Yama, Niyama, Asana--Eight Limbs of Yoga Part I

Transcript

[Music] a series on the eight limbs of yoga I want to talk to you in this particular video about the first three limbs of yoga these are called yama niyama asana pranayama pratyahara dharana dhyana and samadhi so these are the sanskrit names and just to give you a quick outline of each one yama basically means the five commandments so if you just keep up your morality then you have a common nervous system and you're more centred we'll talk about what that is jnana me is basically religious and spiritual practices your recognition that there is some self higher than your ego and that you can surrender yourself to a higher power through religious observances spiritual observances that's jnana and then asana means that you need to keep a strong body a limber body flexible body that you do particular postures that keep your body strong flexible limber so that you can stay on the spiritual path for example if your body is hurting when you meditate then you can't meditate or if you're too weak because the spiritual journey requires a lot of strength and endurance and then we go to pranayama which is control of the breath in order to control the life force coming into your body pride Yahara means keeping your focus on the inside as your mind starts to veer off towards the wrong thing so Praja Hara says in the first moment when your mind starts to go towards the wrong thing in that first moment you bring the mind back and focus it on the inside that's Praja ha and then da da na means concentration dadada basically means there is nothing you can do in your life until you have some decent concentration muscles you must have the ability to focus on something without the ability to focus there is nothing you can do and then Deanna is meditation which means an uninterrupted flow of concentration and then Samadhi is getting rid of the case of the mistaken identity so if you say Tom Jones with his physical body that's unreal - spirituality according to yoga your energy field I mean beyond your physical body you're an energy field so Tom Jones the name and the ego just don't make any sense to nature Samadhi is the final loss of Tom Jones the ego the loss of that to this flowing river of life - - breath comes in breath goes up we call it oneness there's no individual I versus the river or time or the sky it all becomes one before I get started on the eight limbs of yoga I also want to talk to you about your three bodies and the coaches the three bodies is described by yoga you have a causal body which is the cause of your existence so your most outer outermost layer of your body is a body of light and consciousness according to yoga God herself is made of consciousness so as you look at your own existence there's this physical body but way out in the outer layer there's a causal body and that's just made of pure light and consciousness you can think of it as God surrounding your particular body with a halo of light and consciousness and then one layer closer to your physical body is the subtle body so we have causal body and in subtle body your subtle body is your automatic nervous system what makes your heart beat your mind what makes your mind work your intuition your ego these are the subtle body and then we get to the physical body if you think of an onion with three layers we have light and consciousness coming to the automatic nervous system your thoughts your heartbeat your ego and then down to your physical body which is the least energetic and then we have what the what we call the coaches and coaches are layers of awareness within a human being in other words as you're living on a daily basis where does your attention go and you have various coaches and in reality a strong yogi should have all these layers of consciousness interconnected and talking to each other you know when you really study yoga they treat your existence almost like a sandwich so imagine a sandwich with multiple layers when you become a good yogi and a stabilized person all of your layers start to interact with each other so there's no disconnect between your thinking mind and your intuitive mind there's no disconnect between your soul layer and your physical layer so imagine a sandwich where all of the stacked layers are in constant communication with each other anyways like OSHA's are types of awareness that you have let's start with the first one the annamaya kosha this is the kosher this takes your awareness to drink like water and food and sleep so the most primary layer of awarenesses do I have food do I have enough to drink am I getting enough sleep so this is at the animalistic level am i surviving biologically and this is the anime Akasha and then we have the pranayama kosha pranayama kosha has to do with your energies for example is there life force is there enough life force coming in with your breath do you have enough body heat is there so is there enough energy is there enough life force prana is what sustains your body with life so the pranayama kosha is am i getting enough prana life force do I have the right body temperature is there enough electricity going through me that's a pranayama kosha and then we have the mono the mono my Akasha this is your thought level your thinking mind your intellect and you can also include intuition into that so you have another layer that has to do with your mind you're thinking your intuition your analysis manomaya and then v Gianna Maya which is your intuitive layer this is when you have hunches hunches about your survival your family your financial welfare so in yoga we separate intellectual analysis from intuition intuition is uncalled for it comes instantly like a flash and this is considered a separate layer of awareness as opposed to