A 10-minute guided meditation from the yoga tradition

Listen: Yoga Nidra — short extract

Free to listen, no sign-up. The complete guided audio comes with the book Yoga Nidra: Practice and Scripts.

Chapters

1. Settling in 0:00
2. Saṅkalpa 1:57
3. Rotation of consciousness 2:21

Guided audio narrated with a synthetic voice (ElevenLabs). Sanskrit recitation checked line by line.

Read the transcript

Yoga nidra. A short extract.

Lie down and make yourself comfortable. Arrange the body so that you will not need to move… Let the arms rest a little away from the body, palms turned up… Let the feet fall outwards… Close your eyes.

Tell yourself silently: I am going to practise yoga nidra. I will stay awake and listen.

Become aware of the sounds around you. The farthest sounds… then sounds a little closer… then sounds in this room. Let them come and go.

Feel the body lying on the floor. The places where it touches the ground: the back of the head… the shoulders… the elbows and hands… the hips… the backs of the legs… the heels.

Now bring to mind your saṅkalpa, your resolve. One short sentence, in the present. Repeat it silently three times, with feeling.

We begin the rotation of consciousness. Let your attention go to each part as it is named. Do not move it. Just feel it.

Right hand… right thumb… index finger… middle finger… ring finger… little finger… palm… back of the hand… wrist… forearm… elbow… upper arm… shoulder… right side of the chest… right side of the waist… right hip… right thigh… knee… shin… ankle… heel… sole of the foot… top of the foot… right big toe… all the toes.

This was the beginning of Script 1, from Yoga Nidra: Practice and Scripts, on yogide.com. The full practice continues with the whole body, the breath, the images and the return.

This meditation is built in the order the tradition itself follows: from the body to the breath, from the breath to the sound, from the sound to the silence. It uses nothing that requires initiation: the natural breath, the so'ham that the Gheraṇḍa Saṃhitā hears in every breath, and Om, whose fourth part, says the Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad, is silence.

Before you begin

• Sit on a cushion or a chair, spine upright, hands resting on the knees. (How to meditate explains the posture.)
• Set a gentle timer for ten minutes, or record the script below in your own voice.
• Read slowly. Each "…" is a pause of a breath; each (pause) is about fifteen seconds.

The script

1. Settling (minute 0 to 1)

Sit comfortably… Let the spine rise gently from the pelvis… Let the shoulders fall… Close the eyes, or rest the gaze on the floor in front of you…

Take one slow breath in through the nose… and let it go… One more… and let it go…

Now let the breath find its own rhythm. You do not need to do anything with it. (pause)

2. The body (minute 1 to 3)

Feel the weight of the body on the ground… The places where you touch the cushion or the chair… The feet… the legs… the pelvis, heavy and stable… (pause)

Feel the back, rising… the shoulders… the arms… the hands resting… Notice the warmth or coolness of the hands… (pause)

Feel the neck… the face… Let the jaw soften… the tongue rest… the space between the eyebrows smooth out… (pause)

Now feel the whole body at once, seated, steady and at ease. Patañjali asks no more of a posture than this: steady and comfortable. (pause)

3. The breath (minute 3 to 5)

Bring your attention to the breath at the nostrils… The air comes in, a little cooler… The air goes out, a little warmer… (pause)

Do not change anything. Simply know: breathing in… breathing out… (pause)

If a thought carries you away, that is fine. Notice where you went… and come back to the next breath. Coming back is the practice. (pause)

4. So'ham (minute 5 to 7)

The yogis say the breath has its own mantra, repeated day and night without effort. As you breathe in, hear inwardly so… As you breathe out, hear ham…

Breathing in… so… Breathing out… ham… (pause)

So'ham: "I am That". Let the words ride on the breath, without pushing… so… ham… (pause)

If the words fade and only the breath remains, let it be so. (pause)

5. Om and its silence (minute 7 to 9)

Now take a fuller breath in… and on the out-breath, if you are comfortable, chant aloud: Om… Open on the "o", close the lips on the "m" and let it hum… then listen to the silence after it… (pause)

Once more… Om… and the silence… (pause)

A third time… Om… and stay in the silence. (pause)

The Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad says that the fourth part of Om has no sound: it is peace, without a second. Rest there now, without any support… simply present… (pause of about one minute)

6. Returning (minute 9 to 10)

Gently, feel the body seated again… the breath moving by itself… Hear the sounds around you… (pause)

Move the fingers… the toes… Bring the palms together in front of the chest, if you wish… Open the eyes slowly, and take a moment before you stand.

After the meditation

Sit for a few seconds before getting up. Notice, without judging, what this session was like: agitated, calm, sleepy, clear. Each one is different, and that is normal.

• To go further with sound, see mantra meditation and japa and Om.
• To understand the steps you just went through, read dhāraṇā, dhyāna and samādhi.
• For a longer guided practice lying down, see yoga nidra.
• To time your sessions or a breathing practice, the breathing timer can help.

Questions people ask

Sources

1. Śrīśa Chandra Vasu (tr.), The Gheranda Samhita, Sacred Books of the Hindus vol. XV (1914-1915), verse 5.84 on so'ham, Internet Archive checked October 16, 2026
2. Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad, verses 1-12, Sanskrit text (GRETIL) checked October 16, 2026
3. Patañjali, Yogasūtra, Sanskrit text (GRETIL, University of Göttingen) checked October 16, 2026

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