NIDRÂ YOGA: RASA & BHAVA. ONLINE STUDY AND PRACTICE CYCLE by Fédération de Yoga Traditionnels
From 17 February to 23 June 2026 – Tuesdays from 6.30pm to 8pm – 17 live sessions
The place and importance of feelings and emotions in the traditional approach to nidrā yoga.
Abhinavagupta (10th-11th century), a great scholar, poet and master of wisdom of Kashmiri Shaivism, is the author of the famous treatise, Abhinavabharati, a commentary on the psychological, emotional and sentimental states of a no less famous text, the Nâtya Shâstra. It outlines all the nuances of the wide range of our inner states, which are both an expression of the multiplicity of our feelings and an impediment to the perception of undivided Reality. There are no fewer than 49 reactive states generally produced by external situations or events, falling into three types: nava-rasa (stable emotions), satvika (feelings of righteousness) and vyabhichari (unstable feelings). In other words, all of our inner experiences, however attractive they may seem to us, have two sides: – the richness of the psycho-emotional realm, which the arts of poetry, dance and drama express with great talent – the restrictions developed over time by our habits and conditioning, which hinder the perception of unitive consciousness, presented as the sole purpose of our lives for around two millennia in all yoga treatises.
Nidrā yoga, meanwhile, outside of its ascetic context, has developed a concise and sometimes methodical teaching on releasing tensions that hinder the subtle perception of the elements that organize our true depth as human beings. It is a great tool for deconditioning memories that limit the natural recognition of our identity. In its advanced level, budhnyanidrā, which can be translated as “nidrā of the depths,” it proclaims that human beings and society cannot be dissociated, as all individuals influence society, which in turn influences each individual...A thousand-year-old oral tradition, nidrā yoga is a search within the recesses of individual and collective consciousness, revealing our deepest tendencies which, when fulfilled in the individual, can restore a degree of order to society.
PROGRAM for the first part of the cycle: 9 nava-rasa: – Shringara, nostalgia – Hasya: burlesque – Karuna, pathos – Raudra, fury – Vira, heroism – Bhayanaka, terror – Bibhatsa, disgust – Adbuta, surprise – Shanta, serenity. 8 satvika – Rati, love – Hasa, joy – Krodha, anger – Utsaha, courage – Bhaya, fear – Jugupsa, aversion – Vismaya, astonishment – Soka, sorrow
This program is an exploration of the contents of individual and collective consciousness. It highlights the psycho-emotional patterns of human beings and reduces their restrictive effects, which limit access to the state of global, peaceful, and happy consciousness that the Teachings attest to through writings and diligent practice. The second and third parts of the cycle program will be studied following the first part with the 33 vyabhichari (unsteady feelings).
MONITORING PROGRESS. Exercises to practice alone at home will be given at the end of each session. They allow each person to develop and deepen the approach independently, as well as facilitating the acquisition of the Teaching in detail and as a whole. As this teaching requires continuous attention during the sessions in order to give any necessary modifications or personal instructions to one participant or another, the sessions are not available on a delayed basis.
TRANSMISSION. The teaching is transmitted by André Riehl. Trained in the practice of nidrā yoga for 57 years, he studied it intensively for 21 years before beginning to transmit it to others. His study of Shivaite yoga tradition since the 1970s with Swami Sri Lakhman Joo and Kashmiri Babu in Kashmir, and his relationship with Chandra Swami for 46 years, has been an immense discovery and an opening throughout all these years that has continued to accompany him to this day, where he has been teaching across the globe for the past twenty-five years.
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