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Ashtanga Yoga (अष्टाङ्गयोगः) (view source)

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The Ashtanga Yoga expounded by Maharshi Patanjali is interpreted as a method to bring about the union of body, mind and consciousness. While the earlier order practices of yoga like Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama and Pratyahara facilitate the union of mind and body, the higher order exercises of dharana, dhyana and samadhi help to unite the mind with consciousness. The physical practices help clean the body and prepare the ground for union between mind and body. While higher Yogic exercises help to clean the mind, which is a necessary condition for bringing about the union between consciousness and mind.
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Yoga formulates a psychophysiological method involving eight steps to control the fluctuations of the psyche. The first two are yama and niyama, which include certain moral commandments such as truthfulness, nonstealing, continence, cleanliness, and contentment. The next two, āsana and prāṇāyāma, are physical exercises that involve sitting in comfortable postures and practicing breath control. The fifth stage, pratyāhāra, is a specialized form of introspection, a passive attentive state, designed to have access to the workings of the psyche and have access to bare perceptions. The last three, dhāraṇā (concentration), dhyāna (meditation), and samādhi (a standstill state of psyche) are the most important ones in attaining the yogic meditative state.
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The first five are preparatory and the last three are the essential stages of yoga. According to Patanjali’s own characterization, the first five are the outer layers (bahiraṅga), whereas the last three are the inner core (antaraṅga) of yoga. The need for the ethical and physiological practices in the yogic training is not difficult to understand. Desires and sensory indulgence encourage further involvement in the sensory processes resulting in constant fluctuations of the psyche which are precisely what yoga seeks to control. The physical exercises are also designed to control internal processes, to reduce the sensory input from outside, and to ensure bodily health, the failure of which would be a source of distractions.
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The pratyāhāra or introspective stage is quite important. It seems to focus on certain internal monitoring processes, some sort of biofeedback. It is what appears to be the connecting link between the physiological and the psychological exercises. It is by introspection that the practitioner of yoga is able to regulate the body to suit the requirements of his mental states. Such introspection, it would seem, enables the yogin to isolate those experiences he is seeking, and to produce them at will later.<ref name=":0">K. Ramakrishna Rao & Anand C. Paranjpe (2016), Psychology in the Indian Tradition, India: Springer.</ref>
    
== Yoga and Ayurveda ==
 
== Yoga and Ayurveda ==
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Pratyahara is not simply closing off the senses but right management of the senses and the ability to go beyond them. It is not suppression of the senses but their right application, which includes the ability to put them to rest. Ayurveda regards all diseases as based upon the wrong use of the senses. How we use our senses determines the kind of energy we take in from the external world to feed our minds, which either nourishes or deranges us.
 
Pratyahara is not simply closing off the senses but right management of the senses and the ability to go beyond them. It is not suppression of the senses but their right application, which includes the ability to put them to rest. Ayurveda regards all diseases as based upon the wrong use of the senses. How we use our senses determines the kind of energy we take in from the external world to feed our minds, which either nourishes or deranges us.
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Pratyahara techniques involve either shutting off the senses, like closing the eyes or ears, or using our senses with attention rather than distraction. This includes various forms of mantra or visualization. Inner sensory sources may be tapped like the inner sounds (nada) that provide subtle kinds of impressions.
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Pratyahara techniques involve either shutting off the senses, like closing the eyes or ears, or using our senses with attention rather than distraction. This includes various forms of mantra or visualization. Inner sensory sources may be tapped like the inner sounds (nada) that provide subtle kinds of impressions.<ref name=":1" />
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== संयमः ॥ Samyama ==
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The culmination of yoga practice is in the triple effort of dharana, dhyana and samadhi. This is collectively referred as samyama. Saṁyama is taken broadly as meditation.
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Concentration or dhāraṇā produces in us a state in which the natural wandering of our thoughts, the fluctuations of the psyche, are brought under control. In a state of concentration, the psyche attends to one thing so that there is intensification of activity of the mind in one particular direction. In a state of concentration the focus of attention is narrowed. This focus is expanded when one goes from concentration to contemplation or dhyāna. Contemplation helps to concentrate longer and to fix one’s attention on any object for a length of time with ease and in an effortless manner. When this is achieved, the psyche progresses to a standstill state in which the mind is steady and becomes one with the object of concentration. This is the state of samādhi. The triple effort of dhāraṇā dhyāna samādhi is called saṁyama. Saṁyama is meditation in its totality.
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Developing on the neurophysiological as well as psychological studies that appear to support the assumption implied in classical literature that meditation is, in an important sense, an exercise of attention, Rao suggests that meditation is a process of moving from full attention through passive attention to “inattention.” Full attention is focal and driven by volition. Passive attention is diffused and not directed. Inattention involves, in addition to the absence of attention to sensory images and other kinds of cognitive content, movement of attention in a reverse direction, away from content to consciousness as-such. Normal attention guides us to the content of awareness, whereas meditative inattention enables the person to move in the direction of accessing consciousness as-such.
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In Patañjali, focused attention (dhāraṇā) is only the first step. The second step, dhyāna, is less focused and more passive and diffused. Finally, samādhi is a cognitively standstill state of inattention.<ref name=":0" />
    
