Pranayamas & Dhyana For A Relaxing Evening

An easy meditation practice to relax and balance, disengage our vagus nerve and bring more clarity to the mind. Bring breath and prana equally to both hemispheres of the brain. Follow by a simple Ajapa Japa breath awareness, Dhyana with mental mantra repetition, and Ujayia breath. All these to flourish and dissolve into the Chidakasha, a great space of the mind.

Transcript

Greetings everyone and welcome to our Pranayama and Dhyana session.

That would be most likely a session to do at in the evening before bedtime.

However,

If you want to do that during the day,

Feel free to.

Just know it's a very relaxing one to recenter,

Get deeper into ourself,

Quiet the mind and release the tension that we might have accumulated throughout the day.

So please find yourself seated either on the floor or on the chair.

In any way,

You can have cushions under your tailbone.

Make sure your spine is long from tailbone to top of the head.

Change into your legs folded on the chair or folded on the floor.

They have a nice seated position for you to stay there for about 30 minutes.

Make sure your spine is long,

Your shoulders are relaxed on the side,

Your teeth are apart from each other and the tongue is relaxed at the bottom of the mouth.

Make sure your eyes and eyelids are relaxed and all the muscle of the face relaxed.

Nice and tall spine.

And then start to be aware of your breath.

Be aware of your natural spontaneous breath.

Feel the cool air coming in from both nostrils.

And in the inhale,

Feel into the slight movement of the chest.

On every exhale,

Feel into the slight squeeze of the chest and maybe abdomen and the warmer air going out of both nostrils.

Keep being aware of those both inhale and exhale movement.

Do not force anything.

I'm breathing out,

I'm breathing in.

And now start on the next inhale to slightly deepen your intake.

Feel as you're inhaling from the belly button,

Raising your abdomen,

Feeling up with air.

At the pose of this inhalation of the abdomen,

Pose for a moment and then release the air,

Exhale from the abdomen,

Squeezing the navel to the spine.

A few belly breathing here.

Keep going,

Inhaling from the abdomen,

Exhale from the abdomen.

Feel the navel getting closer to the spine on every exhale.

Pose at the peak of the inhale and the exhale just a few seconds.

Two more belly breaths.

In your next inhalation now,

You know,

Expand the inhale from the abdomen and the chest up to the throat,

Going into the yogic breath.

Inhaling deeply,

Feeling the abdominal area,

Feeling up with air,

Then the ribcage,

The chest up to the throat.

Posing at the peak and then exhaling from the throat,

Chest,

Ribcage where you might find or feel or visualize your diaphragm and abdominal area.

Last,

Navel squeezing to the spine.

And we keep going,

Full yogic breath in,

Full yogic breath out.

Full yogic breath in,

Full yogic breath out.

And going two more times like this on your own pace.

Next time you're taking a big inhale,

Yogic inhale still,

Put the index finger and middle finger of the right hand,

The tips of them at your eyebrow center.

Peak and pose at the peak of the inhalation.

We're gonna get ready for nadi shudhanam.

Keep the tip of those fingers on the eyebrow center and exhale from both nostrils,

Full yogic exhale.

Before inhaling again,

Plug your right nostril with your right thumb and inhale for three,

Two,

One.

Full inhale here,

Pose at the peak for six,

Hold in,

Four,

Five,

Three,

Two,

One.

Release the right nostril,

Spread the left with the ring finger,

Exhale for six,

Five,

Four,

Three,

Two,

One.

Inhale from the right for three,

Two,

Big inhale,

One,

Hold in,

Six,

Five,

Four,

Three,

Two,

One.

Plug the right nostril,

Exhale from the legs,

Left for six,

Slow exhale,

Five,

Four,

Three,

Two,

One.

Two more rounds,

Inhaling from the left,

Three,

Two,

Full inhale,

One,

Hold the breath in,

Six,

Five,

Four,

Three,

Two,

One.

Exhale from the right,

Six,

Five,

Four,

Three,

Two,

One.

Inhale from the right,

Three,

Big inhale,

Two,

Fold in,

One,

Pose,

In,

Fold in,

Five,

Four,

Three,

Two,

One.

Exhaling from the left,

Six,

Five,

Four,

Three,

Two,

One.

One more on your arm count.

Once your last round is complete,

Release your hands on your knees in the mudra you want.

Just pose here and scan into your body the feeling effect that provided our yogic breathing and nadi shodhana.

Feel the subtle changes within your nervous system,

How this balance both the atmosphere of the mind gives back balance.

Expanding the body when we breathe in and out,

Automatically engage the vagus nerve and ask it to relax and put you in a really,

Really relaxed mood and get you out of light and fat mode.

Now we keep breathing natural,

Being aware of the breath at the nostrils,

Slight movement of the front body and then we inhale and exhale.

I am breathing in,

I am breathing out.

And now we can start to use our jai breath.

Jai breath is a slight contraction of the muscle of the throat.

