Patanjali’s Ashtanga Yoga – Introduction | 8 Limbs of Yoga

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‘Yoga’ is one of the major schools of Indian philosophy (darshana). MIn the early centuries of the Common Era, Maharishi Patanjali synthesised and organised the existing knowledge of yoga into a seminal work referred to as the ‘Yoga Sutra’. The work contains 196 sutras or aphorisms and serves as the foundational text of Yoga philosophy.

What is Yoga?

योग: चित्तवृत्तिनिरोधः | – Yoga Sutra 1.2

Arguably one of the most famous aphorisms of Maharishi Patanjali,  this sutra given above  implies that yoga is restraining the vrittis (thought waves) flowing through the chitta (mind). This sutra is also often quoted as the definition of Yoga.

Maharishi Patanjali set out the holistic eightfold path of Yoga or Ashtanga Yoga which encompasses  moral restraints, spiritual disciplines and physical practices and surmised that as soon as all impurities are removed by the practice of  the eight limbs of yoga (ashtanga), one’s spirit opens up to the eternal, light-giving knowledge of the Purusha (Consciousness or Self) and the ideal of Kaivalya is attained.

What are the eight limbs of Yoga or Ashtanga Yoga?

The eight limbs of yoga are:

1. Yama (यम): These are the basic ethical restraints that should be practised at all times. They are the don’ts. The yamas are abstaining from harming others (ahimsa), from falsehood, from theft, from moral infidelity, and from greed.
2. Niyama (नियम): These are the dos and virtuous behaviours that one should follow and observe. The niyamas are purity (internal and external), contentment, tapa (mortification), svadhyaya (self-study), and devotion to Ishwara (God).
3. Asana (आसन): स्थिरसुखमासनम्| It refers to a steady and comfortable posture. Maharishi Patanjali advises that a firm, easy and natural position should be chosen for asana.
4. Pranayama (प्राणायाम): It is the control of the vital energy or of the life-principle that enables us to act, to think and to breathe. Practice of pranayama leads to regulation of inhalation, retention and exhalation of breath.
5. Pratyahara (प्रत्याहार): It is the practice undertaken to detach the mind from sense objects by not permitting the mind to wander in the external world. A yogi draws her or his senses within and looks inward.
6.  Dharana (धारणा): It is fixing the mind on the object of meditation, i.e., concentrating on it. The yogi holds the mind steadfastly within a centre of spiritual consciousness in the body, or fixes it on some divine form, either within the body or outside it.
7. Dhyana (ध्यान): It means meditation and is said to be an unbroken, continuous flow of thought towards the object of concentration or prolonged concentration.
8. Samadhi (समाधि): The final stage of yoga is Samadhi or absorption. The mind is free from all other thoughts, there is complete forgetfulness of everything, and the sense of time is annihilated. The object of meditation, the subject of meditation and the yogi all fuse into one.