your intellectual layer this is the intuitive layer and finally we have the anandamaya layer which is pure bliss if during these 5 days you have a moment of simple happiness it's like you look at the blue sky thank God you're just feeling good there's no particular external reason for it that's your bliss layer whenever you're deeply connected to your true self your truest self the cleansed self no baggage from the past is your heartbeat your essential nature your playfulness who you really are that brings about bliss so last night I made a revolutionary statement I said if your authentic self drops the baggage of the past and your subconscious mind gets cleansed enough then you're really really in touch with who you are this is who you were at the age of 3 before you were stressed by particular things before you were socialized you know before you were modernized before you were stressed out by society you're untouched or authentic self is a blissful self because you're in touch with your Center and there's no baggage baggage is stuff that you picked up later on you're untouched self is who you were at 3:00 at 5:00 playing around knowing when you're hungry knowing when you want to laugh when you want to be playful so those were your layers of awareness and the theory is that as you go through the eight limbs of yoga your mind layer starts to communicate with your intuitive layer the intuitive layer is in touch with your bliss there and then all of those are in touch with your prana layer so that there's enough life force flowing through you when you go through the eight limbs of yoga if you compare yourself to a multi-layered sandwich with all layers of that sandwich or completely connected so somebody says how are you and you're so interconnected that in a moment's time when I ask you how are you your intellectual layer your intuitive layer your emotional layer they're all in touch with each other you're an efficient machine all your energies are running in one direction there's no internal civil war so I ask how are you you can consult with all layers of yourself immediately and have a very clear answer because all your energies are running in one way look at this stream right now everything is running in one direction there's no conflict and so when all your energies are running in one direction you become a very powerful person you're not losing any energy there's no conflict nothing is conflicting they start with the first limb of yoga Yama Yama is basically if you want to think of it in Christian terms or religious terms is the five commandments don't kill don't steal no adultery don't take intoxicants don't lie and when you really study the Indian scriptures the Vedic scriptures they're not asking you to not commit adultery because you're gonna go to hell there is no hell in yoga as a matter of fact Yoga does not shame you and it doesn't guilt you in my opinion Yoga is a system of energy management according to the Vedanta you are an energy field and because you're an energy field you should be flowing smoothly like this stream so what happens when you kill an animal you've killed the same life force that's running in yourself so then if you kill a deer and you sit down to meditate there's something conflicting in you because you just killed prana or if you commit adultery then what happens is you have four people have to lie to each other there's two women that know what's going on and two men that know what's going on or if if you're gay and there's four men or for women who know what's going on because everybody knows what's going on usually so what happens is that there's conflict so yoga doesn't really care about hell and sin it simply says if you're lying to your spouse then that's taking up additional energy or if you're running off to some singles apartment to have your affair there's all this management required and your nervous system is getting battered now why are they so sensitive about this see at the bottom of this stream there's a little gem that gem is your soul so according to yoga your lighter energy layers your soul is very very subtle so imagine one diamond at the bottom of this stream it's a very small gem and if we muddy up these waters then you're not going to see the gem so when we go to the practice room and go into deep deep meditation if you've killed an animal that hunt is going to interfere with your meditation or if you're lying to your spouse the lying is gonna interfere with you seeing the gem the gem is actually your soul that can be felt during deep meditation if your energies are running in one direction so think of yoga as energy management forget heaven forget hell forget sinner or non sinner think about energy management so what happens if you have intoxicants then you're not in the present mode so we can have grass and listened to Pink Floyd and the music will sound extraordinary but you're not listening to the real music because you're high the music will sound good but it's distorted because you're high so when they say no intoxicants it's not about hell it's about can you hear these birds instead of hearing dragons because you smoke pot you need to listen to the real bird so that's why the talk about no intoxicants see now if somebody's following Yama first of all Yama is something is an oath it's a promise that you make to yourself it's nobody else's business there's nobody clapping for you because you're being a very very moral person with a lot of integrity it's your promise to your self so if you're gonna do Yama it's because you want all of your energies running in one smooth direction in other words you promise yourself not to lie for one week you promise yourself not to step on any ants for a week you promise yourself not to take any intoxicants for a week it's