Get Sleepy At The Golden Temple | Guided Meditation with Calming Music
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Hi, I'm Jessica Porter and welcome back to Sleep Magic, a podcast where I help you find the magic of your own mind, helping you to sleep better and live better. Thank you everyone for being here. We've gotten some really nice feedback lately, so thank you to everyone who's posted comments. But I also just want to thank you guys for simply...

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This offer ends August 19th. I'll see you over there at Sleep Magic Premium. Yay! Tonight, get sleepy at the Golden Temple. On my recent trip to India, I visited a Golden Temple. Now, you may have heard of another quite famous Golden Temple in Punjab. It is considered the center of the Sikh religion.

But the golden temple I'll be taking you to tonight is a Tibetan Buddhist temple in southern India, connected to a huge Buddhist monastery, which houses 4,000 monks and 800 nuns. When we visited on a warm spring afternoon, we were transported back through thousands of years of religious history. And at the same time, we were stopped short by the chanting of the monks,

and brought into the present moment. I think you'll like it. So get yourself into a safe and comfortable position and let's begin. Allow your eyes to close easily and gently. And just bring your awareness to your breath. Just allowing your breath to be normal and natural. But your awareness is coming back to your breath. Your awareness coming home to your body.

as all that energy that you've spread out during the day expanded out into the world is contracting back to you on your bed, letting go. Good. Now I'd like you to bring your awareness up into your eyelids now and imagine that the little muscles of your eyelids are feeling heavy. Just let them be heavy. And as they get heavier and heavier, sleepy, comfortable,

I'd like you to accept the suggestion that your eyelids are so heavy, they will not open. So now we're pretending that your eyelids will not open. And now I'd like you to test your eyelids to make sure they won't open by wiggling your eyebrows. Just give them a little tug, good, as your eyes remain shut. And by doing that, we open up your imagination. We imagine now that this warm, heavy feeling in your eyelids is moving back,

into your head. Let's imagine it's like a cool mist tonight. Cool mist taking over every single cell of your brain. Your head is feeling heavy on the pillow as that cool mist cools and relaxes the muscles of your face. Everything letting go. Good. As you imagine

cool waves of relaxation lapping up against the beach of your mind. Allow those cool waves of relaxation to lap up against the beach of your mind as all mental tension disappears. Beautiful. As that cool mist moves down your neck, now down into your shoulders, it feels nice and

That coolness allowing all the tension of the day that's built up in your shoulders to dissipate easily. As you allow that coolness to move down into your arms, down into your hands and fingers. Just allow your arms to feel nice and heavy. Any tension that's built up during the day in your arms has moved out your fingertips. Good.

and any sounds that you're hearing in your environment from this moment on they're taking you deeper and deeper into relaxation as you bring your awareness to those sounds right now anything going on around you as you relax you realize they're just vibrations you allow the vibrations to simply pass through your body and mind taking you deeper and deeper

And the sound of my voice is also taking you deeper and deeper. Now this mist of relaxation is now becoming warm as it enters into your torso. Imagine a warm mist moving down into your chest, relaxing your chest cavity, opening your ribcage. And let's just imagine now this warm mist holding, cradling your heart.

Notice what it feels like to stop and hold your own heart as all emotional tension melts away and you accept yourself completely. It feels good as that warm mist moves down deep into your belly now. The muscles of your back are melting into the bed. Your lower back letting go. Your buttocks relaxing.

And that warm mist is circulating now deep in your belly. And your pelvis is feeling heavy. Heavy. Good. And now let's allow the mist to move down your legs now as it cools off again. It feels nice to allow this wonderful cooling mist to move down into your leg. Your legs are off-duty for tonight. As the mist moves all the way down into your feet and your toes.

Your whole body now. So relaxed. So relaxed. And as your body is relaxing, your mind is relaxing. And as your mind is relaxing, your body is relaxing. And as your body is relaxing, your mind is relaxing. As the sound of my voice takes you deeper and deeper. You are in the town of Coorg.

in southern India. It's a warm day and you're ready for a special experience. You look up and see a huge gate, two stories high. It's shaped like a pagoda, colorful, highly decorated, and trimmed with gold. You walk through this gate into a large courtyard surrounded by saffron-colored buildings. You've entered another world.

You are now on the property of a monastery and surrounding you are just some of the dormitories here for the monks and nuns who devote their lives to Buddhist practice. As you walk across the courtyard, you see three young monks with their shaved heads dressed in their traditional crimson robes, the uniform of Tibetan Buddhism. As they walk together,

They almost seem to float. As you go deeper and deeper, they walk past you, their sandals offering quiet flip-flops, and they smile. You can feel the peace emanating from them, a peace they've been cultivating within themselves for years. And just being here, you are feeling this peace inside of you.

In 563 BC, a young prince named Siddhartha Gautama from present-day Nepal renounced his royal life to seek enlightenment. After years of searching and practicing different ways to develop wisdom, he sat beneath the famous Bodhi tree where he meditated and experienced enlightenment.

He went on to teach what he discovered in the form of the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. He showed the world that, through meditation, one learns to recognize the mind's attachments, the source of all suffering, and to release those attachments, achieving mental and spiritual freedom. When one releases all levels of internal bondage,

The cycle of death and rebirth ends. This is Nirvana. You hear a low resonant sound coming from far away. It's a deep rolling wave of sound repeating and repeating. You feel it in your body and it is calling to you, pulling you to walk to the other end of the courtyard.

where you pass through another enormous gate. The sound pulls you down, where you are surrounded by manicured gardens, and as the sound increases, it moves within you, in your pelvis and up into your heart. It is deep, continuous, and so low, with a profound vibrato. It sounds like a

didgeridoo. As it grows in volume, you realize you are hearing a group of monks chanting in a small temple. You turn a corner and come to an open doorway. The deep sounds of the chanting are rippling through your whole being, calming you, soothing you, taking you deeper and deeper.

