Kundalini Yoga Glossary
Eight Limbs
Patanjali's eight interrelated aspects of yoga practice, from ethical behavior to the deepest states of meditation.
Meaning
What the Eight Limbs Mean
Patanjali identified eight interrelated aspects of yoga practice sometime between 200 and 600 AD. They're called limbs, or parts, rather than steps, to reflect their integrated nature: each one grows a little in relation to the others, rather than being completed before moving to the next.
The eight limbs are: Yamas, five restraints. Niyamas, five disciplines. Asana, postures for health and meditation. Pranayama, control of prana, the life force. Pratyahara, the synchronization of senses and thoughts, or the withdrawal of the senses. Dharana, one-pointed concentration. Dhyana, deep meditation. Samadhi, the awakening and absorption of spirit.
Placed in a list, the limbs read like a ladder from the most gross and accessible, ethical behavior, to the most subtle, spiritual or mystic merger. That ladder is useful, but it misses the dynamic relationship between the limbs.
In Practice
How It’s Used
Most Western approaches to yoga tend to emphasize one end of this ladder or the other: the body is trained through postures without chanting or meditation, or the mind is trained through meditation without building physical vitality through exercise. Both lead to imbalance, physically and emotionally.
In the training, the eight limbs are also mapped onto the three minds: the negative mind is worked through Yamas and Niyamas, the positive mind through Asana and Pranayama, and the neutral mind through Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi.
One of the deeper truths in the eight limbs is the need to develop the whole spectrum of body and mind together, as a single system, rather than training only one part of it.
