Sutra Friday!

Welcome to the first edition of Sutra Friday! From now until...well until I get tired of this project, I'll be posting an entry about one of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali are one of the most important texts in yoga's history; just about every teacher training program requires students to read it. And once you have read it you find that some of the sutras stick a little more in your day to day life than others but that they all have a special place in yoga.

So the problem of starting this whole project is that there are 196 sutras! Where does one start? Well when starting a journey I like to (at least) start on the path (divergences may occur) so what better path to walk than the 8 limbed path of yoga; first step the yamas and niyamas. What are the yamas and niyamas? Well, they are a sort of “life’s guidelines” for yogis, strictly speaking they are restraints (yamas) and observances (niyamas), there are a total of ten. In the sutra II-30 (book 2, sutra 30) the yamas are described as things that seem “so elementary, but at the same time ‘elephantary.’” They are little things that may seem like mild decisions in one’s life but are very hard to abide by and live by; things like: non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, continence (celibacy), and non-greed. Sure, right we all do those things…or do we? Or at least, do we do them fully.

In this entry I won’t go into the full break down of each yama and niyama, that’s what this whole ‘Friday Sutra’ project is all about, but I hope this entry has illuminated just a tiny bit of the subtlety and profundity of one of the greatest sacred texts of yoga; The Yoga Sutra’s of Patanjali.

Next week’s sutra II-36, truthfulness. A yama we think we all know…