To give you a little background on where this practice originated, I want to tell you a little story in the book. In the book, written by Swami satchidananda. He was the teacher. The man who I went to school under Swami Miranda Nandan and his teacher was shivananda, which some of you may be familiar with. So that's in London. He was young and he was put to post at the ashram where he lived to watch at night from about three in the morning till six in the morning.

They took different shifts doing this, and he often fell asleep in fact, regularly fell asleep during the shift While he was asleep from four o'clock for an hour, the youth would come to the ashram and chant Sanskrit mantras. And then we never heard them do this, you know, we slept through it. But some months later, he found himself somewhere where those chants were being repeated, and he knew them. But he didn't know why he knew them. And when he asked his teacher, Shiva, Nanda, Schumann, then the tone and with that is what the boys were chanting at that early morning hour. And it struck him as profound that he was in fact, learning the mantras without being awake without being conscious that he was doing so.

And so he started studying in the contract textbooks and looking for some thread of further insight and really opening himself up during his meditations and so forth to really understand what was going on. And he found some information Some touching text about some rituals that were practiced, where certain mantras were placed in certain parts of the body. And in the book, it goes on to tell you what those are, that the first finger of the right hand this mantra would be placed the second finger, this mantra, third finger, this mantra, but it was kind of complex. And he thought, How can I simplify this and still get the same impact. Now, I was allowing people to, when they were doing this become very relaxed so that the information would be able to come in more clearly and then be able to get into the state of receptivity to absorb the benefits of the practices that they were engaging.

So he took out the mantras and he simplified it so that the practice became what is known as Yoga nidra. And he created this practice, and one that to be a universal practice where anyone regardless of their state, beliefs or practices or country of origin or language could practice and receive the same sorts of benefits, because he realized that it is when we are in a state of relaxation, that we are most receptive. And when we are sleeping, we are receptive because we are relaxed, and even more so when we get into the yoga nidra state. So, that is a little bit of the background on where this came to be. So, the practice of yoga nidra has been perfected and evolved through Swami satchidananda thirst Fati, and he's written the book that we're using. We're using a lot of the meditation practices with slight variations, the yoga nidra that he is put out here, as well as some of my own year later at the end of the course.

Next, we'll go into some of the science hind the yoga nidra