which has ranges of Divine Consciousness and its Qualities. This links our body with Divine. Our body initially could have many entanglements absorbed from others, our environments and embedded from our own past experiences. We take our awareness within our body and place our aspiration and choice that ONLY Divine Qualities should be present within our body. Slowly as inner purification unfolds we may discover more and more luminous substance present a self-joy and love.
Drawing insight from this quote shared we can place our awareness in the chakra regions mentioned. We can either connect to the subtle energy center in these locations or place our awareness in the depth of the body cells there. With our awareness in these regions, keeping our inner senses subtly open, we can open our awareness to the Divine Above or Divinity in any way that comes naturally for us. Slowly within the subtle energy center or within the depth of cells in our body we may notice the self-lit supple substance. This subtle substance is as real or even more real than our physical substance. It has inherent goodness, beauty and force that can be connected to the other centers of our body.
The aspiration slowly is for our entire body to be experienced as an inner lingam or a self-lit offered substance for the Divine to live in and manifest.
Now in another post we can explore how the Mother’s Force flows with all Her Qualities within us. Here the inner luminosity, subtle substance or inner lingam becomes a loving and stable base for Joy, Love and Her Flow.
This is a true story of a sadhak of The Mother on how she consciously conceived her child. We recorded her sharing and transcribed it into this sharing. Certain confidential details alone we have removed so that confidentiality would be maintained.
In 1988 when we decided to have a child, even during the physical interaction, physical act, I was praying. It was very clear that my aspiration was for a soul that would come here for Her, to do Her work. So it wasn’t necessarily that I was praying for a soul from the ashram. I just wanted a soul that was Hers, for Her, and to be dedicated to Her. So, even during the physical act, I was praying and aspiring, that this is for the purpose of conceiving a child. I think pretty much that same time I conceived.
This must have been July of 1988. That year was 8 8 88 and that year they had decided to open The Mother’s Room for 8 8 88. I lived in United States in those days and I decided to come down. For three days I went to the airport every day, every day, every day, but I couldn’t get tickets. And I said, Mother, if you don’t want me to come so be it. I mean, this was my prayer to her and my husband calls me and says that he can get me a ticket on Air India to go. I told him if you drop me anywhere in India, even hanging on to a tail of the aircraft, I will go, as long as I can reach Pondicherry. And thus I reached here at like 3 am on the morning of 8 8 88. I went up, came, did the darshan and everything. And then I told my very close friend here that I was pregnant. She said, how do you know? So I said, I am a day late and I am very, very, very accurate. She said that you can’t tell within a day. I said, no, I’m telling you I’m pregnant. So those days, there was the hospital, that was gloomy only here. I said I won’t have any needles stuck in me. But I’m happy to do a urine test. Urine test normally after three months comes accurate. Blood is the most accurate one. My report came on the 9th. I am positive. I still have that little piece of paper from them saying positive and I took it and I went straight to the ashram to pray to Her. And I stood by the pillar on the side when you enter. I always look up at her room and I chat with Her. My prayer is chatting with Her.
That day they didn’t put those covers on the top. It was a clear view to The Mother’s room. And, I said, I have conceived, give me a soul. My aspiration was for that soul who will come for Her. And this must have been, the lights were on, so about 7.00 or 7. 30 and it was evening. It was very clear. I could see this golden light coming straight from Her womb to enter my womb. And to me that was an endorsement, that was Her seal, that your aspiration, your prayer has been answered.
I went back to the United States and my entire pregnancy was there, the ntire nine months. I worked for three or four months during that, like from 11 am to 4 pm. Because my boss said to me that you need to come and you can come part time. Don’t quit, come part time. I used to travel by train to go to work.
