What are the Niyamas and How Do They Relate to Your Personal Practice? | iHanuman

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What are the Niyamas and How Do They Relate to Your Personal Practice?

Sauca santosa tapah svadhyaya isvarapranidhanani niyamah

Cleanliness, contentment, religious zeal, self-study and surrender of the self to the supreme Self or God are the niyamas.”(II.32, iyengar)

Sauca – cleanliness - I tend to be regular and routine about showering, practicing yoga, meditation and pranayama, eating whole local organic foods, breathing clean air, drinking clean water and maintaining the small farm where we live to nurture the environment which sustains us. The yoga sutra promise that “cleanliness of body and mind develops disinterest with others for self-gratification.” And that we keep the body “pure and clean out of respect for the dweller within”. (ii.40)

Santosha – Contentment is finally beginning to come into focus for me. I spent much of my life in my twenties wishing I were someone else, wishing I lived somewhere else, wishing I knew something else; full of fear and anxiety. Through committing to our land, committing to my husband, committing to my practice and way of life, I have finally begun to find santosha. Now I try to practice every day, giving thanks for who I am and all of the abundance that surrounds me.

Mr. Iyengar defines, tapah, as religious zeal, or a burning desire in sutra ii.32, but he later defines tapah as self –discipline in sutra ii.43, and that “ahimsa cannot exist without tapas…it is a burning inner zeal and austerity, a sort of unflagging hardness of attitude towards oneself which makes possible compassion and forgiveness towards others.” I can only begin relate to this sense of austerity and I believe this area of my practice can grow stronger.

Svadhyaya, self-study, is a constant practice and I believe I am again moving more out of the time of life of an almost complete self-centered focus in my twenties and early thirties, to a more concentrated time of contemplation on my self in relation to my role in the greater universe and my relation to my understanding of God. Reading texts and scriptures is an integral part of this practice. I try to read something from a spiritual text every day as part of my morning meditation practice and then work to practice those principles in my daily life on and “off the mat.”

Isvara-pranidhana , Surrender to God, is probably the most challenging of all of the niyamas for me as I was not brought up with any religion and have chosen to formulate my own understanding of God. When I began my practice of yoga and meditation in my early 20s, was the start of my journey towards this, but only more recently have I even attempted small glimpses of surrendering myself to my conception of God.  

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