A slight contraction of this muscle there and you're going to hear the sound of the baby snoring or some people also compare this sound to the wave of an ocean.

So if you never tried that before,

Give this contraction to this thought and you might hear our jai quite clearly at first.

And then when you get more confident and you have more comfort in this technique,

The aim is to still contract the throat and practice the jai but in a way that only you can perceive it very slightly.

This also engage into a very calm and relaxed state for the whole body.

Keep breathing in and out with the jai.

The breath is going to be slower because intake and out going to take more time to go through the small passage due to the contraction of the muscle and it's all good.

That's what we want.

Relax into this.

Feel already the feeling effect of your jai breath on your own body,

Your own energy,

Any impact on your emotional state,

Energetic state.

It's your time to scan whatever happened,

Feel,

Visualize.

Have a sense of subtle effect from simple tools that we have to enhance our body,

Physical body,

Energetic body,

Emotional and spiritual.

Keep breathing.

Now on every inhale and exhale,

We're going to add a mantra.

We're mentally going to repeat to ourselves.

Inhale the mantra,

So on every exhale the mantra,

Ham.

Following the breath.

Inhaling,

Repeating to yourself,

So.

Exhaling,

Repeating to yourself,

Ham.

This is the closest sound to the breath that we can use in this type of meditation.

Inhale,

So.

Exhale,

Ham.

Keep practicing this.

Follow our nose of the breath with the mantra and ujjayi contraction of the throat.

We have this tendency to think that meditation is an exercise to shut up the mind.

But this is not exactly what it is made for.

The dharma of the mind or its purpose is to create and think and imagine.

The mind is always thinking.

There is always something going on.

The purpose of meditation is to learn to understand that.

Dharma is to learn to accept that this is the dharma and this is also the dharma of the mind,

Not our.

Mind is part of ourself but it's not what defines us.

Vegetating is learning how to still focus on our purpose with how we make the mind focusing on ease.

While you practice meditation,

Dhyana,

With a dry breath and soham mantra.

If you see,

Hear,

Feel thoughts coming at you,

Around you,

You might get caught.

If you notice yourself at some point,

Caught in a thought,

Acknowledge that.

Acknowledge you are able to see that you are caught.

Let go of this thought and all inches bring your awareness back to ujjayi breath,

Mantra soham.

And keep practicing.

Where is your mind now?

How is the mind dealing with the silence?

If the mind is asking for attention,

You don't have to go there.

So let the mind do its work.

Let go of the thoughts that put you out of the practice.

Let them go.

Let them fade away.

Come back to yourself,

Your still steady body and your constant breathing.

Slow steady inhale,

Slow steady exhale.

The air coming in and out.

The contraction of the throat and your mantra.

Ujjayi inhale,

Mantra so.

Ujjayi exhale,

Mantra ham.

Keep practicing this,

Still and steady.

Now let go of the mantra.

Let go of the mantra.

And let your jaya go as well.

You don't need to contract your throat anymore.

Come back to your natural spontaneous breath.

Inhaling,

Exhaling.

I'm breathing in,

I'm breathing out.

Feel into the slight movement of the trunk and the front body and every inhale and exhale.

Move your awareness now into the Chitta cash space.

We're going into the space of the mind.

Picture yourself seated at the top of your spine.

Looking at the wide mind space which is located behind the closed eyes and the forehead.

A 360 degree view of the full mind space.

You're only the seer,

The witness of whatever is happening in the mind.

You can see patterns,

Colors,

Words,

Shapes,

Or nothing.

Whatever is there is all normal,

Is all okay.

You only are the witness,

Like watching a movie at the cinema,

Not being an actor,

Not being judgmental.

No attachment to any of those thoughts and feelings.

You're only watching from your seat on the top of your spine.

Whatever is going on all around into the infinite space of the mind.

Keep watching the Chitta cash.

And as before,

If at some point you see yourself being caught in a thought,

Acknowledge that you're seeing this.

Letting go of this thought,

Push it away.

Let it dissolve into the mind space.

And come back to your city seat,

Only watching,

Being the silent witness of the Chitta cash.

Now let go of this.

Let go of the Chitta cash space.

And come back to the breath at your nostrils.

Feel your breath inhaling from both nostrils and the slight movement of the chest.

Feel the breath,

The exhale,

Slight squeeze of the chest when the air goes out both nostrils.

Bring your awareness back to your breath and to your whole body.

Feel into your whole physical body here,

From head to toes.

Have a quick scan.

Feel into it,

Head,

Neck,

Shoulders,

Arms,

Hands,

Trunk of the body,

Seat bones,

Groin,

Legs,

Ankles,

Feet.

Quick scan,

Coming back to your whole physical body here.

Start to deepen your breath in and out,

Waking in present and whole in your physical body.

Be aware of who you are and where you are now in time and space.

Be present.

To conclude this session here,

Bring your palms together at the heart center.

And you can sing with me,

One whom.

Breathing in.

Aum.

Hari Om,

That's it.

Have a wonderful evening.

See you next time.

Namaste.