Feature
oday, there is a lot of
misunderstanding
going
around as to how much
sleep a person needs. One
thing that needs to be
understood is that the body
needs rest, not sleep. In
most people’s experience, sleep is the deepest
form of restfulness they know, so they talk
about sleep. But essentially, the body is not
asking for sleep, it is looking for restfulness.
Just think about it – your mornings would be
pretty bad if your nights were not restful. So
it is not sleep but restfulness that makes the
difference. If you keep your body relaxed
throughout the day, if your work, exercise and
every other activity is a form of relaxation for
you, your sleep quota will go down naturally.
There is no need to ¿ x how many hours to
sleep; you need not ¿ x an alarm bell to tell
you when to come awake.
When you feel suf¿ ciently relaxed, you
must come awake. If the body and mind is kept
in a certain level of alertness and awareness,
you will see once it is well-rested, it is eager
to come to life. If you want to avoid life, you
will naturally tend to sleep more. When you
are trying to use the bed as a grave, the body
will not want to come out – someone will have
to raise you from the dead. The problem is
that people have been taught to do everything
hard – in tension. I see people walking in the
park, very tense. This sort of exercise will
bring more harm than wellbeing. Don’t go at
everything like it is a war. Whether you are
walking, jogging or exercising, why don’t
you do it easily, joyfully? Don’t battle with
life. Keeping yourself ¿ t and well is not a
battle. Play a game, swim, walk, whatever
you like. You will only have a problem if all
you want to do is eat cheesecake! Otherwise
there is no problem about being relaxed with
any activity.
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Yogic Practices –
Shambhavi Mahamudra
CUTTING
DOWN
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SADHGURU ISHA FOUNDATION
14 G o l f P l u s
FEBRUARY
2019
If you bring certain yogic practices such as the
Shambhavi Mahamudra into your life, one of
the ¿ rst changes you will see is in your pulse
rate. For example, someone who has just
gone through the Inner Engineering program
and started Shambhavi, if he checks his pulse
before and after dinner and records it, and
then practices Shambhavi twice a day for six
weeks and checks his pulse again, it would
have come down by eight to ¿ fteen counts.
If one really sinks deep into restfulness in
Shambhavi, the pulse rate will go down
further. With 12 to 18 months of practice,
you can bring your pulse rate down to around
¿ fty or sixty in a restful state. If this happens,
your sleep quota will go down dramatically