Astānga Yoga

'Astānga yoga, though familiar to some as strictly a series of postures accompanied by specific patterns of breathing and gazing, is actually the broad system of yoga that forms the context for posture and breathing practices.  Astānga means ‘eight limbs,’ implying that there are many different interrelated approaches within this school that are used to develop a laserlike focus of the mind.  This focus is utilized to explore any and all physical and mental phenomena that arise in order to reveal that they are composites of their backgrounds and not anything separate or eternal.  This revelation or insight leads the astānga practitioner on and on to deeper states of insight into the nature of their mind and the world, and eventually to liberation from conditioned existence.  The primary ground on which astānga yoga is built is an establishment of the ethical framework from which the other limbs of practice may then flourish.  The support built from the first two limbs, the yamas and the niyamas, provides a net of interactive kindness and responsiveness to both oneself and within relationships to others.  As part of the framework, the next two limbs—the physical practices of āsana (postures) and prānāyāma (breathing practices)—begin to open the body, the breath, and the sense fields, reconditioning the practitioner from the overlay of concepts and memories.  This paves the way for the meditative limbs to work easily and with less danger of becoming lost in thought and abstracted away from the body.  In the fifth limb, pratyāhāra, the mind is trained to observe the sense fields without identifying with or separating objects from their background.  In this way the attention no longer moves about in the sense fields.  In the sixth limb, dhāranā, the attention is concentrated on a single area.  The seventh limb, dhyāna, occurs when concentration flows without conflict or tension.  In the eighth limb, samādhi, the mental habit of making a constructed object and subject stops.  This allows a free, unobstructed view of whatever is being observed, allowing insight into its true nature.  The advantage of astānga yoga’s multiple approaches through various limbs is that it ensures that the practitioners do not neglect any aspect of their inner or outer life, and this in turn fosters the ability to stay grounded in reality rather than being swept away by concepts or fantasy.'

​- Richard Freeman in, 'The Mirror of Yoga.'

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