How to bring Yoga off the mat - The 8 Limbs of Ashtanga Yoga
I want to start the conversation of the deeper dimensions of yoga by going over some really important and basic introductory philosophy.
When I first started practicing yoga I thought it was just a physical practice. I remember leaving my first class and feeling like I was floating on a cloud and thinking “ what have these people done to me!” I was really, really confused until I started going online and reading a little bit about yoga, and this curiosity led me to taking my first yoga teacher training.
I've done five yoga teacher trainings and courses over the years. The first two were 200 hour trainings, these are the baseline trainings that you have to do to get insurance to teach yoga. You learn about all the philosophy, how to teach, how to sequence, and look more in depth at postures amongst other things. I’ve completed an advanced training that included more meditation and pranayama techniques, more advanced postural sequencing and more anatomy. I have recently completed a Rocket teacher training (another style of Vinyasa Yoga) and a meditation course.
I want to open this post by asking you to think of two or three points on what you think yoga is, or what is means to you (anything at all!)
The reason why I ask you to do this is because it is a really personal practice, everybody practices for different reasons - and it's important to have a reason for practicing. A reason for practicing keeps you coming back to your mat day after day or however often you practice. It keeps you motivated to learn, progress and continue to move forward in your yoga practice.
I'm not sure where you are at in your practice time-span wise, but it's important that you keep going, no matter how hard it gets, even if you start to have those times where you don't feel the effects of the practice so profoundly - don't give up and quit. Have your intention to keep coming back to your mat and keep practicing. If you need some extended time away from the mat, for whatever reason, it's important to not let that discourage you as well, you can always come back when you’re ready - there are no rules here! Just don’t quit altogether!
I've been practicing for 11 years now - I didn't ever plan to practice yoga for this long - but that's what happened! Some days I do feel like quitting - because it can be so hard and so confronting when you step on your mat, feeling your body’s aches and pains and your mind being very resistant. I have established myself in the practice enough that I know I'm not going to quit now, it’s now a part of my way of life 24 hours a day. It makes my day better and myself feel better, regardless of how I felt before I started my asana (physical) practice.
Yoga has changed who I am on a really fundamental level, my personality is still the same, but my habits, beliefs and unconscious reactions have all changed to facilitate a more happy, kind, and gentle and compassionate life, and this extends down to the deepest parts of myself, the way my mind functions and the types of thoughts that enter my mind. Because of this - it’s important that I keep practicing regardless of what I feel on a day-to-day basis. So whatever you wrote down as your reason for practicing, it's important that you have those reasons for practicing - whatever they are - and they might change as you move through your practice and learn more about who you are.
There are several ways to practice yoga and the most common way in our western society is the Eight Limb Path of Ashtanga Yoga. Ashtanga has two meanings in the realm of yoga. There's Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga - the primary, intermediate and advanced series created by Patthabhi Jois in Mysore India.
And then there's also Patanjali’s Ashtanga - Eight Limb Yoga. “Asta” (pronounced Ashta) means eight and anga means limb in Sanskrit (the language of yoga). The Eight Limbs are a step-by-step guide into self-realization or enlightenment or whatever you feel comfortable to call it (Samadhi is the 8th step in the 8 Limb Path).
Side note: the Sanskrit numbers are: (if you come to my classes, this is the count I say in Sun Salutation A and B)
1. One एकम् (ekam)
2. Two द्वे (dve)
3.Three त्रीणि (treeni)
4. Four चत्वारि (chatvaari)
5. Five पञ्च (pancha)
6. Six षट् (shat)
7. Seven सप्त (sapta)
8. Eight अष्ट (ashta)
9. Nine नव (nava)
10. Ten दश (dasha)
11. Elelven एकादश (ekaadasha)
12. Twelve द्वादश (dvaadasha)
13. Thirteen त्रयोदश (trayodasha)
14. Fourteen चतुर्दश (chaturdasha)
15. Fifteen पञ्चदश (panchadasha)
16. Sixteen षोडश (shodash)
17. Seventeen सप्तदश (saptadasha)
18. Eighteen अष्टादश (ashtaadasha)
19. Nineteen नवदश (navadasha)
20. Twenty विंशतिः (vimshatihi)
There are also different levels or types of Samadhi you can experience, some are momentary, some are permanent. These instructions to self realisation were written by somebody named Patanjali over 1700 years ago. This was the first instance known that the instructions for Yoga were written down. You can get a copy for yourself to read - and I would highly recommend reading Patanjali’s Sutras (sutras are short statements) if you are interested in the history of yoga, and to create a better understanding of what it is we’re doing when we practice yoga. There are many commentaries or translations of what the Sutras mean. There are 196 lines of instruction you follow to move towards self realisation.
