Pierre Bonnasse – Yoga Nidra Meditation: The Sleep of the Sages

Pierre Bonnasse – Yoga Nidra Meditation: The Sleep of the Sages

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A practice to consciously explore wakefulness, dreaming, deep sleep, and the very structure of your emotional, mental, and energy bodies • Details the simple postures of Yoga Nidra, breathing exercises and guided meditations, and tips for maintaining awareness in the liminal state that precedes sleep • Explains how Yoga Nidra allows you to explore different states of consciousness and any blockages in the emotional, mental, and energy bodies • Includes four complete sessions as well as pointers for creating your own sessions Known as the “yoga of conscious sleep,” Yoga Nidra is an ancient Indian practice that allows you to consciously explore the states of wakefulness, dream, and deep sleep as well as your own psyche by combining deep relaxation with attentive awareness. Stemming from Hindu, Buddhist, and Tantric philosophies, the practice–which could be called the “sleep of the sages”–centers on techniques for putting the mind and body to sleep while keeping your consciousness alert. Through Yoga Nidra you can directly observe and understand specific physiological, emotional, and mental processes within yourself as well as experience moments of great inner tranquility, joy, and well-being. Providing a step-by-step guide to Yoga Nidra, Pierre Bonnasse offers a full range of practices focused on the time of awakening and that of going to sleep, yet adaptable to any time of day or night. He details the simple postures of Yoga Nidra and includes preparatory techniques that work with breath and guided meditations to help you become an attuned observer of your inner world. Offering tips for withdrawing the senses and maintaining awareness in the liminal state that precedes sleep, the author explores how all practices in this discipline begin with a phase of relaxation and observation of breathing, followed by immersion into a very subtle awareness of the physical, energy, and mental bodies. He explains how Yoga Nidra sessions allow you to discover “that which is held on to,” making it is easier to let go and become free from all states and processes. A session can explore different states of consciousness as well as your senses, desires, and fears. The higher states of more advanced sessions focus on the energy body and its components: the chakras, nadis, and pranavayu, the vital breath and autonomic functions of the body. Including four complete sessions as well as pointers for creating your own, Bonnasse shows how Yoga Nidra offers positive, stabilizing, and therapeutic effects for the body, emotions, and thoughts. It is the ideal practice for getting rid of stress, anxiety, and the fear of death the source of all other fears. Connecting Indian and Western philosophical ideas, the author shows how sleep can be an opportunity to practice a form of yoga that changes not only our nights but every minute of our days.Editorial ReviewsReview“Yoga Nidra Meditation: The Sleep of the Sages is as much about waking up as it is about sleeping. Bonnasse shows us how to wake up from the sleepy dreams that dull our consciousness and keep our natural enlightened state concealed. He tells us that to go beyond the body into our awakened state, first we have to go into the body, awakening its sensations and breath. The awakened state of the body then becomes the river that takes us beyond our limited sense of self. This is an important message, beautifully expressed, and the author offers powerful, yet simple, instructions on entering the state of yoga nidra for ourselves.” (Will Johnson, author of Breathing through the Whole Body and Eyes Wide Open)“Pierre Bonnasse’s Yoga Nidra Meditation is no glib self-help book about using modern yoga nidra–the practice of visualizing images, having awareness of breath, and remaining immobile while in a lucid, sleep-like state–for getting rid of stress and anxiety. It is, instead, an in-depth, wise, and elegantly written presentation of the philosophy and practice of modern yoga nidra as nothing less than a means of attaining a ‘taste of Being’ of Brahman. In this, the book itself is a kind of meditation–the kind that one may read at bedtime in order to facilitate slipping into sleep.” (Elliott Goldberg, author of The Path of Modern Yoga)About the AuthorPierre Bonnasse, also known as Chitragupta, has studied under the guidance of different spiritual masters for more than 20 years. The author of more than 20 books, he cofounded the Rishi Yoga Shala School, offering yoga training programs in India and in France. He lives in both France and Rishikesh, India.

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