One of my most favorite projects during yoga teacher training was the task to creatively represent the 8 limbs of yoga including each of the yamas and niyamas. Clearly I'm a huge VCU basketball fan, so it made sense to me to chose players and coaches that represent each of these terms.
Within the middle yellow circle, each of the 8 limbs of yoga are represented, and to the left I detailed each of the yamas, and to the right the niyamas.
In the previous blogs I started to challenge the western ideas that yoga is simply the physical postures we practice on our mat. In fact, yoga, or the path to achieving yoga, is laid out through the 8 limbs, the yamas, and niyamas.
Here we are offered the map to yoga, to union with our higher Self, simply put, to calming all of the distractions outside of the present moment.
More eloquently stated, Patanjali begins his Yoga Sutras with the definition of yoga as "the neutralization of the alternating waves in consciousness" (1:2).
The yamas offer a guide for our interactions with others, and the niyamas on our relationship with ourselves.
Over the next series of blogs I will be writing more in detail about each of the 8 limbs, the yamas, and niyamas, to aid in deepening our practice off of the mat.
Namaste!