Different Swami's or respected gurus in yoga have translated the Sutras, explaining them in much more detail and into different languages. The Eight Limb Path is PART of the Yoga Sutras and explained within the 196 lines of wisdom.
What's interesting about yoga is that it's so applicable throughout the generations. We're asking the same questions that people did 2000 years ago. Even before the Yoga Sutras were written down by Patanjali, the tradition of yoga existed and was passed verbally through song.
For example, the mantras (songs) that we chant at the beginning and end of Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga. These aren’t from the Sutras but they are an example of Sanskrit songs, giving thanks to Patanjali. Singing the mantras makes it easier to remember them - you can remember songs easier than words, sentences or ideas.
So the lineage of Yoga was passed down the generations through sung mantras and then Patanjali wrote it down for the rest of humanity to inherit (actually not all of humanity, yoga used to be a very exclusive club - only Brahmins and men could practice, women and ‘householders’ aka normal everyday people have only been permitted to practice yoga in the last century).
There are a lot of esoteric concepts in the Sutras, and it can be hard to understand unless you have been practicing yoga for a long time. Ultimately Yoga is an experiential practice, and you cannot fully understand the concepts unless you have direct experience of them yourself. You must practice to receive the benefits, there is no other way around it. This does not mean a physical practice - as I’ll explain, the physical practice is only one part of the 8 Limb Path.
Two of the most important concepts in the Yoga Sutras are the Eight Limb Path and the Kleshas. I’ll explain the Kleshas in another blog post, but basically they are all the sources of suffering we experience.
Let’s go over the 8 Limb Path:
Yamas
Niyamas
Asana
Pranayama
Pratyahara
Dharana
Dhyana
Samadhi
There are eight steps and we will start from step 1 - the Yamas (although in your practice you don’t have to start from step 1). Yamas means a moral code or restraints/control. You've probably heard the word Yama before in PranaYama. Prana is your breath or your energy body and Yama is restraint: breath restraints. Yama is restraints or moral observances, and there are five subsets.
The Niyamas are personal conduct. The Asana, which is what we practice in our classes - the shapes that we put ourselves in to open and strengthen our body with ujjayi breath (pranayama). Pratyahara is sense withdrawal. Dharana is focus and concentration and Dhyana is meditation. Through all of these practices you are directed up to Samdhi or a self-realisation.
In many Western classes only Asana is taught, which is really a shame because this is only gonna get you so far in your practice. Practicing Asana will elicit change regardless, and if people don't want to practice yoga for the rest of the benefits, that's fine, it really comes down to your intention or reason why you want to practice. Asana will make your body really strong and flexible (depending which type you practice), but I think inherently through consistent practice, the other things just kind of happen because yoga is so powerful, especially if you're breathing diaphragmatically, because you will still be affecting your nervous system and increasing your awareness and concentration.
When you get to a point in your practice where you want to learn more about yoga philosophy and how you can apply it to your regular day to day life, you should start to learn and practice the Yamas and Niyamas: the things that we want to do on and off of our mat to really understand who we are as a person (our habits, our mindset, our beliefs) and to deepen our practice.
The first Yama is Ahimsa and it means non-violence.
This is a pretty basic thing that you want to be practicing as a yoga practitioner. The reason why yoga is so powerful is because when you step on your mat, you have to learn these other concepts through the practice, through using your body, through using your breath, and then they carry out into the rest of your day naturally.
For example, on your mat, you have to practice compassion (Ahima/non-violence) because if you don’t you could easily injure yourself and if injured, you might not be able to practice. Have you had points in your practice where you've gone a little bit too far and caused an injury and had to take time off practicing? I have anyways, and because of these instances I quickly learned that my body cannot be forced into an Asana (posture) that I was not ready for. Forcing because of a thought/desire would cause an injury.
I've been a bit too aggressive with my body thinking “oh, I have to do that pose or I'm a really horrible person/yogi” or “I really want to do that pose because I like the look of it”. Once I pulled my hamstring insertion point to my sit bone and hurt my knee by being forceful in Ashtanga, and I couldn’t practice Ashtanga for 6 months (I couldn’t bend my knee). I was devastated BUT I learned that I had to be patient and use my breath once I was healed and ready to start practicing again. All of these things were thoughts and desires in the mind - so you have to work with that idea of being compassionate to yourself by changing your thoughts and desires to being patient, accepting where you currently are, and choosing to be compassionate to yourself. And when you're compassionate to yourself, you start to be a more compassionate person in general, your thoughts become more compassionate as well and you start to live a more gentle and kind life.
The reason this happens is because how you feel inside is directly mirrored to, or projected to how you react with your environment. This is why it's important that we work on ourselves because how we feel inside and how we treat ourselves is exactly how we're going to start to treat the rest of the world, environment, other people, et cetera, et cetera.
