THE EIGHT STEPS OF YOGA

THE EIGHT STEPS OF YOGA ARE:

1. SELF-RESTRAINT (YAM),

2. FIXED OBSERVANCE (NIYAM),
3. POSTURE (ASAN),

4. BREATH REGULATION (PRANAYAM),

5. ABSTRACTION (PRATHYAHAR),

6. CONCENTRATION (DHRANA),
7. CONTEMPLATION (DHYANA),

8. ULTIMATE TRANCE (SAMADHI).

The eight steps of yoga. This is the whole science of yoga in one sentence, in one seed. Many things are implied. First, let me tell you the exact meaning of each step. And remember, Patanjali calls them steps and limbs, both. They are both. Steps they are because one has to be followed by another, there is a sequence of growth. But they are not only steps: they are limbs of the body of yoga. They have an internal unity, an organic unity also, that is the meaning of limbs.

For example, my hands, my feet, my heart -- they don't function separately. They are not separate; they are an organic unity. If the heart stops, the hand will not move then. Everything is joined together. They are not just like steps on a ladder, because every rung on the ladder is separate. If one rung is broken the whole ladder is not broken. So Patanjali says they are steps, because they have a certain, sequential Growth

1. Yam: Self Restraint: Self-restraint means, the first meaning: to give a direction to life. Self-restraint means to become a little more centered. How can you become a little more centered? Once you give a direction to your life, immediately a center starts happening within you. Direction creates the center; then the center gives direction. And they are mutually fulfilling.

2. Niyam: Fixed observance: A life which has a discipline, a life which has regularity about it, a life which is lived in a much disciplined way, not hectic. Regularity... I tell you, unless you have regularity in your life, a discipline, you will be a slave of your instincts -- and you may think this is freedom, but you will be a slave of all the vagrant thoughts. That is not freedom. You may not have any visible master, but you will have many invisible masters within you; and they will go on dominating you.

3. Asan: Posture: And every step comes out of the first, the preceding one: when you have regularity in life, only then can you attain to posture, asan. Asan means a relaxed posture. You are so relaxed in it, you are so restful in it, that there is no need to move the body at all. In that moment, suddenly, you transcend body.

4. Pranayam: Breath Regulation: If the body can be in rest, then you can regulate your breathing. You are moving deeper, because breath is the bridge from the body to the soul, from the body to the mind. If you Can regulate breathing -- that is pranayam -- you have power over your mind.

Have you ever watched that whenever the mind changes, the rhythm of the breath immediately changes? If you do the opposite -- if you change that rhythm of the breath -- the mind has to change immediately. When you are angry you cannot breathe silently; otherwise the anger will disappear. Try it.

5. Pratyahar : Abstraction : wherever I go I could not get the exact meaning for this word pratyahar. Always it has said as repent. But After so much of confusion I am translating it as returning back to the source. In many of the books it is said as repent, it can not be repenting, it must be returning. In the childhood you are innocent, when you grow you will be acquiring the knowledge, your innocence goes because of this knowledge. And by and by when you become old you are becoming innocent again. This is returning back to the home. The same happens with your awareness. You have it ; you lose it; you regain it. This is what is returning to the source.

After pranayam that is possible -- pratyahar -- because pranayam will give you the rhythm. Return, is possible. Now you know the way.

6. Dharana: Concentration: Then comes dharana. After pratyahar, when you have started coming back nearer home, coming nearer your innermost core, you are just at the gate of your own being. Pratyahar brings you near the gate; pranayam is the bridge from the out to the in. Pratyahar, returning, is the gate, and then is the possibility of dharana, concentration.

Now you can become capable of bringing your mind to one object. First, you gave direction to your body; first, you gave direction to your life energy -- now you give direction to your consciousness. Now the consciousness cannot be allowed to go anywhere and everywhere. Now it has to be brought to a goal. This goal is concentration, dharana: you fix your consciousness on one point.

When consciousness is fixed on one point thoughts cease, because thoughts are possible only when your consciousness goes on wavering -- from here to there, from there to somewhere else. When your consciousness is continuously jumping like a monkey, then there are many thoughts and your whole mind is just filled with crowds – a marketplace. Now there is a possibility -- after pratyahar, pranayam, there is a possibility -- you can concentrate on one point.

7. Dhyana: Meditation: If you can concentrate on one point, then the possibility of Dhyana. In concentration you bring your mind to one point. In Dhyana you drop that point also. Now you are totally centered, nowhere-going -- because if you are going anywhere it is always going out. Even a single thought in concentration is something outside you --
object exists; you are not alone, there are two. Even in concentration there are two: the object and you. After concentration the object has to be dropped.

All the temples lead you only up to concentration. They cannot lead you beyond because all the temples have an object in them: the image of God is an object to concentrate on. All the temples lead you only up to dharana, concentration. That's why the higher a  religion goes, the temple and the image disappear. They have to disappear. The temple should be absolutely empty, so that only you are there -- nobody, nobody else, no
object: pure subjectivity.

Dhyana is pure subjectivity, contemplation -- not contemplating "something," because if you are contemplating something it is concentration. In English there are no better words. Concentration means something is there to concentrate upon. Dhyana is meditation: nothing is there, everything dropped, but you are in an intense state of  awareness. The object has dropped, but the subject has not fallen into sleep.

Deeply concentrated, without any object, centered -- but still the feeling of "I" will persist. It will hover. The object has fallen, but the subject is still there. You still feel you are. This is not ego. In Sanskrit we have two words, ahankar and asmita. Ahankar means "I am." And asmita means 'am.' Just "am ness" -- no ego exists, just the shadow is left. You still feel, somehow, you are. It is not a thought, because if it is a thought. That "I am," it is an ego. In meditation the ego has disappeared completely; but an am ness, a shadowlike phenomenon, just a feeling is still there.

You can still fall back. A slight disturbance -- somebody talking and you listen -- meditation has disappeared; you have come back to concentration. If you not only listen but you have started thinking about it, even concentration has disappeared; you have come back to pratyahar. And if not only are you thinking but you have become identified with the thinking, pratyahar has disappeared; you have fallen to pranayam. And if the thought has taken so much possession of you that your breathing rhythm is lost,  Pranayam has disappeared: you have fallen to asan. But if the thought and the breathing are so much disturbed that the body starts shaking or becomes restless. Asan has disappeared. They are related.

8. Samadhi: The Ultimate, Trance:

When asmita also disappears, when you no longer know that you are -- of course, you are but there is no reflection upon it, that "I am," or even am ness -- then happens samadhi, trance, ecstasy. Samadhi is going beyond; then one never comes back. Samadhi is a point of no return. From there nobody falls. A man in samadhi is a god: we call Buddha a
god, Mahavir a god. A man in samadhi is no longer of this world. He may be in this world, but he is no longer of this world. He doesn't belong to it. He is an outsider. He may be here, but his home is somewhere else. He may walk on this earth, but he no longer walks on the earth.

A Final Word : Yam is the bridge between you and others – live consciously; relate with people consciously. Then the second two, niyam and asan -- they are concerned with your body. Third, pranayam is again a bridge. As the first, yam, is a bridge between you and others, the second two are a preparation for another bridge -- your body is made ready through niyam and asan -- then pranayam is the bridge between the body and the mind. Then pratyahar and dharana are the preparation of the mind. Dhyan again, is a bridge between the mind and the soul. And samadhi is the attainment. They are  interlinked, a chain.