Raja yoga begins with relaxation. Pratyahara begins with relaxation. The way to relax is sequential. The way to relax is not to let the mind be free but to guide the mind into different activities. This goes against the idea of relaxation. When we think of relaxation, we think that the mind has to be free and we can just forget ourselves. In yoga nidra, the opposite happens. We are continuously being bombarded by instructions, ‘Now do this, now do this, now do this . ’ The mind is kept engaged all the time. By keeping it engaged, it moves away from the sensorial track into a mental track. When the mind is following the senses and memories, then that is the sensorial track of the mind. When the mind is following its own inner mental track and is not connected with the senses, it is able to find its balance and harmony and able to relax. Before concentration, relaxation is important and therefore relaxation is the first stage of pratyahara.
Sri Swamiji says that yoga nidra is sleepless sleep. When he says it is sleepless sleep, it makes it clear that sleep is not a pre requisite for relaxation. Relaxation is one state, sleep is another. In sleep, you do not have consciousness, you are not conscious of yourself. In relaxation, you are conscious of yourself. In sleep you lose the time, space and object awareness; in relaxation you are using time, space and object to let go of your anxieties and stresses. So do not ever equate relaxation with sleep. They are different. The process of relaxation happens at different levels. First is learning how to loosen up your body.
Many people today cannot relax. Unfortunately, it is a shortcoming which we have to face. We should be able to relax. Many people say that if they use the word ‘relaxation’, they become more tense thinking, ‘I am not relaxed.’ That is also a personal shortcoming, how you think is up to you. If you don’t like to use the word ‘relaxation’, I am not going to change it because you don’t accept it. Everything is a projection of what I think, I can do or I cannot do. These barriers have to be overcome in relaxation. You should be able to relax. That process of relaxation begins with releasing the tightness and tensions from bones, the muscular system and other systems, from the major body systems to the subtle systems, one by one, and become as flexible and loose physically as a rubber band.
If you are lying down in shavasana, and god’s hand picks you up, you should not be straight, you should be floppy.
When you pick up a rubber band, the rubber band will be straight or will it be a floppy rubber? If god’s hand picks you up while you are in shavasana, will you be stiff in shavasana or will your body be loose and flexible like a rubber? It has to be loose and flexible like a rubber. How can you make yourself come to that point of looseness? That is the first requirement of relaxation. There are different methods which are used to achieve this looseness and flexibility of the body in relaxation. That is for the physical body.
The nervous system is the second level. It responds to sensory activities like light, sound, taste, touch and smell. So you go through sound awareness. You go through the contact awareness that some parts of your body are in contact with the floor, clothes are in contact with your skin. You develop contact awareness, sound awareness and breath awareness. Then you engage the mind to focus it more. Then the sankalpa comes and then the body rotation. The body rotation is something incredible. If you have to say the name of the body part, visualize the body part and relax the body part, it indicates a total identification with the part which is being named; it is not just a cursory superficial awareness. You move into the body part and become that. Right hand thumb, you are saying right hand thumb, you are visualizing right hand thumb, you are relaxing right hand thumb and you are the right hand thumb. First finger, you become the first finger. You take your awareness and become each part of the body that is being named and you develop a close and intimate relationship with your own body.
There are people who suddenly in yoga nidra realize that they have five toes. There has never been any conscious awareness of five toes, yet in yoga nidra suddenly you realize that you have a big toe and a little toe and in between the big one and the little one, there are three more of different sizes and shapes. There are many people who even learn English names of body parts. Some Americans who came here, were asking after a yoga nidra session, ‘What is an armpit?’ They had not heard the word ‘armpit’. The usage of the word ‘armpit’ was new to them. This identification with different body parts and the visualization becomes a powerful tool for achieving total relaxation and recharging prana in the body. There is a process and a sequence of relaxation.
Once you are in a state of relaxation you move into concentration practices. The first concentration practice which has been quite eloquently described in the yogic tradition is the practice of ajapa japa. It uses breath and mantra in order to focus the mind. It does not ask you to witness any activity of the mind like ‘observe your thinking’. It just asks you to observe the breath and mantra. You start with something physical and tangible and which can give you the mastery to control the physical and tangible.
Once you have the hang of the practice, you move into observation, antar mouna, and observe everything that is happening in your mental dimension. Then you change that observation into something much more subtle, antar darshan, observance of feelings, sensations, emotions, not only thoughts. Then you move into dharana. Distractions won’t be there. You have acknowledged all of them. Now you focus yourself on one point. The classical focusing has been on a point of light at the eyebrow centre, chidakasha, the heart centre, hridayakasha, and mooladhara centre, daharakasha. These are the three main concentration points used in dharana practice.
When the mind fuses with the object of concentration, dhyana is experienced. The meditative state is experienced. Meditation is not something that you can do; meditation is something that you experience after mastery over pratyahara and dharana. It is in these states of pratyahara and dharana that the merger of thoughts takes place with its prana, the merger of memory takes place with its prana, the merger of emotions, feelings, sentiments takes place with its pranic equivalent and this is the merger that classical raja yoga speaks of.
9 March 2023, Bihar Yoga Tradition Teaching for Teachers, Ganga Darshan, Munger