Ashtanga Yoga

How do you become a Sadhu?  Better yet, How do you become a sadhu in 21st century America?

When I first came here Swamiji told me he wanted me to make up a curriculum for a course on how to become a sadhu.  He said that he wanted the course to follow the precepts of traditional ashtanga yoga, or 8 limbed yoga.  (ashta = 8, anga = limb).

In the modern day USA ashtanga yoga is often thought of as a type of yoga class.  In the yogic tradition the physical posture, or asanas, are only one part of ashtanga yoga.  The purpose of asanas is to put one's body into harmony so that it becomes possible to sit in one asana, or yogic posture, without moving.  The yogis say that only then can the deeper states of meditation may be reached.

The 8 limbs of ashtanga yoga as described by Swami Satyananda Saraswati of the Devi Mandir are:

1.  yama : Control your life by organizing your goals and priorities. (yama = to limit)

2.  niyama : Creative a discipline for the attainment of your goals.  (niyama = without limit)

3.  asana : Put your body to harmony.  Make a seat upon which to erect your discipline.  (asana = seat).

4.  pranayama : put your breath into harmony.  (prana = life force, or breath, yama = to limit.  Pranayama refers to breathing practices by which the yogi controls the breath, which in turn controls the life force and the mind.

(At the Devi Mandir we are trained to chant scriptures with pranayama.  That means that you breath in while silently repeating a mantra and then breathe out a certain number of verses.  In this way you are breathing in mantras and breathing out mantras, and your breath automatically becomes regulated by breathing according to a consistent number of syllables.)

5.  pratyahara : Bring your senses inside.  Stop looking outside, turn within.

6.  dharana : Contemplation on 3 - the subject (perceivor), object (perceived), and the relationship between the two (subject and object).  "I love you."

(I have heard dharana, as a degree of concentration, described in terms of water dripping from a faucet.)

7.  dhyana : Meditation.  On two.  The subject and the object.  The relationship is so intense, its intensely understood, it is beyond words, it does not admit a name.  "I am you."

(I have heard this state of meditation described as a stream of oil from a pot - the flow of concentration is pure and uninterrupted.  This is what it's like when you sit with Maa and Swami and watch them perform worship.   Or watch them at anytime really.  You sense a pure, uninterrupted flow of their energy towards the Divine.)

8.  samadhi:  The perfection of union.  There's only One. (Sa = all, Ma = the measurment, Di = the mind.  All is the measurement of mind, or mind is the measurement of all.)

"Those conversant with yoga know yoga to be the complete unity of the individual soul with its desired objective, the Supreme Soul.  There are 6 enemies that cause obstacles in the path of union:
Desire, Anger, Greed, Ignorance, Conceit, and Jealousy.  Destroying these enemies by the limbs of yoga [ashtanga yoga], the yogis attain to yoga."  - From Swamijis video class on Chapter 7 of the Devi Gita