I didn’t read any newspapers, no magazine, not even like a Reader’s Digest, no television. I only read spiritual books and I remember very vividly that I read Thoughts and Aphorisms and The Mother’s Volumes. I read the books cover to cover, cover to cover. I read the Mahabharata and I read the Ramayana. People kept telling me you can’t, you should not read Mahabharata because then they say, you know, you will have problems and conflict in the family. I’m not superstitious, I don’t believe in these things. So I only read spiritual books throughout. My due date, was supposed to be 14th of April.
That year, 14th of April, according to the lunar calendar, was Ram Navami. So I said, very good day, he’ll come on a very good day. On 28th of March, I had my water bag burst, so I had to go to the hospital. And my thought was, 28th of March, has no meaning and no significance. Okay, Mother, whatever you want.
So I go in, and it becomes midnight, and the date turns into 29th March. And my mind says at least it’s an even number. I did not know the significance of the twenty ninth of March. I had no idea what it was. He was born 29th of March and if you were to convert the US time to the India times it was near about the same time that Mother met Sri Aurobindo for the first time. And that was the year they were celebrating the 75th anniversary of Mother and Her meeting with Sri Aurobindo – 1914 to 1989 or 75 years.
We named him A…. We came home, and from the very first night we were home, he has slept to The Mother’s music. Like I had said before, Sunil Da’s music and Mother’s music, all this used to be played to him in the night. In his room it would be playing constantly and he would sleep. This boy, till the age of four, only spoke Hindi.
We speak different dialects, so we said let him learn one Indian language and let him learn it properly. My helper was a woman from Delhi. She spoke very good Hindi. So I said, okay, we have to speak Hindi with this boy. And when I grew up, my father always told me stories from the Ramayana, Mahabharata and all these stories. So that’s what I wanted to do for him. By then those Amar Chitra Katha comics, we didn’t have anything better quality than that. Then those Mahabharat serials and all were running on VHS, we could get them. That was the only thing he could watch on TV. He spoke only Hindi. He could tell you every story from the Mahabharat, from the Ramayana. He could challenge you on those stories. If you go into a temple, you don’t know whose temple it is because all the faces look alike. He could identify by the damru or the naag or the kamal in the hand whose statue this is. By those he would identify Ram, Sita, Radha, Krishna, Vishnu, Lakshmi, they have all these. And he would walk in, and even though they all look alike, he would walk, and he would say, yeh yeh hai, yeh woh hai, yeh woh hai, yeh woh hai, you know. The pandit also used to say, who is this child who knows all this?
One time when he was like two and a half, he was lying down like this on the couch. My mother asked him, “ab kya kar rahe ho” (what are you doing)? He said Yes, I’m Vishnu. I am resting on Sheshnag, you know.
So he, he had all those signs that he was showing till he started going to school at the age of four. When English takes over, the world starts influencing you. Within two weeks, he was sleep talking in English. He is 34 today and he still has this connection. He spent a lot of time in Pondicherry in his growing up years. He is now married and he’s leading a worldly life. All this is all there within you. It’ll come to the fore when She wants it. In his aspirations, my prayer is the same. He’s yours and with Her grace. I never became a possessive mother. I always had the sense of, I am a caretaker.
Yes, I bore the child because you need an instrument to do this. But, it’s not like this is my son or I’m possessive about him or I don’t want him talking to you or this or that. Her grace that I was not possessive.
The real nuisance is the memory —the memory of a lot of old things—which perpetuates the old influence; but in reality, there is nothing—only the memory of it. – The Mother
September 18, 1971, Volume 12, The Mother, Mother’s Agenda
It is largely responsible for our illnesses; chronic or repeated illnesses are indeed mainly due to the subconscient and its obstinate memory and habit of repetition of whatever has impressed itself upon the body consciousness. – Sri Aurobindo, CWSA – Vol. 28, Letters on Yoga, Book 1, pg. 216
If you want to be completely cured, you must cure this memory in the body, this is absolutely indispensable. And whether you know it or not, you work in order to cure the memory in the body. When the remembrance is effaced, the body is truly healed.
