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Living Yoga: Make Yoga Your Lifestyle
Yoga is more than the practice of asana, or physical postures. Living yoga means integrating the principles of yoga into your thoughts, words and actions; it means taking yoga beyond your mat. Learn more about living yoga and explore a variety of class option such as Tantrik Meditations, Yogic Paths and Injury, Inquiry and Insight to expand your practice.
The Eight Limbs of Yoga
The Eight Limbs of Yoga are core principles that serve as a compass for living a meaningful and purposeful life.
1. Yamas
Yamas are ethical considerations to help guide interactions with others. There are five yamas:
- Nonviolence (Ahimsa)
- Truthfulness (Satya)
- Non-stealing (Asteya)
- Chastity and fidelity (Brahmacharya)
- Non-coveting (Aparigraha)
At first glance, these considerations mirror the basic morals taught in kindergarten, but have depth in their continued practice. Here are a few alternative versions to consider:
- Ahimsa: practice nonviolence in thought, word and deed; practice self-love
- Satya: tell the truth; opt for silence if your words may harm others
- Asteya: do not steal, even in non-material ways, such as withholding information or time
- Brahmacharya:Â use your energy wisely and with intention;Â avoid excess or overindulgence
- Aparigraha:Â you are enough and you have everything you need already
Please keep in mind that there are many interpretations of the Yamas and Niyamas; find the definitions best suited to your personal practice.
2. Niyamas
The Niyamas are practices that inform self-discipline and worldview. The maxims below generally reflect the essence of each Niyama:
- Saucha: “Leave a place cleaner than you found it” (cleanliness)
- Santosha: “Don’t worry, be happy” (contentment)
- Tapas: “When the going gets tough, the tough gets going” (willpower and self-discipline)
- Svadhyaya: “Learn from your mistakes” (study of self and sacred scriptures)
- Ishvara Pranidhana: “Have faith” (surrender to the divine)
3. Asana
Asana refers to the physical postures practiced in yoga. Derived from the root word as in Sanskrit, which means seat, asana is designed to prepare the body and mind for seated meditation. The term asana refers to the ancient yogic tradition of taking a seat close to your teacher. Beyond the physical, asana refers to an outlook that life is full of opportunities to learn, even through obstacles: find the teacher in all things.
Introduction to Tantrik Yoga
Learn the basics of Tantrik Yoga, such as how to use breath, mantra, mudra and awareness to unlock and unfold the hidden potentials that lie within every human being.
4. Pranayama
Breathing is the only bodily function that you perform consciously and unconsciously; it can be voluntary or involuntary. However, breathing patterns, such as a tendency to hold your breath, are indicators of mind and body health. Pranayama is the practice of consciously controlling the breath, of taking your breath back into your own lungs. In Sanskrit, prana is our vital life force, so pranayama is the cultivation and mindful use of life force. Pranayama leads to improved concentration, health, focus, clarity, creativity, purpose and compassion.
5. Pratyahara
Pratyahara is the practice of withdrawing from external stimuli to enhance internal awareness. Mindfully return to quiet through meditation and removal of distractions. Set aside 5-10 minutes each day to sit or lay quietly with your eyes closed. As your practice grows, your heightened sense of awareness leads to an ability to see things are they are, not as you are. Draw inward, not to silence your senses, but to quiet them enough to see beyond yourself.
6. Dharana
Dharana is the practice of intense concentration, usually focusing on one object, such as the flame of a candle or a picture of a deity. This practice trains the mind in stillness and focus. Start with just a few minutes each day and expand your practice as it serves you. If other thoughts or distractions flicker through your experience, recognize them then let them go.
7. Dhyana
Dhyana is the state of being keenly aware, yet without focus. It is awareness without judgment or attachment; it is peaceful, meditative and precedes complete bliss. It is otherwise known to artists and athletes as the flow state. Consider moments in your life where you were so engrossed in the present that you lost track of time or desire (even for food). The practice of yoga offers a return to this state.
8. Samadhi
Samadhi is a state of ecstasy. It is transcendence, connectivity with the divine, a coupling with the universe, and a mind-body integration of the concept that “all things are one.”
Who is Patanjali?
Patanjali, a revered scholar in the yogic tradition, is credited with authoring the Yoga Sutras, a foundational text for classical yoga. In the Yoga Sutras, the eight limbs are referred to as ashtanga, ashta meaning eight and anga meaning limb in Sanskrit. Patanjali is estimated to have lived in India sometime between the 5th century BCE to 4th century CE.
Get your guide to living yoga featuring Patanjali’s Eight Limbs of Yoga.
About the Author
Summer Solstice: Rhythm and Ritual Through Yoga
With every passing year, the world’s seasons reveal the environmental evidence of a planet that breathes. Mirroring natural periods of warming and cooling that result from our changing position relative to the sun, our living earth completes one cycle of respiration over the course of a single year.
As witnesses to this faithful pattern, we are invited to remember the intimate relationship we have with our home in the universe – each one of us embodied cosmos, completing this identical sacred cycle of birth and death with every breath. Particularly in these times of seasonal transition, may we allow ourselves to be breathed by mama Gaia, the benevolent mother earth, as we consider the seasonal progression of internal time illuminated by our own breathwave.
The Stillness of a Star: Observing a Cosmic Pause
The word solstice comes from the Latin roots sol, meaning sun, and stitium, meaning to stop or be still. With unassuming clarity, these etymological elements describe the precise moment of a solstice when our radiant solar star appears to pause in the sky as its trajectory undergoes a perceived directional shift. This cosmic pause welcomes our attention as we prepare to enter the next cycle of our planet’s breathwave.
While the perceived stopping of the sun is what defines a solstice on the basis of perception, the astronomical underpinning of such an event is actually the tilt of the earth’s axis. When our planet reaches the point along its orbit where its axial tilt is most inclined toward the sun, we experience the summer solstice. Bowing to the ultimate source of sustenance, the earth humbly receives this blessing of solar energy like a flower leaning toward the light.
On the day of the solstice, while traveling at 108,000 km/hr around our system’s center, we perceive the longest path of our sun through the sky as it arcs toward its northernmost position from the equator.
In other words, we enjoy the longest day of the year and the beginning of the summer season.
The Summer Swoon
The summer solstice celebrates the apex of light and sunshine continues to triumph over shadow during this season. Common to both ancient and modern cultures, the sundry interpretations of this celestial event underscore a deep gratitude and honoring of the earth.
Whether venerating the feminine, yin energy in Chinese tradition, hailing the rise of the brightest summer star, Sirius, in Egypt, celebrating the personified fertility goddess, Epona, in Celtic tradition, or praising the god of agriculture during Kronia in Greece, the underlying spirit of summer is one of emergence, purification and potency.
Though we may not always consciously observe these time-honored traditions in the bustle of modern daily life, there is something undeniably special about summertime, it’s the summer swoon.
From a young age, I remember equating long summer days with more freedom. With a sliding curfew that was defined by the street lights coming on, more daylight meant I stayed outside longer, swimming until my fingers were pruney and chasing lightning bugs at dusk. In my adult life, the sacred sway of summer means less hurry, less service to time and more relaxation by virtue of a generous sun that descends more slowly in the evening hours. The whole world seems to participate in this seasonal summer sigh, expanding into the light as we approach the halfway point on our journey around the sun. It is a natural time for reflection and the effortless joy that comes with living in rhythm.
