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According to Patanjali there are eight “limbs” of yoga. How they work together can be understood from the following story:

Once upon a time a couple lived happily together in a country that had an unjust king. The king became jealous of their happiness and threw the man into a prison tower. When his wife came to the tower at night to comfort him, the man called down to her that she should return the next night with a long silken thread, a strong thread, a cord, a rope, a beetle, and some honey. Although puzzled by the request, the wife returned the next evening with all the items. Her husband then asked her to tie the silken thread to the beetle and smear honey onto its antennae. She should then place the beetle on the tower wall with its head facing upward. Smelling the honey, the beetle started to climb up the tower in expectation of finding more of it, dragging the silken thread as it did so. When it reached the top of the tower the man took hold of the silken thread and called down to his wife that she should tie the strong thread to the other end. Pulling the strong thread up, he secured it also and instructed her further to tie the cord to the other end. Once he had the cord the rest happened quickly. With the rope attached to the cord he pulled it up, secured one end of it and, climbing down, escaped to freedom.

The couple are, of course, yogis. The prison tower represents conditioned existence. The silken thread symbolizes the purifying of the body through asana. The strong thread represents pranayama, breath extension, the cord symbolizes meditation, and the rope stands for samadhi, the state of pure being. Once this rope is held, freedom from conditioned existence is possible.

Patanjali’s eight limbs of yoga relate to Ashtanga Vinyasa practice thus:

The first limb consists of a set of ethics, which ensures that the yogi interacts in a harmonious way with the surrounding community. The ethical precepts are: not to harm others, to be truthful, not to steal, to engage in intercourse only with one’s partner, and to abstain from greed.

The second limb consists of observances, which ensure that body and mind are not polluted once they have been purified. Purification in yoga has nothing to do with puritanism. Rather it refers to the “stainability” of body and mind. “Stainability” is the propensity of the body/mind to take on a conditioning or imprint from the environment. The observances are physical and mental cleanliness, contentment, simplicity, study of sacred texts, and acceptance of the existence of the Supreme Being. The first two limbs are initially implemented from the outside, and they form a platform from which practice is undertaken. Once we are established in yoga they become our second nature: they will arise naturally.

The third limb is asana. Many obstacles to knowing one’s true nature are manifested in the body, for example disease, sluggishness, and dullness. The body profoundly influences and, if in bad condition, impinges on the functioning of mind and intellect. Through the practice of yoga asanas the body is made “strong and light like the body of a lion,” to quote Shri K. Pattabhi Jois. Only then will it provide the ideal vehicle on the path of yoga.

As the Yoga Sutra explains,⁵ every thought, emotion, and experience leaves a subconscious imprint (samskara) in the mind. These imprints determine who we will be in the future. According to the Brhad Aranyaka Upanishad, as long as liberation is not achieved, the soul, like a caterpillar that draws itself from one blade of grass over to the next, will, by the force of its impressions in this life, reach out and draw itself over to a new body in a new life.

This means that the body we have today is nothing but the accumulation of our past thoughts, emotions, and actions. In fact our body is the crystallized history of our past thoughts. This needs to be deeply understood and contemplated. It means that asana is the method that releases us from past conditioning, stored in the body, to arrive in the present moment. It is to be noted that practicing forcefully will only superimpose a new layer of subconscious imprints based on suffering and pain. It will also increase identification with the body. In yoga, identification with anything that is impermanent is called ignorance (avidya).

This may sound rather abstract at first, but all of us who have seen a loved one die will remember the profound insight that, once death has set in, the body looks just like an empty shell left behind. Since the body is our vehicle and the storehouse of our past, we want to practice asana to the point where it serves us well, while releasing and letting go of the past that is stored in it.

Yoga is the middle path between two extremes. On the one hand, we can go to the extreme of practicing fanatically and striving for an ideal while denying the reality of this present moment. The problem with this is that we are only ever relating to ourselves as what we want to become in the future and not as what we are right now. The other extreme is advocated by some schools of psychotherapy that focus on highlighting past traumas. If we do this, these traumas can increase their grip on us, and we relate to ourselves as we have in the past, defining ourselves by the “stuff that’s coming up” and the “process that we are going through.” Asana is an invitation to say goodbye to these extremes and arrive at the truth of the present moment.

How do past emotions, thoughts, and impressions manifest in the body? Some students of yoga experience a lot of anger on commencing forward bending. This is due to past anger having been stored in the hamstrings. If we consciously let go of the anger, the emotion will disappear. If not, it will surface in some other form, possibly as an act of aggression or as a chronic disease. Other students feel like crying after intense backbending. Emotional pain is stored in the chest, where it functions like armor, hardening around the heart. This armor may be dissolved in backbending. If we let go of the armor, a feeling of tremendous relief will result, sometimes accompanied by crying.

Extreme stiffness can be related to mental rigidity or the inability to let oneself be transported into unknown situations. Extreme flexibility, on the other hand, can be related to the inability to take a position in life and to set boundaries. In this case, asana practice needs to be more strength based, to create a balance and to learn to resist being stretched to inappropriate places. Asana invites us to acknowledge the past and let it go. This will in turn bring us into the present moment and allow us to let go of limiting concepts such as who we think we are.

