When the external sensory field has disappeared, but sleep has not yet come, that liminal mental state is attainable in which the Supreme Goddess (Parā Devī) manifests. || 75
– Christopher Wallis
Yoga Nidra is a state of conscious deep rest, where the body falls asleep, the analytical mind falls asleep, but awareness remains aware. Although the term is cited in such texts as the Mahabharata, the Devi Mahatmyam and the Yoga Taravalia, for most of us, we have come to understand yoga nidra through the teachings of Swami Satyananda Saraswati of the Bihar tradition and Swami Rama of the Himalayan Institute. There is no question that this practice is a powerful tool for self-discovery, healing, and transformation, but the transmitters of these teachings have broken the sacred vow of the healer: to do no harm. Both schools have deep-rooted history of abuse. There have been multiple accounts of inappropriate relationships with students, abuse of children, and exploitation from the top down in these organizations. The #MeToo movement exposed to the world how rampant sexual violence is in our collective culture, where our spiritual communities are not immune to such atrocities. Once these findings came to light, it was imperative for the Shamanic Yoga Institute to distance itself from these lineages of perversion and violence. Christine centred these findings within the pages of her dissertation and committed to disentangling and deconstructing from the legacies of exploitation and guru idolization.
I believe it will be a lifetime of continuous looking and looking again to carry on in this field of the artist and yogin. I know that I am committed to speaking up to break any cycles of violence and abuse and patriarchal pedagogy, in Yoga, Expressive Arts, Shamanism and the world.
The practice of Shakti Nidra was a response to this commitment. Shakti Nidra is post-lineage act of social justice that contributes to the evolution of healing technologies to serve All. It is a Shamanic Yoga journeying technique that focuses on coherence and healing by removing harmful samskaras housed in the koshas, or sheaths of the energy body. Following the map of the koshas from the Taittiriya Upanishad, it is a technology that invokes the dynamism of Śakti, the creatrix, the life force, the Divine Feminine principle. This alignment allows you to separate from distractions and distortions, so that you can experience unity, and the pure innocence of the Self.
The practice begins with an initial relaxation to untether dominant and stressful thought patterns and an opening to one’s sankalpa. A sankalpa is a sacred vow, guided from the heart, that works to repattern and reprogram the mind. This element is a defining aspect of the practice.
Of the koshas, first the Anamaya, the physical body, is tended to, where Śakti illuminates particular points on and in the body to facilitate one’s consciousness to rotate. The energetic process begins here, where our histories are imprinted, through relaxation and awareness they begin to lift and spiral. It is here where the practitioner cultivates dharana, the capacity for concentration.
The next sheath traversed is the pranamaya kosha, this is the realm of the energy body or physiological and includes the respiratory, circulatory, digestive, nervous, endocrine, excretory and genital systems. Here the practitioner is lead to the intimacy of their own breathing. This could take place as awareness of its origin and destination, or its expansion and contraction, or perhaps simply watching as you are being breathed – doing, but not the doer.
And then the drum enters, to bring you into coherence with nature, yours and of the earth. The drum provides access to the manomaya kosha, the body made of thought processes. Manas, the mind, is the seat of the emotions, of like and dislike. It filters and processes the potentially enormous amount of data accessible to the senses. Through a series of led pairs of opposites, the practitioner is held in a safe place to feel things that have remained hidden from consciousness, but drive behaviours and belief patterns that veil our essential nature of joy. By getting a chance to feel them in a relaxed and coherent state they can dissolve and bridge to their opposite, thereby dissolving duality.
The drum continues and the practitioner is lead into the vijnanamaya kosha, the wisdom or creative body. This intellectual or intuitive sheath affects the processes of knowledge, ethics, individuation and ego reside here. Through visualization or journeying, you use the mind to go beyond the mind.
Finally, you enter anandamaya kosha, the bliss body or spiritual sheath of joy. This final destination is the field of our core consciousness. As Easwaran articulates, this is “a silent, ethereal inner realm at the threshold of pure being.” It is here, in spacious awareness that the client can be worked on by prajna, higher consciousness with the intent of a reset of your Divine nature.
Through mantra you are called home to the body, to the space, to the life where you can come to embody your sacred vow.
Shakti Nidra is counterculture. It is a practice of reception, of allowing, and non-doing. It places the practitioner in the position of power, to have a lived experience of doing one’s own healing. And asks of surrender to only one guru, the one who resides in the cave of your heart.