8 Limbs of Yoga

Yoga with Roni

Yama : Universal Morality

The yamas are the moral virtues which, if attended to, purify human nature and contribute to health and happiness of society.

1. Ahimsa – Compassion for all living things

Unfortunately, there is no exact English translation for the Sanskrit word ahimsa. For me, the closest is non-violent. I like to look at Ahimsa as a harmonious life, that in every situation we should adopt a considerate attitude and do no harm. I always explain it as a way of looking at life meaning kindness, friendliness, and thoughtful consideration of other people and things.

2. Satya – Commitment to Truthfulness

Satya literally means “to speak the truth,” or I like to say integrity. Starting with yourself, meaning your thoughts align with your words and actions. It is important to keep the values of Samadi meaning, consider what, when, and how we speak our truth. Then, in what way it could affect others. Our duty is to study ourselves and recognize what is a truth, fact and what is critique. Satya should never come into conflict with our efforts to behave with ahimsa. This perception is based on the understanding that honest communication and action are the building blocks of any healthy relationship. For example, if you feel hurt and you go to blame the person that “hurt you,” choose the right language. If you are being honest, you’d say “I’m hurt” and not “you hurt me” because “you hurt me” places the blame on the other person and you wouldn’t be taking responsibility for yourself and your emotions. Blaming the other person could result in them becoming defensive and lead to a bigger problem. In all, deliberate deception, exaggerations and mistruths harm others.

3. Asteya – Non-stealing

Asteya is not taking or using something that does not belong to us. This also means not taking advantage of a situation where someone confides in us. Non-stealing includes not only taking what belongs to another without permission, but also using that something for a different purpose than intended. For example, what does it mean to steal time? For example, if you see your professor on their lunch break and you approach them demanding their attention for a personal issue, or a task without permission or appointment, you are stealing their free time for lunch. The practice of asteya implies not taking anything that has not been freely given. This behavior prevents crossing the lines of ahimsa and satya.

4. Brahmacharya – Sense control

Brahmacharya means taking control of your emotions by not reacting to the sensation, but choosing how to respond. This is mostly used in the sense of abstinence, particularly in people’s relationship to sexual activity. This does not necessarily mean celibacy. For example, sexual harassment. It happens in our society all the time, and to break it down, it is a person not controlling their sensations or desires and using their energy in a way that might harm others. Our sexual energy is powerful, it’s the foundation for our survival, to reproduce and therefore should be used to regenerate our connection to our spiritual self. Brahmacharya suggests that we should form relationships that foster our understanding of the highest truths.

5. Aparigraha – Neutralizing the desire to acquire and hoard wealth

Aparigraha means to only take what you need and not to act greedy because of fear. The fear comes from lack of trust in the Universe and yourself to provide what you need for your future. Those collecting and hoarding are perfect examples of people consuming more than they need. It takes energy, space and becomes draining. Take only what you need, and you’ll find you need much less than we are conditioned to think. If you take more, you are exploiting someone else. In addition, Aparigraha means letting go of our attachments to things and understanding that change is the only constant. We should remember that nothing lasts forever.

Niyama: Personal Observances

Nice to be studied with others for different perspectives to the table

Niyama means “rules” or “laws.” These are the rules prescribed for personal observance. Like the yamas, the five niyamas are not exercises or actions to be simply studied. They represent far more than an attitude. Compared with the yamas, the niyamas are more intimate and personal. They refer to the attitude we adopt toward ourselves as we create a code for living soulfully.

Raising the consciousness towards our own behavior to ourselves

1. Sauca – Purity

Sauca means purity and cleanliness. There are different ways to purify and clean ourselves. Hygienically, we keep ourselves clean. Internally, we keep ourselves healthy, our organs functioning, and our mind clean. Conscious eating, practicing asanas or pranayama can attend to this inner sauca. Asanas tone the entire body and remove toxins while pranayama cleanses our lungs and purifies our nerves. Cleansing the mind of its unsettling emotions like jealousy, hatred, lust, passion, anger, greed, pride and delusion is the ultimate goal. Life throws different lessons at us, we need our mind to stay clear. It is all about perception. Afterall, it is the perception of our mind that allows us to be at ease or suffer. The practice of meditation is the purifying of the mind.

