Ashtanga Yoga: What are the eight limbs of Patanjali?
Ashta means “eight”, and Anga means “limbs”. The Ashtanga Yoga of Patanjali is a practice with eight limbs or paths, which ultimate goal is to draw the road towards liberation.
Ashta means “eight”, and Anga means “limbs”. The Ashtanga Yoga of Patanjali is a practice with eight limbs or paths, which ultimate goal is to draw the road towards liberation.
1. Yamas: The two first limbs of the Ashtanga Yoga set the ethics core that a yogi should follow according to Patanjali. Specifically, yamas are restraints or social rules that are meant to regulate the behavior and create harmony between the yogi and the society. These principles will help us to get free from complications or conflicts in the external world. The yamas are five: ahimsa (not to harm others, or non violence), satya (truthfulness), asteya (honesty, or not stealing), bramacharya (sexual abstinence, or to engage in intercourse only with one's partner) and aparigraha (non-possessiveness, or to abstain from greed). They are meant to be practised through our actions, speech and thoughts.
2. Niyamas: They are fixed observances that help us to build a discipline. They are also the basis for any Ayurvedic or Yogic treatment, because they provide a mental and spiritual support that complement the physical treatment, making it a treatment for the whole being. They are also five: shaucha (cleanliness), santosha (contentment), tapas (austerity or simplicity), svadhyaya (self study) and Ishvara pranidhana (surrender to the Supreme Being).
Although yamas and niyamas, and the eight limbs of Ashtanga Yoga as a whole, were taught to yogis as a mean towards liberation or samadhi itself, their second application has been the daily life of a householder. For everybody, they constitute the platform to start with a spiritual practice.
2. Niyamas: They are fixed observances that help us to build a discipline. They are also the basis for any Ayurvedic or Yogic treatment, because they provide a mental and spiritual support that complement the physical treatment, making it a treatment for the whole being. They are also five: shaucha (cleanliness), santosha (contentment), tapas (austerity or simplicity), svadhyaya (self study) and Ishvara pranidhana (surrender to the Supreme Being).
Although yamas and niyamas, and the eight limbs of Ashtanga Yoga as a whole, were taught to yogis as a mean towards liberation or samadhi itself, their second application has been the daily life of a householder. For everybody, they constitute the platform to start with a spiritual practice.
How these concepts from such a long time ago can be applied to our modern life?
Let's analyze some implications of the concept of shaucha, or cleanliness, as an example. Cleanliness in a personal aspect may refer to keeping our body clean externally (taking showers, washing our hair, brushing our teeth as often as we need it, and doing any thing that we need to keep our personal hygiene) and internally (eating the appropriate food for us, performing periodical cleansings, and so on). From an ecological point of view, cleanliness refers to keeping the environment where we live as clean, tidy, and organized as we can. Not only our bedroom, our house, but also our suburb, our city, our country, our planet. There are basic and easy actions that we can follow to respect this principle: throw our rubbish away just in places designated with this purpose, reduce the amount of products that we buy and we use in our daily life, reuse what we have bought or used, recycle every element that we can, compost organic material to give back to the soil what it has given to us; get involved in community or national campaign to protect or recover the natural order that Nature had. |
On the other hand, shaucha also needs to be applied to our mind. How does our mind get dirty or untidy? Through thoughts, emotions, feelings like greed, jealousy, hatred, egoism or self-centeredness. How do we clean ourselves, our mind? We can perform different actions that allow us to clean our mind daily: perform a daily practice that includes meditation, asanas, pranayamas and chanting mantras, for example. We can also replace the self-centered feelings or thoughts (by overcoming the patterns that generate them) with others that do recognize the true nature of our Self, such as sympathy, or directly by practising compassion with others.
From the daily application of shaucha we will be keeping ourselves clean, our environment clean, and we will be also respecting other principles involved in our actions (ahimsa, tapas and aparigraha).
From the daily application of shaucha we will be keeping ourselves clean, our environment clean, and we will be also respecting other principles involved in our actions (ahimsa, tapas and aparigraha).
3. Asanas: For sure, they are the most well known limb of yoga in the western society. They are the physical postures that allow us to keep a healthy and toned body. Even more, through these movements, we are able to release the patterns that our body keeps inside. They help us to draw our attention inwards, and prepare our mind for settling down in meditation. Actually, the purpose of asanas is to bring body awareness, so in the future we can train the awareness in our minds. Patanjali suggest this order, because the body is easier to train than the mind. Therefore the practice of asanas constitutes a process of meditation in itself, making every movement a conscious movement, and being aware of every breath. If you want to know more about Asanas, visit our section dedicated to this subject by clicking here. |
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4. Pranayamas: This sanskrit word refers to the respiratory techniques that allow us to enhance our vital energy force, or Prana. As Gregor Maehle states in his translation of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali “When posture is accomplished, pranayama is then practised, which is removing agitation from inhalation and exhalation” (sutra 49, chapter II). He also says, “Pranayama is the study and exercise of one's breath to a point where it is appeased and does not agitate the mind” (1). It also can constitute a way of meditation, where we turn our breath in a voluntary process, and we focus our attention in those inhalations and exhalations. If you are interested in knowing more about Pranayamas, visit our section dedicated to this subject by clicking here. |
5. Pratyahara: This may be the most forgotten limb of the Ashtanga Yoga system. Pratyahara means sense withdrawal, it is the renunciation to the sense-enjoyment for a higher joy: the absolute happiness that comes from the experience of the Divine. When we start practising the sense withdrawal, we make the following purpose: from now on, our Self is going to command our senses, and not viceversa. In order to practice pratyahara, first we need to evaluate using our intelligence if the object that we are perceiving really has a positive effect in our development, and if it does, we go for it. With pratyahara we start following our mind inwards, and not outwards anymore.
