Read on to discover yoga nidra and go on to experience it for yourself from the 11th January in Chelsea, where James will be leading a 4 week yoga nidra and meditation course.
Is there an easy way to meditate? Yes…it’s called yoga nidra. All you have to do is lie down, listen and find yourself connecting with all that you are and everything that is.
Yoga nidra is a sublime practice, gaining popularity the world over as a means to treat depression, anxiety, trauma and other stress-related maladies, and of course as a practice to enrich, sooth and nourish one’s everyday experience of life. However, it is by no means a new fad. It has its roots in a philosophy called Sankhya, first written down around 700 BC, and over centuries it has been expanded upon – Patanjali and the Buddha being some of its more famous proponents. Today yoga nidra has become an experiential map of the history of meditation.
How is it practised?
During the practice, we turn our attention inwards, and we learn to surf between the states of wakefulness and sleep. Here, our body finds its natural state of equilibrium – the breath balances and becomes quiet, unconscious and conscious aspects of the mind reveal themselves, and we fall into an innate state of deep, blissful awareness.
Unlike most meditation classes, you will most likely lie down for the practice. The teacher will then guide you, usually for around 35 minutes, and your only requirement is to listen (though many people often drift in and out of sleep to begin with – which is okay). You will most likely start by setting an intention (why are you doing this?) and then enquiring in to your deeper intentions for life as a whole. You then might determine a collection of feelings and associations that make you feel safe and well, to create a place you can access when faced with difficulty. You will then explore the body and breath, using your senses as a microscope to observe and welcome every aspect of your being – a practice that leads the body and mind into a deep state of relaxation. From here, various hits of emotions, thoughts and beliefs – often unexpected – will start to emerge. They may be experiences or emotions that you’ve not had the chance to deal with, or perhaps have found too overwhelming and therefore chosen, on whatever level, to repress. Now, with your body and mind rested ‘in neutral,’ you are able to welcome these thoughts, feelings and beliefs in new ways. To truly be with them.
Yoga nidra doesn’t try to fix anything. Instead, through deep heart-felt listening and welcoming, so many problems of the body and mind find harmony and resolution. I delight in teaching this paradox; that which we can truly be with, we ultimately transcend. This is both the heart of yoga and the embodiment of enlightened living – to be with things as they are.
Once the mind and emotions have been seen, heard, welcomed and connected with, they too become increasingly subtle. This gives rise to the final phase of the practice: exploring consciousness. Do you know who you are? Are you aware of your true nature? Do you know what it is to be sentient? Yoga nidra enables us to dive in and recognize our Self (with a big S) as open, expansive, un-bounded, unlimited awareness. This is the ultimate liberation and the highest realisation we can come to.
Join James in Chelsea…
nidra + meditation: a 4 week course
11 January – 01 February, 7.45 – 9.00pm, price £60
book now
James has over a decade’s yoga teaching experience and is one of the UK’s leading authorities on yoga nidra. His classes combine inspiration drawn from his teachers (including Richard Miller, Mukunda Stiles, Kali Ray, Donna Farhi and Rod Stryker) together with insights gained on his own yogic journey. James sees yoga as our opportunity to engage with a deep sense of interconnected wholeness, both within ourselves and the world around us, and his classes seek to help us live the essence of our true nature: welcoming, open, spacious and free from judgment and conditioning. James has worked with organisations such as Oxford University, Oxfam and Khiron House Trauma Clinic and even at the 2014 Oscars where he supported one of his regular clients, the British actress Emma Watson. He has been featured in publications including the Sunday Times, Cosmopolitan, Evening Standard, Spectrum (British Wheel of Yoga magazine) and Italy’s Vivre lo Yoga magazine.
