This “News Letter” No. 10, was written in November 2012 in Athens – Greece
Aṣṭāṅga yoga, the path towards fullness…
« Son of the sky by the body of the earth »
Satprem ( 1923 – 2007)
« Yoga is union between individual soul and cosmic soul »
B.K.S. Iyengar
Many people think that the eight members of Yoga codified in the Yogasūtra (योगस%&) by Patañjali (पत)जिल), correspond to successive stages like the steps of a staircase to be climbed one after the other.
As a reminder, the eight members of l’Aṣṭāṅga yoga (Aṣṭa, “height”, and aṅga, « members”) are:
– Yama: (the universal laws of life) and niyama: (the rules, the discipline we give ourselves in everyday life)
– Āsana (आसन) (postures) & Prāṇāyāma (/ाणायाम) (the respiratory exercises)
– Pratyāhāra (/3याहार) (the senses follow the natural movement of the mind towards the inside) and Dhāraṇā (धारणा) (the firm and stable attention – concentration)
– Dhyāna (7यान) (It is the refinement of the mental activity – it is meditation associated with the presence of the self) and Samādhi (समा8ध) the luminous consciousness, the consciousness that has joined the Absolute…
But, we should consider the “members” (aṅga – अ:ग), as a whole, a non-separated set. For example, if we wish to restore some muscular strength for a person, we are not going to make him work one arm during one year, then the other one the year after, then a leg the third year etc., but we are going to propose to him/her a progressive, but overall bodywork.
Similarly the eight members are a whole and are worked on together and not separately.
So with Yama and Niyama we go out of the profane space to enter the sacred space, with Āsana & Prāṇāyāma, it is the daily discipline on the mat which brings Pratyāhāra, the withdrawal of our senses from the outside towards the interiority, and Dhāraṇā who allows us to keep a concentrated mind; with the help of the drishti(s) and the control of the breath, then arises deep peace Dhyāna and when this peace passes through the body, the heart and the soul, it is then the deep contemplation, Samādhi.
That is why this type of practice Aṣṭāṅga yoga is called rāja yoga (the royal yoga – raja, “king”), because it is integer, not fragmented. Meditation is not a technique, it is an understanding, an awareness of what we really are.
This final understanding is often still far away for a beginner, that is why postural techniques are necessary to develop this approach to internal life, until the state of meditation becomes, not simply a punctual experience but an intrinsic part of us in every gesture of everyday life.
Aṣṭāṅga yoga:
– yama: universal laws of the life. (non-violence, free of fear, purity of thought, integrity etc.)
– Niyama: rules of life (individual quality of life, simplicity, purification, satisfaction etc.)
– Āsana (आसन): postures
– Prāṇāyāma (/ाणायाम): breathing exercises
– Pratyāhāra (/3याहार): the senses follow the natural movement of the mind inwards
– Dhāraṇā (धारणा): firm and stable attention
– Dhyāna (7यान): meditation (it is the refinement of mental activity) it is the meditation. Pratyāhāra (sense withdrawal) is associated with presence to oneself
– Samādhi (समा8ध) “the awareness that shines”, consciousness that has joined the Absolute…
” We are not in a moral crisis, we are not in a political crisis, financial crisis,
or religious crisis, we are in an evolutionary crisis.
We are dying to humanity to be born to something else… ”
Satprem
«Oh yoguin, do not practice Yoga without vinyāsa…»
Vāmana Ṛṣi (devanāgarī:वामन ऋ8ष), Yoga Korunta
Om Shanti,
Jean Claude Garnier
