Yoga nidra, an integral part of yoga, is little known outside of India. This ancient practice of the yogis is a state of deep, still integration and relaxation that resembles sleep, but rather is a state of alert awareness beyond ordinary wakefulness, sleep, body or mind, time or space. Ordinary sleep is unconscious and only rejuvenates the body and refreshes the mind. It has no power to release us from the duality of pre-programmed unconscious fears, personal biases, belief systems and self-concepts.

Memories and programming from past experiences influence everything we do, creating impressions and tendencies in behavior. In the East, this is known as karma, which regulates our actions, shapes the self-image, distorts perception, structures beliefs, dictates biases and impacts health. It creates mental and emotional barriers that become infused into each individual’s biology and psychology and distorts our self-image at every level of being. As a result, our energy, mental and emotional bodies are in conflict. This continuous opposition is the basis for all human suffering. Karma is the only problem we face. Yoga nidra empowers us to uncover and destroy its poisonous roots hidden in the unconscious. It quiets and balances the disagreeing voices in the physical, mental and emotional bodies, allowing us to experience a unified state of being.

Ordinarily, the conscious mind acts as a rider on the horse of the subconscious mind. The rider directs the subconscious according to its pre-programmed, conditioned ways. The horse simply follows what the rider tells it to do. The subconscious follows all commands with no facility to question their truth, reality or value. Yoga Nidra calms the conscious mind, relaxes the body, opens the heart and initiates a new relationship with the subconscious mind. When we let go of the reins, we let go of the need to control, and the conscious mind moves from duality to polarity, which allows us to reside in its underlying unity. We are no longer separated from the whole. We become balanced and aligned.

In the state of yoga nidra, the forces of divinity work for us from within and without. Typically, personal efforts and disciplines to change old, hard-wired habits fail because there is no alignment between our body-mind and soul or what we feel, what we think and what we do. Yoga nidra awakens the integrating power of the soul to manifest our intention and vision. Its meditative techniques are designed to consciously free us from all identification with the past and future, body and mind. Yoga nidra brings us into a delicately balanced zero-stress zone. From here, we can access an infinite power of self-sourcing and attain miracles in life. We can consciously create, modify, change and transform our conditioned, habitual patterns, compulsive behaviors, destructive self-concepts, belief systems, fears and biases with ease. We automatically begin to see shifts in our karmic patterns and behaviors.

Yoga nidra effectively resolves stress, strain and fatigue and restores youthful vitality, mental alertness and emotional balance. It reconnects us to our inner source, restores our strained nervous system and balances the endocrine system that affects mental and emotional equilibrium. Emotional reactions ignite the sympathetic nervous system and burn our prana (life force). Accumulated stress creates excessive tensions and constitutes a serious danger to physical, mental and emotional health.

Tension and relaxation are natural polarities through which all of our life activities are carried out. Physiologically, tension is followed with balanced relaxation by the parasympathetic nervous system. When tension is caused by unconscious habits and fears, jealousy or anger, it is not followed by a balancing of the parasympathetic nervous system. This unresolved tension is life-suppressing stress. The polarity of tension and relaxation should balance each other, but stress is residual tension that is not counterbalanced with relaxation. Tension is natural; relaxation is natural.

When our sympathetic nervous system is constantly under fire without the balancing tranquilizing power of the parasympathetic, we accumulate and store stress as energy blocks in our physical, mental and emotional bodies. Chronic stress is an invisible, silent killer that becomes visible in the body in the form of hypertension, insomnia, diabetes, disease and premature aging.

Yoga nidra removes the cause of problems, rather than merely addressing visible effects. Although the subtleties of each person’s difficulties are different, solutions are generally common. People that see the source of their problems in external situations and others seek ways to control external events. In yoga nidra, solutions are found within.

Yogi Amrit Desai is an internationally recognized authority on yoga and holistic living. To register for the Embodying the Power of the Zero Stress Zone workshop, presented by Peggy Sealfon and Stonewater Studio, on Sept. 23 and 24 at Naples United Church of Christ, 5200 Crayton Rd., in Naples, call 239-821-2266. Cost: Fri. only $39. Sat. only $115. Combined $133.s