The Eight Limbs

Patañjali’s Aṣṭāṅga Yoga, limb by limb: what each one is, how a beginner can practise it, and the misunderstanding that most often gets in the way.

On The Sutras you can step through the eight limbs of yoga as Patañjali lists them, from ethics to absorption. This page takes the same list off the page and onto the mat — or the chair, or the bus seat. The word aṣṭāṅga means “eight-limbed,” and “limbs” is apt: they are not rungs you leave behind but parts of one body of practice, growing together. Patañjali says that as they are practised, impurity dwindles and the light of knowledge shines brighter, until it becomes discrimination between seer and seen (Yoga Sūtra 2.28).

From outer to inner

Patañjali groups the limbs himself. The last three, he says, are “inner” compared with the first five (3.7) — though even they are “outer” compared with the seedless samādhi beyond all content (3.8). Read down the ladder:

  1. Yama यमRestraints — how you treat others. Outer.
  2. Niyama नियमObservances — how you treat yourself. Outer.
  3. Āsana आसनA steady, comfortable seat. Outer.
  4. Prāṇāyāma प्राणायामRegulating the breath. Outer.
  5. Pratyāhāra प्रत्याहारWithdrawing the senses — the hinge between outer and inner. Outer.
  6. Dhāraṇā धारणाConcentration on one place. Inner.
  7. Dhyāna ध्यानAn unbroken flow of attention. Inner.
  8. Samādhi समाधिAbsorption, where only the object shines. Inner — the doorway to what lies beyond.

The order matters, but it is not a strict sequence. Nobody perfects non-violence before sitting down to breathe. Most teachers say: begin all of them at once, at the level you can, and let each support the others.

Yama and niyama

The first two limbs are ethics: five restraints — non-harming (ahiṃsā), truthfulness, not stealing, sexual restraint (brahmacarya) and non-possessiveness — and five observances — purity, contentment, austerity (tapas), self-study (svādhyāya) and devotion to the Lord. Each is explored on Yamas & Niyamas. Two things are worth noting here. Patañjali calls the restraints a “great vow,” not limited by birth, place, time or circumstance (2.31). And the Yoga-bhāṣya makes non-harming the root of all the others: truthfulness and the rest are practised to make non-harming complete.

A beginner’s practice. Patañjali’s own technique is pratipakṣa-bhāvanā, “cultivating the opposite” (2.33). When a harmful thought takes hold — resentment, the urge to lie or grab — deliberately bring to mind its opposite and its consequences. Pick one restraint for a week and watch it.

A common misunderstanding: that ethics are a moral preamble before the “real” yoga. For Patañjali they are yoga. A mind busy with deceit or harm cannot settle, however good the posture.

Āsana — the seat

स्थिरसुखमासनम् ॥ sthira-sukham āsanam The seat should be steady and comfortable. Yoga Sūtra 2.46

The word āsana means “sitting” or “seat.” Patañjali gives it three sūtras: be steady and at ease (2.46); achieve it by relaxing effort and letting the mind merge with the boundless (2.47); then the pairs of opposites — heat and cold, and the like — no longer assail you (2.48). The Yoga-bhāṣya names a dozen or so seated postures, the lotus among them. That is all.

A beginner’s practice. Find a seat you can hold for fifteen minutes without fidgeting — a cushion, a low stool, or a chair with your feet flat. Spine upright, shoulders soft, hands resting. Sit still for two minutes and notice where you are holding effort you don’t need.

A common misunderstanding: that āsana means flexibility or fitness. Postures done for health are valuable in their own right, but Patañjali’s āsana is judged by stillness and ease, not by how far you can bend. A person in a chair can fulfil this limb completely.

Prāṇāyāma — the breath

तस्मिन्सति श्वासप्रश्वासयोर्गतिविच्छेदः प्राणायामः ॥ tasmin sati śvāsa-praśvāsayor gati-vicchedaḥ prāṇāyāmaḥ When that [seat] is established, prāṇāyāma is the regulating of the flow of in-breath and out-breath. Yoga Sūtra 2.49

Prāṇāyāma follows āsana: first the body is still, then the breath. Patañjali speaks of the outward, inward and held phases, observed by place, time and number, becoming long and subtle (2.50). Its fruit is mental: the covering over the inner light thins, and the mind becomes fit for concentration (2.52–53).

A beginner’s practice. Simply watch the natural breath for a few minutes without changing it. When that is easy, let each out-breath become a little longer than the in-breath — say, in for four, out for six — without strain.

A common misunderstanding: that prāṇāyāma is about holding the breath as long as possible. Forceful retention belongs to the advanced haṭha practices and should only be learned from an experienced teacher; the haṭha texts themselves warn that wrong breath practice causes illness. For most people, gentle and unforced is the whole art.

Pratyāhāra — the hinge

स्वविषयासम्प्रयोगे चित्तस्य स्वरूपानुकार इवेन्द्रियाणां प्रत्याहारः ॥ sva-viṣayāsamprayoge cittasya svarūpānukāra ivendriyāṇāṃ pratyāhāraḥ Pratyāhāra is when the senses, disengaged from their objects, follow, as it were, the nature of the mind itself. Yoga Sūtra 2.54

Pratyāhāra is the least understood limb. The Yoga-bhāṣya’s image explains it: as bees follow their queen when she flies off and settle when she settles, so the senses follow the mind. The Gītā’s image is a tortoise drawing in its limbs (2.58). The senses are not shut down by force; they simply stop leading, because attention is elsewhere.

