The Yamas & Niyamas

1. The Yamas and Niyamas: Ethical Jewels for a Joyful Life

In yogic philosophy, these jewels sit as the first two limbs of the 8-fold path.

Foundational principles. The Yamas and Niyamas are the ethical guidelines that form the bedrock of yogic philosophy, offering a practical roadmap for living a well-lived and joyful life. They extend beyond physical postures, encompassing a way of being that brings awareness to both body and mind. These tenets provide direction, helping individuals navigate life's complexities with skill and authenticity.

Restraints and observances. The Yamas, or "restraints," include nonviolence, truthfulness, nonstealing, nonexcess, and nonpossessiveness, guiding our interactions with the external world. The Niyamas, or "observances," include purity, contentment, self-discipline, self-study, and surrender, focusing on our internal landscape and personal growth. These guidelines are not restrictive rules but rather jewels of wisdom that open life more fully.

Interconnectedness. The Yamas and Niyamas are not isolated principles but interconnected facets of a holistic approach to living. Nonviolence, for example, serves as the foundation for the other guidelines, while truthfulness enhances the meaning of nonviolence. This interconnectedness creates a harmonious flow that is both practical and easy to grasp, leading to a life of greater awareness and skill.

2. Ahimsa: Cultivating Courage, Balance, and Self-Love to Minimize Harm

Our inner strength and character determine our ability to be a person of peace at home and in the world.

Core of nonviolence. Ahimsa, or nonviolence, is the cornerstone of yoga philosophy, emphasizing the importance of grounding our lives and actions in harmlessness. It extends beyond physical violence to encompass subtle forms of unkindness, judgment, and imbalance. Cultivating nonviolence requires courage, balance, self-love, and compassion.

Finding courage and balance. Fear is the root of violence, and courage is the antidote. Facing our fears, both big and small, expands our sense of self and reduces the need for violence. Balance is also crucial, as imbalance in our systems can lead to outward expressions of "dis-ease." Creating space for rest, reflection, and connection with our inner voice fosters harmony and nonviolence.

Self-love and compassion. How we treat ourselves directly impacts how we treat others. Self-love, characterized by forgiveness, leniency, and acceptance, is essential for expressing love to others. Compassion arises as we dissolve our personal biases and see reality as it is, acting with kindness and understanding towards all beings.

3. Satya: Embracing Truthfulness Over Niceness for Authentic Living

Truth has the power to right wrongs and end sorrows.

Beyond simple lies. Satya, or truthfulness, goes beyond merely avoiding fibs; it demands integrity to life and to our own self. It involves being real rather than nice, choosing self-expression over self-indulgence, and prioritizing growth over the need to belong. Approaching truth with reverence and awareness of its potential impact is essential.

Realness and self-expression. Being real comes from the center of our unique essence, speaking to the moment with boldness and spontaneity. It requires living from a place where there is nothing to defend and nothing to manage. Self-expression, in turn, involves living the life that cries to be lived from the depth of our being, freeing up energy and vitality.

Fluidity and weight. Truth is fluid, changing with circumstances and requiring constant reevaluation of our beliefs and values. It also has weight, a substance that comes from a willingness to stay present in life, no matter its initial unpleasantness. This willingness to be raw with reality, rather than constructing barriers to soften it, is a profound act of courage.

4. Asteya: Shifting from Stealing to Building Competency and Reciprocity

A hundred times a day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labors of other people, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the full measure I have received and am still receiving.

Integrity and reciprocity. Asteya, or nonstealing, calls us to live with integrity and reciprocity, recognizing that our dissatisfaction can lead us to take what is not rightfully ours. This includes stealing from others, the earth, the future, and ourselves. Cultivating contentment and focusing on our own growth are key to avoiding the temptation to steal.

Shifting focus and building competence. Instead of comparing ourselves to others or lusting after their possessions, we must shift our focus to our own growth and learning. Building our competency, or adikara, in the areas of our desires is essential for having what we want without stealing. This involves practice, learning, and preparing ourselves to steward what we ask for.

