#IREST YOGA NIDRA MEDITATION FREE#

For instance, I begin every period of meditation by moving through and re-experiencing the felt-sense that each of these inquiries opens me to. I have used these inquiries over the decades in a variety of ways each day. The following practice, drawn from the ancient teachings of nondual śaiva tantra, explores six vital questions that I have found to be instrumental in helping people recognize and embody their innate felt-sense of unchanging, ever-present and unbreakable wholeness. So, please join me into inquiring and embodying our innate wholeness that is a portal for realizing the unbreakable inner resource of unchanging well-being, joy and equanimity that resides within us that always remains pristine and available amidst the ins and outs of our daily life. Knowing and living from our wholeness provides us with an indestructible and unchanging inner sense of value, meaning, purpose and well-being that we carry within us wherever we are, whomever we’re with, whatever our circumstances. Re-cognizing, welcoming, and embodying our essential wholeness enables us to thrive in our life with unshakable and unbreakable feelings of equanimity, peace, well-being and warm-hearted compassion and kindness. For now, as an adult, we have the cognitive resources available to us for recognizing, understanding, and re-embodying our innate wholeness and well-being cognitive resources that weren’t available to us when we were an infant. But this thought-feeling can also serve as a pointer to its source, where we can re-cognize and re-embody our underlying wholeness. And, the more we lose touch with our innate sense of wholeness, the more we will feel within ourselves that “something’s not right.” As our egocentric perspective and belief in being a separate self grows in strength, our ego-I separate-self function identifies with this feeling and interprets it as, “something’s not right with me.” Identification and fusion with this thought-feeling can throw us into a state of inner turmoil and chaos, leading us to experience feelings of confusion, anxiety, isolation, alienation, and depression. Unfortunately, as our sense of separation develops, which our family, culture and life experiences reinforce, our undifferentiated sense of wholeness gets relegated to the background. We begin embodying an egocentric perspective that entails experiencing ourselves as unique souls, who move through life amongst other separate and unique souls.

Then, around 18 months, as our cognitive abilities start to develop, we begin to experience ourselves as separate.

#IREST YOGA NIDRA MEDITATION FREE#

Our task is to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”īefore the age of 18 months, we all swim in a sea of undifferentiated being and wholeness, where we experience ourselves as undulating waves of sensations, emotions, and sensory perceptions, but without the cognitive awareness of being a separate self. This delusion is a prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.

We experience our self, our thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest-which is a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. In the words of Albert Einstein: “As a human being we are part of the whole, called by us ‘universe,’ a part that feels limited in time and space. We just need to recognize, accept, and embody this realization. When we are able to accept and embody both these perspectives-egocentric and allocentric points of view-we will experience ourselves as unique expressions of an underlying wholeness or essence that has given birth to ourselves, others and the entire cosmos. In order to feel whole, we must be able to embrace both an egocentric perspective, where we experience ourselves as unique, authentic, individuated, and separate souls who are willing to be seen, heard, and connect, as well as embrace an allocentric perspective where we feel ourselves interconnected and not-separate with everyone and everything around us. In order to thrive it is imperative that we are willing to see, hear, and connect within to ourselves, and be willing to be seen, heard, and connect with those around us. Without these four fundamental needs in place we may survive, but we won’t feel that we’re truly thriving. Our challenge, here, is to realize and embody the fullness of this realization amidst the challenging circumstances of our daily lives.īeyond our basic needs for food, shelter, clothing and safety, as social beings we also have four fundamental needs: to feel seen, heard, connected, and to belong. Recognizing and embodying our interconnected wholeness within, with others, and with the world and universe around us is fundamental to the practice of iRest Yoga Nidra Meditation.

Irest yoga nidra meditation