YAMAS + NIYAMAS
Yoga invites us to experience a reverence for the whole of life through the practice of the yamas and niyamas. Observing collective ethics (yamas) and personal integrities (niyamas) is a conscious way of living that harmonizes our relationship to our environment by recognizing the sacred multiplicity in oneness and the interconnectedness of all. It sensitizes us to the fundamental mutuality of life. Through the yamas and niyamas, yoga offers us connection to everyone and everything in the environment and the ultimate experience of communal harmony.
The yamas and niyamas are like intuitive guides that ask us to continually self-reflect on our relationship to life and relational causes and effects. The yamas are collective ethics practiced externally, in relation to others. The niyamas are personal integrities practiced internally, in relation to oneself. Together they serve as the foundation of yoga’s perennial practices because, in every moment, they naturally and spontaneously invite us to feel into how our existence is interconnected to everyone and everything. Sincere observation of the yamas and niyamas can ignite the flames of both wisdom and compassion, catalyzing greater self-realization and the expansive experiencing that happens when we live in intimate communion with all.
We live simultaneously as individuals and part of an interconnected whole. We exist as a differentiated many and a united one. We experience real, material boundaries and infinite edgelessness. The yamas and the niyamas recognize the suffering caused by our over identification with the image of a finite self that is bounded by body-mind imposed limits. They ask us to look deeply into ourselves and others and consistently recognize the interconnected nature of consciousness and our existence as part of consciousness. They ask us to recognize the causes and conditions that contribute to suffering, including our own habit energies propelled by pain, fear, and desire.
Understanding the synergistic connection between collective ethics and personal integrity, Scott Miller introduced the practice of observing the yamas and niyamas in pairs. This unique approach of linking each yama with a corresponding niyama creates a dynamic and diagnostic relationship between the coupling. In a paired yama and niyama practice, our collective ethics practice informs our personal integrity practice, and vice versa. An understanding of how we are doing yama-wise is an indicator of how we are doing niyama-wise. In a paired practice, the yamas and niyamas are not dogmatic rules or fixed prescriptions of dos and don’ts that dualistically classify good and bad behaviors. Instead, they become touchpoints that invite us to look deeply into the nature of our collective and personal existence, and explore the energetic interplay between the two.
The greatest yama and niyama are ahimsa and ishvara pranidhana, making these two the natural first pairing, followed by satya with svadhyaya, asteya with tapas, brahmacharya with samtosha, and aparigraha with saucha.