Reciprocity and gratitude. Nonstealing implies an understanding that we are in debt to the gift of life and should give back in equal measure. This involves gratitude for what we have and a commitment to using our resources for the good of the community. By shifting our focus from stealing to building competency and living in reciprocity, we open up a world of joy and possibility.

5. Brahmacharya: Walking with Sacredness, Not Excess, in All Actions

Behave purely and serve purely the reality of what you are given by making every human function without exception a religious act of sacrifice and worship.

Sacredness of life. Brahmacharya, literally "walking with God," invites us into an awareness of the sacredness of all life, leaving greed and excess behind. It involves attending to each moment as holy, rather than indulging in overdoing sex, food, work, or material possessions. This guideline calls for taming our overindulgence and living with wonder and awe.

Taming overindulgence. Excess often results from forgetting the sacredness of life and connecting emotional states with certain foods or activities. Separating bodily needs from the mind's stories is crucial for avoiding addiction-like tendencies. Fasting, celibacy, or abstinence can be useful for regaining balance and discerning our tendencies towards excess.

Walking with God. Brahmacharya invites us to see every relationship and experience as an encounter with the Divine. This involves shifting our focus from clock time to a divine rhythm, adding ritual to our lives, and cherishing all people and tasks. By being an audience for God and shifting our days to watch and marvel, we can find our eyes shifted to wonder and our hearts spontaneously bursting with gratitude.

6. Aparigraha: Letting Go of Possessiveness to Embrace Freedom and Connection

Love is what is left when you’ve let go of all the things you love.

Non-attachment and freedom. Aparigraha, or nonpossessiveness, invites us to enjoy life to the fullest while always being able to drop everything and run into the waiting arms of the Divine. It involves letting go of clinging, grasping, and coveting, recognizing that what we try to possess, possesses us. This jewel calls us to pack lightly for our journey through life, caring deeply and enjoying fully.

The breath as teacher. Just as the breath gives us nourishment and then lets it go, so does life in the form of homes, work, and relationships. Aparigraha invites us to practice divine play, experience full intimacy with the moment, and then let go so the next thing can come. This is how our competency grows and how we become more who we are capable of becoming.

Letting go of the banana. Like monkeys who are captured because they refuse to release a banana, we often hold on to attachments that keep us captive. These "bananas" are anything we expect to give us the same fulfillment the second and third time. By letting go of these attachments, we choose freedom over greed and open ourselves to the smorgasbord of new opportunities around us.

7. Saucha: Purifying Body, Mind, and Relationships for Clarity and Integrity

I enter fully into each experience, and I come out fully from each of them too. I put the whole of me into all I do, and…out of all I do.

Two-fold meaning. Saucha, or purity, carries a two-fold meaning: purifying our bodies, thoughts, and words, and seeking purity in our relationship with each moment. As we purify ourselves physically and mentally, we become less cluttered and heavy, gaining clarity to meet each moment with integrity and freshness. This involves both cleansing and relational aspects.

Purity as a cleansing process. Cleansing strengthens the body and insulates the mind, preparing us for the awakening of the energy within us. This involves engaging in cleansing processes, both physical and mental, that prepare us for these kinds of experiences all the time. Cleansing lightens us to experience more of the divine mystery.

Purity as relational. Saucha has a relational quality that asks us not only to seek purity in ourselves, but to seek purity with each moment by allowing it to be as it is. We are asked to be with life, with others, with things, with the day, with work, with the weather, as they are in the moment, not as we wish they were or think they should be or expect them to be. This involves subtracting our illusions and gathering the scattered pieces of ourselves.

8. Santosha: Finding Contentment by Releasing Preferences and Embracing the Present

Contentment is falling in love with your life.

Calm center. Santosha invites us into contentment by taking refuge in a calm center, opening our hearts in gratitude for what we do have, and practicing the paradox of "not seeking." It involves releasing the need to always be getting ready for the next thing and recognizing the abundance that is right before us. This is the mastery of life that contentment invites us into.