== Dharana ==
 
== Dharana ==
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== Samadhi ==
 
== Samadhi ==
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Samadhi, which we could call absorption, is the capacity to become one with the obj ect of our perception. It is the unity of the perceiver and the perceived in direct perception, through which the nature of ultimate reality can be clearly known. Samadhi is our capacity to merge with things in consciousness that shows our joy and fulfillment in life. It brings us to the underlying Divine nature in all things. It is the natural outcome of true meditation. Samadhi or union is the goal of all that we seek. Yoga does this inwardly so that we can be one with all.<ref>David Frawley (1999), [https://archive.org/details/yogaayurvedaselfhealingandselfrealizationdavidfrawley_757_/mode/2up Yoga & Ayurveda], Wisconsin: Lotus Press.</ref>
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Samadhi, which we could call absorption, is the capacity to become one with the obj ect of our perception. It is the unity of the perceiver and the perceived in direct perception, through which the nature of ultimate reality can be clearly known. Samadhi is our capacity to merge with things in consciousness that shows our joy and fulfillment in life. It brings us to the underlying Divine nature in all things. It is the natural outcome of true meditation. Samadhi or union is the goal of all that we seek. Yoga does this inwardly so that we can be one with all.<ref name=":1">David Frawley (1999), [https://archive.org/details/yogaayurvedaselfhealingandselfrealizationdavidfrawley_757_/mode/2up Yoga & Ayurveda], Wisconsin: Lotus Press.</ref>
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== Ashtanga Yoga and Emotional Balance<ref>Ashish Pandey (2022), Lecture Presentation on Yoga and Positive Psychology for Managing Career and Life (Session 19 - Yogic Intervention for Managing Emotions).</ref> ==
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{| class="wikitable"
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!Limb of Ashtanga Yoga
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!Role in Emotional Balance
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|-
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|Yama (moral instructions)
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|Sets the boundary conditions, alignment with universal principles
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|-
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|Niyama (self-purification)
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|Maintenance and cleansing of inner conditions.
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|-
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|Asana (posture)
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|Psycho-somatic alignment with brain wave coherence, lowering stress hormones, release of happy hormones
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|-
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|Pranayama (rhythmic breathing)
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|Relaxation and regulation through breathing
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|-
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|Pratyahara (sense withdrawal)
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|Stepping back purposely in order to attain the right mode of consciousness
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|-
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|Dharana (concentration)
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|One pointedness, self mastery, Purposefulness (Visualization space)
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|-
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|Dhyana (meditation)
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|Quietening of mind (Intelligence space)
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|-
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|Samadhi (cessation of vrittis)
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|Transcendence of emotion and individualized cognition (Bliss space)
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|}
    
== References ==
 
== References ==
Retrieved from ‘https://dharmawiki.org/index.php/Special:MobileDiff/134755...135090’

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