The next Yama is Satya which means non-lying/truthfulness - practice being truthful with yourself. Asteya is non stealing, Brahmacharya is non waste of vital energy or sense control, Aparigraha is non-greed. These are all really important things that we want to start to think about in our life, taking our yoga practice off of our mat.
Nonviolence (Ahimsa) extends to not even having violent thoughts, becoming aware of violent thoughts and being honest with them (Asteya) and trying to actively let them go and question why they are there in the first place. You work with your body and then these practices start to go to deeper and deeper levels of yourself. Eventually they're affecting your actions externally to other people and eventually your thoughts. When you actively practice living all of these concepts, you will eventually form new habits, and when you form a habit, it becomes more natural. Then what happens is you fundamentally change the way that think more permanently until you don't have violent thoughts at all. You feel more free and open and compassionate on a holistic level. It's just your natural way of being at one point.
Satya, non-lying:
This is not lying to other people, not lying to yourself, being honest with what you come across in your practice, whether you like it or not. This is fairly straight forward - be honest with your thought and actions, hold yourself accountable.
Asteya, non stealing:
I think that's obvious, taking something from someone, and it doesn’t have to be an actual thing, it can be intellectual property, an idea, or anything like that. If you've taken something and not giving credit, then what happens? It creates guilt in your mind. If you're building up guilt in your mind, you're carrying more, you’re heavier, you hold more weight. Yoga allows you to be really honest with what you do and asks you not to steal - so you're not carrying on more weight, you're releasing things that you hold onto out into the environment and you become a lighter person by not carrying around more thoughts in your mind - you are more still.
Brahmacharya is maintenance of vital energy:
Basically it’s not giving into your senses and allowing them to control you and deplete all of your mental energy. Your senses are what connects you to your environment. So for example, if you really like cookies and sit down and eat and entire box when maybe one or two is enough - your senses have taken hold here, and have allowed you to do something that immediately is satisfying (unconscious action governed by senses), but in the long term makes you feel crappy. They taste good, but is it beneficial to you? I would think no. A lot of people equate this to celibacy in terms of being sexually abstinent, but this isn’t quite right, especially as a householder (normal person) practicing yoga. It means you shouldn’t sleep around randomly, that you should choose sexual partners where there is an uplifting exchange of energy, instead of a feeling of being used. How do you feel with a partner? Do you feel better about yourself after the encounter, or worse? Maybe the moment was great, but like the box of cookies example - do you feel better in the long run? This is what we want to observe when practicing Brahmacharya - what do your senses lead you towards and will it bring long term benefits? Noticing your desires and temptations, and consciously choosing how to respond to them rather than giving in for the moment is your yoga practice. If we just give into our senses all of the time, we're not actually benefiting our body or mind, we're just living in that moment without any thought attached to that - yoga creates awareness of our actions and allows us to become more mindful of the things that we do unconsciously.
Aparigraha, non hoarding, non greed:
If you have a lot of stuff, you have a lot of stuff to worry about. The less stuff you have, the less stuff you have to worry about, and ultimately carry in your mind. You want to try to live simply and not having an excess of belongings you don’t use or need. In our capitalistic society that is ruled by advertising giants and corporations constantly telling us “buy this and then you’ll be happy….” It’s no wonder people are greedy and hoard to excess. Are they happy? I’m not sure, maybe in moments. For example, when you're feeling down maybe you go shopping to make yourself feel better - maybe you’ve been saving for some nice designer handbag for ages, how long after making the purchase do you feel better? Like, really better, deep deep deep down (this is part of your Satya - truthfulness) - do you feel a bit better, but also kinda upset because you spent all that money on something not really useful? Something flashy that isn’t really anything but a symbol to others that you spent some money on an item? Is that real happiness? No, it’s momentary, it’s fleeting, it’s not permanent. Nothing outside of yourself can make you truly happy. This is where non-greed and non-attachment comes in, when you practice these and have no attachment to items, your happiness will come from the inside. You can still of course want and buy stuff - but how you perceive it’s necessity is your yoga practice. If you need it to make you happy, that’s an issue. If you want it but don’t NEED IT, that is a different mental energy - not having something that you strongly desire makes you sad, buying something you want but don’t create a need for in your mind is different. I still buy things of course, but not having the items would not make my life worse, they don’t affect my happiness level. I also don’t have a lot of belongings, I feel lighter for this reason - I have what I use and not much more, and take good care of my belonging, however…this is always a work in progress! You don’t need to go chucking all your stuff out now, just reconsider how you feel about what you have, and how you make future purchases.
When we work on ourselves, we're building this happiness inside and that's a permanent change. There's nothing external to yourself that you can buy and accumulate that will fulfil you if you are incredibly honest with yourself. Yoga is a hard reality on looking at: what I need, what I don't need, making mindful purchases and not allowing things to affect your emotional state.
