The Eight Limbs of yoga, also called Ashtanga yoga while also being hailed as the blueprint of living, simply is a guide for the entire living sphere. Just read on to find out.
Yoga is that ancient way of living, fulfilling a total philosophy of living a healthy and happy life with every breath of yours. The forest of yoga backgrounds leads, it is said, to over ten thousand years ago. Among many, The Rig Veda, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, and The Bhagavad Gita are three of the most popular ancient texts that offer insights on yoga. They explain profound yogic philosophy and many transformative yoga practice.
What are the eight limbs of yoga?
In 400 CE, Maharishi Patanjali, an ancient sage scientist out of India, comprised 196 aphorisms on Yoga, better known as Maharishi Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra. The very word sutra means exactly that: a thread-weaving kind of coming-together-likeness, just as in English the technical term suture. These are some of the most concise, accurate pieces loaded with precious wisdom to prevent, overcome, and transcend human miseries and sufferings right up to this modern age.
The Sutras (or writings) of Patanjali are divided into four sections or padas. The practice of the eight-fold path of yoga teacher training comes from the second part, called the Sadhana Pada. This chapter explains that Sage Patanjali mentions this Eightfold Path as ‘ashtanga yoga’ in sutra 29 (aphorism 2.29). He has created this road for our transcendence over human suffering and the philosophy of self-realization and total freedom. This way of living brings a harmonious collaboration of body, mind, spirit, and total health and well-being.
Ashta means eight, and anga means limbs. The eight limbs of yoga are:
- Set of 5 social ethics: Yama
- Set of 5 personal ethics: Niyama
- Poses or Postures: Asana
- Breathing exercises / Breathing techniques/ Breathwork: Pranayama
- Withdrawing the senses inward: Pratyahara
- Art of effortless concentration: Dharana
- Meditation: Dhyana
- Complete harmony with universal consciousness: Samadhi.
Social and personal ethics of yoga, yamas and niyamas
Yama and Niyama are the first two limbs of ashtanga yoga. Their understanding could give a valid path on integrating yoga into your daily life and in turn provide profound changes into oneself and one’s yoga practice.
Yamas are universal morality, attitudes towards society and how you treat others and the world around you. There are 5 yamas, namely:
- Ahimsa: Non-Violence/Non-Harming/Kindness/Compassion
- Satya: Non-Deception/Truthfulness
- Asteya: Non-Stealing/Honesty/Abundance
- Brahmacharya: Celibacy/Moderation/Self-Restraint
- Aparigraha: Non-Greed/Security/Self-reliance/Non-possessiveness/Non-accumulating.
Niyamas are personal observances, attitudes toward ourselves, inner discipline, and responsibility. The five Niyamas are:
- Shoucha: Purity
- Santosha: Contentment/Happiness
- Tapas: Self-Discipline/Austerity/Penance
- Swadhyaya: Self-Examination/Self-Study
- Ishvarapranidhana: Self-surrender to the divine/Spiritual Attunement.
If you would like to know them better and how to incorporate them into your daily life, go ahead and download the freebie Decoding Yamas and Niyamas for the Modern Yogis.
Yoga poses: asana
Currently, most yoga practitioners focus on the practice of the third limb, Asana, that is, yoga postures. These yoga poses are a discipline of physical postures designed to purify the body and fortify physical stability, stamina, and strength. Many only know yoga postures as the practice of physical yoga postures, which is a good place to begin. In olden times, the practice of asana was meant to create a balance of physical and mental preparation for what one has to go through in meditation, which is, as stated, the seventh limb. Asana means literally “a seat.”
Asanas incorporate the two-fold qualities of alertness and relaxation. Asanas present us with opportunities to experience and explore the physical aspect of our existence. More than the flexibility of muscles and alignments, exploring such postural dispositions implies resonate, steadying with the stillness and serenity of mind.
Controlled stretching, contraction, relaxation, and coordination of the various muscle groups increases the awareness of several physical and physiological processes, in balancing and maintaining posture.
Asana delves much deeper, beyond a physical posture: the full expression of mind-body integration necessary for conscious awareness of the flow of life energy within the body. The practice of performing asanas with deep awareness becomes practice for full consciousness in every action during life.
The yoga poses number over 84,000, depending on whom you listen to. Now, you might get stunned by this great number, but don’t get too excited. You don’t need to learn all these postures; just a few would do you good. From there, you can add increasingly challenging advanced postures as you progress.
Pranayama: Breathing Control
In the Sanskrit, prana means life force or life energy, while ayama means regulation or control. Thus, pranayama conventionally means the regulation of the flow of life force. It is the science of breathing: the breath is the physical expression of life-force energy. In recent times, breathwork has emerged as a catch-all term for breathing exercises or breathing techniques.
We breathe every minute of our lives. We take about 21,600 breaths in one day!
Breath is a bridge linking body, mind, and soul. The alterations in the mind affect breathing and vice-versa. Each emotion has a distinct rhythm of breath, and how we breathe affects how we feel.
Breath is the bridge between our sympathetic and parasympathetic systems.
Pranayama allows you to harness breath to improve physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health.
You could start off with the simplest of techniques, such as Breath of Joy, Alternate Nostril Breathing, or Ujjayi Breathing.
Sense withdrawal: pratyahara
Most of the time they are busy in the outward world through the senses. These are great distractions for going inwards. Various techniques of Pratyahara teach us to withdraw our senses from the outer world. These techniques make the mind go inwards.
Intention-and-focus: dharana
When the inner settles in, the mind can be trained to focus effortlessly. These techniques help in keeping the inward focus at its very best. Get your earphones, and try this Dharana to Dhyana meditation.
Meditation and ultimate bliss: dhyana and samadhi
Meditation or Dhyana is effortless doing nothing, flowing into inner peace. The art of completely relaxing the mind and being in the moment is learned. Totally with practice, meditation makes one steady in witness consciousness, in bliss, with perfect equanimity of the mind and union with universal consciousness. This is the last limb, Samadhi.