This is about taking yoga off the mat and living a more yogic lifestyle.
The yamas (restraints) offer a guide for how to be in the world in way that leads to deep peace and equanimity – a state of evenness or calm that is not disturbed by experience of or exposure to emotions, pain, or other phenomena.
Yamas are the first of the 8 branches of yoga. They each appear simple and straightforward at first, but the more you explore and reflect, the more you will see how deeply the yamas go. Due to this depth, you are bound to fall short of their full excpression. Welcome! You are another imperfect human, so go easy on yourself, be gentle and kind and see if the yamas can take you on a fascinating journey of inner discovery towards greater peacefulness.
Donna Farhi reminds us that the yamas are not a list of dos and don’ts, but a way to access and uncover our true nature. Also, that if we don’t believe in moving toward a life lived in freedom then we might measure our yoga by external forms – what poses we can achieve, how flexible we are; what Donna calls “nothing more than sophisticated calisthenics” (Yoga Mind, Body and Spirit, p8).
Instead, she says, measure ourselves by ‘invisible signs’, becoming more kind, feeling more peaceful, letting go of old, unhelpful habits, treating those around us well – this is the “true experience of transformation” that yoga offers.
There are five Yamas listed in Patanjali’s Sutras:
- Ahimsa (non-harming or non-violence in thought, word and deed)
- Satya (truthfulness)
- Asteya (non-stealing)
- Brahmacharya (non-excess or ‘right use of energy’)
- Aparigraha (non-greed or non-hoarding)
Let’s explore them one by one. You can work with a yama for a month or a year, it’s up to you.
Yama 1# – Ahimsa (non violence/loving kindness)
Read more about yamas:
https://yogainternational.com/article/view/yoga-philosophy-basics-the-5-yamas
https://yogainternational.com/article/view/the-yamas-what-patanjali-must-have-known-about-us
Breathe Aotearoa 