It is a deep guttural singing from the throat, rolling like waves and peppered with the sounds of drums and tiny cymbals. You look inside the temple. In the center is an altar with a small golden Buddha on it, and on either side

are monks, three rows of them all sitting on meditation cushions, wearing their traditional crimson robes over saffron-colored tunics, leaning over long, low wooden tables as they read the mantras they are chanting from slim pieces of paper placed before them.

Some are bobbing forward almost imperceptibly moved by the rhythm of the chants. Some of the monks have bells, intricately carved bells that are rung at different moments, while others have mini symbols called tingsha. They knock together to make a high-pitched, clean, ringing sound.

Over the next thousand years, Buddhism spread throughout Asia and was introduced to Tibet in the 6th century, long after Siddhartha sat beneath the Bodhi tree. This chanting developed in Tibet as a way of preparing the mind and body for meditation while also giving respect to the Buddha, the teaching, and the whole Buddhist community.

You stand in the doorway for a while, allowing the deep, rolling vibrations of the chance to pass through you. It feels so nice to be carried on these waves of sound as you go deeper and deeper. You turn around and begin to walk back through the manicured gardens as you continue to stroll

The warmth of the late afternoon relaxes your whole body and the sound of the chanting falls away. You feel peaceful. You arrive at the Golden Temple. It is a huge building in the traditional pagoda style with four levels of roofs like the gates you pass through to get here. It is colorful and highly decorated and much of it

is painted in gold. You take off your shoes and enter. It is a huge, airy, open space, three stories high, with large windows at the top letting in the golden light of the sunset. You feel the cool marble under your feet. There are images of Buddhas painted everywhere, mandalas painted on the ceiling and along the walls,

But your attention is pulled to the central players in this temple. Gigantic Buddhas. Three of them. They are forged from copper and covered in gold. At 60 feet high, they dominate the temple. You stand in front of the center Buddha. You find it fascinating. It is a depiction of the original Buddha.

As a young man, he's sitting in the lotus position on a huge golden cushion. He has a gentle smile on his golden face, and every part of him is gold, except for his red lips, blue eyes and eyebrows, and the highly stylized bun of blue hair on his head. His earlobes are long with empty piercings,

a reminder of his princely past and the riches he gave up. In his left hand he holds a small black bowl, empty, ready to receive alms. Around this enormous Buddha, like an aura, is a display of images and carvings, like protectors, horses, eagles, flowers,

All in bright colors, reds, greens, and royal blue. And of course, more gold. It is an explosion of light and energy. Standing across from this huge golden creation is causing you to connect with the light in you. You feel your inner being expand, meeting the inner being of the Buddha.

And as you relax, going deeper and deeper, your inner being expands more and more. You notice a wooden platform on the floor in front of the Buddhas. Next to it are 20 small mounds of colored sand, vibrant greens and yellows, blues and hot pink. Three monks enter the temple and approach the platform.

You realize that they are the same monks you saw earlier today when you entered the monastery. They smile and look down at the wooden platform. You notice that there is a lightly drawn outline on it and that the monks are here to create a sand mandala. Quietly and calmly, they approach the mounds of sand. In their hands, they hold special tools

little corrugated copper funnels with tiny spouts, and you watch as they fill them with colored sand. The first monk returns to the wooden platform. He takes a second tool, a small metal rod, and begins rubbing his copper funnel along its ribbed exterior. This makes a pleasant sound, like gentle rain on a metal roof.

And the vibration he's creating by scraping the funnel allows the sand to pour out at a regulated rate. And as he moves the tool carefully, he deposits a perfect line of pink exactly where it needs to be. The second monk brings blue and the third offers bright red.

Together, they use the colored sand to make an image of a Buddha at the center of the mandala. As you watch this image come to life, your inner being expands. You continue to observe as the monks go back and forth silently to their mounds of sand, creating the mandala from the center out, creating circles, squares,

lotus leaves, and highly intricate designs. It is complex and perfectly symmetrical and bursting with life. Just looking at it awakens a blooming in you. And as time passes, the mandala grows and grows and grows. The monks are finished now. They put down their tools.

Everyone is still. The temple is quiet. You sit down to meditate. As you close your eyes, the Golden Buddha flashes in your mind and you feel the light expand within you. You meditate on the sand mandala. So perfect. So beautiful. So vibrant. As you remember it, your third eye blooms like a lotus flower.

A bell rings, and the sound hangs in the temple for many seconds. You open your eyes. One of the monks has brought a large paintbrush to the edge of the mandala. The bristles are bending slightly as he holds it against the wooden platform. He slowly pulls the brush into the sand, destroying the perfection of the mandala.

All the colors in the wake of his brush mixed together. Order returning to randomness. Control returning to surrender. Wakefulness returning to sleep. He continues to pass the brush through the mandala again and again. And now the entire thing is just a mound of mixed sand.

A second monk collects the sand into a bucket. He will take this pot of sand to a pond and pour it in the water. It will settle on the bottom, becoming mud, and that mud will nourish the lotus flower. The mandala has a new life as it remains connected to everything. It's dark now, and the monks return to their dormitories.

You notice a mattress in the corner of the temple and lie down on it as you relax, going deeper and deeper. The enormous golden Buddhas keep you company as you drift and float and dream.