The fourth limb is pranayama. Prana is the life force, also referred to as the inner breath; pranayama means extension of prana. The yogis discovered that the pulsating or oscillating of prana happens simultaneously with the movements of the mind (chitta vrtti). The practice of pranayama is the study and exercise of one’s breath to a point where it is appeased and does not agitate the mind.

In the vinyasa system, pranayama is practiced through applying the Ujjayi breath. By slightly constricting the glottis, the breath is stretched long. We learn to let the movement follow the breath, which eventually leads to the body effortlessly riding the waves of the breath. At this point it is not we who move the body, but rather the power of prana. We become able to breathe into all parts of the body, which is equivalent to spreading the prana evenly throughout. This is ayama — the extension of the breath.

The fifth limb is pratyahara — sense withdrawal. The Maitri Upanishad says that, if one becomes preoccupied with sense objects, the mind is fueled, which will lead to delusion and suffering.⁶ If, however, the fuel of the senses is withheld, then, like a fire that dies down without fuel, the mind becomes reabsorbed into its source, the heart. “Heart” in yoga is a metaphor not for emotions but for our center, which is consciousness or the self.

In Vinyasa Yoga, sense withdrawal is practiced through drishti — focal point. Instead of looking around while practicing asana, which leads to the senses reaching out, we stay internal by turning our gaze toward prescribed locations. The sense of hearing is drawn in by listening to the sound of the breath, which at the same time gives us feedback about the quality of the asana. By keeping our attention from reaching out, we develop what tantric philosophy calls the center (madhya). By developing the center, the mind is eventually suspended and the prana, which is a manifestation of the female aspect of creation, the Goddess or Shakti, ceases to oscillate. Then the state of divine consciousness (bhairava) is recognized.⁷

The sixth limb is dharana — concentration. If you have tried to meditate on the empty space between two thoughts, you will know that the mind has the tendency to attach itself to the next thought arising. Since all objects have form, and the witnessing subject — the consciousness — is formless, it tends to be overlooked by the mind. It takes a great deal of focus to keep watching consciousness when distractions are available.

The practice of concentration, then, is a prerequisite and preparation for meditation proper. The training of concentration enables us to stay focused on whatever object is chosen. First, simple objects are selected, which in turn prepare us for the penultimate “object,” formless consciousness, which is nothing but pure awareness.

Concentration in Vinyasa Yoga is practiced by focusing on the bandhas. On an external level the focus is on Mula and Uddiyana Bandha (pelvic and lower abdominal locks), but on an internal level it is on the bonding together of movement, breath, and awareness (bandha = bonding). To achieve this bonding, we have to let go of the beta brain-wave pattern, which normally accompanies concentration. Instead we need to shift to an alpha pattern, which enables multiple focus and leads into simultaneous awareness of everything, or being in this moment, which is meditation.

The seventh limb is dhyana — meditation. Meditation means to rest, uninfluenced, between the extremes of the mind and suddenly just “be” instead of “becoming.” The difference between this and the previous limb is that, in concentration, there is a conscious effort to exclude all thoughts that are not relevant to our chosen object. In meditation there is a constant flow of impressions from the object and of awareness toward the object, without any effort of the will. Typical objects chosen are the heart lotus, the inner sound, the breath, the sense-of-I, the process of perception, and intellect, one’s meditation deity (ishtadevata) or the Supreme Being.

In Vinyasa Yoga, meditation starts when, rather than doing the practice, we are being done or moved. At this point we realize that, since we can watch the body, we are not the body but a deeper-lying witnessing entity. The vinyasa practice is the constant coming and going of postures, the constant change of form, which we never hold on to. It is itself a meditation on impermanence. When we come to the point of realizing that everything we have known so far — the world, the body, the mind, and the practice — is subject to constant change, we have arrived at meditation on intelligence (buddhi).

Meditation does not, however, occur only in dhyana, but in all stages of the practice. In fact the Ashtanga Vinyasa system is a movement meditation. First we meditate on the position of the body in space, which is asana. Then we meditate on the life force moving the body, which is pranayama. The next stage is to meditate on the senses through drishti and listening to the breath, which is pratyahara. Meditating on the binding together of all aspects of the practice is concentration (dharana).

The eighth limb, samadhi, is of two kinds — objective and objectless. Objective samadhi is when the mind for the first time, like a clear jewel, reflects faithfully what it is directed at and does not just produce another simulation of reality.⁸ In other words the mind is clarified to an extent that it does not modify sensory input at all. To experience this, we have to “de-condition” ourselves to the extent that we let go of all limiting and negative programs of the past. Patanjali says, “Memory is purified, as if emptied of its own form.”⁹ Then all that can be known about an object is known.

Objectless samadhi is the highest form of yoga. It does not depend on an object for its arising but, rather, the witnessing subject or awareness, which is our true nature, is revealed. In this samadhi the thought waves are suspended, which leads to knowing of that which was always there: consciousness or the divine self. This final state is beyond achieving, beyond doing, beyond practicing. It is a state of pure ecstatic being described by the term kaivalya — a state in which there is total freedom and independence from any external stimulation whatsoever.

In the physical disciplines of yoga, samadhi is reached by suspending the extremes of solar (pingala) and lunar (ida) mind. This state arises when the inner breath (prana) enters the central channel (sushumna). Then truth or deep reality suddenly flashes forth.