Patanjali's Eight Limbs – Taming the Body (A History of Yoga – The Path of the Body, Part 10)

Patanjali defines yoga in the second sentence of his work. There is no posture in it. There is no health, no flexibility, no harmony. There is one thing in it: stop the movement of the mind. Everything else is a means to that. Including your body. In this episode we walk through the eight limbs and look at what classical yoga actually was. We look at chitta-vritti-nirodha, at the lake whose surface has to be frozen still, and at the three sutras that deal with posture — three, out of nearly two hundred. We look at what Vyasa listed in the fifth century when he spelled out asana, and at why he listed nothing but seated positions. Then at pranayama, whose literal definition is not energising but the cutting of the breath. And at pratyahara, where the body ceases to exist as a surface facing the world. And at the end we ask the question that will set the next age in motion: what about those who cannot withdraw to a cave? This series walks through Indian intellectual history and the evolution of yoga, explained through everyday, contemporary examples. Sources: Patañjali, Yogasūtra; Edwin F. Bryant, The Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali; Georg Feuerstein, The Yoga Sutra of Patañjali and The Yoga Tradition; the research of Philipp A. Maas on the composition of the Pātañjalayogaśāstra; James Mallinson & Mark Singleton, Roots of Yoga; Mircea Eliade, Yoga – Immortality and Freedom; Ian Whicher, The Integrity of the Yoga Darśana. Chapters: 1. Patanjali enters 2. The surface of the lake – chitta-vritti-nirodha 3. The eight limbs 4. What asana actually means 5. Cutting the breath and withdrawing the senses 6. Tamed, but not accepted 7. Tapas – and toward the battlefield #yoga #yogahistory #patanjali #yogasutra #ashtanga #asana #pranayama #indianphilosophy