The Mother, CWM Vol. 06, Questions and Answers (1954)
INTRODUCTION
The quality of energy of the inner being of the Mother and Father gets transferred to the body and cells of the child. Our memories of past, even if it suppressed plays in the background of our sub-consciousness. This affects our moods, energy fields and our interactions with our partner. This is why in individual sadhana working on the memories and healing their imprints is considered very important.
There is a whole bunch of memories that could be running within the minds of the mother and the father. This is like a constant movie running inside our heads. This forms a huge impact. It is like a field that is present, positive or limiting it influences the state of the child-to-be born. In your memory lane you could have some sadness, anger, frustration, disappointments with someone in family, or some hurt that somebody has not taken care of you well, and the like. All of these when present in the mother or father’s memory field which forms part of their sub-conscious, slowly penetrates within the child-to-be born. Ideally as the couple is planning to conceive they can begin their memory cleansing work and continue the same during the period of pregnancy. A baby born to such a couple has a privileged birth.
First basic principle is that if you are aspiring for conscious birth, you have to put in that extra effort. Ideally none of these limiting memories should be rotating inside you as best as possible. The more they rotate, the more it’s going to cause an impact for the child-to-be born. We are now going to explore a simplified process for the memory transformation. Couples can do this practice with each other. Whoever is going through the process will lie down. The other person can sit beside and guide this process.
In this couple process each of you take turns to become a giver (facilitator) and a receiver to transform each other’s memories. The goal is to get an experience of unloading of burdens silently, in a space of vast love and care. While the memories could continue to be the same, the energetic imprint behind the memories would turn empowering and nourishing.
We share with you a way with which you can facilitate this with your partner. At the same time the receiving partner would do this process for themselves at the same time silently. Do not worry if you wonder if you feel equipped to facilitate this process for your partner. We have tested the below process in our conscious birthing workshops. If the right attitude and aspiration is brought it, even couples who were doing inner body work for the very first time, could actually take their partner through this process with ease.
PROCESS
This process would take anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes. Choose a space where you will not be disturbed for this time. It would be good to keep your mobiles and other devices away. Sit in a room where the ambience invokes something beautiful, sacred, refreshing and joyful. If you can do this in a peaceful and quite place in nature that would be good too.
Role of Partner giving this process (Facilitator)
Your partner could be sitting or lying down. Do ensure that their position is comfortable. Bring in care and love throughout this process. When you place your hands on the body of your partner touch them as if their body is very sacred. All of us have drops of Divine and Divine’s Qualities within us. Aspire to make your hand conscious, filled with care and love.
Place your hand on your partner’s head. You can place the palm of one of your hands on the top of their head and another down holding the back of their head. You can do it in any way of your choice. Be intuitive about it based on mutual comfort levels. You are going to work in and around the head region. Refrain from placing your hands on your partner’s third-eye region on the forehead unless you are skilled in body work. The third-eye is a chakra point. It is thus better that we don’t go there unless you are skilled. Placing your hand on the top of forehead or on either side of their temples is ok.
Ensure that your partner feels comfortable with your touch. Refrain from doing this process when you are irritated, angry or emotional with your partner. In such instances through your hands you will transmit these energies into your partner. In such cases wait for things to clear up within you and when you feel affectionate and caring towards your partner, then you can do this practice.
Role of Receiving Partner
The person who is receiving this process allow your partner to place their hand. You can guide them how to place their hand and the degree of pressure of contact to maintain based on your comfort levels.