Try this

Sit in your steady seat with eyes closed. For a minute, let sounds come to you one by one — near, far, inside the room, outside. Then feel the points of contact: the floor, the seat, the air on your skin. Then notice taste and smell, however faint. Now stop reaching for any of them. Let sounds and sensations be there without going out to meet them, and rest your attention on the breath at the nostrils. Notice how the senses quieten when the mind is not chasing them. Five minutes is plenty.

Go gently. Breathe naturally throughout. If closing your eyes or turning inward makes you anxious, keep your eyes softly open and your attention on your feet. Stop if you feel dizzy or distressed, and if you have a heart, blood-pressure or seizure condition, are pregnant, or live with a mental-health condition or trauma, check with a qualified professional before deeper practice. This is not a substitute for medical or psychological care.

A common misunderstanding: that pratyāhāra means numbing yourself or rejecting the senses. It is closer to what happens when you are absorbed in a good book and do not hear your name called — the senses still work, but they no longer drag the mind.

The inner limbs

देशबन्धश्चित्तस्य धारणा ॥
तत्र प्रत्ययैकतानता ध्यानम् ॥
तदेवार्थमात्रनिर्भासं स्वरूपशून्यमिव समाधिः ॥ deśa-bandhaś cittasya dhāraṇā.
tatra pratyayaikatānatā dhyānam.
tad evārtha-mātra-nirbhāsaṃ svarūpa-śūnyam iva samādhiḥ Concentration is binding the mind to one place. Meditation is a single, unbroken flow of awareness there. Absorption is that same meditation when only the object shines forth, as if empty of its own form. Yoga Sūtra 3.1–3

These three, practised together, are called saṃyama, and their practice is the heart of Rāja Yoga. Dhāraṇā chooses a “place”: the Yoga-bhāṣya suggests the navel, the lotus of the heart, the light in the head, the tip of the nose or tongue, or an outer object. Dhyāna is when attention stops flickering between that object and everything else. Samādhi is when even the sense of “I am meditating” drops away. Its kinds, from absorption with an object to the seedless state beyond, are on Yoga as Philosophy.

A beginner’s practice. Choose one object — the breath at the nostrils, a candle flame, a sacred image, or a word repeated silently — and stay with it for ten minutes, returning each time you wander. That returning is dhāraṇā. Moments when the returning is not needed are tastes of dhyāna. Leave samādhi to arrive in its own time; it cannot be forced.

Two common misunderstandings: that meditation means emptying the mind (in Patañjali it is a focused flow towards an object), and that samādhi is a trance or blackout. Samādhi is described as supremely clear — the object shines — not dull.

A practice for every limb

Seeker’s synthesis One small practice for each limb, to try this week. Tap each:

Other eight-limbed yogas

Patañjali’s scheme travelled widely. The Yoga-Yājñavalkya teaches an eightfold yoga presented as Yājñavalkya’s instruction to the woman philosopher Gārgī. In the Tamil country, Tirumūlar’s Tirumantiram, part of the Shaiva canon (see Tamil Sacred Literature), devotes a section to eight-limbed yoga, set within devotion to Shiva, so that the limbs become a path of love as well as discipline.

Modern Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga, taught from Mysore by K. Pattabhi Jois (1915–2009), a student of T. Krishnamacharya, is something else again: a vigorous 20th-century system of set posture sequences linked by breath and movement. It borrowed Patañjali’s name, and its teachers present the posture practice as a doorway to the other limbs, but it should not be confused with the aṣṭāṅga of the Yoga Sūtra, in which āsana is simply a steady seat. Both are real; they are different things.

How other schools read the limbs
  • Advaita teachers often accept the limbs as preparation that steadies the mind, but hold that liberation comes from knowledge, not from any state reached by the eighth limb. See Jñāna Yoga.
  • Vaishnava and Shaiva traditions fold the limbs into devotion: the object of concentration is the Lord, and the seventh limb becomes loving remembrance.
  • Buddhists have their own eightfold path, which shares ethics and meditation with Patañjali’s but is a distinct scheme with a different goal.

Check your understanding:

Quick check

Patañjali’s definition of āsana is…

Sthira-sukham āsanam (2.46).

Which limbs does Patañjali call “inner”?

The last three are inner compared with the first five (3.7).

The Yoga-bhāṣya compares the senses in pratyāhāra to…

When the mind settles, the senses settle with it. (The chariot is the Kaṭha Upaniṣad’s image; the lamp, the Gītā’s.)

Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga is…

Taught by K. Pattabhi Jois in Mysore; distinct from Patañjali’s eight limbs.

Questions people often ask

Do I have to master one limb before the next?

No. The limbs are best practised together. Ethics, posture and breath support meditation, and meditation in turn makes ethics easier.

Is a yoga class “doing aṣṭāṅga”?

A posture class works with the third limb, and often the fourth. Whether it touches the others depends on the teacher — and on you. Bringing non-harming into how you treat your own body is already the first limb.

Can I practise the limbs without being Hindu?

Many people do. Patañjali’s Lord is left open, and the object of meditation is chosen by the practitioner. But the limbs come from a tradition with its own goal — freedom of the seer — and it is respectful to know that.

॥ Pause and reflect

  1. Which limb do you already practise without calling it yoga?
  2. Which limb do you most avoid — and why might that be the one to start with?
  3. When were you last so absorbed that the self-conscious “I” disappeared?

Your notes are saved privately in this browser.

Key terms on this page

Sources & further reading