Savasana: The Practice of Motionlessness

This is a 30 minute guided audio into Savasana, the yogic "corpse pose".

Savasana is different than Yoga Nidra in that the primary objective of this asana is to experience motionlessness in the body, motionlessness in the mind and open to experiencing dynamic stillness. This audio's intention is to guide you towards that motionlessness, without confinement or imposition.

Transcript

Beginning your Shavasana exploration by letting your body lay down on the earth or a comfortable firm surface laying with your back to the earth,

Your belly and your face and your front body to the sky.

If you feel like you're going to be a little bit cold then cover yourself with the blanket and let yourself have a minute or so to find your comfort.

So to let your legs be at least hip-width apart and maybe a little bit wider,

To let your arms be a little bit away from the sides of your body and let your head turn a little bit to the left or a little bit to the right until you can find that you're at your most comfortable position laying on the back here on earth.

For just a few minutes I guide you into some body awareness and breath awareness that simply help you to become aware that you are in a body,

A body that for the experience of Shavasana or as they call in the yogic terms the corpse pose.

That you will be moving towards an experience of motionlessness,

Of relaxing the impulses to move and opening up to an experience of stillness in the body stillness in the mind.

It comes with some practice.

So as you're laying down in this comfortable position let your lips part a little bit and sense that your jaw could soften back and down towards the base of your skull.

Let your tongue relax in your mouth.

Imagine or even invite the rings of muscles around your eyes to un-grip their grip on the eyeballs and sense the tissue under the skin of your face and around your scalp to breathe out or un-grip almost sensing as if your scalp got just a little bit heavier towards earth.

Let your mental energy in the form of attention slip down the back body to notice shoulder blades and imagine that shoulder blades could rest into earth a little bit more.

Noticing how that may bring some bit of space to the front of the shoulders.

Around the ribs,

Breast bone sternum.

Sensing from the shoulder blades which have laid down on earth a bit more.

The resting arms that extend from the shoulders,

Upper arms,

Elbows,

Forearms,

Wrists,

Hands and fingers on earth.

Descending from the skull between the shoulder blades down through the central part of your back body.

Sensing the vertebral column,

Your spine and the parts of your spine that are in contact with earth.

And maybe even sensing that subtle weight of the spinal vertebral bones going down towards earth to be supported.

All the way down to the pelvis and the lowest bones of the spine,

The sacrum,

The large triangular shaped bone at the base of the spine and coccyx,

Tailbone.

As if they could lay down on earth.

And from pelvis naturally extending out two legs on earth.

From the hip sockets the head of the femur bones nested into the pelvis and then sensing femur bones,

Knee joint bones,

Shin bones,

Ankle bones,

Foot bones and toe bones.

Ungripping and being supported by earth.

With the weight of your body being supported by earth.

Notice the slight rise and fall of your body that comes with inhalation and exhalation.

For the next one minute very softly as the breath comes in,

Invite your breath to descend for a tender touch and expansion behind your navel.

No need to force.

And every time that you need to exhale simply let your awareness rest on the navel that descends back towards earth.

Let it be really gentle,

Really natural.

Just being curious about the inner contact with navel fueled and facilitated by your natural breathing.

About three rounds more of touching in behind the navel with your inhale.

And after the third time or so dropping any efforting of trying to make your breath a certain way.

And over a little bit of time sliding into the space where you may feel like your body breathes itself.

Let your awareness return to sense your body motionless here on earth.

Your breathing will continue.

Some of your autonomic nervous system functions such as digestion,

Heart beating,

Temperature regulating will continue.

Yet your curiosity becomes oriented towards what doesn't move,

What is very still.

Let your attention go to your closed eyes.

And notice in front of your closed eyes infinite inky blackness,

Darkness.

It's a neutral darkness.

It's neither good nor bad.

It's just infinite black space in front of your closed eyes.

And from the deep back field of your inner vision that's gazing into the infinite inky blackness in front of your closed eyes.

Invite this inky black infinite space to also inhabit your own body.

Imagine that you're a body of space.

Still,

Still space.

From the soles of your feet,

To the top of your head,

To all the inner surfaces of where you perceive your skin to be.

A body of still,

Still space.

It is an infinite space.

An infinite space that you may perceive contained within your own skin.

Notice what still space feels like.

Notice that even if your own nervous system perceives ambient sounds,

The still infinite space is motionless and silent.

Infinite,

Still,

Silent.

Infinite,

Still,

Silent space.

Unoccupied space.

Become aware.

Of still motionless legs containing infinite space.

Still,

Motionless pelvis containing infinite,

Still silent space.

Motionless arms,

Hands,

Fingers,

Shoulders,

Containing infinite,

Infinite still space.

Torso,

Ribs,

Lungs,

Heart.

Infinite,

Still,

Space within and through.

Throat,

Face,

Skull and brain.

Infinite,

Still,

Space expanding.

For a few minutes more.

An opportunity.

To remain in the experience of infinite,

Still,

Silent space as perceived through the motionless body on Earth.

Infinite,

Still,

Silent.

Space recognizes itself.

As time comes to conclude this practice of Savasana,

The first invitation is to sense how your breath that has continued to move in and move out of your body.

Creates some very natural movement in your body.

Feel what parts of your body,

Your chest or your belly or your nose can perceive the movement of breathing naturally.

And let that be the first step to letting gentle movement spread through what has been a practice of the motionless body.

It might begin for you by letting your head turn either to the left or the right.

Or by sending your attention down to your feet and letting your toes become slowly in motion and then letting that move into feet,

Ankles,

Legs and the rest of the body.

Let yourself have a little bit of time to slowly,

Slowly sense motion and movement beginning in this body.

This body who has had an experience of motionless.

Over time the movement could bring you to your side to a few gentle stretches and then eventually back to seated to experience your spine verticalized and to slowly go forward into your day.

Thank you.

Reviews

𝙹𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚠𝚘𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚏𝚞𝚕 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚜𝚘 𝚜𝚘 𝚐𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚕𝚎.

Ateekas soft voice and loving guidance is so beautiful and truly helps me to calm down, be present and in my center. ❤️

Very sweet meditation. Thank you.

Just beautiful, deep, deep nourishing rest, thank you! 🙏🏼

I enjoyed this experience.
Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom.

This is proving an excellent meditation to fall asleep. It works every time. Thank you.

Perfect, namaste 🙏

Absolutely wonderful, so easy to follow the instructions. Deeply relaxing,definitely book marked .🙏🙏💚

Easy neutral voice , great pacing , with little opening body scan. Thank you for the space you created to allow stillness

New for me, interesting and extremely relaxing. Teachers voice quietly directive. Will practice this again and again. Thank you 🙏

Lovely and restorative

Deeply relaxing and nourishing.

And after wards I drifted into a dream of floating .Wonderful. Namaste.

🙏🏼namaste🙏🏼❣️

That was lovely! I felt myself melting into the earth. Thank you!

A very gifted meditation teacher. Her voice and cues are perfect for this ultimate practice of stillness. Thank you... 🙏🙏🙏

Soothing and healing, thank you

Very relaxing! Thank you! ❤