Releasing preferences and disturbances. We spend vast amounts of our lives moving towards what we like and away from what we don't like, but true freedom and contentment begin to find their way to us when we can see things as they are, neutral. We must also take responsibility for our emotional disturbances, recognizing that we are the ones who disturb the noise, not the other way around.

Gratitude and nonseeking. Practicing gratitude protects us from our own pettiness and smallness and keeps us centered in the joy and abundance of our own life. The paradox of not seeking contentment allows us to appreciate what we have and to fall in love with our life as it is. This involves performing duty and right action with pure joy, understanding that there is nothing more that can or does exist than this very moment.

9. Tapas: Embracing Self-Discipline and the Fire of Transformation

If you are a friend of God, fire is your water.

Heat of transformation. Tapas, literally meaning "heat," is the determined effort to become someone of character and strength, choosing to forsake momentary pleasures for future rewards. It is the day-to-day choice to burn non-supportive habits of the body and mind, offering ourselves to the next higher version of us. This guideline speaks to both our personal effort and those cathartic times of unexpected loss or debilitating sickness.

Tapas as daily practice. Having a daily disciplined practice, or Sadhana, is like doing a small controlled burn on ourselves, removing unwanted pounds, lazy habits, a stale mind, and an unheard spirit. This involves paying attention to the amount and kind of food we put in our body, moving and exercising our bodies, and expanding our mental ability. As Pattabhi Jois reminds us, "Practice, and all is coming."

Tapas as staying power and choice. Tapas is growing our ability to stay in the unknown and the unpleasantness, rather than run in fear. It is the willingness to be both burned and blessed, holding on for the blessing even in the midst of pain and suffering. Each moment is an opportunity to make a clear choice of right action, preparing ourselves to benefit from and be blessed by Tapas.

10. Svadhyaya: Unveiling Your Divine Self Through Self-Study and Awareness

Know yourself so well that you will grow into your wholeness and greatness.

Knowing our true identity. Svadhyaya, or self-study, is about knowing our true identity as Divine and understanding the boxes we are wrapped in. This involves watching our projections, tracing our reactions back to a belief, and courageously looking at life as it is. This process creates a pathway to freedom, allowing us to shift our identification from our ego self to our true identity as Divinity itself.

Projections and tracing it back. Every comment we make about the world is a projection of ourselves and a clue to our interior landscape. By tracing any disharmony back to ourselves, we can begin to unpack our boxes and open up vast amounts of freedom. This involves releasing our belief systems of "shoulds," "musts," and "wrong and right."

The power of the witness and the role of the ego. The ability to bring the witness into play in our lives is the ability to step outside of ego limitation and find out there is something more. As we unpack the boxes of our belief system, strong and often painful emotions can be released in the process. As we shift our attention to the Godself within, the boxes of belief systems begin to fall away, and we become free.

11. Ishvara Pranidhana: Surrendering to a Higher Purpose with Trust and Devotion

Jump into your life with your whole heart, trusting that you will fly to God.

Trust and devotion. Ishvara Pranidhana, the jewel of surrender, presupposes that there is a divine force at work in our lives, inviting us to be active participants in our life, totally present and fluid with each moment. Ultimately this guideline invites us to surrender our egos, open our hearts and accept the higher purpose of our being. This is the rhythm of surrender.

Releasing rigidity and engaging skillfully. Learning to stop fighting life allows us to act skillfully. Control makes us rigid and tight and narrows our perspective, while getting rid of our armor opens a world of possibility. Surrender is learning to skillfully ride with what the moment gives us, all the while enjoying the process, whether we glide through safely or tip over and get wet.

Accepting the moment and surrendering the ego. Surrender is not passive; it demands courage, perseverance, and a willingness to engage with the hardships and challenges of our time. By accepting the moment and surrendering our egos to a higher purpose, we can transform our lives and make a meaningful contribution to the world.

Last updated: March 8, 2025