The Other Seven Limbs

How the Western World Dismembered the Ancient Practice of Yoga and What You Can Do About It…

Contrary to Popular Belief Yoga is Not a Sequence of Postures

Have you ever said to someone, “I’d like you to come to a yoga class with me this week,” and they responded by saying, “Oh no, I can’t move my body like that!” In the United States, when the average person pictures the practice of Yoga, they typically picture a system of exercises performed with the body. In fact, more often than not, they imagine a fit and attractive person, usually a woman, in their 20’s in form-fitting stretch clothes performing these postures. Yoga is now most readily associated with a set of physical positions that flow to and from one another, but that’s not what the word Yoga actually means, nor is it what the practice is actually directed toward.

The word yoga means, literally, union or to yoke. (And saying so has become a kind of a cliche in our yoga studios.) But, what is Yoga? According to the great saint Patanjali, responsible for originally capturing the science and process of Yoga in a single piece of text, the Yoga Sutras, somewhere between 500 CE and 300 BCE, Yoga is the gradual and comprehensive stilling of our mind. In Sutra 1.2 Patanjali says that Yoga is the cessation or stilling of mental modifications or ripples and fluctuations of thought. What’s meant by “modifications” is anything that takes your mind away from peace, stillness, and a stable sense of tranquility. In Book 2 of the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali says that the practice of yoga is actually made up of three completely interdependent practices; self-discipline or austerity, the study of the nature of the self and spiritual text written by others who had studied the nature of the self, and last, practicing an attitude of surrender to a higher will in the living of one’s life. So, while there’s nothing wrong with the yoga that we practice in the Western world, and it does challenge the mind in many ways, in just a few sentences it is likely already clear that we are missing a little bit of context for our practice, isn’t it? There is a whole body of practices, coming from the roots of Yoga and it’s other seven limbs, which our understanding of Yoga as an exercise system essentially bypasses.

So, we want to take a look at the implications of the Western World’s dismembering the limbs of Yoga from one another. And, consistent with values from some of the other limbs of Yoga, we want to do that reflectively and non-judgmentally. So, we’re going to start with the separation of Asana from the other Seven Limbs of Yoga because it’s one of the most prevalent today. This is important to explore because it has pivotal implications for how we as Human People understand and handle non-native ideas or rituals which reach us in the fast-globalizing world. Developing an attitude of humility and responsibility towards any kind of “practices from the other” also has huge benefits for our personal lives- both generally in life, and specifically in the context of the fullness of the philosophy of Yoga.

When I initially began practicing yoga, I thought of it as a physical well-being and fitness practice. But upon further study into the sacred texts that first delineated what Yoga is and texts from those modern teachers like B.K.S. Iyengar and Sri Swami Satchidananda, who continued to teach from the original oral lineages of Yoga, I discovered more and more references to the aim of Yoga being a spiritual one, whose purpose is to become at peace with oneself and the unity of all things. This was a turn in understanding for me because up until that point, I’d done Yoga to get fit, because “Yoga”, in my mind, was a series of athletic postures, and that was that. But this misunderstanding occurred precisely because I had only ever been introduced to a single limb of Yoga- Asana, the physical postures- which, I later learned, was only one limb of the philosophy of Yoga which actually has 8 limbs. When I was studying “Asana”, it wasn’t presented as “Asana” but as “Yoga” itself.

As I began to study the 8 limbs of Yoga, I learned that the two which precede Asana are the Yamas and the Niyamas, and they are considered foundational to the other practices; the floor that would first be in place before someone began practicing Yoga Asanas. The five limbs that follow Asana are considered closer to the ultimate purpose of Yoga. They are Pranayama (breathwork), Pratyahara (turning inwards), Dharana (concentration), Dhyana (meditation), and Samadhi (Bliss). The 8 limbs create a beautiful pathway for exploring our physical daily life and our inner life. As yoga means “to yoke,” it makes sense that the 8 limbs would be an amazing, comprehensive system of exploring one’s whole being in different ways, in order to bring the different parts of ourselves under conscious and loving stewardship. Wouldn’t it?

So, why does it matter that we acknowledge the separation of Asana from the other Seven Limbs of the practice of Yoga? It’s a good question, because there is nothing inherently wrong with practicing Asana, and so much can be gained from it. Simply by its brilliant nature, it will address every level of our being and transform us, if we are open to it. It would be difficult, and even contrary to the ideals of yoga, to sit and point fingers and say “This is wrong.” But it is also a very important aspect of Yoga to practice awareness, and from an aware frame of mind, this isolation of Asana from the rest of Yogic philosophy is evident. Generally speaking, as human beings, when we grab onto something (from another culture or just a new idea to us in general) and fix it into our pre-existing understanding of the world, we color it with our own bias, saddle it with our belief systems, and often intentionally ignore it’s deeper origins, broader context, and new information it has to offer. This is appropriation. The severance of Asana from the other 7 limbs is one place to start practicing the awareness of where we might fall into the trap of doing this.

