Stumbling into Yoga Philosophy After Neglecting a Daily Practice, Unknowingly Introduced to the Five Yamas Via Ahimsa
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You know that feeling after a long week, where you sit down, and your entire body becomes one with your couch?
That was me last night.
I’m settling into a new routine of doing work for March First Media after getting home from my day job. Content creation is genuinely so much fun, and adding that component to my nightly routine has made me understand the importance of time management.
But last night, my body and mind were like, “Nah. You need to just sit down and not move.” So I decided to take a night off, allowing myself to unplug and pause.
After dinner, I put on the next episode of Inventing Anna, relishing getting pulled into the twists and turns of the Netflix true-crime drama.
But then, the backache I’d been dealing with for the past few weeks started to intensify.
“When I see you next week, I will have done yoga three times!” I promised my chiropractor before leaving my appointment on Wednesday. It had been two weeks since I did a proper flow, and about a month since my daily yoga practice turned into a once or twice a week commitment.
That decrease in dedication manifested in my increased back and hip pain – and visits to the chiropractor.
As the Netflix episode continued and my body began to grow achier and achier, I started picturing myself doing a yoga flow, imagining the feeling of energy releasing down my spine as I moved from cat-cow to downward dog. Visualizing those familiar and renewing movements made my back cry out for them.
I quickly stopped Netflix and switched to Yoga with Adriene’s channel on YouTube, picking one of the first videos suggested, unrolling my mat in anticipation.
The video I selected was “Ahimsa Yoga.”
While I wasn’t sure what the practice would entail, the pose pictured in the thumbnail looked like it would soothe my back; so I hit play.
As I said, my daily practice had lapsed. It had been a few weeks since I set aside the time to check in with myself through yoga – which forces me to sit with whatever feelings and emotions I’m grappling with, making it so I can’t run away from my inner world.
When I settled into the first pose, I felt my throat catch. My heart warmed as I focused on my breath, allowing the full range of emotions to rise and release.
By the end of those 35 minutes, my aching back, hips and soul thanked me.
I was able to stretch and crack my body in ways that brought tears of relief to my eyes, and I worked through emotions I didn’t know I was carrying.
I felt clear, shifting from exhaustion to calmness.
While I’ve experienced the transformative effects of yoga many times over, this practice felt different. “What is ahimsa yoga?” I thought, grabbing my phone to do a quick Google search.
Unknowingly, I had stumbled upon the very foundation on which yoga is built.
In the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (regarded as the basis of yoga philosophy written in roughly 400 C.E.), the definition of yoga is the ceasing of the fluctuations of the mind – the active quieting of our conditioned, repetitive and swirling thoughts, desires, analysis and judgments.
In the Sutras, Patanjali (an Ancient Indian sage) laid out the Eight Limbed Path of Yoga as the tools that allow us to control the swings of our minds, calling us to live a meaningful and purposeful life.
The Eight Limbed Path of Yoga is as follows.
The Five Yamas
The Five Niyamas
Asana
Pranayama
Pratyahara
Dharana
Dhyana
Samadhi
The five yamas are the moral, ethical and societal guidelines that yogis strive to live by.
The yoga flow I selected was the first of the five yamas, a not-so-subtle reminder from the Universe that it was time to renew my dedication to a daily yoga practice; that the benefits of regular flows extend far beyond the roughly 30 minutes a day I spend on the mat.
Ahimsa is the practice of non-violence toward oneself and all living creatures. The first yama calls for an attitude of universal benevolence. It’s the spontaneous expression of the highest form of love and the complete absence of violence from mind, body and spirit.
On the surface, ahimsa seems like an easy concept to achieve – just be nice, don’t hurt anyone - human or beast. But it goes deeper than that.
For us to truly master ahimsa, we must first be non-violent with ourselves.
Are we?
How do you speak to yourself in your mind? Do you look in the mirror, and the first thing you notice is perceived “flaws?” Are you constantly feeling like you’re not enough or aren’t worthy of good things? Are you keeping yourself hostage in old patterns and conditions from your childhood because, “That’s just how it’s always been?” Do you have “you” time?
Are you actually allowing yourself to heal?
Ahimsa calls on us to recognize the violence we impose on ourselves — overtly and inadvertently. It asks us to be kind and loving, to treat ourselves the way we know we should treat others.
So it was no wonder I felt relieved and renewed after completing my practice last night. I had unconsciously (subconsciously?) picked a flow that forced me to take a moment and practice true self-love, finally bringing my mind, body and soul into alignment after a few weeks of self-neglect.
After bowing and uttering the words “Namaste,” I walked over to the couch and started crafting this post, something which, an hour earlier, I had zero inspiration or motivation to do.
Allowing myself that time to rest and recharge created the space for these words to flow, and undeniably proved the power of ahimsa.
