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8 Yoga sutras explained simply – Patanjali 8 limbs

Kommentoi / Yoga / Kirjoittaja

The yoga sutras of patanjali in 200CE has a set of 196 aphorisms. This is the classical presentation of raja yoga the royal yoga of the mind.

“What is yoga? To calm the fluctuations of the mind, to steady the mind”

Bouanchaud

1. Yama

Ethical behavious one should follow in everyday life.


Yama= to contain, to control

  • 1. Ahimsa: nonviolence and nonhurting. Respecting your own body and all other beings in the world
  • 2. Satya: being honest with ourselves and others

What if truth hurts?

  • 3. Asteya: not stealing, not desiring something one hasn’t paid for
  • 4. Brahmacharya: honoring yourself and others in intimate relationships, right use of energy
  • 5. Aparigraha: noncovetousness, giing without expecting something in return

2. Niyama

Niyama= personal observances, a means of well-being that brings our attention from relationships with others to the intimacy of our relationships with ourselves.

  • 1. Saucha: treat your body likea temple“When we cleanse the body and mind we are more attentive to the higher aspects of living consciously, staying grounded and centered in daily life”
  • 2. Santosa: becoming humble and content in the modesty of how things arenow, in the past and in our sense of future. Opens us to happiness with who we are and what we presently have.
  • 3. Tapas: disciplined commitment. Daily practice helps us to direct towards innermost truth.
  • 4. Svadhyaya: Self-study to deepen our sense of spiritual being. Accepting our limitations while staying centered in the truth
  • 5. Ishvarapranidhana: Letting go of the ego, grounded in a sense of being greater than the individual self

3. Asana

Asana= pose, being present in one’s body- inhabiting, existing, living it. literally “to take one seat”

“Sthira sukham asanam”

Bouanchaud
Sthira=to bestable/firm
Sukham=to be soft, at ease, relaxed

“One is cultivating steadiness, ease, and presence of mind, breath by breath, within and between asanas”

4. Pranayama

“Pranayama= controlled intake and outflow of breath in a firmly established posture”

Bouanchaud
When we observe the flow of breath through its natural phases of inhale-pause-exhale-pause, the breath becomes smoother and its effects more subtle.

5. Pratyahara

= to draw the senses inward, relieving them of external distractions

6. Dharana

Pratyahara opens us to dharana= state of focused concentration

7. Dhyarana

“Dharana becomes dhyana, as you become one in body-breath-mind, a state of awareness in which the sense of knower and known, subject and object, thought and thinker dissolve into one, leading to Samadhi, or bliss” Bouanchaud

8. Samadhi

=fullest fruit of the practice, pure bliss

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