The Niyamas:
Saucha, purity:
Purity is cleanliness and taking care of yourself. You keep your body clean, respect your body, and even try to keep your mind clean. In your self observation practice you want to start to notice ‘impure’ thoughts, and this can be confusing to work with because you don’t want to sensor yourself all the time. Start to notice those times when you feel the emotions of a lot of anger or jealousy or feelings of greed or getting even with people (revenge). Start to recognise when you feel these types of things, and begin to recognise what triggered them. When you know what prompted ‘impure’ thoughts/;emotions, you can start to remove these things from your life - to minimise the negative feelings, and if it’s not possible to remove the tiggers from your life, start to try and change your attitude towards them - shift your mindset to softening into the fact that they exist and you can only change your thoughts and reaction, and choose to let go. Over time they will start to have no effect on you anymore - your triggers will not trigger you. You're working with your mind on a daily basis to eventually not have these feelings anymore and it is totally possible!!
Santosha, contentment:
Contentment with where you are in your life and your practice today and not becoming hung up on the future and where you desire to be. We live in the present and need to accept that. We can make small changes each day towards who we want to be or what we want to accomplish, but you cannot jump straight there, so we want to be accepting & content with where we are now, and move forward with appropriate steps towards what we want to achieve. If we only desire the outcome, we might miss out on where we are now, and where we are now is a perfect place already. Practicing Santosha cultivates patience and compassion for yourself and others.
Svadhyaya, self study:
This is a really important part of your practice. As you go through your day you watch yourself and you monitor how you react with your external environment and observe your behaviour. When you go out in your day and you can't control anything around you, certain things may trigger emotional responses and trigger reactions. Self-study allows us to start to notice those things that trigger us to respond in ways we may not wish to (unconscious reaction). We can then question, why, why do those things bother me? Why do they get under my skin? Why do they cause me to react in this way? You develop self study in your asana practice too, because when you're in challenging postures you are trying to heighten your awareness to become really conscious of how you feel holistically and still be able to breath calmly. Also start to observe how you’re moving in your body from day to day. We also can study the scriptures of Yoga Philosophy, read the Yoga Sutras and reflect on them, its a wonderful way to learn more about yourself and our world!
Tapas, discipline:
Something in you that is like a spark which makes you keep working on moving forward and showing up every day, doing this hard work because it will benefit you and it will benefit the greater good as well. We need to stay disciplined and try not to give into all these other things that lead us to short term happiness connected to our senses and desires that don’t benefit us in the long term.
Ishvara pranidhana, surrender:
This is an idea that, well, why are we even doing all of this? You have to have some degree of openness or surrender or faith that you're doing yoga for some reason, and that it's going to benefit you in some way. Because you don't really know that when you first start, you get to have tastes and glimpses of feeling really good. You feel a lot better when you practice, and we carry on and keep coming back to our mat because of this feeling we create. To carry on in the practice long term, when things get hard, you have that discipline and a belief that we're doing this for a reason, because the you’ve been practicing for a few years the changes become less profound than they were at the beginning when you can directly see big changes happen in your physical body and mindset shift. The changes become more subtle, and you have to believe that if you keep practicing it will be worth it, because if we give up when the changes aren’t so profound, we won’t get to a place where we are at absolute peace in our mind - and that place does exist, I promise you. Keep going and believe that you can find that place.
Our senses connect us to our physical body, which connects us to our environment, but that's not who we are completely. If we're ruled by our senses all the time, then we're going to live a very physical and shallow life. There's not going to be much experience there. Living by immediate gratification (through senses) is not benefiting the deeper parts of your yourself, your intuition, your mind, and your sense of purpose. They are short term gains that lead no where, you have to put in all of this other hard work to move towards the long term peace and contentment that yoga will give you if you practice. It’s a science and practical application based system - and it does work, add all of the Yamas and Niyamas to your life and you will see - and don’t worry when you mess up and make mistakes regarding all of the above, this is a constant work in progress, a life time of work: observation, reflection, taking action to change, messing up again and repeating - the ‘messing up’ parts become lessoned over time. We are human and always will make mistakes, but keep doing this work and your life will become more peaceful, and you will make a difference in the world because people around you will start to notice - and they will start to wonder what all this yoga stuff is about, and it will continue to grow from there.
I know this is a lot of information to take in. The first time I was presented with these ideas, I felt completely overwhelmed. They made sense somewhat, but they continue to make more and more sense as you keep practicing. Every year or so, I come back to these basic principles of yoga and re-read the Yoga Sutras, reflect on my past year and where I’m at currently. The concepts are reinstilled in my mind and my actions more permanently. Then I can see what has developed over the last year, or however much time has passed since I last read these sutras and the eight limbs of yoga. I think that's an important part of your practice: it comes down to discipline and self study.