Читать книгу Ashtanga Yoga - The Intermediate Series - Gregor Maehle - Страница 30

The universally accepted form and structure that Karma Yoga takes is the eight-limbed yoga of Patanjali called Ashtanga Yoga. All of the eight limbs are in one form or another represented in all modes of Karma Yoga. The reason for using eight sequential steps may be understood through the following metaphor: Let’s assume for a moment that the goal of yoga, called liberation, is located on the moon and its opposite, the state called bhoga (bondage) is here on Earth. Jnana and Bhakti Yoga hold out the possibility — not a realistic one for most people — of reaching your goal with one giant step. Eight-limbed Karma Yoga, on the other hand, provides you with a spacecraft that you can use to reach your destination, a spacecraft similar to the Saturn V rocket that powered the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. The Saturn V had several stages. The first stage lifted the spacecraft to a certain height, and once its fuel had been exhausted the next stage was fired up. With the final stage the spacecraft had reached a distance far enough from the Earth that it could now “fall” toward the moon, attracted by the moon’s gravitational field. In a similar way, Karma Yoga offers eight successive stages, each one carrying you successively higher toward the natural state of yoga (freedom) and away from the gravitation of bhoga (bondage).

Karma/Ashtanga Yoga gives you the opportunity to take small steps first. When you have done those steps successfully, you feel ready to take the slightly bigger steps that come next. Each step slightly modifies your body, mind, ego, and intellect, preparing them for the next, bigger step. Once you have taken the prescribed eight steps, you are then ready to take the plunge. That plunge is the same one the Bhaktas and Jnanis take, but the Ashtanga approach helps you prepare, organically and holistically, for it.

Let’s take a closer look at the various steps or limbs of Karma/Ashtanga Yoga, focusing mainly on the higher limbs, as they are usually neglected in descriptions. For this purpose we return to the Russian-doll metaphor introduced in the Introduction.