an oath that you make to yourself and then you experiment with that go through a week of no lying no killing no adultery no drugs and then see how you're feeling what you should be feeling is inner honesty inner integrity people practice yama are trustworthy people they are clean people they have integrity so people give them social responsibility there are people who are very compassionate if they see some living creatures suffering they need to go forward and help they cannot stand to the side and they they believe in justice if they see unjust things happening in society they feel compelled to step forward so you want to see who's following yama very simple see who's your most trustworthy friend see who is clean their body is clean their life is clean their home is clean their mind is clean see who has integrity see who is self-reliant you got to go up to a 90 year old and you want to hold their hand walk them across the street they say no if I need your help then I'll take your hand so this person has self-reliance there they're upright these are some signs of Yama now let's go to nee Amma jnana is basically believing that there is a power higher than your ego so you know if your name is Mary then you believe that there's there's an energy field there's consciousness that is higher than just the name Mary this will really help you relax because in this tense world you're gonna take on a lot of responsibilities on your shoulder if there's a recession or you're looking for a job or you need to renew your passport your apartment lease is over you're taking all of these onto your shoulders and you're saying if I hadn't made that mistake I would have a different job now nee amma takes a different approach yama says this entire ecosystem is inter reliant in other words the stream the mosquito the bird the weeping willow they all rely on each other and all of them are reliant on some bigger form of intelligence so in nee Amma you're not responsible for everything you try your best you do your meditation you leave the results to something bigger than yourself even when you go to the office I recommend doing this when you go to the office be aware of breath coming in breath going out so as you go to the office just put your focus on the breath going out coming in and rely on breath movement as a form of intelligence you're sitting in a tense business meeting just come to the movement of the breath and follow the breath while you are in the tense business meeting and you'll see that some higher form of consciousness and intelligence takes over during the meeting it's within yourself because you're made of consciousness nee Amma has some branches to it and I'll explain to you what the branches of nee Amma are first part is cleanliness knee Amma says if you believe that you have a higher force then your life should be clean in other words your clothing should smell like flowers your home no matter how small or big should be very clean somebody was remarking today at breakfast how clean this place is and yoga says that has to do with your mind also if you have a messy mind your home is gonna start getting messy so cleanliness cleanliness of your body cleanliness of your clothing cleanliness of your mind which internet sites are you surfing or cleanliness of your social interaction who are you interacting with because if you're interacting with somebody who has a very messy mind then your mind is gonna start getting messy because your best friend is messy so his mind is gonna start coming into your mind cleanliness of mine cleanliness of body cleanliness of your garden cleanliness of your home cleanliness of the internet sites that you're surfing cleanliness of the books that you're reading this is not to take away fun from your life if you ever see a yogi who is super serious toss them up super seriousness is definitely Eagle all of us need to work on ourselves to laugh sometimes super seriousness is not yoga the most advanced Yogi's are very childlike they don't take themselves seriously in terms of being self-conscious they respect themselves but they're very childlike so cleanliness the first branch of knee Amma and then we have contentment contentment means you are in harmony with yourself and you're in harmony with the rest of this group and one of the ways of achieving harmony throughout the day remember to come to the bridge of your nose and just notice that you're breathing in and you're breathing out or you could be reciting some mantra quietly in your mind one of the great great meditations of history is walking meditation as you walk hum saw hum some so as you walk just say a mantra to yourself you could be calling out to Jesus Christ it depends on which mantra and which name gives you the greatest peace you could call out to the Buddha a mantra basically takes the place of a potential negative thought your mind can only think one thing in a second so if you're saying hamsa you're taking over a space from a potential negative Sun walking meditation with rapid walking will make you very elated I've recently gotten into long-distance rapid walking as you recite good thoughts and mantras very very uplifting good for your body and mind so contentment contentment means you are at peace with yourself and other people if you have contentment an upsetting incident like somebody bumping your car's bumper that upset will last less time you'll be upset for a shorter amount of time also if you're angry at somebody if you're angry at your past you will not hold on to that upset people who see and keep anger and keep revenge you know they're swallowing poison when you remain mad at somebody else and this takes four or five days or worry or anxiety this stuff is poison so with contentment what we're seeing is the more inner