Shailesh Basani

Namaste, we started studying about Patanjali’s Ashtanga Yoga concepts in our yoga class today.   Patanjali describes Ashtanga Yoga in second chapter called Sadhana Pada.  Ashta = Eight and Anga  = Limbs.  He gives systematic and progressive steps to start our journey from ‘Yamas’ towards deep absorption state called ‘Samadhi’. Yoga is primarily an inward journey, though most of the focus these days is primarily on asanas.  The first five steps together (Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama and Pratyahara) is called Bahiranga (external) yoga and the last three steps (Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi) together is called Antaranga (internal) yoga.  The first limb is called yama.  Patanjali says to begin our inward journey we should first improve our interactions with outside world, have a proper attitude towards everyone in this world, eliminate negativity about others and appreciate the beautiful world .  Only when we eliminate such negativit...

Patanajali suggests three different meditation techniques in this context to calm a distracted mind. Please note that there are several hundreds of meditation techniques and meditation should really be learnt from a trained teacher. Most of the meditation techniques revolve around fixing your concentration on an object, a mantra, your breath etc. We will look at the first of the three here. In sutra 1.36 ( visoka va jyotismati ), Patanjali asks us to concentrate on an object which is the innermost core of the heart, wherein alone the sorrowless, effulgent light glows. Meditating on this light helps you to cultivate feelings such as love and compassion. The idea here is similar to what some techniques teach as meditating on ‘Heart Chakra’. There is a lot of mystification on the term ‘Chakra’. Especially, it is hard to understand for many folks when a technique says ‘do this practice and appropriate chakra will open’. Our guruji gives a simple and logical explanation on this Chakr...