Role of Facilitating Partner
You can place hand on your partner’s head. Hold in your awareness that the region here holds a lot of old memories. Be intuitive and go with the comfort level of each other. You keep the hand there on your partner’s head region, and there is only one movement you are going to do. Your hand is almost like you are touching their memories. It’s like an aspiration and this is half the posture. The other half of the posture is like your hand is touching their memories and connecting them to the Qualities present far above in the heights of consciousness above both your heads. These qualities above are like Vastness, Wideness, Freedom, Space, Peace, Silence, Light, Joy, Love etc. When your hand is touching don’t put pressure. Your hand is gentle and you are just touching the memory of your partner with an aspiration saying that “May we heal”. Whatever that is running in the memory, the state of it impacts the child. It’s almost like you don’t know what the memories are there, but you are just sensing into the memory field and surrendering or offering it to the above. It will be good not talk in this process. It is a silent process, which goes on for about 15-20 minutes. Be relaxed and be comfortable. Change your postures as needed. Simply, you are connecting to the memory, and you are connecting the memory field to the Divine Qualities above. You can develop the attitude of sacredness. You are touching your partner’s body in a sacred way. Develop that attitude.
Role of Receiving Partner
Now, the person lying down, the receiving partner can also simultaneously start their own process. First, become aware of your body. Connect to your own body in a sacred way. Just become aware of your breath.
The person who is lying down and doing the process intuitively allow any memory that wishes to be transformed to surface. It can be any memory from childhood to now. So whichever memory is ready to get transformed allow it to come organically. So whatever memory comes, you can take your awareness within the memory and place your breath inside it. You will put your breath inside the memory. Each of us would be doing the natural breath practice. You can take that same natural breath in this moment and put it into the memory. This is a very subtle process. The moment you place your breath there within the memory, your breath will start transforming the ‘energetic state’ and the ‘substance’ of the memory. You just put your breath there and connect it to the Divine Qualities above, and that’s all. Just wait for whatever time is needed for the memory to undergo transformation. The memory need not be fully transformed. Just start the process and when you feel the maximum possible transformation has unfolded, let go and move into another memory. Continue till you cover a few memories and you feel enough for today and then you can continue this process later. If you get overwhelmed at any point due to the ‘charge’ in the memory, and you find it difficult to continue let your partner know. You can indicate that, for example, you are feeling some tenderness in your chest. Your spouse who is facilitating the process can place their hand there. They can connect to your body and emotion and offer it to the Divine. With their help if you feel calmer you can continue the process. Else you can pause and come back to this process later.
To summarize, your partner who is sitting beside you will connect intuitively to your memory field in general and keep connecting to the divine above. They will do this throughout the process. You will go through specific memories in your life time which are not transformed and carry some limiting charges. The second you get a memory, immediately you put your own breath into it and connect the memory to the Divine above. You can figure out your own way of doing it. When needed you can ask non-verbal support from your partner – like a calm holding of their hand or shifting their hand to a different part of the head etc. You will do one memory for a couple of minutes or you can spend a longer time with each memory. It is up to you. If you are getting overwhelmed with any memory, you will just point to your partner, where in your body you are experiencing the difficulty, and your partner will help you there. Your partner can place their hand on the exact spot of body where there is the difficulty. They can gently touch there and simultaneously connect the part to the Divine above. At the end of 15 – 20 minutes, you can take a short pause if you wish and then continue.
Simply go from one un-transformed memory to another. The moment the memory comes, put your natural breath into it, and you tell your own body there is no need to hold on to the memory. This is what you will have to keep telling yourself. There is no need to hold on to the memory or the emotions. You are telling your body to release the memory to the divine above. So, you are just connecting the memory to the divine above or to the sacred below consciousness if you have access to it. Wait for some time and carry on. Your partner can also silently keep intending that your body releases its memory imprints fully, wholly and integrally.
Sometimes a memory does not get fully transformed. That ok. You can place a request that the process can continue in the background. Whenever you are free later you can come back to the process. To whatever extent your body has done this work of body release you can surrender and offer it to the Divine.
When you feel reasonably complete you can close the process. Both of you can share how the process was for each other. On the same day or another day you can reverse the roles and offer this process in this manner with each other.
