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during yoga nidra, and if one sleeps, then the spiritual benefits and other effects may not be obtained. But certainly if sleep intervenes, one gets deeply relaxed.
Sleep, which is represented by a deep blue color, originates from the left side of the brain and slowly engulfs the complete brain and mind, providing the deep relaxation that every person requires. Everybody needs deep sleep, and that state can be achieved in yoga nidra, with regular practice. That is why it is very beneficial for those suffering from insomnia. In my slides you can see the REM sleep, as there is a little disturbance in the frontal lobe of the brain. The blue starts to expand more. It will engulf the whole brain slowly. You can see both the lobes when one enjoys the benefit of sleep, which is a representation of delta waves.
When delta waves start emanating, the person falls into a deep sleep, for which people often take pills. If tranquillizers are put on one side of the scales, and all the other medicines are put on the other side, we will find the tranquillizers are heavier than all the other medicines put together. But Paramahamsaji said, " If you practise yoga nidra you can sleep without pills." This is the greatest discovery in the world that he has made. Eventually the brain becomes completely blue. The subject is sleeping. He has gone into a tranquil, pleasant sleep and in this way the yoga nidra ends. Yoga nidra relaxes the mind when it relaxes the body. Eighty per cent of the diseases originate first in the mind, then percolate into the body. If your mind is relaxed, then you can conquer eighty per cent of the psychosomatic diseases. So this is a message, not only that if you practise yoga and yoga nidra you can conquer the diseases that are a problem today, such as asthma, diabetes, heart diseases, rheumatoid arthritis, and disorders of the immune system, such as AIDS, as a Swami from London will show you. In all these diseases, yoga and yoga nidra help a lot, because they work at a molecular level. They help at the DNA level, the very subtle level which is the blueprint of life; thereby a desired balance in the physiology of the body and mind can be attained and a self healing process can be initiated. This is how yoga is holistic in its approach.
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