harmony you have the more you stay with the breathing the more walking meditation to do you do the more mantras you recite the more good thoughts you allow into your mind the more contented you become a big part of contentment by the way is Dharma part of the meaning of Dharma is that you have taken on a profession that is suited to your nature if you love children and you work in a kindergarten then you are flowing with the children and that makes you happy if you love horses and you work in a center for you know raising horses or horse racing then you'll be more contented any with contentment and cleanliness are two branches of knee AMA and knee AMA means recognizing the higher self recognizing the god force within yourself it means spiritual observances and religious observances anything beyond the ego is jnana another part of jnana is tapas tapas literally translated means heat and so why does yoga think that spiritual practice sustained practice creates heat and there's several reasons for it number one your ego the one who's named Mary with the passport number that ego doesn't like spiritual practice the reason being if you look at this flower pot this flower pot has a radius a circumference okay that's your comfort zone your subconscious mind is a habit mind all of your habits are within the radius of this flower pot if you want to step outside of your habits you get very upset that generates heat so what does yoga do what does meditation do what does pride your Hara do they take you outside of your habit mind when you want to quit smoking there's a lot of tapas because your subconscious is are resisting throwing away the old habit and what about your beliefs if you believe in no money and then you start to see some abundance that's uncomfortable in the beginning because it generates heat because your subconscious doesn't want to step out of the comfort zone in terms of spiritual practice yoga says look I want to tell you the truth on day one so you can relax into the rest of your life Yoga says your spiritual practice is lifelong and every day it shouldn't be unpleasant if you're doing it right you're enjoying this journey you know if you're just thinking about Samadhi as the only goal that you want to achieve that's a very high goal to achieve but you should be enjoying today because your spiritual practice is going to be lifelong it's going to be everyday and there's a reason for that your soul is constantly moving towards light your Higher Self and when your personal self gets cleansed you see there's no standing look at this look at nature it's constantly moving right the branches the wind there is nothing staying still in nature so what happens is we go to a workshop and then we say ah voila have arrived so I can relax for the rest of my life no such thing because your soul is a very high being your soul is your perfectly cleansed self the baggage is old history now you're just flowing with contentment I'm not idealizing it because if you like yourself you should continue with the daily practice why because your soul is not gonna leave you alone until you become one with light you're gonna see godliness within yourself before that point is reached you keep moving like this string but you should be enjoying the movement that's the issue so tapas means heat generated by everyday practice and the heat is not just because of the subconscious mind when we start when we go into that practice room and we start doing our yoga movements you're going to be stiff some of you so when you do some of these movements the stiffness might bother you on day one and so as you try to soften up that stiffness that generates heat or we do fire breathing this generates heat all of yogic practice including the subconscious the yoga movements even Yama if you don't lie for a week you don't commit adultery you don't use any in Thaksin intoxicants you don't steal from anybody that generates heat because you are keeping perfect integrity with yourself privately not expecting any applause from anybody else Yama is the most private thing you've ever done in your life do you want to be a person of integrity in a world when a lot of people are trying to be clever and Yama says what are your values why don't you stick to your values for a week and see if you start to flow like the string because you have no more conflicts you know who you are but that generates heat because somebody says let's go to a bar besides yoga doesn't say don't have fun it's just that fragile balance okay so beyond tapas sustain practice then Yama also involves self-study this is the full circle core so you dive in you start examining yourself do I have pride do I have racial prejudice and my self-conscious about getting old have I not forgiven one of my parents because I didn't get enough hugs why don't I have a sense of deserving this in the lunch line why am I the last one is it because I'm a mother Teresa or is it because I don't have a sense of deserving it could be either one of those so self-examination and then some people say you know when we have these types of talks it gets kind of serious you know and it's just it's not as lovey-dovey as as other talks but you know this part of me Amma says look you dive in and if you discover something you don't like tough deal with it if you find that you're stingy and you found that out through self-study then deal with it because you are a better person than that your soul is not gonna leave you alone anyways even if you quit this workshop and you never ever do meditation again your soul is not gonna leave you alone it wants you to be a grand person because you are the fact that you're here you're already grand person because you're taking five days to give yourself love to work on yourself and therefore the self