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Great article on how stress can affect how we perceive information. 

7/24/2015

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8 limbs of Yoga

7/1/2015

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The 8 limbs of Yoga

The eight limbs of yoga are guidelines that help us live a more meaningful and purposeful life. Following the practices helps to purify our human nature and contribute to the health and happiness of society.

1. Yamas
The yamas illustrate that our natural state is one of compassion, generosity, peacfulness, and honesty. Yamas are suggestions on how to deal with others outside of our self. There are 5 yamas:
  • Ahisma: Nonviolence through compassion for all living things.    
  • Satya: Truthfulness. We should always try to speak the truth unless speaking the truth inflicts pain on someone else and thus breaks the first yama of ahisma. 
  • Asteya: nonstealing 
  • Brahmacharya: Sense control. Using our sexual energy to restore our connection to our spiritual self.
  • Aparigraha: Neutralizing desire to acquire and hoard material things and wealth
2. Niyama  
How we relate to our self inwardly is niyama. The 5 niyamas refer to the attitude we take toward ourselves as we create a more meaningful way to live. 
  • Saucha: Purity of the body via cleanliness, nutrition, exercise and purity of the mind via cleansing disturbing emotions such as anger, hatred, jealousy, greed, delusion, and pride.
  • Samtosa: Feeling content with what we have
  • Tapas: Disciplined use of our energies
  • Svadhyaya: Study of the sacred scriptures and of one's self
  • isvara pranidhana: Literally isvara pranidhana means to "lay all your actions at the feet of God" Surrendering to something larger than yourself.
3. Asana 
Asanas are the poses practiced during yoga. By regularly practicing asanas, we develop the habit of discipline and the ability to concentrate, both of which are necessary for meditation.

4. Pranayama
Pranayama are breathing exercises that are designed to gain mastery over the respiratory system. By regularly practicing pranayama we are able to recognize the connection between the breath and the mind.

5. Pratyahara
Pratyahara means sensory withdrawal. During this stage we make a conscious effort to draw our awareness away from the external world. Looking inward we are able to examine our  cravings that interfer with our spiritual growth.

6. Dharana
As each stage prepares us for the next, the practice of pratyahara paves the way for dharana, or concentration. In the practice of concentration, which precedes meditation, we learn how to slow down the thinking process by concentrating on a single mental object: a specific energetic center in the body, an image of a deity, or the silent repetition of a sound. 

7. Dhyana
Meditation or contemplation, the seventh stage, is the uninterrupted flow of concentration. Concentration (dharana) and meditation (dhyana) may appear to be the same. The distinction between the two is that  dharana (concentration) practices one-pointed attention and dhyana (meditation) is  a state of being keenly aware without focus. At this stage, the mind has been quieted, and in the stillness it produces few or no thoughts at all. 

8. Samadhi
 Patanjali describes this eighth and final stage, samadhi, as a state of bliss. At this stage, the meditator transcends the self all together. We  realize the  profound connection to the Divine, an interconnectedness with all living things. 


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