The Disciplines: Necessary Attitudes

With the yamas, the Great Vow of Yoga, we condition our behavior in order to observe and adjust the way in which our worldly interactions affect our inner nature and vice versa. With the niyamas, Patañjali’s second limb in his eight-limbed path of yoga, we begin to condition our thoughts in order to set the stage for deeper insight. Each of these—purity, contentment, self-study, austere practice and devotion—require us to modify our attitudes towards our own inner selves, adjusting the disposition that frames the way we perceive and the way we behave.

The yamas are the moral underpinnings that prevent the yogic disciplines from doing the opposite of their intended function, which would be strengthening instead of diminishing the the sense of separate existence, or increasing rather than decreasing the attachment of the practitioner to the phenomenal world of impermanence and anguish. The niyamas, on the other hand, represent the basic skill set required to train the mind to penetrate itself and find the freedom beyond. Without them yogic practices are no more than exercise routines or relaxation and stress-reduction techniques.


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Yoga in Action
The Great Vow of Yoga
Non-Harming
Truth
Non-Coveting
Continence
Non-Hoarding

Tags: Meditation