How Does Cultural Appropriation Play a Role in Yoga Today?

The term “cultural appropriation” is something we have only begun distinguishing in the last few decades and it’s pointing not only to the borrowing of another’s culture without the consent of its people but to the practice of borrowing certain desirable elements of another culture, only, and out of context. People want to adopt a sequence of postures that make their butt look firm but, I promise you, after a week in India, most people would not also want to take on the poverty and lack of infrastructure that really contributed to the creation of such a rich and powerful inner-practice. Part of being human and living within the human condition means that we are going to be excited by new things and want to take what we like and incorporate it into our own lives. It is also, as we pointed to earlier, a part of human conditioning to take new things we see and do our best to fit them inside of what we already know and understand. This is always going to diminish our understanding and our view of that thing. As they say, “the Dao that can be named is not the Dao.” It’s just that simple. This is the case for people all over the world and across all cultures. In the US, though, as a product of many of the privileges we enjoy, we have a unique way of settling for something that makes sense inside of what we already know, rather than doing the work to grasp ideas or realities that are beyond our understanding or beyond the barriers of boredom and/or confusion. It takes work to overcome these and work to understand something new.

“Yoga, like so many other colonized systems of practice and knowledge, did not appear in the American spiritual landscape by coincidence; rather, its popularity was a direct consequence of a larger system of cultural appropriation that capitalism engenders and reifies. While the (mis)appropriation of yoga may not be a life-threatening form of racism, it is a part of systemic racism nonetheless, and it is important to ask, what are the impetus for this cultural “grabbing”? In order to delve deeper into this question, it’s useful to look at the roots of U.S. white dominant culture, the foundation of which is rooted in the enslavement of West Africans and settler colonialism.”

It’s critically important to be mindful of the impact cultural appropriation has on the society from whom any aspect of a culture is appropriated, but also, the reality of cultural appropriation and the acknowledgment thereof is actually the largest access we have available to us to have an authentic relationship with and experience of ancient practices. And could, in many ways, be considered a very real privilege because it does take grist and it does sharpen us up in developing ourselves. Has anyone ever said something like this to you? “Take the case you’re actually ignorant about this.” Whether it be about this thing or that thing, taking the case that we are essentially ignorant, provides an opportunity to approach our practice and our study with humility and a beginner’s mind.

It’s also important to briefly touch on the distinction between appropriation and cultural exchange. Whenever a culture adopts a practice from another culture, the resulting thing is not actually in integrity with its origin. This is mostly inevitable, the cultural exchange happens, and in the overlay, we get many different colors that can be beautiful. But this fact that something from one place or tradition lands very differently in another, while it may not be avoidable, can always be acknowledged and honored. This is what makes the difference between exchange and appropriation. To clarify what that means, here is an example: If you are red, and you want to become blue, so you add blue to yourself, you do not become blue- you become purple. If you want to be truly blue, you have to first erase the red. This is not to say you must completely erase the red. Red is great. It is not always possible or even necessarily desirable to try to erase who you are because of your upbringing and culture. We all come from different places and are born into different lineages of thought and behavior. This is, however, to say that we have to be aware of our existing red, and be sensitive to the fact that our embrace of blue is really manifesting as purple. Purple can be a beautiful color, but it’s not blue. If we insist that purple is blue, this is appropriation. As we move through exploring the fullness of Yoga (or anything), then, we are accomplishing two things: One, the understanding and awareness of our own cultural programming and belief systems, and Second, the understanding of a new culture and practice. These are two immense and incredibly beautiful undertakings, and we must be aware that both are happening simultaneously. Back to our inclination in the US to not work to understand information outside what we already know and what is immediately accessible to us- We cannot just take up Yoga as it fits into our limited understanding from our “red” background. We cannot stop at our first understanding, or even very well our second. To take up Yoga is a great and constant journey of introspection, open-mindedness, self-honesty, compassion, reflection, imagination, and always being willing to ask the question: “what is this, truly?” No matter how long we’ve been practicing, or how much we think we know.

What we call appropriation is behavior that stems from a destructive Ethos, which is a way of moving through the world which is actually problematic across the board in life, not just concerning cultural appropriation. This destructive ethos, or the “Ethos of appropriation”, is possessive, grabbing, objectifying, lazy and closed-minded. Tamasic. So, anything that stops looking to broaden and deepen understanding is essentially this ethos of appropriation. Cultural exchange happens naturally and is beautiful cross-pollination of rituals, ideas, and values, which ideally makes all of us better. We all will always have our own culture and upbringing and things will naturally permeate from one to another — landing differently in a new culture than they were intended to in their culture of origin. It is impossible for it to then mean the same thing, or for the new culture to automatically understand the custom in its wholeness. This is ok, but the problems arise when people lose awareness of the fact that something they are interacting with came into the world on a different plane of sensibility, towards a different end, with a different context than they may understand it. The problems come when it is objectified, possessed, people, stake a claim over defining it, and stop learning about what it was in its original form.

