Eight limbed path

Jill Zupperman introduces Yoga in Life, aiming to make yoga concepts accessible to all. She discusses the eight limbs of yoga, including yamas, niyamas, asanas, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, jnana, and samadhi. These limbs form the foundation of yoga, moving from ethical principles to physical postures, breath regulation, concentration, meditative states, and ultimately, enlightenment. Each limb builds upon the previous one, guiding practitioners towards inner growth and mindfulness in daily life. Exercises and meditations will be provided to support understanding and application of these principles both on and off the mat. Welcome to Yoga in Life with Jill Zupperman. Recording this has been a long time dream and a long term goal, one that I am delighted to finally bring to fruition. My intention is to offer you the concepts of yoga in a language and in a space where anyone, whether they consider themselves a yogi or not, can incorporate them into their own lives. To begin this journey, we will discuss the eight limb path, the building blocks of yoga. Please be aware that I frequently refer to the eight limbs of yoga, also known as the eight limb path, as the tree of yoga. In my mind, they all mean the same thing. In our western society, we often think of yoga as just the physical poses, but there is so much more to the practice. The limbs that make up this robust and sturdy tree are yamas, niyamas, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, jnana, and samadhi. That is a lot of Sanskrit for anyone, but what does it all mean? My terrible pronunciation aside, we are going to dive in briefly today to what each of them means and then starting with the next episode, we will take a deep dive into each one individually. The yamas and the niyamas work together as our code of ethics. There are five of each, teaching us ten important lessons for moving through the world. The niyamas are our ethical restraints, the standards for our behavior toward others. I also like to flip the script and talk about how to apply them to our own practice, and since yoga is life, our practice continues when we step off the mat as well. The niyamas are personal observances, instructions for our self-discipline. They provide a guide to mindful living and encourage inner growth and a positive relationship with oneself. The asanas are the physical postures, what we think of as yoga, but as you've already heard, there is so much more to yoga than just a few downward facing dogs and the occasional handstand. By the time we get to asana, we will have discussed the yamas and niyamas. We will have already set the groundwork with our ethical practices to talk about the poses, the benefits of them, and the overall purpose of practicing them. Pranayama is our fourth limb, and this is breath regulation, but it's so much more than just breathing consciously. Pranayama are specific breathwork exercises designed to manage the body's energy by controlling the breath. Pratyahara is sensory withdrawal. This is the bridge from external practices like asana and pranayama to internal practices like meditation. It's the equivalent of turning on do not disturb, and many of us already practice this in ways such as using earplugs to help regulate in certain situations. Dharana is concentration, but deeper. It is defined as fixing the mind on a single point or object. This can be a physical object like a flame or an internal object like a sound. Building this concentration is in preparation for the next limb, which is jnana, a meditative state. This is a continuous and effortless flow of awareness and attention. To reach this state is to be so immersed that it becomes your consciousness. This brings us to samadhi, or enlightenment. It is the highest state of consciousness that one can attain through meditation. As you may have noticed, every limb builds off the one before it. The first five are preparatory practices for the deep dive inward that comes after them. Without a solid trunk to support these limbs, they become a useless pile of sticks on the ground. Along our journey, I will be offering exercises and meditations to complement these ideas. We can put them into practice to figure out how and where they belong in our lives both on and off the mat.