Ahimsa
ahiṃsāOften translated in class as non-violence or kindness, and named as yoga's first ethical commitment.
Ask what yoga asks of you first, and the answer is not a posture. When the Yoga Sutras list the five restraints that ground the whole practice, this is the first word on the list.
The five restraints are the don'ts: no harming, no lying, no stealing, continence, and no grasping (both translators render the last as refusing gifts and acquisitions).
“Abstinence from injury and from falsehood and from theft and from incontinence and from acceptance of gifts are the abstentions.”
The original Sanskrit
ahiṃsāsatyāsteyabrahmacaryāparigrahā yamāḥ
Abstinence from injury, before truthfulness, before everything else. The Sutras also describe what being grounded in it does to the space around you:
As soon as he is grounded in abstinence from injury, his presence begets a suspension of enmity.
The original Sanskrit
ahiṃsāpratiṣṭhāyāṃ tatsaṃnidhau vairatyāgaḥ
The Hatha Yoga Pradipika, the body-first manual, keeps the same word at the head of its own rules of conduct:
Before any posture, ten rules of conduct: non-injury, truth, non-stealing, continence, forgiveness, endurance, compassion, humility, spare diet, cleanliness. The body-manual starts with ethics too.
“The ten rules of conduct are: ahiṃsâ (non-injuring), truth, non-stealing, continence, forgiveness, endurance, compassion, meekness, sparing diet and cleanliness.”
The original Sanskrit
ahiṃsā satyam asteyaṃ brahmacaryaṃ kṣamā dhṛtiḥ / dayārjavaṃ mitāhāraḥ śaucaṃ caiva yamā daśa