Reiki Group Exchange and Meditation Circle

Every month I hold a Reiki exchange and a meditation circle in Northern Virginia. Please call ahead and confirm that there is a meeting. This is open to all Reiki practitioners and to would-be practitioners as well. Call me or email me for further details such as time, venue, etc. Reiki Exchanges provide a hands-on practice for new practitioners, a way for healers to get a free healing and practice for some experienced practitioners who cannot otherwise meet with other practitioners!

"See the world from your heart. Live from your soul.
Life reflects back all your actions."

YOGA NIDRA , THE YOGA OF MEDITATION

Meditation has come to mean different things to different practitioners: stilling the mind, contemplation, altering your state of consciousness, conscious relaxation, etc. However you define it, one thing has become clear in recent times to the medical community, that it relieves stress.

Meditation has been known to promote:
-Healing
-Emotional cleansing & balancing
-Deepening concentration, memory & insight
-Manifesting change
-Developing intuition
-Unlocking creativity
-Finding inner guidance
-Managing stress

Every practitioner is therefore, guaranteed:
-Peace of mind, calmness, and a sense of well being
-Better relationships, better health, and a better life
-Personal, philosophical, and spiritual insights
-The direct experience of your eternal center of being

In Meditation, you remain in the Waking state of consciousness, and gently focus the mind, while allowing thought patterns, emotions, sensations, and images to arise and go on. However, in Yoga Nidra, which is the type of meditation that is planned for the session, you leave the Waking state, go to Deep Sleep, and yet remain awake. Yoga Nidra is a state that is very relaxing, but is also used by us to purify the deep impressions that are the driving force behind our actions in every day life. To repeat, Yoga Nidra is the state of conscious Deep Sleep. It is beyond or deeper than other meditation practices, however useful they may be. In Yoga Nidra practice, the practitioner will eventually reach the Delta level, where the brain level activity is at a frequency of .5-3.5 hertz/cycle/sec., i.e. beyond the activity of other levels, beyond thoughts or dreams. Some EEG photos of the brain during and after Yoga Nidra practice are shown below:

REST



This picture is based on the photographs taken prior to and following Yoga Nidra. It illustrates the state closest to normal waking consciousness, though without being a tired or stressed state. Those who use Yoga Nidra remark that not only do they get something out of the deep relaxation while doing it, but that it has a definite beneficial effect on the rest of their day. In this picture it is the front of the brain that is responsible for the superior control and which is active. One of its capacities is to ensure that we can function in a complex society, as it "processes" the signals from the deeper emotional and instinctive regions of the brain.The brain stem and the cerebellum are also active, indicating that one is "ready for action".

MEDITATION



This picture shows the general state during the entire Yoga Nidra. The visual centre at the back of the head and the centre for tactile sense (sense of touch and direction) at the top of the head are active and are in contact with the limbic system. This implies an increased ability to visualize and, more importantly, that there is better contact with emotions. Some of the teachers also had distinct activity in the centre for long term memory, which is consistent with accounts from people who meditate, that very lucid memories can appear during or after a meditation. It must, however, be emphasized from our side that the subjects' experience and their regular use of Kriya Yoga possibly intensifies the effects of Yoga Nidra.

Courtesy: Brain researcher Troels Kjær, The Kennedy Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark.