What is Yoga?

Last month we explored what Hatha Yoga is, and it got me thinking about how many people haven’t even been fully exposed to what Yoga actually is, let alone the different paths of Yoga. Here in the West (when I say West, I mean West of India), most people see Yoga as a form of exercise, and while for some there may be many physical benefits, at its core, classical Yoga has absolutely nothing to do with exercising your body. In fact if you remember from last months blog post, the physical postures really didn’t get much attention until much more recently along the historical timeline of Yoga.

Before I go any further, I want to say that if you yourself think of Yoga as exercise, that’s okay, you’re working within the knowledge you’ve been given and that’s all any of us can ever do. Hopefully by the end of this post, you’ll have a fresh perspective on Yoga and how vast it really is.

The Brief Basics

Many people translate the word Yoga to mean Union, though it also means “to yoke,” and while this is a generally agreed upon simple translation of the word, what is being yoked or experiencing said union is not so agreed upon. Some see it as the union of the individual and the supreme self, while others expound upon the union of all dualities, and yet others say it’s the union of the individual with Siva’s powers, or God’s powers in a more general sense. Beyond the simple translation of the singular word, we have the vast practices that are also referred to as Yoga. For our purposes, let’s generally agree that Yoga is both the goal and the practices laid out to attain the goal.

The definition of Yoga given by the sage Patanjali, the well known author of the Yoga Sutras, is Yogas Citta Vrtti Nirodhah. Yogas obviously means Yoga. Citta is the mind, Vrtti is the modifications of the mind, or your thoughts, and Nirodhah means restraint. So to quote Swami Satchidananda from his translation and commentary on the Yoga Sutras, Yogas Citta Vrtti Nirodhah means, “The restraint of the modifications of the mind-stuff is Yoga.”

The Muddy Mind

So essentially Yoga is about cleaning up all of the intrusive, invasive, unhelpful thoughts that tend to roam freely, and therefore reign supreme, in our minds. It’s also about severing all attachments and thereby overcoming suffering. According to Patanjali, that’s the goal of Yoga. When we achieve this state of a mind free of modifications, we can attain Samadhi, or the pure state of bliss some refer to as enlightenment, where we genuinely embrace and understand our own true nature, and experience that Union we spoke about earlier.

This is far from a simple undertaking, as the mind is often so incredibly muddy. We begin to identify with these intrusive thoughts, and over time we can no longer see ourselves, and the world around us, clearly.

Imagine you and I are exploring an old abandoned creepy house, and I’ve stumbled upon a mirror that is cracked and covered in dust, dirt and cobwebs. You find me staring at myself with an intense look of concern on my face. You ask what’s wrong and I tell you that I’m upset because I have these big cracks in my face, and that my skin is dirty and I have cobwebs all in my hair, and I don’t understand how I got this way. You look at me, and then you look at the mirror and it is beyond clear to you that it’s the mirror that is dirty and cracked, not my face.  I, however, cannot accept that fact, and I leave that creepy old house believing that I actually look as my reflection did in that messed up mirror. I go home and I try to spackle the cracks in my face, and I’m obsessively scrubbing the dirt and dust off my skin, and I never stop washing my hair trying to get the cobwebs out. I spend all of my time trying to repair my face and you slowly watch me go crazy. I am a shadow of my former self.

You are so baffled because again, it was blatantly obvious to you that all of the dirt and damage was on the mirror, not my face. You’re desperate to try to help me, and you get this crazy idea that maybe if you went back to that old house and replaced the glass in the mirror and washed off the frame, and then you took me back to see myself once again in that mirror, it might help. So you bravely venture back there, retrieve the mirror, fix and clean it up, and reinstall it on the wall. I’m so befuddled and distressed at this point that you can barely lead me back there, but when we finally arrive and you put me in front of the mirror, my eyes widen, and my lips curl into a smile and I start to cry tears of joy because I can see myself clearly, no cracks, no cobwebs, and no dust. Just my pure, shining face starting back at me.

Now I know that’s an elaborate and absurd example, but really — it’s not. Every one of us is walking around like this. Our perception of who we truly are is so incredibly cloudy. We’ve be inundated with messages of unworthiness our entire lives. We think we are cracked, we believe we are dirty, and we swear we are covered in cobwebs.

In our creepy crumbly scenario, you, my friend, are Yoga. You came along, you replaced the glass, you wiped off the frame, and you quietly led me back to myself.

Yoga is this system of cleaning up and clearing out and purifying the thoughts that ravage the mind. It involves simple yet sometimes painstakingly difficult practices that act as mop, repairman and good friend. The practices peel away the layers that the world has gobbed all over you, slowly revealing your true nature that has been tucked away inside all this time.

A Good Laugh

As I was gathering my thoughts for this blog post, I pulled out some of my trusted sources, and scanned back over the many highlighted nurturing nuggets contained inside. I wanted to share a few different viewpoints on this idea of “What is Yoga” and so it felt important to me to go back to the source. I also pulled out a book that I had yet to delve into, called Roots of Yoga. It’s one of the many overwhelming Yogic texts that hasn’t seen the light of day since I tucked it onto a shelf goodness only knows how long ago. I thought to myself that this would be the perfect time to see what the authors had to say, and was so pleasantly surprised when the very first chapter seemed to be outlining what Yoga is.

(Side note, my partner Jason works from home a few days a week and he can see me working at my desk from his.)

Well about 5 minutes into me reading this very first chapter, Jason, who was in a meeting at the time, frantically texted me to see if I was okay. He couldn’t tell if I was laughing or crying, and in truth, I was doing both. Here I was thinking I was going to write a nice concise blog post about what Yoga is, and it took just a few paragraphs for me to realize that I know absolutely nothing about anything. I’m laughing again just writing that sentence.

When I took my first teacher training over a decade ago, I was exposed to the 8 limbs of Yoga as described by the aforementioned Pantajali in his Yoga Sutras. Over the years that followed, I have studied roughly 15 different translations and commentaries on the Yoga Sutras, The Upanishads, a far more ancient collection of Yogic texts, The Hatha Yoga Pradapika, which I talked about last month, as well several translations of the Bhagavad Gita. I’ve spent thousands of hours in trainings, and even more thousands of hours reading and studying on my own, and it took just a few paragraphs to blow that all wide open. I certainly knew there were other interpretations of Ashtanga Yoga, or the 8 eightfold system laid out by Pantajali that I had learned about, but ooff.

A very brief run down of the initial part of this text is that it exposed me to the following:

The fourfold system of the Sarngadhara

The Fivefold system of the Vayupurana

The Sixfold “Tarka Class” 1 of the Mrgendra, Raurava, & Matangaparamsevara

The Sixfold “Tarka Class” 2 of the Malinivijayottara

The Sixfold “Tarka Class” 3 of the Visnusamhita

The Sixfold “Posture Class” of the Vivekamartanda, Goraksasataka & ETC., (!)

The Sevenfold system of the Mrgendratantra Yogapada

The Noble Eightfold path of Buddhism of the Sacccavibhanga

The Eightfold path of Dharma of the Mahabharata

The Path of Eight Auxiliaries of the Mahabharata

The Eight Causes that are said to bring mindfulness of the Carakasamhita, and the Sarirasthana

Eight Auxiliaries of Patanjalarayogasastra (Yay! Finally one I know)

The Fifteenfold System of the Aparoksanubhuti

According to the authors, this list barely scratches the surface of all of the different systems that exist and that are all descriptions of the aims and practices of Yoga. Clearly, I have a few more books to add to my already bursting bookcase.

My point in sharing these thoughts and this list is not to overwhelm you, but rather to illustrate the fact that no matter what we discover and study about Yoga, there will always be different viewpoints to explore. You might learn something from me or any of the other teachers at Sthira Sukham, and then be exposed to something that expounds upon the exact opposite of what you were just told. That doesn’t mean that what you first learned was wrong, it simply means that Yoga, both the goal and aims of achieving it, is such a massive concept and set of practices, that no one person can precisely define it.

Pantajali’s Ashtanga Yoga

With that in mind, I want to elaborate on Pantajali’s Ashtanga Yoga, as his system is the one you will hear referred to most often in modern yoga settings.

If we think back to Patanjali’s definition of Yoga being, Yogas Citta Vrtti Nirodhah, or “The restraint of the modifications of the mind-stuff is Yoga,” then we have to wonder how is it exactly that he expects us to achieve such a monumental task. Luckily he lays it all out for us with his system of Ashtanga Yoga, sometimes referred to as the 8 limbs of Yoga, or the Eightfold path. Let’s take a brief look at these 8 limbs:

1. Yamas

First we have the Yamas Nicholai Bachman gives a concise description of the Yamas in his book, The Path of the Yoga Sutras. He states, “Yama means regulation, control or restraint. Each Yama is a guideline for behaving in a benevolent manner towards others so as to support the process of quietly turning inward and discovering our true nature.” There are five Yamas that according to Patanjali, one must master before moving onward along the path of Yoga.

1. Ahimsa, which means non-violence or non-harming. Here we are asked to refrain from all violence or harm directed outward or inward. It can be as simple as not stepping on a worm as you stroll a damp sidewalk just after it rains, to more complicated endeavors like refraining from judging someone you wholeheartedly disagree with.

2. Satya, which means to be truthful in all interactions, not only with others, but with yourself as well.

3. Asteya, which means that we do not steal from others. This includes not only physical objects, but also the idea of not stealing someone’s time by being late or running over, or stealing someone’s good name by bad mouthing them to others.

4. Brahmacarya; this one is a bit loaded, as it’s often translated to mean abstinence from the monastic point of view, however, if we really look a the breakdown of the Sanskrit word, Brahma is the creator of all, while Carya means “to move” or “to follow.” So we are being asked to move in the world as the creator would. We can do this by being mindful of our creative life force energy.

5. Aparigraha means non hoarding, so we don’t take more than we need, and we don’t hold onto things that no longer serve us.

2. Niyamas

Next comes the Niyamas. While the Yamas are guidelines for how we interact with the world around us, the Niyamas (ni meaning internal) are the guidelines for how we treat ourselves. Just like the Yamas, there are five Niyamas that we must master before once again moving forward.

1. Sauca or cleanliness, which has to do with both our physical body and our mind, but also about our surroundings as well.

2. Santosa means contentment; Patanjali wants us to seek contentment in all circumstances, thus letting go of the attachment to how we think things should be.

3. Tapas means to heat or to burn away, and some see it as the practice of accepting and burning through pain or discomfort, such as the discomfort that may arise from breaking an old habit that does not serve you.

4. Svadhyaya is the practice of self study, where we can look at ourselves honestly and objectively.

5. Isvara Pranidhana which means soulful surrender to a higher power. This is where we explore the concept of faith as well as humility.

3. Asana

Our third stop along the path is Asana, which is where we begin to switch our focus from the mind to the physical body. Asanas are the physical postures of Yoga, designed to awaken and expand our energetic systems. It’s important to note that Patanjali is talking about the numerous postures one can use to facilitate a deep meditation practice. He wasn’t concerned with contorting your body into any number of fantastical shapes, he simply wanted you to be comfortable and steady in your body so that you could sit in meditation.

4. Pranayama

After the body, comes the breath with the practices of Pranayama. Prana being the word for life force energy, and Yama, which we just saw, meaning restraint or control. It’s not so much that we are looking to control the breath, but more that we are looking to harness the power of the breath. There are many different types of Pranayama practices, and while you might learn a few in an asana class, the truth is that Pranayama should be more prescriptive rather than general. These practices can be incredibly powerful, and traditionally you would have only been taught the practices that were right for you in regards to where you were along your own personal path. For example, the practice of Kapalabhati is a rapid diaphragmatic breath that is very stimulating. If you were to come to class in a highly anxious state, and the teacher taught this practice, it would likely agitate you and increase your anxiety, which is obviously the exact opposite of what we are trying to accomplish with our practice. So while a deep focus on the breath in our classes is important, it doesn’t mean that one should always dabble in traditional pranayama practices.

5. Pratyhara

5. Pratyhara is the fifth limb in Patanjalis system, and it basically means sense withdrawal. In general, most of us are ruled by our senses. Someone walks by wearing the scent that your high school significant other wore and your are immediately transported back in time to the night they broke up with you. You smell a pie baking and from that point forward there is a part of your mind fully focused on obtaining a slice of that pie. You’re cold and shivering because you forgot your sweater and you can’t fully immerse yourself in the movie playing in the chilly theater. Essentially our internal environment is constantly being influenced by our external environment, via our senses. A perfect example laid out in the Bhagavad Gita is that you are the charioteer, but your senses, are the horses. Without proper restraint, those horses will run wild and you will simply be along for the ride. However, if you learn to take the reigns and master those unruly horses, you can regain control and move forward with ease.

6. Dharana

Dharana is the practice of concentration. In order to explore this stage of the practice, we have to have mastered our senses, so that they are not pulling us away from our point of focus. Dharana is the state before meditation, but in truth, it is what 90% of us are attempting to do when we say we are meditating. We sit and attempt to focus ourselves into the present moment. Many people use their breath, others explore the practice of trataka which is where we gaze on either a candle flame or an inspiring image, still others use a mantra and perhaps even the beads of a Japa mala to focus their attention. The point of this stage is to actually train the mind to be present and to focus on a singular thing. The mind will wander, but here in our practice of Dharana, we commit to bringing it back.

7. Dhayana

The seventh stop along the way is Dhayana, or meditation. Meditation is often misunderstood, in that it’s not that we achieve this state where we sit there and marvel at our blank mind. Meditation is actually a state of hyper focus, where we can hold our concentration on one thing, while all others drop away completely. Sometimes we hear people say, “let me meditate on that” and what they really mean is “I need some time to think that over.” Meditation is not focused thinking, it is a state of highly focused observation. Again, that might be an external object, but at this stage, it’s more likely to be an internal aspect of yourself that you become fully absorbed in. Dhyana is dancing around the edges of the complete absorption that comes with the final limb.

8. Samadhi

Here we are at the last stop along the way, Samadhi. There are several distinct levels of Samadhi, but in order to keep things brief (can we call this post brief?!) lets keep it simple and say that Samadhi is the ultimate state of absorption. You no longer see yourself as separate from everything else in the Universe. All of that has completely dropped away and you are one with everything. This is that elusive idea of enlightenment where you are living in a state of pure bliss. Many of us have experienced fleeting moments of this absorption, say that state of enrapture when you are witnessing the most beautiful sunrise or sunset, but the idea of Samadhi is that those fleeting moments become your permanent state of being. You are forever enraptured by the world around you, and you are incapable of harming another as you know it would only harm yourself.

Want to know more?

If reading this has peaked your interest and you want to learn more, here are a few of my favorite translation/commentaries on the Yoga sutras.

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali by Swami Satchidanda This version will give you a very traditional, monastic view of what Patanjali was trying to communicate.

The Secret of the Yoga Sutras & and The Practice of the Yoga Sutras by Pandit Rajmani Tigunait. These two books are a much more in-depth look at the Sutras, and actually only encompass the first half of Patanjali’s guidebook. These books are definitely not a casual read but they are well worth your time if you are serious about your sadhana.

The Secret Power of Yoga by Nischala Joy Devi If you’re looking for a more heart centered, softer approach to the Sutras, Nischala Joy Devi is your perfect guide. Please note that you will not find the traditional Sanskrit Sutras in this book.

Tantra of the Yoga Sutras by Alan Finger This is your go to if your looking for a super concise introduction to the Sutras. Just like the one listed above, this book does not feature the precise Sanskrit Sutras.

Still here?

If you’re still with me, I’m impressed. In our hustle culture, taking this much time to sit and read something that is not required of us, is no small feat. I sincerely appreciate this time you shared with me reading this post, and I hope that you have learned something new.

I promise that within the time it takes me to fully publish this blog post and to alert you of its existence, I will have learned something new that will make me want to go back and edit this very post. That’s the nature of this vast practice, but as I attempt to surrender to the fact that I don’t have to have all the answers, and that I can share without knowing everything there is to know about Yoga, I invite you to give yourself permission to surrender as well. We don’t have to know it all to be valuable. Say it with me… I am Enough.