Yoga Nidra: Enlightened Sleep

Yoga nidra is one of the most profound gifts from the ancient contemplative traditions. Found in Buddhist as well as Vedic and Tantric lineages, it is much more than a practice — something we do — it is a state of higher awareness, where the nervous system settles, the mind clears, and essential being reveals itself. I have taught this practice for more than thirty years.

It’s important to know that yoga nidra is not one thing. Too often it has been reduced to a single template. In this traditional approach, it has five: healing, clarity, resolve, transformation, and awakening. And rather than one level of depth, it can ascend through four.

Our exploration draws on two traditions. Tantra is the living lineage this training is rooted in — it provides the principles of the practice, along with the templates and maps this retreat draws from. The other is Vedanta, by way of the Mandukya Upanishad, one of the few texts to speak directly to yoga nidra as turiya — the ground from which waking, dreaming, and deep sleep arise.

During our time together, each day will weave multiple guided yoga nidra practices, theory, reflection, and discussion into a progressive arc — from the foundations of the practice to its most subtle dimensions. The retreat offers the rare gift of entering these teachings repeatedly, so that what you first grasp intellectually becomes something you know directly. You’ll learn how skillful preparation of body, breath, and mind opens the door to deeper rest and awareness, how each of the five templates serves a different aim, and how to move past relaxation into the terrain where yoga nidra becomes a genuine catalyst for healing, insight, and transformation. From there it will become clear why you have to experience yoga nidra’s highest states to fully understand it — and why embodying those states is what allows you to transmit it.

Menla itself is part of the teaching. Contemplative practice has been rooted in this ground for decades. It’s here, in the mountains and the rhythm of the place itself. Its stillness will serve to lift our practice and quietly contribute to the clarity and freedom yoga nidra reveals.

This immersion welcomes you wherever you’re starting. Some of you are new to yoga nidra. Some have practiced it for years. Others are ready to teach.

This course also serves as the foundation for certification for those called to guide others. What you’ll leave with isn’t more information about yoga nidra. It’s a deeper capacity to enter the state itself, to work with intention across all five aims, and — if you teach — to guide others there from direct experience rather than a script.

Schedule:

Tuesday, November 2

• 3 – 6 pm Arrival and Check-in
• 6 – 7 pm Dinner
• 7:30 – 9 pm Welcome Program

Wednesday – Saturday, November 3 – 6

• 8 – 9 am Breakfast
• 9:30 am – 12 pm Morning Program
• 12:30 – 1:30 pm Lunch
• 3 – 6 pm Afternoon Program
• 6 – 7 pm Dinner
• 7:30 – 9 pm Evening Program or Activity

Sunday, November 7

• 7 – 11 am Check-out of Rooms
• 8 – 9 am Breakfast
• 9:30 am – 12 pm Morning Program
• 12:30 – 1:30 pm Lunch

*Please note this schedule is subject to change.