The yamas and niyamas in everyday life

In Patanjali's scheme, posture is the third limb. Before it come ten ethical practices, five outward and five inward. They are placed first because a person who is dishonest, grasping and unkind will not find stillness by getting better at backbends.

They are also the part of yoga most easily turned into a stick to beat yourself with. So here is each one plainly, with what it looks like on an ordinary Tuesday. The wider framework is in the eight limbs of yoga, and the text they come from in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras.

Why they come first

Yoga's aim, in the Sutras, is a mind that is steady enough to see clearly. Guilt, resentment, dishonesty and endless wanting are precisely what keep a mind churning. The ethical limbs are not moral decoration; they remove the noise that would otherwise make meditation impossible.

The five yamas

Ahimsa is the root of the other four. In a yoga class it appears in the smallest decisions: whether you push into a joint that is asking you to stop, whether you compare yourself to the person on the next mat. Practising with an old injury is an exercise in it.

Satya is harder than it sounds, because most untruth is social. The traditional teaching is that speech should be true, kind, and necessary. Two out of three is not enough.

Asteya extends further than property. Dominating a conversation, taking someone's attention and giving none back, or teaching a tradition while pretending you invented it — the tradition counts all of these as taking.

Brahmacharya is the one most often mistranslated into something alarming. The word means moving in brahman, the larger reality. For people with jobs, families and lives, the useful reading is: do not let the pursuit of pleasure take the whole day, because the energy it consumes is the energy the practice needs.

Aparigraha is about the grip, not the object. You may own things; the question is whether you would be all right without them. The version that shows up in practice is the grip on outcomes: the pose you want, the flexibility you had at twenty.

The five niyamas

Saucha is why traditional schools care about washing before practice and about the food they serve — see sattvic food.

Santosha is the most quietly radical of the ten. It does not mean settling. It means that the practice today is not a down payment on a better version of you later.

Tapas is not punishment. It is the willingness to be a bit uncomfortable on purpose: the early alarm, the last ten breaths in a posture, the practice you keep up in an ordinary week.

Svadhyaya has two halves: study of the texts, and study of yourself. Reading the Sutras without noticing your own irritation in traffic is only half of it.

Ishvara pranidhana is where people with no religion often stop reading. It need not mean God. It can be as simple as doing the work well and letting go of how it turns out. The path of karma yoga is built on it.

How to practise them

Not all at once. The traditional method is to take one, for a week or a month, and observe rather than enforce:

• Choose one. Whichever made you uncomfortable while reading is the right one.
• Watch it for a week without trying to fix anything. Where does it show up? When is it easy?
• Then make one small change. Not a vow. One thing: arriving on time, or saying the true thing in a meeting.
• Notice the effect on your practice. The mat is an honest mirror; a chaotic week shows up in the first ten minutes of stillness.
• Move on after a month, and come back around.

The traps

• Using them on other people. They are practices, not standards for judging your family.
• Perfectionism. Ten lifelong directions, not a checklist to pass.
• Literalism. Rules written for monks in a different century need translating, not obeying word for word.
• Announcing them. Anyone practising aparigraha loudly is doing something else.

Where to start

Most people find the entry point is either ahimsa towards themselves — in the body, in how they talk to themselves after a bad day — or santosha, because the wanting is loud. Start there, keep it small, and let the rest wait.

If you want to study this with other people, philosophy is taught daily on our 28-day course, and it comes up naturally in the daily classes too. What is Vedanta gives the wider philosophical background.

Common questions

What are the yamas and niyamas?

The first two limbs of Patanjali’s eight-limbed yoga. The five yamas are ahimsa, satya, asteya, brahmacharya and aparigraha. The five niyamas are saucha, santosha, tapas, svadhyaya and ishvara pranidhana.

Why do the yamas come before the postures?

Because the aim of yoga is a steady mind, and guilt, dishonesty and constant wanting keep the mind busy. Patanjali places ethical practice first so that posture, breath and meditation have something to rest on.

What does brahmacharya mean for ordinary people?

For monks it means celibacy. For householders it is usually read as moderation of the senses: not letting appetite and distraction consume the energy that practice and ordinary responsibilities need.

How do you practise the yamas and niyamas?

Take one at a time. Observe it for a week without trying to fix anything, then make one small concrete change, and notice what it does to your practice. Working on all ten at once turns them into a scoresheet.