Tag Archives: All Sorts

What is Yoga Nidra

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The best way to understand what Yoga Nidra is to understand who is practicing it.

The one who practices Yoga Nidra is a yogi and the clearest definition of what a yogi is comes from the Bagavad Gita 4:18 as follows: “One who sees inaction in action, and action in inaction, is intelligent among men, he is a yogi  and has accomplished everything (he is in the transcendental position although engaged in all sorts of activities).”

This definition evokes the obvious questions, “What does inaction in action and action in inaction mean?”

Inaction in action and action in inaction means that your very being is doing . For example in deep sleep you are not consciously active yet there is no discontinuity to life.

The practice of Yoga Nidra approximates deep sleep. In the practice ‘you’ are inactive yet you are awake, alert and active as your true nature – thus you experientially understand ‘inaction in action’, ‘action in inaction’ and you also then know what it means to be a yogi who has accomplished everything.

In this light Yoga Nidra is the practice of inaction is action and action in inaction.

Maya – Illusion Reality or Truth

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What is Maya?

Most often the Sanskrit word ‘maya’ is translated as ‘illusion’.

This is correct in a certain way because part of the Sanskrit root meaning of maya is ‘illusion’ yet the problem with limiting the translation to ‘illusion’ is that when folks apply the definition they most often do it from within the realm of maya. This leads to all sorts of negative conclusions that are also ‘maya’.

In the past I’ve shared the distinction between what may be called ‘reality’ and ‘Truth’. An example is fear; the sensations arising as fear are true yet the mental based reasons for fear may be completely false. A situation that illustrates this is the fact most people’s greatest fear is public speaking yet public speaking itself is not the source of the sensations that arise, rather it is the person’s mental response to the situation.

In the same way it is clear that negative conclusions like ‘it is all illusion’ are false when these are mental responses that are generated by your thinking mind as an interpretation of what ‘illusion’ means – that is maya.

The Sanskrit the root meaning of maya comes from a common source that means both ‘illusion’ and ‘measure’. In this light when you accidentially hit your shin against the sharp corner of a coffee table there is not the false conclusion that ‘it is all illusion’ rather ‘hitting your shin off a sharp corner is ‘lived’ as the truth of what arises in that situation (any mental representation of this event is maya).

Maya is the ability to acquire and use knowledge as the action of your thinking mind. When you see things through what you already know then your knowledge is a ‘veil’ or filter that alters what you see.

In this light maya is your thinking mind that is functionally very useful for naming things and making distinctions. This means that although maya as your mental representation is illusion it is also a very effective and real means of measuring things and working with them symbolically. An example is language as language is an obviously tremendously useful and effective means of speaking about things that are not necessarily true at present yet you can use language to make a plan that is aligned with truth.

Maya and Truth are like the weather – alive.

Does a Healing Meditation Actually Help Your Body to Recover From an Illness?

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If you’ve been looking at self help information for any time, chances are that you’ll have come across the idea of using a healing meditation to help your body to recover. Does this really help or is it all – literally – in your mind and just a glorified placebo?

First, let’s look at what a healing meditation is:

The meditation itself will begin by getting you to breathe in and out, usually deeply.

In turn, this will cause your body to start to relax. This is a totally natural experience and will happen whether or not you’re using a meditation to help guide you into this state of relaxation.

After that, the guided healing meditation will begin to address the problem you’re experiencing. It may do this in a couple of different ways depending on whether you’ve got hold of a generalized healing meditation or one that is specific to your current ailment.

A general meditation will talk to your body and will usually encourage you to produce more white blood cells – your body’s natural defense mechanism. At times of illness, we need more of these fighter blood cells so that we can ward off any ailments that may be afflicting us.

It’s difficult to measure whether just thinking about producing more white blood cells or more antibodies will actually help our bodies to increase our production levels. There are so many variables involved that testing is difficult to say the least.

Which means that your typical doctor will deny that meditation can help your body to heal. And your typical new age meditator will swear blind that using a healing meditation was the only thing that kept them from death’s door.

Chances are that, as is so often the case, the truth lies somewhere between these two opposing viewpoints.

Our bodies react to all sorts of stimuli all the time. Exercise has been proven to product more endorphins, the “feel good” neurotransmitters that our bodies produce all the time. So we know that it’s perfectly possible for our bodies to produce chemicals and send them around in our blood stream. Your doctor would agree with this side of the equation.

What’s more open to question is whether a healing meditation will help your body to heal. I’m on the “yes” side of the fence. Not from scientific experiment but from a time when I was confined to bed after an accident. I listened to a healing meditation on a daily basis and I know that my recovery time was a lot less than the prediction.

The thing is, there’s no downside to listening to a healing meditation track. The worst that can happen is that it doesn’t speed up your recovery. And even if that’s the case, you’ll still get to relax deeper than you would without it. The best that can happen is that it does stimulate your body’s natural defense mechanism and help you to recover faster. Give it a try yourself and see how you get on!

Find out more about using a guided healing meditation and claim your free meditation report.

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