Patanjali's 8 Limb Path: more than just stretching

How can the 8-limb path inspires me to live a full life?

Patanjali’s 8 limb path to Enlightenment is a noble path to one’ s evolution. We all crave a life of purpose, with clarity and direction, fulfillment and pleasure. We crave this life of fulfillment and pleasure, but our culture conditions us to think it is outside ourselves and our mind’s develop the idea that a good life is bought with money and things. The 8 limb path is a way into the depths of our spirit, unveiling our true essence, connection, and purpose; fulfilling us from the inside out. 

Our consumer culture strengthens the 5 Kleshas, or mental states of Avidya (ignorance), Asmita (egoism), Raga (attachment), Dvesa (aversion), and Abhinivesha (fear of death). Patanjali named the Kleshas as the obstacles that prevent our enlightenment. We can keep ourselves perfectly comfortable on the outside and stall our own evolution on the inside, because we can only grow when we full experience a stressor that causes us to evolve and adapt into our stronger more enlightened self. But, for the most part, humans don’t like discomfort or the feelings of stress and we can easily buy our way out. We can buy all the things to make us feel better instantly, we can become very attached to our things, we can avoid all the discomfort by distracting ourselves with things, we can feel entitled to our things, and we can numb out all the sub optimal feelings with drugs, alcohol, habits, (enter any distraction here). We actually believe in our minds that this is living, that is until your own self can’t take your bullshit anymore. 

As Tony Robbins says, change only happens when we become disturbed, and disturbance will come if we don’t consciously choose to fully express our highest selves.  Just when our soul is tired of waiting on us to evolve, tired of us playing small, numbing and distracting ourselves, we will wake up to our own crisis. A crisis within ourselves asking for more, more than an empty life bought and entertained till bored.  “Sometimes a collapse is the only way to freedom. Sometimes the pressure builds to such proportions that we have no other route to equilibrium. The freshwaters of natural desire have continued to pour in from the hills, but their power has been blocked up for so long inside us that the soul, seeking it true level, finds a way out.” (Gregg Levoy, Callings). The 8 limbs of yoga, when practiced, guide us into ourselves and outside ourselves helping us to listen to the truth that resides inside all of us, to listen to our own spirit that knows what we need to feel what we desire to feel, and how to share what we are here to share, in order to live a purposeful life with meaning and fulfilment. 

The First of the 8 Limbs holds the Yamas and the Niyamas. They provide the ethical standards we hold ourselves to and that which we hold with the world. For example when we feed ourselves from the Yama’s Ahisma (Nonviolence) and Satya (truthfulness), and also the Niyama of Saucha (purity) we can mindfully choose our nourishment to cause wellness instead of illness, truth instead of distraction, essentially choosing non-violence for ourselves and reaping the good energy. The Second and Third Limbs of Asana together with Pranayama provide the way into the body, connecting the body and the mind through the breath, arrousing the spirit. When we draw our attention to our breath, and intentionally train it with the mind’s attention we can train our life force to become stronger and more energized. We can train our bodies, minds, and spirits to become stronger giving us that connection we all crave. Our true essence can be reavealed as we practice the Fourth Limb of Pratyhaha, going inward. We made find our desires that will fulfill us, or weakness we want to strengthen and Dharana, the Firth Limb, of creating a mantra from those desires is how ASK for that which will fulfill us. I am Open. I am Loved. I am Effective. Ask and it is Given. Going inward is a necessary practice to be able to unveil what it is we TRULY want, cultivate this and creating mantras will become meaningful and effective. Practicing going inward, Pratyhaha, can be cultivated by repeating mantras and/or meditation. This is strength training for the mind and is as necessary today as it every has been to cultivate mindfulness in a culture that rewards mindlessness and spends billions in advertising and marketing dollars to buy our attention.

And the ultimate goal of all of this is to lead a meaningful connected life where we fully actualize our truest form of energy, our gifts, strengths, and stories to share, feeling all the wealth of true human connection while growing resilient to the Klesha’s that surface as the obstacles that stand to thwart our arrival at Final Limb, Samadhi or Enlightenment. Samadhi where we realize we too are Divine and awake to the Abundance of Life. The 8 Fold Path and the limbs not only inspire us to live a full life, they teach and guide us how to live a fuller life, a life meaningful beyond our imaginations.

I am grateful to be traveling this path and climbing these limbs, for “gaining the skill to choose our attitude, to choose what we think, and to choose what we do, may be the grandest adventure we can take as a human being.'‘ -Deborah Adele The Yamas & Niyamas

And getting to choose is damn empowering!

Namaste

Jess