A student asked me recently why we don’t spend more time talking about “real yoga” in class – by which she meant, I think, something beyond the postures. I told her we talk about it more than she realises. The postures are one limb of eight. The other seven are quieter and they don’t always announce themselves the way a pose does, but they’re there in nearly everything we do together.
This confuses a lot of people when they first encounter it, understandably. Yoga, in the popular imagination, is almost entirely physical. But the tradition itself was never built that way.
Where This Framework Comes From
Around two thousand years ago, give or take, a sage named Patanjali compiled what we now call the Yoga Sutras – a collection of concise, almost mathematical statements describing the nature of the mind and a path for working with it. Within that text, he outlines eight limbs, ashtanga, as a structured path toward steadiness and clarity. Not eight separate practices to choose between, but eight interconnected parts of a single whole – the way a tree has roots, trunk and branches, all necessary, all serving the same growth.
What strikes me most, each time I return to this text, is how little of it is actually about the body. Only one limb contends with the postures. The rest is concerned with something much larger: how we treat the world, how we treat ourselves and how we work with the mind directly.
The Eight, Briefly
Yamas – restraints, or perhaps more accurately, ways of relating ethically to others. Five threads run through this limb: non-harming, truthfulness, non-stealing, mindful use of energy, and non-attachment to possessions. None of this is abstract moralising. It shows up as the choice not to speak sharply when you’re tired, or to leave something that isn’t yours, quite literally or otherwise, well alone.
Niyamas – observances, this time turned inward. Purity, contentment, disciplined effort, self-study, and surrender to something larger than the self. Where the yamas govern how we move through the world, the niyamas govern how we relate to ourselves – including, perhaps most usefully, learning to be content with where you actually are, rather than where you think you should be.
Asana – the postures, and the only limb most newcomers have heard of. Patanjali, interestingly, says very little about asana directly – only that it should be steady and at ease, sthira sukha. The physical practice was never meant to be the destination. It was meant to prepare the body to sit, eventually, in stillness, without constant discomfort pulling your attention away.
Pranayama – conscious work with the breath. Once the body has found some steadiness, breath becomes the next, slightly subtler, object of attention – a way of working directly with the nervous system and, through it, the mind.
Pratyahara – the withdrawal of the senses. A turning of attention inward, away from the constant pull of sight, sound and sensation. This is often the least understood limb, perhaps because it has no equivalent gesture in daily life. It’s the moment in Savasana (Corpse pose) when the outside room starts to fall away, even briefly.
Dharana – concentration. The mind settled on a single point, whether that’s the breath, a candle flame, or a word repeated quietly. Where pratyahara withdraws attention from the senses, dharana gives that freed attention somewhere specific to rest.
Dhyana – meditation proper, an unbroken, effortless continuation of that concentration. Less something you do, more something that happens once the effort of concentrating finally settles into something steadier and quieter.
Samadhi – absorption. The eighth limb, and the one Patanjali treats almost reverently. A state where the usual sense of a separate, effortful self softens, even briefly. Not something to chase or force, but something that occasionally arises on its own, further along the path.
Why The Order Matters
I think the sequencing here is the real teaching, more than any individual limb on its own. You don’t begin with meditation and hope the ethics sort themselves out later. You begin with how you treat others and yourself, because a mind still caught up in old resentments or self-criticism has very little hope of settling into stillness. The body comes next, because a body in genuine discomfort makes stillness nearly impossible. Breath follows, then the senses, then concentration, then meditation, then – perhaps, on some days, briefly -absorption.
It’s a path built from the ground up.
Why This Still Matters Off the Mat
I find this framework genuinely useful, beyond its historical interest, because it explains why a yoga class can feel like more than exercise even when nobody’s mentioned philosophy at all. The pause before a sharp reply, the breath remembered mid-argument, the quiet contentment in an ordinary Tuesday – these aren’t separate from the eight limbs. They’re the yamas and niyamas, quietly at work, long after you’ve rolled up your mat.
You don’t need to memorise this list, or work through it in order, to benefit from it. Most of us are somewhere in the middle of all eight at once, on any given day – a little more ease in the body here, a little more patience with others there. That’s not a failure to progress neatly. It’s simply what the path actually looks like, lived rather than studied.
Yoga was always bigger than the mat. This is where you start to see exactly how much bigger.
If you’d like to explore the practice behind the philosophy, Practice and Poses is a good next step.
If you’d like to go further, Still & Steady is a gentle introduction to yoga philosophy in practice – a course to help you carry these ideas off the page and into your daily life.