The Royal Path to Union - The first branch of yoga - Yama

The Royal Path to Union

In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. 

—Mahatma Gandhi

Your body is a field of molecules. Your mind is a field of thoughts. Underlying and giving rise to your body and your mind is a field of consciousness—the domain of spirit. To know yourself as an unbounded spirit disguised as a body/mind frees you to live with confidence and compassion, with love and enthusiasm. To remove the veils that hide the deepest layers of your being, Maharishi Patanjali elaborated the eight branches of yoga—Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi. They are sometimes referred to as the eight limbs (asthanga) of yoga, but they are not to be seen as sequential stages. Rather, they serve as different entry points into an expanded sense of self through interpretations, choices, and experiences that remind you of your essential nature. These are the components of Raja yoga, the royal path to union. Let’s review each of them in some detail.

The First Branch of Yoga—Yama

Yama is most commonly translated as the “rules of social behavior.” They are the universal guidelines for engaging with others. The Yamas are traditionally described as

1. practicing nonviolence

2. speaking truthfully

3. exercising appropriate sexual control

4. being honest

5. being generous

All spiritual and religious traditions encourage people to live ethical lives. Yoga agrees but concedes that living a life in perfect harmony with your environment is difficult from the level of morality—through a prescribed set of shoulds and should-nots. Patanjali describes the yamas as the spontaneously evolutionary behavior of an enlightened being. If you recognize that your individuality is intimately woven into the fabric of life—that you are a strand in the web of life—you lose the ability to act in ways that are harmful to yourself or others. You adhere to the rules of social conduct because you are behaving from the level of spontaneous right action. This state of behaving in accordance with natural law is called Kriya Shakti. Although the Sanskrit words kriya and karma both mean “action,” kriya is action that does not generate reaction, as opposed to karma, which automatically generates proportionate consequences. There are no personal consequences when you are acting from the level of Kriya Shakti because you do not generate any resistance. People sometimes describe this state as being “in the flow” or “in the zone.” Acting from this level of your soul, you are incapable of being violent because your whole being is established in peace. This is the essence of the first Yama, known in Sanskrit as ahimsa. Your thoughts are nonviolent, your words are nonviolent, and your actions are nonviolent. Violence cannot arise because your heart and mind are filled with love and compassion for the human condition. Mahatma Gandhi championed the principle of nonviolence in the independence movement of India from Britain. He said, “If you express your love in such a manner that it impresses itself indelibly upon your socalled enemy, he must return that love . . . and that requires far greater courage than delivering of blows.” 

The second Yama is truthfulness, or satya. Truthfulness derives from a state of being in which you are able to distinguish your observations from your interpretations. You accept the world as it is, recognizing that reality is a selective act of attention and interpretation. Recognizing that truth is different for different people, you commit to lifesupporting choices that are aligned with an expanded view of self. Patanjali described truth as the integrity of thought, word, and action. You speak the sweet truth and are inherently honest because truthfulness is an expression of your commitment to a spiritual life. The short-term benefits of distorting the truth are outweighed by the discomfort that arises from betraying your integrity. Ultimately you recognize truth, love, and God to be different expressions of the same undifferentiated reality.

Brahmacharya, the third Yama, is often translated as“celibacy.” We believe this is a limited view of this yama. The word is derived from achara, meaning “pathway,” and brahman, meaning “unity consciousness.” In Vedic society, people traditionally chose one of two paths to enlightenment—the path of the householder and the path of a renunciate. For those choosing the path of a monk or a nun, the path to unity consciousness naturally includes forsaking sexual activity. For the vast majority of people choosing the householder path, brahmacharya means rejoicing in the healthy expression of sexual energy. One interpretation of the word charya is “grazing,” suggesting that brahmacharya connotes partaking of the sacred as you are engaged in your daily life. The essential creative power of the universe is sexual, and you are a loving manifestation of that energy. Seeing the entire creation as an expression of the divine impulse to generate, you celebrate the creative forces. Brahmacharya means aligning with the creative energy of the cosmos. Ultimately, as your soul makes love with the cosmos, your need to express your sexuality may be supplanted by a more expanded expression of love.

The fourth Yama, asteya, or honesty, means relinquishing the idea that things outside yourself will provide you security and happiness. Asteya is being established in a state of nongrasping. Lack of honesty almost always derives from fear of loss—loss of money, love, position, power. The ability to live an honest life is based upon a deep connection to spirit. When inner fullness predominates, you lose the need to manipulate, obscure, or deceive. Honesty is the intrinsic state of a person living a life of integrity. According to yoga, life-supporting, evolutionary behaviors are the natural consequence of expanded awareness.

The fifth Yama, generosity, or aparigraha, derives from the shift in internal reference from predominantly ego-based to predominantly spirit-based. A yogi who knows that his essential nature is nonlocal spontaneously expresses generosity in every thought, word, and action. Constricted awareness reinforces limitations. Expanded awareness generates abundance consciousness. This Yama implies the absence of aversion. Established in aparigraha, your attachment to the accumulation of material possessions loses its hold on you. It doesn’t mean you don’t enjoy the world; you are simply not imprisoned by it. The practice of yoga, which cultivates expanded awareness, awakens generosity because nature is generous.

The Seven Spiritual Laws of Yoga - Deepak Chopra, David Simon