2. Santosa – Contentment

Santosa means to be contained. The feeling of being content, or happy with what we have. This means to find contentment even while experiencing some of the tougher lessons life throws at us. In addition, understanding this experience or lesson no matter how difficult, is part of the process of growth. It is understanding that there is a purpose for everything, karma. Focus on what you can and not on what you cannot.

3. Tapas – Disciplined use of our energy

Tapas means to build heat, our inner thermometer. It means to heat the body, specifically the kind of heat generated by certain practices like dancing. When we build heat in our body, our immune systems kick in. Tapas refers to the burning off of impurities, cleansing from within. Tapas help us burn up all of the desires that stand in the way to our goal to create connection with the cosmic energy of the world. Consciously activating Tapas is paying attention to what you eat, your body posture and your breathing patterns.

4. Svadhyaya – Self study

Sva means “self’ adhyaya means “examination”. We have the responsibility to educate ourselves through self study. Any study that brings you self-reflection can be an opportunity to go deeper and broaden your understanding of your own conditioning. Eventually, you intentionally find self-awareness in all activities and efforts. Making more connections, being able to welcome and accept your limitations, burning out unwanted and self-destructive tendencies to lead a balanced life.

5. Isvarapranidhana – Celebration of the Spiritual

Isvarapranidhana means to trust and surrender to a higher source. To understand you’re not alone, yet a part of something bigger. When we surrender, we gain a sense of perspective that allows us to recognize and receive the gift of being alive. We accept that we are a part of everything, and trust that our higher selves will guide us. In the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, surrender leads to the supreme unified state samadhi. Overcoming the distracting stories in our mind allows us to uncover our divine nature – peace, clarity, liberation, unconditional love.

Asanas: Body Postures

Asana is the practice of physical postures. It is the most commonly known aspect of yoga for those unfamiliar with the other seven limbs of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra. Asana is used as a tool to calm the mind and move into the inner essence of being. The physicality of the yoga postures opens the gate for those to expand in the yoga world. The control of breath and bodily posture will harmonize the flow of energy in the body, creating an unimaginable field for the evolution of spirituality.

Pranayama: Breath Control

Pranayama, or breathing technique, is where you intentionally control your breath. Unlike in meditation, where you observe the cycle of your natural breath, you are conscious of where you are directing the breath. There are many types of pranayama, each exercise is beneficial in a different way, depending on the situation. It can be used with asana practice or simply on its own. For example, Ujjayi breath can calm the nervous system and help center your focus or some say one minute of fire breath is equivalent to an hour of sleep, meaning that it can energize you. Pranayama is for not just in the classroom, but in everyday life.

Pratyahara: Control of the Senses

Pratyahara is to control our reaction to our sensations. Connecting the mind and the senses. There are two types of sensations: pleasant and unpleasant. The practice of pratyahara is to detach ourselves from the pleasant and unpleasant in the sensation and to respond objectively to the situation. Generally, our sensations create a story and we don’t want to give in to them but rather have the conscious power to respond and not react. What is your reaction when you’re angry? Everyone reacts differently, maybe you run, hide, yell, punch, blame, all being not taking any responsibility for your anger or sensation. If we don’t react, we can take a breath and wait until the sensation passes a bit so we can respond to the situation instead immediately reacting to it. Pratyahara occurs almost automatically when we meditate because we are so absorbed in the meditation. The mind is so focused, the senses follow it; it is not happening the other way around. We want our sensations to serve us, not the other way around. Much of our emotional imbalance is our own creation. A person who is influenced by outside events and sensations can never achieve inner peace and tranquility. This is because he or she will waste much mental and physical energy in trying to suppress unwanted sensations and to heighten other sensations. This will eventually result in a physical or mental imbalance, and will, in most instances, result in illness.

