Teacher Training
Tonight’s group session was all lecture. There was no practice teaching, which honestly I was kind of relieved after my experience during the last group session on Sunday. We started off going over a brief history of yoga. When I say “brief”, I mean we covered yoga history from 2000 BCE through today, in a matter of an hour.
From here, we talked about Patanjali. It is believed that Patanjali was created by a group of authors who used this pseudonym name to help develop yoga and created the Yoga Sutras. The Yoga Sutras are a set of doctrines and principles that create the foundation for living a Yogic life. If you want to live a meaningful and purposeful life, there’s an eight-step guideline on how to do so. It’s called the Eight Limbed Yogic Path. Some could say this was the precursor to all of those numbered lists articles written online about how to live a happier life or how to do insert an activity of your choice here better. Looks like Patanjali did it first!
Learning about the Eight Limbed Yogic Path was my favorite part of the lecture tonight. The Eight Limbed Yogic path is an eight-step guideline on how to live a meaningful and purposeful life. Who doesn’t love discovering a guideline on how to make their own life more fulfilling and happier? Here are each of the limbs in the Eight Limbed Yogic Path, pulled straight from my CorePower Yoga Teacher Training manual because you know I didn’t write these myself:
Yamas
The first limb is Yamas. Yamas are the five moral restraints, which apply specifically to how we behave outwardly toward other beings. The five restraints are Ahimsa (non-violence), Satya (truthfulness), Asteya (non-stealing), Brahmacharya (moderation) and Aparigraha (non-hoarding). These restraints are designed to help you focus and develop self-control.
Niyama
The second limb is Niyama. Niyamas are the five observances, which apply specifically to how we treat ourselves, on the inside. The five Niyamas are Saucha (cleanliness, purity), Santosha (contentment), Tapas (heat, discipline), Svadhyaya (self-study) and Isvara-pranidhana (devotion, surrender).
Asana
The third limb is Asana. The original meaning of the word “asana” is a yogi’s meditation seat. The Sanskrit word is translated to mean, “seat.” With yoga’s evolution into the modern world, asana is now defined as being the practice of all physical yoga postures. This limb is about gaining control over our physical body. So for example, with the more yoga I practice, the easier I’ll be able to get into each of the postures and the more comfortable my body will feel while I’m in them. The idea with Asana is that eventually, I’ll be able to not only practice physical ease and comfort on my mat, but also take it off of my mat and bring it into my daily life.
Pranayama
The fourth limb is Pranayama. Pranayama is all about breath. As human beings, we can live a few days without food or water, but we can’t live without our breath. Our breath is our life source. It’s also the easiest way to tap into our own energy. This fourth limb tells us by being able to manipulate and control our own breath, we’re able to manage our energy better.
Pratyahara
The fifth limb is Pratyahara. Pratyahara is defined as “withdrawal of the senses.” Instead of reaching out through the senses, practicing Pranayama means you direct your energy and attention internally to the heart and mind. If you’re on the path to learn about your higher self, you’ll never find it unless you also bring the search within yourself. Otherwise, you miss the whole process.
Dharana
The sixth limb is Dharana. With the practice of Dharana, you learn how to concentrate and focus on a single point or object for a prolonged period of time. Once you’ve mastered Dharana, you’re able to move onto the seventh limb, Dhyana. I clearly did not master Dharana in my Hot Power Fusion yoga class tonight.
Dhyana
The seventh limb is Dhyana. Dhyana is the practice of meditation. Before you’re able to meditate, you have to be able to concentrate. Concentrating and meditation is not the same thing. When meditating, the meditator isn’t aware of the actual act of meditating. Instead, they’re only aware of the meditation object itself, which could be a sound, mantra, image, intention or an open awareness. When concentrating, the practitioner is aware of their choice to focus on the object, over and over again. Put it this way, you can’t sit down and force yourself to meditate, but you can sit down and practice concentration. Concentration leads to meditation.
Samadhi
The eighth limb is Samadhi. Samadhi is the experience of enlightenment. This is the overall goal one tries to achieve by practicing all of the limbs of the yogic path. Samadhi is the state of evenness or equilibrium of the mind. In Samadhi, you no longer experience yourself as separate from everything else. There’s no longer separation, only love and oneness.
Pretty deep, huh? During the course of my yoga teacher training, I’ll be coming back to each of the limbs in the Eight Limbed Yogic Path, including each five of the Yamas and Niyamas and define them all in more detail, using my own personal experience. For now, just let this all sink in. I’m still trying to process it all myself.