It has a practical effect. When the mind is driven outside, we are not able to perceive the deeper aspects of our consciousness. But if we turn our mind inwards, we will be able to realize the True Self, the one that has not changed or evolved, the Supreme Existence. Whenever we detach ourselves from a strong desire or addiction, we are practising pratyahara.
There are many practices that will help us to go deeper in pratyahara. For example, if you are practising asanas, and a delicious smell of food comes to you from the kitchen, you should challenge yourself to keep doing the asanas till the end of the session, instead of just going to the kitchen driven by the senses. Another way of practicing is to direct your gaze to a specific point (drishti) or you can draw your sense of hearing to listening to your breath, concentrating in the present moment, free from any disturbance.
Pratyahara is the previous step towards dharana and dhyana (concentration and meditation, the following limbs), we need to master it before we can master those following higher stages.
6. Dharana: It is said that dharana starts the inner limbs of the Ashtanga Yoga system. Dharana has been translated to English as concentration. Patanjali defines dharana as fixing the mind on one point or object, that may be internal (the navel centre, the third eye, the crown of the head or our breath) or external (a mantra, a visualization, a candle as in trataka shatkarma, a deity or any object where we can fix our mind on, according to our personality). This point or object will become more and more intense within our mind, so we will be able to stop the fluctuations of the mind. We will be aware of that object, and nothing else. Dharana is a training process: sometimes our concentration can fall, but we have to come back again and again. This is compulsory in order to reach the state of meditation, or dhyana.
7. Dhyana: Dhyana can be thought as a higher quality dharana. If dharana was defined as concentration, dhyana will be meditation itself. Patanjali says it is an “uninterrupted flow of the content of consciousness” (Sutra 2 chapter III, according to the translation of Swami Satyananda Saraswati). It means that at this stage there are no breaks on the flow of consciousness, there are no fluctuations due to any other thought or object. The mind remains just still. We will just have awareness: about the object, and about ourselves practising meditation. We may get a deeper communion with the object that we are meditating on. We will have one single idea, untouched, unchanged for external circumstances.
It has a practical effect. When the mind is driven outside, we are not able to perceive the deeper aspects of our consciousness. But if we turn our mind inwards, we will be able to realize the True Self, the one that has not changed or evolved, the Supreme Existence. Whenever we detach ourselves from a strong desire or addiction, we are practising pratyahara.
There are many practices that will help us to go deeper in pratyahara. For example, if you are practising asanas, and a delicious smell of food comes to you from the kitchen, you should challenge yourself to keep doing the asanas till the end of the session, instead of just going to the kitchen driven by the senses. Another way of practicing is to direct your gaze to a specific point (drishti) or you can draw your sense of hearing to listening to your breath, concentrating in the present moment, free from any disturbance.
Pratyahara is the previous step towards dharana and dhyana (concentration and meditation, the following limbs), we need to master it before we can master those following higher stages.
6. Dharana: It is said that dharana starts the inner limbs of the Ashtanga Yoga system. Dharana has been translated to English as concentration. Patanjali defines dharana as fixing the mind on one point or object, that may be internal (the navel centre, the third eye, the crown of the head or our breath) or external (a mantra, a visualization, a candle as in trataka shatkarma, a deity or any object where we can fix our mind on, according to our personality). This point or object will become more and more intense within our mind, so we will be able to stop the fluctuations of the mind. We will be aware of that object, and nothing else. Dharana is a training process: sometimes our concentration can fall, but we have to come back again and again. This is compulsory in order to reach the state of meditation, or dhyana.
7. Dhyana: Dhyana can be thought as a higher quality dharana. If dharana was defined as concentration, dhyana will be meditation itself. Patanjali says it is an “uninterrupted flow of the content of consciousness” (Sutra 2 chapter III, according to the translation of Swami Satyananda Saraswati). It means that at this stage there are no breaks on the flow of consciousness, there are no fluctuations due to any other thought or object. The mind remains just still. We will just have awareness: about the object, and about ourselves practising meditation. We may get a deeper communion with the object that we are meditating on. We will have one single idea, untouched, unchanged for external circumstances.
8. Samadhi: In a higher state, dhyana turns into samadhi. Then,
there is no difference in between us and the object that we are
meditating on: there is just a complete union with that object. Even the
consciousness of ourselves practising meditation disappears, and just
the object remains, shinning by itself. There is no mind anymore, at
least in the way that we knew it before, with the filters of our senses,
perception, interpretation. Just the complete knowledge of the object
remains there: this is the true meaning of the word experience. We will
be completely freed from the fluctuations of our mind and its patterns.
That is why samadhi is liberation, the ultimate goal of Yoga.
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General bibliography for this section:
References
- Four Chapters of Freedom, Commentary of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Swami Satyananda Saraswati. Yoga Publications Trust, Munger, Bihar, India, 1976.
- Ashtanga Yoga, Practice and Philosophy. Gregor Maehle. Kaivalya Publications, Australia, 2006.
References
- Maehle, G. (2006) Ashtanga Yoga, Practice and Philosophy. Kaivalya Publications, Australia, 2006.