About Sat Nam Rasayan:
In Sanskrit Sat Nam Rasayan means “profound relaxation or healing into the Divine Name”. Sat Nam Rasayan was taught by Yogi Bhajan to MahanKirn Kaur and Guru Dev Singh. I am honored to say that these are my teachers.
Before I get into the esoterics, I want to make it clear that anyone can open and access the sensitive space to allow healing, and the techniques for this are accessible and beginners enter very easily into this space out of a sheer desire to heal or be healed. There is nothing that cannot be healed. It is excellent for any physical, emotional, or psychological un-ease. There are always a dizzying array of diagnoses to explain what may be happening, depending on if it a Western, Aryuvedic, Tibetan or Shamanic diagnosis and so on. The root of all illness is spiritual misalignment.
Guru Dev tells a parable, in his book on Sat Nam Rasayan which helps in understanding Sat Nam Rasayan. He writes, “There is a legend about the birth of Sat Nam Rasayan. After many lives of effort and detachment, a certain saint achieved Freedom. When he felt the cold hand of Death on his shoulder, he approached the doors of Heaven and knocked. At that point a pariah lying on the ground pulled a coin from his pocket, touched the saints foot and said 'Holy Man, will you heal me?' The saint did not know what to do.'After all my hard work to get this far. Now this! If I heal him, I'll create karma; if I don't heal him I'll create karma. What should I do?' And he created Sat Nam Rasayan: he allowed the experience that this person produced in him and the pariah was cured. This was thanks to the Sacred Space. (Sat Nam Rasayan; p 157)
To me the beauty of this parable lies in the Saint not healing nor "doing", but by allowing the “event” to heal in the Sacred Space, or in the Shuniya or Inner Silence that had opened up in the Saint.
Although the lineage of Sat Nam Rasayan can be traced back to the Sikh Guru Ram Das in the Sikh tradition, and even further into when it was called Sat Nam Razai, this same space, is well known the world over. And this space comes to the healer, and not the other way around. This space has been called the “Void” by Buddists, The Way of the Heart by followers of Christ, and so on. It is Universal, accessible to all and absolutely non-denominational.
The Sacred Space of Shuniya is where all healing occurs. An advanced healer is able to hold this space in his or her consciousness in a stable manner while also recognizing the stories, tendencies, and resistances that exist silmultanoeusly all around her or him. By dwelling in this space, the relationship to the event is constantly dissolved.
A tendency, or resistance, and many self imposed stories or pain attachments or false associations that define the self or patterns that tend to be dis-ease manifesting evaporate. Cellular integrity is restored. While occupying this space, there is no self. There is a relation to an event, a sensation, and by allowing its modification, the patient is healed. In its most profound sense then, we can call Sat Nam Rasayan a way of self-healing. And ultimately all true healing occurs through the modality of self-healing.
In Integral Healing, The Mother writes to us, that when in pain, “the cells..shrink...and reject”. The body is in a State in which it sees that everything simply depends on how it is linked with the Divine...with just a change of receptivity of the body towards the Divine, disappears all of a sudden” (Integral Healing; p. 178)
The way a Sat Nam Rasayan session works is you lay down and you explain what you want healed. The healer will gently touch your arm or wrist. The healer enters into the state of Shunniya or absolute inner emptiness or into the void that is ultimate reality beyond our self-imposed constructs. It is in the void or eternal consciousness where the space for healing occurs.
Yogi Bhajan went against all rules of sacred initiation to bring these teaching to the masses. He specifically instructed Guru Dev Singh, to create a global healing movement. He said that Sat Nam Rasayan would be needed in the times we live in as we traverse into the Aquarian Age. We are dealing a changing of the guards in the heavens. Humanity has massive amounts of new psychic energy to adapt to, not to mention many other accelerated changes going on. Sat Nam Rasayan was designed to be desiminated as a healing modality for these very times. Time is speeding up. Where even a few years ago, people had time to go to yoga, work on themselves and so on, the intensity of the levels of a lack of well-being are mounting and there is a need for quick effective relief.
Sat Nam Rasayan can also help you to easily access a very sacred space for contemplation and peace. You can learn just by transmission in a healing or through being taught techniques by a healer, how to heal yourself and others. You learn to enter into a rejuvenating calm at will and calm the tempests around you in your day to day life. Like anything else it is a practice and a practical experience,
You develop the ability to witness without attachment. You drop your self imposed limitations so that you may experience your true self, and a lovely stillness comes to rest where the conflict of attachment to illusion was before.
It is a mechanism by which you allow yourself to become receptive to source energy. You access that space, and the healing occurs within that space.