Eight stages of yoga
If we are learning yoga without knowing its eight stages of yoga it was purely unfair so coming to the point yoga is classified under eight stages which are
Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayam, Pratyahara, Dharna, Dhayana and Samadhi
So coming to the first step which is Yama lets understand this in detail:
The first stage Yama:
In Yama practitioner has to devote himself for further five things which we are going to discuss soon before knowing that let us talk about Yama it helps the practitioner to live life in others as he lives in himself or you can also say identify the same self as in others as in himself it includes universal moral and ethical divine rules so we said it includes five things
Ahimsa
In this practitioner has to devote himself for not hurting anybody mentally or physically in any form
Satya:
In Satya he has to say always truth
Asatya:
In Asatya practitioner has to control all his desires and wants also heor she doesn’t have to steal anything
Brahmacharya:
It signifies that the practitioner should follow Brahmacharya rule means to abstain from sexual life even if he is married for the time being he is in practicing yoga or for to the point he reaches to samadhi which was the last stage of yoga
Aparigraha:
Aparigraha refers to meaning where we should collect anything we should have only as much as necessary
The second stage of yoga: Niyam
Niyam as names says there are five niyams in this stage which every practitioner should follow to achieve fulfillment through yoga it is the rule for self-purification
Shauch;
Also refers as purity it can be of external or internal purity in external purity it includes clean habit, self cleanness and also the surroundings while in internal purity it means purification of mind which can only be achieved by our six biggest enemies kama, krodha, lobha, maya, moha, mada, matsara
Santosh”
Also called as contentment it signifies that whatever you have in your life you have to be satisfied with it which will control our desires
Tap”(austerity)
It means developing physical and mental tolerance level to keep our senses and mind-controlled like thirst hunger, cold heat it simply means that to be efficient intolerant and being victorious over difficulties
Swadhyay(self-study):
It says that we should self study our self to learn from our failures and keep moving most important, ly to educate oneself in the knowledge of truth and self
Ishwarapranidhana(Worship of God):
It is the surrender of ourself to the supreme power the god we bind each and every event every action to the supreme power in his will
Third stage Asana:
As we all know about the asana, it’s just means by taking posture, placing hands, feet, and body trunk
they are the innumerable catering to various mental and physical needs of the body while doing asana practice practitioner in annamaya kasha means his consciousness involved in action and sensation evoke by the body by practicing asana the practitioner overcomes the mental disturbances and the physical disabilities and the gates of spiritual practice opened to him
Fourth stage: Pranayama
Pranayama is made up of two words prana and Ayama which means prana is a life force, oxygen, and breath while Ayama is the to control to retain to spread to lengthen it is basically a conscious process of
taking the breath from inhalation to exhalation, It includes three processes:
Breathing out which we called Rechaka then breathing in which we called Puraka and the last the amount of air we hold inside our lungs refer to as kumbhaka.
Now kumbhaka is further divided into parts which is Internal kumbhaka and external kumbhaka. Internal kumbhaka is the holding of breath after breathing while External kumbhaka is the holding breath after exhalation
Fifth stage: Pratyaha:
It is this stage practitioner turned his all his extrovert senses towards inwards, with the inward -eyes and ear they experienced optical and auditory extrasensory perceptions he starts to believe in a system where the only glimpse of optical or auditory extrasensory perception
Sixth stage: Dharana:
In this stage, with our all consciousness we focus one single point between two eyebrows or in the center of the heart which will help in achieving our ultimate goal that’s self-awareness
Dhayana: The seventh stage:
The Dhayan nowadays we also know this as a meditation which was the subjective experience every individual experience it in many different forms when dharna continues to do for several days it becomes dhyana where we released all tension where we realized our true self
The final stage Samadhi:
When dhyana continues for several days we attained a stage where awareness got absorbed our consciousness lo0sess its identity and becomes ones object this merging of consciousness of meditation to total consummation we referred to as samadhi