Dharana: Concentration and Cultivating Inner Perceptual Awareness

Dharana means “immovable concentration of the mind”. The essential idea is to hold the concentration or focus of attention in one direction. “When the body has been tempered by asanas, when the mind has been refined by the fire of pranayama and when the senses have been brought under control by pratyahara, the sadhaka (seeker) reaches the sixth stage, dharana. Here he is concentrated wholly on a single point or on a task in which he is completely engrossed. The mind has to be stilled in order to achieve this state of complete absorption.”

In dharana we create the conditions for the mind to focus its attention in one direction instead of going out in many different directions. Deep contemplation and reflection can create the right conditions, and the focus on this one point that we have chosen becomes more intense. We encourage one particular activity of the mind and, the more intense it becomes, the more the other activities of the mind fall away.

The objective in dharana is to steady the mind by focusing its attention upon some stable entity.The particular object selected has nothing to do with the general purpose, which is to stop the mind from wandering -through memories, dreams, or reflective thought-by deliberately holding it single-mindedly upon some apparently static object. B.K.S. Iyengar states that the objective is to achieve the mental state where the mind, intellect, and ego are “all restrained and all these faculties are offered to the Lord for His use and in His service. Here there is no feeling of ‘I’ and ‘mine’.”

When the mind has become purified by yoga practices, it becomes able to focus efficiently on one subject or point of experience. Now we can unleash the great potential for inner healing.

Dhyana: Devotion, Meditation on The Divine

Dhyana means worship, or profound and abstract religious meditation. It is perfect contemplation. It involves concentration upon a point of focus with the intention of knowing the truth about it. The concept holds that when one focuses their mind in concentration on an object the mind is transformed into the shape of the object. Hence, when one focuses on the divine they become more reflective of it and they know their true nature. “His body, breath, senses, mind, reason and ego are all integrated in the object of his contemplation – the Universal Spirit.”

During dhyana, the consciousness is further unified by combining clear insights into distinctions between objects and between the subtle layers of perception. “We learn to differentiate between the mind of the perceiver, the means of perception, and the objects perceived, between words, their meanings, and ideas, and between all the levels of evolution of nature.”

As we fine-tune our concentration and become more aware of the nature of reality we perceive that the world is unreal. “The only reality is the universal self, or God, which is veiled by Maya (the illusory power). As the veils are lifted, the mind becomes clearer. Unhappiness and fear – even the fear of death – vanishes. This state of freedom, or Moksha, is the goal of Yoga. It can be reached by constant enquiry into the nature of things.”Meditation becomes our tool to see things clearly and perceive reality beyond the illusions that cloud our mind.

Samadhi: Union with The Divine

The final step in the eight-fold path of Yoga is the attainment of Samadhi. Samadhi means “to bring together, to merge.” In the state of samadhi the body and senses are at rest, as if asleep, yet the faculty of mind and reason are alert, as if awake; one goes beyond consciousness. During samadhi, we realize what it is to be an identity without differences, and how a liberated soul can enjoy pure awareness of this pure identity. The conscious mind drops back into that unconscious oblivion from which it first emerged.

Thus, samadhi refers to union or true Yoga. There is an ending to the separation that is created by the “I” and “mine” of our illusory perceptions of reality. The mind does not distinguish between self and non-self, or between the object contemplated and the process of contemplation. The mind and the intellect have stopped and there is only the experience of consciousness, truth and unutterable joy.

The achievement of samadhi is a difficult task. For this reason the Yoga Sutrasuggests the practice of asanas and pranayama as preparation for dharana, because these influence mental activities and create space in the crowded schedule of the mind. Once dharana has occurred, dhyana and samadhi can follow.

These eight steps of yoga indicate a logical pathway that leads to the attainment of physical, ethical, emotional, and psycho-spiritual health. Yoga does not seek to change the individual; rather, it allows the natural state of total health and integration in each of us to become a reality.