Final Tips to the Facilitator Partner
When you place your hands on your partner it is not so much about the amount of pressure you put, rather it is more about awareness and intention. Stay in a comfortable position when you are leaning forward etc. Keep your spine straight, shoulders and neck relaxed. When a part of your body needs support honour it. If you are supporting with one hand, when needed change your hand still continuing to be connected to the partner who could be going through an important moment of transformation of their memory. While your partner is going through their memories, you can intuitively connect to their memory field in general, put your breath within their memory field, connect it to the Divine above, connect it to the Sacred Divine below. So basically, you are just offering the memory of your partner to Divine above, grounding their memory and you are supporting them to let go.
With practice you can learn to truly connect to your partner’s body. It is like an intimate contact. You have to keep connecting to their body throughout this process. Slowly you can learn to keep your hand neutral. Often you would not know what this person is going through internally. You are just connecting and being with them and being a catalyst for their process. So you have to be fully present the 15-20 minutes or more of the process. You will get distracted. When you recognize that your mind has wandered come back into the present moment and support your partner. Stay connected with your partner. The more you support the more it is easier for your partner to do the memory transformation process fully. At later point, when you are little bit more skilled, you can even place your breath within the body of your partner and fully support them. You can just place one breath within the body of your partner and this will help them to go through the process deeply.
“To unite your physical lives, your material interests, to become partners in order to face together the difficulties and successes, the defeats and victories of life—that is the very foundation of marriage, but you already know that it is not enough.
To be united in your sensations, to have the same aesthetic tastes and enjoyments, to be moved in common by the same things, one through the other and one for the other—that is good, that is necessary, but it is not enough.
To be one in your deeper feelings, to keep a mutual affection and tenderness that never vary in spite of all the blows of life and can withstand every weariness and irritation and disappointment, to be always and on every occasion happy, extremely happy, to be together, to find in every circumstance tranquility, peace and joy in each other—that is good, that is very good, that is indispensable, but it is not enough.
To unite your minds, to harmonise your thoughts and make them complementary, to share your intellectual preoccupations and discoveries; in short, to make your sphere of mental activity identical through a widening and enrichment acquired by both at once—that is good, that is absolutely necessary, but it is not enough.
Beyond all that, in the depths, at the centre, at the summit of the being, there is a Supreme Truth of being, an Eternal Light, independent of all the circumstances of birth, country, environment, education; That is the origin, cause and master of our spiritual development; it is That which gives a permanent direction to our lives; it is That which determines our destinies; it is in the consciousness of That that you must unite. To be one in aspiration and ascension, to move forward at the same pace on the same spiritual path, that is the secret of a lasting union.
I write this to both of you, since you are about to marry with the aim of becoming one being in two bodies.”
The Mother, New Words of the Mother
Collected Works of the Mother Vol. 20
INSIGHTS
Love is a primary ingredient parents can give to the child to be born. Now love is a mystery that all seek and it often eludes us. Read the above quote from time to time as a couple. Aspire, connect, bond, allow natural intimacy and love so that slowly you experience union in your body’s subtle substance, sensations, feelings, emotions, thoughts, deeper aspiration and connection to Divine. This is a joyful labour of mutual love. The more closer experientially we arrive at this as a couple the more the child to be born is soaked in an inner space of love, peace, warmth and creative flow.
The basis of union is first of all to become an individual, to function from your highest and deeper self. And then when both the individuals are striving to be in their height, then the union more naturally takes place. A clash of mother and father when they are giving their best form of love will not occur if they are at a height. From their height they will always connect to themselves and each other from the real essence of care, love and parenthood. Even when difference of opinions comes they can remain connected to the true essence of love and then finding a way out is easy. Union is possible more only form an individual height and depth. By union, it does not mean that the couple is merging and dissolving into something. They are standing straight and firm. The firmness is not stubbornness. And yet they are melting and moulding into and with each other. True individuation is the basis of true Union. Then surrendering to the highest destiny of the child or the relationship is possible.