study which is the psychological component of yoga is right there in jnana and yet new Yama means recognize your godliness so look at how interesting psychology is part of you recognizing your own higher self why because you have to get rid of the garbage that's your task okay the next branch of jnana total surrendered to God except God defined in yoga is a sub atomic energy field made of pulses of love and pulses of consciousness so our Lord according to yoga is an old CIM all-encompassing pulsation sub-atomic causation of love consciousness it's an energy field so when we talk about surrendering to God according to yoga it means give up your human concepts of God like the Lord is punishing me today that's a human concept or the Lord is always kind kindness is an adjective that humans use so when you try to impose that on a sub-atomic pulsation of consciousness doesn't make sense it is passing with love but to say the Lord always forgives see the politician is full of love but when you say the Lord always forgives you're superimposing human thought on this pulsation why am I even mentioning this because if you start to superimpose your human values on this force then you're twisting religion and that's a problem we've lost several million people to human interpretations of what the god force is that's where the war started that's how we got into conflict in the first place the yogic view is start following your breath quiet your mind open the heart and when you're when your self is cleansed when your mind is quiet when your heart is full of love when your spine is tingling with the Kundalini spiritual energy then you don't need to interpret God in human terms see if you're as quiet as this stream there's no interpretation you are right here with the birds you're not interpreting the birds you are just with the birds so if you want to know your Lord see in this moment there is no interpretation that's a deep understanding okay the the third principle of yoga then I'll speak about the others in the afternoon the third principle is asana asana basically means comfortable posture so we're sitting in meditation and we're a mountain see if I sit like this I'm already off balance so if I get a negative thought I can just topple over if I'm in pain again I'm not at ease so can you sit like a mountain not good not a military position but just like a mountain asana means comfortable posture asana means that your body needs to be healthy you need to be taking care of your body the yogic movements prevent illness they get rid of illness when it's there and they strengthen your immune system the yoga centers work on your joints for example you have synovial fluid in the cartilage between your cartilage and your bones there's a fluid and when that fluid is not enough when it goes off balance you can develop pains in your joints so a lot of the yogic movements keep the level of the synovial fluid in your cartilage in balance some of the yogic postures work on your glands and some of these glands are in charge of many many functions your body so when you massage these glands for example the adrenal gland here in the stomach area so when you do the spinal twist you are massaging the adrenal gland which can produce cortisone or adrenaline the thyroid gland controls so many parts of your body and their yogic postures the massage is gland and then the the yogic postures also send signals to your subconscious mind how's that for example when you bend forward in a yogic posture that sends the message of humility and deep listening to your subconscious you know they're there certain postures where you put your hands behind you and you start to bend forward until your forehead touches the ground and that sends the signal of humility quiet listening you know if you listen to your best friend completely listen without interpreting or without interrupting you're giving tons of love to that person how many people do you know in your social circle who listen to you like you're the most important thing in the world most people are preparing their answer as you are talking nobody's listening to anybody I was teaching a class and somebody started crying and I said what's wrong with you and the person said my wife is cheating on me and the guy across the room said oh I have some aspirin would you like some aspirin it's like no connection no listening so a movement like this when you come forward is humility listening compassion lateral movements in yoga our flexibility balancing movements like the tree pose our maintaining balance between money activity rest humility how do you keep balance in this world the balancing acts send a signal of balance to your subconscious mind when you stand on your head or the shoulder stand that signals your subconscious that you can handle your life going topsy-turvy and that you have the ability to look at the same life through completely different lenses because when you emigrate for example or when you change jobs or when you go from one marriage to another one your whole life turns topsy-turvy so a shoulder stand sends a signal to your subconscious that I can look at this whole scene upside down when you're doing asanas every movement should come from the core of you every single movement should be followed by the breath or along with the breath the real yoga before it got modified in some ultra-modern yoga studios the real yoga movement is meditation in action so if your two hands are coming here to join each other in front of the heart every centimeter and inch of that movement is done with breath and it is a meditation as you're doing those movements anyways we'll continue with the eight limbs of yoga this morning we covered yama niyama and asana god bless and we'll talk to each other soon [Music] you [Music]