In summary: 1.) It’s ok to interact with yoga from your own perspective and background in life, and 2.) It’s incredibly important to keep an awareness of its true origins, which are not immediately accessible to us, and always be working to understand and honor them.

Honor and Explore the Etymology (a short anecdote)

One of the ways western yogis are most complicit in dismembering the practice of Yoga is by settling for definitions of the Sanskrit language that “make sense to us” but are not the actual meanings of the words.

I’m going to share something with you from the very beginning of my studies… As a new Yoga student, I found myself going to classes because they felt good in my body. I didn’t particularly care about the teacher's style or lineage, although I grew to have strong preferences about both of those things.

When I was first introduced to yoga flows that moved sequentially from one posture to another, linking an in-breath to one movement and an out-breath to another, I heard a teacher say that “Vinyasa means to flow.” And, in my infinite wisdom, on that day, the word vinyasa became “to flow” in my mind.

Later, as I continued in my studies, I heard another teacher debunk this saying that we have come to relate to the word vinyasa like it refers to a particular style of yoga class that involves flowing from one posture to another but this isn’t what the word means at all. The word Vinyasa means to “link the breath with the movement.”

As a new Yoga teacher with a budding following, I thought that was fascinating so I started to share that little nugget with my classes, without having done any additional research on it.

Guess what? The word Vinyasa doesn’t mean either of those things. It means “to place in a special way.” Inside of that meaning, it could absolutely point to the special placement of one posture followed by another or the special attention and placement of the awareness onto the breath. So, how about that?

In a Yoga class today, it is customary to say “now, take your vinyasa” and if you’ve been practicing in certain traditions for any length of time, you now know that what you are being asked to do is to come into a Plank position, lower your body through Chaturanga, lift your chest into an Upward-Facing Dog and press your hips back into a Downward-Facing Dog. Now, when you are practicing and you hear someone say this flippantly, you can pause and reflect.

In Summation

As teachers and practitioners, what can we take from this?

1. Don’t lie. There is no need to make up the name of a posture. You can always say that you forgot. Or, if you want to make one up, just let your class know that’s what you’ll be doing. Sanskrit is a dead language. You don’t speak it and neither do the students in your class. Tell your students the truth about what you do know and what you don’t know. Think through things together and allow them to grapple with the language and ideas for themselves.
2. Research the etymology of words. I highly recommend doing this in English, too. It will allow you to say what you actually intend to in life, which will make your word more powerful and allow you to become a skillful manifestor. Notice where word-roots are the same and explore the history of the word. Khumbaka is a form of breath retention but the literal meaning of the word is “pot” — Wow! How amazing is that? Doesn’t that just give you a whole world about the thought and intention behind this form of breath retention?
3. Dwell in questions about yoga for a long time. Dwell in questions about yoga for a long time. Maybe for a whole week. In the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, we explore the principals of Abhyasa and Vairagya. Or committed practice and non-attachment. The author breaks down that this practice of persistent effort must take place for a long time, and travel ever deeper but that it must be accompanied by a posture of letting go of the many attachments and aversions that afflict the mind in the process. There is no reason that living in the present era should keep us from dwelling on the same questions in the same fashion as the great saints and sages of any major spiritual movement have.
4. Practice and keep a Beginner’s Mind. Last but certainly not least. We’ve mentioned the importance of a beginner’s mind several times already, because the key quality of the beginner’s mind is open, which, as we’ve said, is the most effective quality in avoiding the close-minded ethos of appropriation. To support ourselves in cultivating a beginner’s mind, it’s helpful to remember Jon Kabat Zinn’s pillars of Mindfulness. Zinn is considered one of the initial prominent voices of Mindfulness in the West, and he suggests that in pursuit of a Beginner’s Mind, it is helpful to cultivate and practice non-judgment and patience. This makes a ton of sense, because in order to keep an open mind, a beginner’s mind, we have to be able and willing to accept new information from outside of us or within us, that we may find uncomfortable in some way. Only without judgment can we receive new information that may challenge how we previously thought about something. If we do not develop non-judgment, we tend to close our minds and remain attached to old ways of thinking, because we feel threatened by something that appears to challenge previously held beliefs. Second, of course, is patience. There is no end to what there is to discover, and impatience will cause us to rush to conclusions, hoard knowledge, and constantly end-gain, trying to “get there already” with everything there is to know. Developing patience allows us to appreciate the journey, and practice a gentle, curious, wandering mind that always accepts that it is going to learn something new. Practiced together, non-judgment and patience help us keep a beginner’s mind, which is so essential to the ever-ongoing journey of learning, honoring, and practicing Yoga!

*This article was co-authored by Sarah Sherman and Ashley Straw of the Flow and Restore Collective.