Niyama

And so the yamas have five.

and Niyamas have five categories.

And for the most part, they're guidelines.

They're not strict rules.

They're often presented as a map of practice.

The names are Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Prachahari, Darna, Dhyana, and Samadhi.

Translations can vary and each term has more depth than one English phrase can hold, but we'll begin with a simple overview.

So first, the yamas are often understood as ethical commitments in how we relate to other people in the world.

And something that I share is that every month I change the name of the meeting instead of just calling it yoga session.

In fact, for the past few months, for example, every month I name the meeting one of the Yama and Niyamas.

So this month it is Saucha, which means it's the sixth month that we've been practicing the Yamaniyamas.

And those are the first two limbs of Raja Yoga, right? So it's not just about practicing the physical form of yoga.

And then even in Patanjali's Yoga Sutra, he gives a systematic process, which is called the Ashtanga Yoga, the eight limbs of yoga.

Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi.

Samadhi being synonymous with the word yoga, which is the ultimate goal of Raja Yoga.

I'm getting excited.

it's really beautiful.

Um, so I think it's a, you know, it's like, to me, you know, this, this verse, this, this, this principle of Niyama is, is a really important, um, counterbalance to how we, and it, because I do believe it's possible to like live in, you know, look, I live in New York city and I, it is a hard to cultivate contentment because there's no greater concentration of strivers, maybe anywhere in the world.

And I find that one is it does make some social circumstances awkward because I hate this question and yet it's so New York-y.

People say like, oh, what do you do? Like in a casual setting.

It's not just exercise, right? Like it's one branch of eight branches of a whole body system of life.

Yamas and Niyamas.

So those are like guidelines for life principles as you would.

Right.

Saints can recognize one another.

But, uh, Patanjali said that this path, which is a universal path, begins with principles of Yama-Niyama, he called them.

Yama means, uh, well, in a very, in a vague way, we can say dos and, don'ts and dos on the spiritual path.

Literally, it means control and non-control.

Uh, but it- it's, you know, like in Buddhism, in original Buddhism, Pali Buddhism, the focus is on sila, samadhi, prajna, as I've said a hundred times.

Sila, sila, Pancha-sila, five, is basically the moral- the basic moral codes, which is the same as Advaita Vedanta talking about Yama-Niyama.

And so first comes some kind of understanding of, uh, moral restraint or morality, which is particularly right speech, right action, you know? Don't ...

It's a restraint of our mouth against harsh speech, malicious speech, which means intending to hurt, divisive speech, meaning dividing, wanting gossiping, and wanting to break people up.

You never listen to me." So being more careful with speech is critical.

But this is just the first step.

Right speech, right action, right livelihood, Yama-Niyama, moral discipline or moral restraint.

There's also the internal way.

...

Yama, Niyama, but have not read the Yoga Sutra.

People talk about Karma yoga but have not read the Bhagavad Gita.

Does it matter?