The eight limbs

The teaching

As the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali teaches it.

The stilling of the mind

The Yoga Sutras define yoga in their second line: yoga is the stilling of the turnings of the mind. When the turnings are still, the seer rests in its own nature; otherwise it takes itself to be whatever the mind is doing. The turnings are of five kinds: right knowledge, error, imagination, sleep and memory. Any of them may trouble the mind or leave it untroubled, and all five are to be stilled.

They are stilled by practice and by letting go. Practice is the steady effort to remain in that stillness, and it becomes firm when it is kept up for a long time, without a break, and with devotion. Letting go is freedom from craving for anything seen or heard of. The eight limbs are the practice set out in full: as they are practised, the Sutras say, impurity dwindles and the light of knowledge grows, until the seer is known apart from what it sees.

First, yama: the five restraints

The first limb is five restraints. Ahimsa is not harming, in deed, in word and in thought. Satya is truthfulness, speech that matches what is so. Asteya is not stealing, which includes not coveting what belongs to another. Brahmacharya is continence, the right governance of desire, which the old commentary takes as restraint in sexual life. Aparigraha is not grasping, the refusal to hoard more than is needed. Patanjali calls them the great vow, binding on everyone, whatever their birth, place, time or circumstance.

He names a fruit for each. Of non-harming he says that where it is firmly established, enmity falls away in that person's presence; of truthfulness, that deeds and their fruits come to rest on that person's word. And he gives the method for the moment when a harmful thought arises: cultivate its opposite. Consider where harm born of greed, anger or delusion leads, whether done, caused or only approved, mild or strong: to endless pain and ignorance. Then turn the mind towards its opposite.

Second, niyama: the five observances

The second limb is five observances. Shaucha is cleanliness of body and of mind. Santosha is contentment with what one has, from which, the Sutras say, comes a happiness nothing surpasses. Tapas is austerity, the heat of discipline, by which impurities burn away. Svadhyaya is study, the reading of sacred texts and the repeating of a mantra, which brings one into communion with the chosen deity. Ishvara pranidhana is devotion to the Lord, the offering of all one's actions, from which absorption itself can come.

The last three together Patanjali calls kriya yoga, the yoga of action, which weakens the afflictions of the mind and prepares it for absorption. A person can begin here, with one observance taken up for a week and noticed each evening.

Third, asana: the seat

Asana means seat. Patanjali gives it three lines: the posture is steady and easy; it is mastered by relaxing effort and letting the mind rest on what has no bounds; and from it a person is no longer struck by the pairs of opposites, heat and cold, praise and blame. That is all he says. The Sutras name no posture, and the old commentary lists a dozen or so seats, the lotus among them. The seat is whatever lets a person sit still, upright and at ease, long enough to forget the body.

Fourth, pranayama: the breath

With the seat steady comes the regulation of the breath, the breaking of its unthinking flow. Patanjali names the outward breath, the inward breath and the breath at rest, each measured by place, time and number until it becomes long and fine, and a fourth that goes beyond outward and inward, when the breath grows quiet of itself. Then the veil over the inner light grows thin, and the mind becomes fit for concentration. The house keeps to the slow, natural breath through the nose, never held and never forced; the holds of the later texts are learned only from a teacher in person.

Fifth, pratyahara: the withdrawal

Pratyahara is the withdrawal of the senses. The senses, freed from their objects, follow the nature of the mind, as the old commentary says the bees of a hive rise when their leader rises and settle when it settles. Then, the Sutras say, comes the highest mastery of the senses. The sounds of the room do not stop; the mind simply stops going out to meet them. This limb is the hinge between the outer limbs and the inner ones.

Sixth, dharana: concentration

Dharana is the binding of the mind to one place. The commentary names the places: the circle of the navel, the lotus of the heart, the light in the head, the tip of the nose, the tip of the tongue, or an object outside the body. The mind is set on its place and brought back each time it strays, as in every practice of meditation.

Seventh, dhyana: meditation

Dhyana is the unbroken flow of the mind towards that same object. Where concentration keeps having to return, meditation no longer has to: the attention moves towards its object in one continuous stream. Later teachers liken it to oil poured from one vessel into another, which falls in a single unbroken thread.

Eighth, samadhi: absorption

Samadhi is that same meditation when only the object shines forth, as if empty of its own form: absorption. Concentration, meditation and absorption on one object together are called samyama, and the Sutras give it many uses. They describe absorption first with a support, with thought, with reflection, with joy and with the bare sense of being, and then beyond any support, when even the last impressions fall silent.

The text never tells anyone to strain for it; absorption comes as the other limbs ripen. And Patanjali adds a warning that every teacher repeats: the powers that come with practice are obstacles to absorption, however marvellous they look to the mind turned outward.

Beginning with the limbs

The word is limbs, anga, as of one body, and the Sutras do not say that they must be climbed one at a time; they grow together. A reader can begin where the text begins, before the mat. Take one restraint for a week, truthfulness for instance, and watch it in ordinary dealings, with a line written each evening. Take one observance, contentment perhaps, the week after.

Each day, sit for a few minutes in a seat that is steady and easy, breathe slowly through the nose, let the senses quieten, and rest the mind on one place. Nothing in the list is a feat, and the last limbs are described as arising, not as something to strain for.