The map: eight limbs
Postures are one limb of eight. Here is the whole tree.
In this step
- 01The whole tree
- 02It begins in conduct
- 03Posture, defined
- 04What the map earns you
The whole tree
Eight limbs, running from how you treat people to complete absorption.
So what does the whole practice look like? Patañjali drew the map. He organizes the discipline as eight limbs:
From the source
YS 2.29The eight limbs named in order: restraints, observances, posture, breath regulation, sense-withdrawal, concentration, meditation, absorption. One path, described from the outside in.
“Yama, Niyama, Āsana, Prānāyāma, Pratyāhāra, Dhāranā, Dhyāna, and Samādhi are the eight limbs of Yoga.”
The original Sanskrit
yamaniyamāsanaprāṇāyāmapratyāhāradhāraṇādhyānasamādhayo 'ṣṭāv aṅgāni
The eight limbs
- 1Yamarestraint, how you treat others
- 2Niyamaobservance, how you treat yourself
- 3Āsanaposture
- 4Prāṇāyāmabreath regulation
- 5Pratyāhāraturning the senses inward
- 6Dhāraṇāconcentration
- 7Dhyānameditation
- 8Samādhiabsorption
It begins in conduct
Before posture, before breath: five abstentions and five observances.
The first two limbs are ethical. Yoga begins in conduct, not on a mat. The abstentions first:
From the source
YS 2.30The 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).
“Non-killing, truthfulness, non-stealing, continence, and non-receiving are called Yamas.”
The original Sanskrit
ahiṃsāsatyāsteyabrahmacaryāparigrahā yamāḥ
The observances, how you treat yourself, follow two sutras later.
Keep reading:YS 2.32
Posture, defined
The limb the modern practice grew from gets one famously compact definition.
Āsana, the third limb:
From the source
YS 2.46The entire classical instruction on posture: it should be steady and comfortable. Everything else about āsana is elaboration on this line.
“Posture is that which is firm and pleasant.”
The original Sanskrit
sthirasukham āsanam
Firm and pleasant. If a position is neither, the Sutras are on your side.
What the map earns you
The Sutras say precisely what walking the limbs is for.
Then breath, then the inward turn, and the map ends in the deep states we'll reach in the final step. What does walking it earn you?
From the source
YS 2.28Why walk the eight limbs: as practice wears the impurities away, perception clears. The text takes that all the way, to telling what is real from what isn't.
“By the practice of the different parts of Yogas the impurities being destroyed, knowledge becomes effulgent up to discrimination.”
The original Sanskrit
yogāṅgānuṣṭhānād aśuddhikṣaye jñānadīptir ā vivekakhyāteḥ