Yoga Nidra : Nyasa

Nyasa

During Yoga Nidra, Pratyahara is practiced by intentionally locating and investigating sensations,

feelings, emotions, thoughts and images. This is achieved through another process known as Nyasa.

As mentioned earlier, the aim in Yoga Nidra is to touch and hence experience the various dimensions

of our being; that is exactly what Nyasa is. According to the Oxford Sanskrit English Dictionary, the

word “Nyasa” means to place, to set on or in, to use, to touch. Agehananda Bharati, acclaimed author

and authority on Hinduism, defines Nyasa as “the process of charging a part of the body, or an organ

of another living body, with a specified power through touch.” (Janakananda 1998)

Nyasa can consist of “touching” the different parts of the body by hand, or it can be done mentally, by thinking of the specific areas. By touching and thereby experiencing a part of the body, the body is brought to life and made conscious. Any impressions that arise from this consciousness are allowed to float freely,

without any effort on our part to repress it or express it. The impressions are simply allowed to surface

and fade into the background. They do not irritate the mind because it has no intention to refuse or

deny their existence. (Miller 2002)

As with the physical body, the process is repeated with all the different body sheaths that make up our

identity. This approach to Pratyahara is a process of elimination whereby deep and unconscious

patterns of habit from all the different levels of our being is allowed to surface into awareness. (Miller

2002)

By witnessing these entrenched habit patterns as an impartial observer in the state of Yoga

Nidra, a certain transformation occurs. There is an increasing awareness that who I am is different

from my thoughts. We gradually experience ourselves as the consciousness beneath or prior to all of

our active mental processes, including both conscious and unconscious ones. In Miller’s opinion,

“understanding and embodying the realisation that we are non-conceptual Presence is the culmination

of Yoga Nidra.”