Many people wake up in the morning with their heads in a twist. First thing, our minds begin churning with anxiety and to-do lists. If you wake up in this condition, you have lost a wonderful opportunity to wake up to the world, aka Self-realize.

Waking up correctly is a crucial aspect of Tantrik practice. The moments between sleep and rising are a sandhi. Sandhi (pronounced “sund-hee.”) is a dynamic opening, or a dynamic juncture between the manifest and the unmanifest. All Tantrik practice teaches us to recognize and live from within this infinite, spacious moment.

Did you ever notice that true dreams, or transmission dreams, occur more frequently in the early morning hours? This is because we are already leaving the state of deep sleep. During the moments between deep sleep and waking up, we are less prey to our limiting fixations, those that squeeze our awareness down to a narrow View. Some of us are actually more awake during this time than when we are supposedly awake.

As we begin to come to consciousness, the “sandhi effect” is still with us. We can use this moment to experience and explore greater spaciousness and a larger View.

First, it is important to recognize this moment. Before you go to sleep, set the intention that immediately when you begin to wake up, you are going to remember to pause and become more aware of your condition.

The initial step in any practice involving sandhi is to slow down your normal rush forward and train yourself to recognize when a moment of spaciousness becomes available to your gross senses.

For instance, the most famous sandhi is the small gap or suspension of the breath at the end of every exhale and the apex of every inhale. We breath in and out more than 26,000 times a day, but many people never notice that the natural breath contains these two moments. Even when given the instruction to pay attention to these natural turning points of the breath, many people are not able to discern them for quite some time.

In a similar way, it may take you a few mornings, or even months, before you are able to recognize that before your mind begins churning, there is a moment or moments during which you can discern and experience relative spaciousness and quiet.

Of course, it may also be true that your mind has been churning all night due to imbalances in the doshas. If this is your situation, you can still undertake this practice, but you will not be able to fully enjoy it until you address the doshic imbalance through changes to your diet and lifestyle, perhaps with the assistance of a holistic doctor. In any case, the practice itself will contribute to you regaining balance.

Here is the practice.

Set the intention before you go to sleep, that immediately when you wake up, you will remember that you are going to pause and become more aware of your condition.

When you first become aware of awaking, do not move or open your eyes. This is very important.

If you are able to “taste” a condition of greater spaciousness in this moment, great. If not, you can do the practice in any case, and this will interrupt your normal routine of churning mind and have a benefit.

This next instruction is one whose precise meaning for you will have to be discovered through practice. Instead of focusing on your problems, or busy day, or anticipations, REACH OUT. This is the crucial point.

Reach out and connect to your teachers.

Reach out and connect to the Jagad Gurus and wisdom beings of your tradition.

Or simply reach out to discover a greater sense of spaciousness and presence.

For some of us, a greater sense of spaciousness and presence is most available when we connect to our teachers. Others don’t have such a specific support, or don’t need it. In any case, you are reaching out and connecting to the essential spaciousness and wisdom of Reality.

In this moment, offer a prayer or some expression of gratitude. Or simply feel gratitude. The happiness and wonder of being alive in such a magnificent world is also present. And the intention to surrender one’s limited Vision and become truly useful.

Feel grace all around you and nourishing you through every pore. Really let yourself taste this. Don’t rush.

Then begin to listen to the day. At this point you can move or open your eyes, or not. Do whatever feels best.

Begin to listen to the sounds of the day. Open all of your senses and reach out to the day–to the sounds, smells, feeling on your skin, impression of the day on your mind, and on your vision, too, if your eyes are open. Listen to this day. Not to some abstraction. Listen to this very day.

Every day has its own special flavor. If you can correctly sense the quality of the day, you can align your activities accordingly. What do you sense? A feeling of gentle opening or welcoming? Or more active transforming? Or obstruction? Or quiet restfulness? Or cutting harshness? Or boundless spaciousness?

Lay there with all senses open see what messages about the day come to you. Set the intention to live your day in tune with this quality. For instance, if you sense a lot of obstruction quality, perhaps you won’t try to start that new project today. Or if you feel a balmy, open, gentle quality, perhaps you will go out in nature for an easy hike. Or you will approach a friend with whom you have had some difficulty and gently offer a reconciliation.

If you know how to use a panchangam, the Indian daily calendar, after you get up you can find out what star (nakshatra) governs the day, and you can check your perceptions, or add to them with this information.

Next, give yourself a gentle rub all over. Gently wake up your whole body this way.

Then check to see which nostril is flowing more easily. Sit up and place the foot, left or right, corresponding to the most open nostril, on the floor first. Get up with the weight on this foot. Be aware of the weight on that foot for the first two or three steps.

If both nostrils are equally open and flowing, remain in bed either lying down or sitting in a meditation posture, and continue to develop your awareness and surrender to the presence and spaciousness of Reality. When you feel ready, place both feet on the floor and stand up.

Now you can follow the rest of your morning routine as outlined in the many descriptions of the Ayurvedic practice of dinacharya.

Throughout the day, remember to reach out in a similar way and reconnect with the essential wisdom and presence of the world, whether in the form of your teachers, the wisdom beings, or the totality of world presence.

Instead of “Hello, me,” remember to practice “Hello, World.”

OM Shanti,
Shambhavi

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