Ashtanga Yoga (अष्टाङ्गयोगः)

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Yoga and Ayurveda

Yoga as therapy or exercise was traditionally prescribed in an ayurvedic context. Classical yoga therapy was ayurvedic both in theory and in application. The combined study of yoga and Ayurveda is of great importance for each discipline.

Health is a sattvic state of balance and adaptation which prevents any excess from occurring.

Yoga is a therapeutic tool of Ayurveda for both disease treatment and for lifestyle management. Yoga postures and pranayama treat a variety of ailments, particularly structural problems or low energy conditions. Yoga is also excellent for psychological and mental disorders because of its specific action on the mind through meditation. However, yoga is probably more important for lifestyle management than for treatment of disease. Yoga postures, pranayama and meditation are among the best tools for keeping our doshas in balance.

Yama and Niyama: The Dharmic Foundation of Yoga

The yamas or dharmic principles of social behavior are nonviolence (ahimsa), truthfulness (satya), control of sexual energy (brahmacharya), non-stealing (as teya) and non-clinging (anabhinivesha). These establish right interaction with other human beings and our external environment.

Right social behavior is important for health, psychological well-being and spiritual development.

The niyamas or dharmic principles of personal behavior are contentment (santosha), purity (shaucha), self-study (svadhyaya), self-discipline (tapas), and surrender to God (Ishvara pranidhana). These are the lifestyle principles necessary to establish a personal yogic practice in life. They are also the basis of ayurvedic life regimens for constitution balancing. Purity includes vegetarian diet and physical detoxification. Surrender to the divine is the key to sustaining all these practices, which cannot be achieved by mere personal effort. The last three - self-discipline, self-study, and surrender to God are the foundation of Kriya Yoga, the yoga of internal action that renders one fit for samadhi.

Yama and niyama constitute the dharmic or ethical foundation for all right living, including the health practices of Ayurveda. These two sets of principles go together. Unless we have integrity in our social interactions, we cannot have it in our personal behavior and vice versa.

Asana

Asana means right posture or posture in harmony with our inner consciousness. Its aim is a sustained and comfortable sitting posture to facilitate meditation. Asanas bring balance and harmony to the phYSical body, particularly the musculoskeletal system that is the support of the body. Asana is part of the ayurvedic treatment system for the physical body. Postures can be used to increase vitality or to balance the doshas. They can be adjusted to target certain organs or weak spots in the body.

Pranayama

Pranayama means not simply breath control but the controlled expansion of the life-force. It is not the suppression of the breath, which is harmful, but contacting higher sources of prana both within and around us. Pranayama consists of deepening and extending the prana until it leads to a condition of peace. When the prana is at peace, the life-force and through it the senses, emotions and mind are put to rest. Pranayama is another important ayurvedic method for increasing vigor and vitality and promoting the power of healing.

Pratyahara

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 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.

Dharana

Dharana is control of the mind, which is right attention. It is the capacity to give all our mental energy at will to whatever we need to examine . Dharana involves developing and extending our power of our attention. Dharana techniques consists of various ways of directing or controlling our attention, like concentration on particular objects or ideas. Common dharana techniques including concentration on the five chakras and their ruling elements. A second method is to concentrate the mind in the heart. A third method is to concentrate the outer space in the inner space that dwells within the heart.

Dhyana

Dhyana is meditation, which is our capacity to sustain our attention without distraction. Meditation enables us to mirror reality and obj ectively perceive the truth of things. Meditation may be on an external object, like the ocean, the sky, or a statue of a deity. It may be on an internal object that we visualize like a deity or a yantra. It may be on an idea or truth principle, like infinity or oneness. It may be without form altogether and totally open. It may be active , pursuing a line of thought or inquiry, or passive , merely observing.

Meditation in the highest sense is not a technique. Meditation techniques more properly belong to pratyahara or dharana. True meditation is the natural state of awareness, not a method. But this requires some preparation to reach, as indicated by the other limbs of yoga.

Samadhi

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.