The Internal and External Limbs of yoga - What is the Connection?
Lecture Notes from a recent Workshop in Jerusalem:
The external limbs are the physical Concrete steps that deal with the physical body, external life and behaviour. While the internal limbs are psychological or subtle steps dealing with meditation.
What is the connection?
Yoga can be used as exercise or for relaxing from life stress - but real yoga is about going inside - it's about the psychological journey to the spirit.
So the first question is: what is the connection between physical practice and the internal journey to meditation?
Another question we have to ask: does any asana practice lead from the external to the internal?
Or do we need to do a particular kind of practice?
And other questions arise:
Does it matter how you do it?
Does your attitude matter?
Does the environment matter?
Does what you eat matter?
Does what you wear matter?
And the answer is: All of these things do matter! Even your clothes!
Why?
The internal experience of yoga depends on the mind - but according to yoga your mind is a physical thing - it is subtle but physical - just as gravity or magnetism are physical, though invisible phenomena. The mind is totally dependent on the body and the environment. Therefore, how you treat the body affects the mind.
If you practice yoga in the hot sun, in the middle in a crowded street, listening to heavy metal music, you will get one kind of effect.
If you practice in a beautiful, peaceful environment you will get another affect.
Your attitude will also matter - your intention will matter - the practice you do will matter - even the clothes you wear make a difference.
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Ashtanga yoga has 8 steps or limbs -they are all interconnected. We can think of them also as spokes of a wheel instead of steps.
These 8 limbs are:
Yama - Laws for living
Niyama - Rules for spiritual practice
Asana - Postures
Pranayama - Breathing exercises
- These are the external limbs
Pratyhara - Sense introversion
Dharana - Concentration
Dhyana - Meditation
Samadhi - Absorption or total stopping of the mind
- These are the internal limbs
Limb no 5 - pratyahara, is sometimes regarded as external and sometimes as an internal limb - I think of it as a transitional limb.
Some say there are 4 external and 4 internal, some say there are 5 external and 3 internal: this is one of the least spoken about limbs - one of the least practiced. There is a beautiful pratyahara exercise described by the great sage Yajnavalkya in the Yajnavalkya Samhita (translated by AG Mohan)
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What do the yama and niyama have to do with yoga? These seem to be universal religious principles like the 10 commandments given in the Bible.
In the first place yoga is universal. Yoga is at the heart of all spiritual practice - at the heart of all religion. It is also at the heart of all arts and sciences.
The word yoga means samadhi - this involves sitting still in silence with your mind deeply concentrated - it could be a meditation on God or your spirit or on a deep scientific or artistic question.
When your mind gets totally absorbed in contemplation you get insight - this is called samprajnata samadhi.
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How do you get into that state of mind?
First of all you have to eliminate distractions.
If you have violent thoughts - himsa -these have a negative affect on the mind. If your mind is engaged in deceit - asatya - untruth - this will also disturb the mind.
The 3rd yama is asteya - not stealing - if you are jealous and want to take something that does not belong to you this is steya.
Let's say you are a yoga teacher and you are reading these words and thinking about how to teach your students. If you tell them that you had a great inspiration and want to impress them with some new ideas you have heard here and you pretend that these are your ideas - this is stealing!
The 4th yama Is brahmacharya - healthy sexual behaviour and the 5th is aparigraha - non greed.
Controlling these negative tendencies in the mind support meditation, they help to make your mind peaceful and quiet.
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The Niyamas are more internal practices:
Shaucha means keeping your body and mind clean: dirt on the body affects your peace of mind - what you touch affects your mind. As I mentioned before, what you wear for yoga makes a difference!
Some substances have a disturbing affect - some have a mind-dulling affect and some cultivate peace or are just neutral. What you touch with your skin has an impact and what you put inside your body - what you eat and drink also affects your body and your mind.
Next is Santosha - this means contentment - being at peace.
The limbs are all connected and they overlap - earlier I mentioned non-greed, healthy sexual behaviour and non violence - if you are content, if you are at peace, there is no need for violence etc..
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The perfection of any one limb can lead to the ultimate goal: If you are at total peace, if you are perfectly kind and gentle or non-violent - you can reach the highest stage.
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The 3rd niyama is tapas
The main technique of tapas is food discipline - this is one of the most important limbs of yoga.
Your body is made exclusively of what you eat and your mind is dependent on your body - so diet is really important.
But according to yoga - everything you take in through the senses is also food - everything you experience is food for the mind.
It is said that food you eat has 3 parts
One part feeds the body
One part feeds the mind
And one part is eliminated as waste
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Tapas means discipline - this idea is central to many spiritual practices.
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Next is svadhyaya - this means Self study or the study of scripture - literature that enlightens you about the nature of the soul.
And last is ishvara pranidhana: surrender to or drawing close to the divine - in other words surrendering the ego, the personal agenda to higher spiritual values.
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These are the yama and niyama
Next is asana
There are an infinite number of postures but the idea is to work towards just one simple comfortable posture that can be used for meditation.
We have a lot of stress and we have bad habits so our bodies become stiff and unhealthy. Asana practice is designed to help us sit comfortably.
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Pranayama - Breathing is the most important tool we use in yoga because breathing and mind are connected - controlling the breath is the main tool for controlling the mind.
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Pratyahara is the process of making the mind focus internally.
The mind is connected to the sense organs and the sense impressions cause a lot of distractions in yoga.
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The three internal limbs are dharana - concentration, dhyana - meditation and samadhi - absorption:
These three are connected and they merge into each other.
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The difference between Concentration and Meditation is explained by an analogy
Concentration is likened to pouring water. When you pour water, droplets form. In concentration, there is effort, temporary success and an interruption.
Meditation is likened to pouring oil or honey - when you pour oil, there is a continuous stream - in meditation all thoughts stream in one direction.
In samadhi the mind totally merges with the object - this is the lower level of samadhi (samprajnata).
There is a higher level that does not depend on an object, that is experienced beyond the mind - this is called asamprajnata samadhi.
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All the limbs of yoga are interconnected - if you improve one limb you also simultaneously improve others.
The external limbs support the internal limbs but the opposite is also true.