Tag: eight-limbed-yoga

Dhyana

We have spent the last couple of months systematically working our way through the eight limbs. Slowly and effortfully trying to concentrate. Getting our minds under control, only to arrive at the penultimate sutra which, essentially, is to stop thinking. It makes sense. After all, the goal of meditation is to live in the space […]

Dharana

Dharana means concentration or meditation on a single point. When we achieve Dharana, we are actively concentrating on a point of meditation, whereas we release all of the effort fully in Dhyana (next week!).

Pratyahara

When we practice Pratyahara, we withdraw the senses. It’s not that there is nothing to taste; it’s that we are choosing not to taste it. Sounds will inevitably happen around us. We choose not to hear them. Taste doesn’t just happen. Neither does smell. How we process, label and experience them is wholly done in the mind.

Pranayama

Breath is connection. It brings the outside world, quite literally, in. We consume it in much more intimate way that we do food. Think about it: food is chewed, swallowed and goes through a lengthy digestive process.

The Niyamas: Iswara-Pranidhana

If you simply reframe your current activity — the thing you’re doing right now (presumably reading this blog) — as being in service rather than self-serving, you’ve done it. You’re there. Sutra 45 tells us that if we do something fully in service, we gain Samadhi.

The Niyamas : Saucha

So Saucha, Purity, is about how you regard and purify (and keep pure) your body. But it’s about more than that. We all think of the same “pure” imagery, I’m sure: virginity, doves, driven snow.

The Yamas : Aparigraha

The fifth (and final) of the five Yamas is Aparigraha, which can be translated as “non-greed” or “non-grasping.” I had never considered before that grasping non-material things — like my need to “win” in competitive cycling classes or my need to advance my career — might be a form of greed. I’m also more and more […]

The Yamas : Brahmacharya

Brahmacharya means “continence” or “moderation.” It’s clear that Patañjali is referring to sexual abstinence, at least in large part, but it’s also about moderation in all things. Specifically, it’s about moderation in all things that give us pleasure. But I just want to do yoga and have a ‘yoga body’ and have all of my […]

The Yamas : Asteya

“Nonstealing.” Easy, right? Super easy to not shoplift. No big deal to avoid picking someone’s pocket or snatching their purse.

The Yamas : Satya

If I am dishonest, my mind knows I am being dishonest. However subtle or “harmless,” the mind knows it’s lying, and that knowing creates an obstacle.