Iyenger says:
There are eight petals of yoga that reveal themselves progressively to
the practitioner. These are external, ethical disciplines (yama), internal
ethical observances (niyama), poses (asana), breath control
(pranayama), sensory control and withdrawal (pratyahara), concentration
(dharana), meditation (dhyana), and blissful absorption
(samadhi). We call these the petals of yoga as they join together like the
petals of a lotus flower to form one beautiful whole.
What is important here is for transformation all petals are required. Think of each of these as legs of a table, where one or more is missing or short, there is a imbalance of the table.
Without yama and niyama, none of the rest is possible, even Iyenger says that doing yoga is simply acrobatics without them. One starts with Yama (external ethical actions), and this leads to NiYama (inner contemplation and internalization of values). Confucius says "A man cannot walk firm on tip toes", so it is with our yoga and meditation. This includes honest living, and practice of non-violence in all forms. Consider going vegetarian, here are some great sites:
http://www.thekindlife.com/
http://www.vegetariantimes.com/
Asanas opens the body and mind, tunes the chakras, keeping the body healthy to be able to work and sit for meditation. Asanas naturally enable better breathing patterns, which is further enhanced by Pranayama.
Withdrawal (pratyahara), concentration, (dharana), meditation (dhyana) lead to blissful absorption
(samadhi). All of these are related to meditation. This lets you go through life as Kabir would say as a Water Lily, where the roots are continuously tapped to water of the divine.
All of these support each other, without proper health, emotional stability and mental ability it is difficult to generate a decent income to support oneself, family and give something to charity. Without Yama and Niyama, we incur further negative karma and further complicated situations that draw out our energy unnecessarily. Without meditation, we don't give ourselves the spiritual re-charge that is much needed, to get through life.
Enjoy your Yoga and the fruits of it...
This work by Kirpal Chauhan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
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