“The Yamas & Niyamas: Exploring Yoga’s Ethical Practice” by Deborah Adele is a guide to understanding and integrating the ethical principles of yoga into daily life. The book focuses on the first two limbs of the Eightfold Path of Yoga: the Yamas and Niyamas. These principles serve as guidelines for ethical living and are foundational to the practice of yoga beyond the physical postures.
Overview of the Yamas and Niyamas:
- Yamas: These are ethical disciplines that govern how we interact with the world around us.
- Ahimsa (Non-Violence): Emphasizes compassion towards oneself and others.
- Satya (Truthfulness): Encourages honesty in words, thoughts, and actions.
- Asteya (Non-Stealing): Focuses on respecting others’ rights and property.
- Brahmacharya (Non-Excess): Advocates for moderation and self-control, particularly in the context of desires.
- Aparigraha (Non-Possessiveness): Encourages letting go of greed and the need for control.
- Niyamas: These are personal observances that guide our relationship with ourselves.
- Saucha (Purity): Involves maintaining cleanliness of body, mind, and surroundings.
- Santosha (Contentment): Encourages finding contentment in the present moment and with what one has.
- Tapas (Self-Discipline): Focuses on cultivating willpower and resilience through disciplined practices.
- Svadhyaya (Self-Study): Involves self-reflection and the study of spiritual texts to understand oneself better.
- Ishvara Pranidhana (Surrender): Encourages surrender to a higher power or the flow of life, accepting what is beyond one’s control.
Key Themes:
- Integration of Ethics in Daily Life: The book emphasizes that these ethical principles are not merely philosophical concepts but are meant to be lived and practiced in everyday situations.
- Self-Reflection and Growth: Adele encourages readers to reflect on their own lives, behaviors, and thoughts, and to use the Yamas and Niyamas as tools for personal growth and transformation.
- Practical Application: The author provides practical examples, exercises, and reflections at the end of each chapter to help readers apply the principles in their own lives.
Overall, “The Yamas & Niyamas” is a resource for anyone interested in yoga, mindfulness, or personal development, offering wisdom and practical advice on how to live a more ethical and fulfilling life.
Definitely a great book to gift as well!
Sure enough, I randomly open the book and the very first things I see are quotes by Howard Thurman, and Joseph Campbell. Which was an unexpected blessing indeed.
The structure of this book goes through the yoga tenets of observances and restraints and gives us explanations with active engaging weekly exercises to dive deeper. I appreciate this multi-faceted approach that uses modern theologians and connections to breath life into ancient principles.
I am glad I have perceptive friends with great recommendations. This is indeed an excellent book and will encourage any yogi/yogini along their journey. Namaste
I keep coming back to this book, years after my first read, to refresh concepts, ideas and principles of the practice. I feel thankful for this wonderful book.
I found her self studies useful and relevant, and they are an excellent tool to practice the principal's in this book to deepen your practice.
"a set of guidelines" to live by on a daily basis.
A great book. I thoroughly enjoyed it!
What impressed me most about Deborah Adele's approach to providing her audience a better understanding of these 2 limbs was the heart-felt and natural manner she explained the various concepts from her own life experience, and how she also offered to provide a way of practically incorporating these into our day-to-day life with some hands-on questions and exercises to ask ourselves along the way. Some of the illustrations are so intricate, they could be called brilliant. This is especially the case for the Ahimsa section (Non-Violence). It was quite an eye-opener to gain further understanding of how humans can be violent towards themselves and each other on a very, very subtle level. This is a wonderful book for the yogi/ini and non-practitioner alike and provides a non-dogmatic, non-religious guide to a more ethical way of thinking in these Modern times. Highly Recommended!
This book is beautifully written and easy to comprehend. After reading the first chapter, I was so inspired that I ordered five more copies to donate to my local yoga studio for students to borrow. I hope to continue to bring these principles to my practice of yoga on and off the mat.
This book is a concise edition of the ancient yoga sutras of the great Hindu saint, Patanjali.
So far this is one of the most comprehensive books that explains yamas and niyamas. If I had to make recommendations to yoga teachers and students on how to learn more about these limbs, this book would be the first one i would mention to them. I am currently studying to be a yoga teacher and I have used this book for supplemental reading. I intend to keep it with me and carry it always. It has the most amazing examples and quotations from both eastern and western thinkers and intellectuals. This is a kind of life I want to live and ideally I would like to surround myself with people who practice the same rules of ethics.
Take for instance, Adele's chapter on Satya (truthfulness, honesty). It is a work of art in its own right, offering the wisdom and clarity one needs to liberate powerful forces within oneself. In this chapter, Adele includes the sensible yet unusual insights of Carl Jung, Yogiraj Achala, and Mahatma Gandhi, among others, along with her own hands-on understanding. In the process, Adele addresses, for all of us, the fear (dangerousness) involved with being completely truthful, the differences between "Nice" and "Real," the epic partnership between truth (satya) and nonviolence (ahimsa), and the value of conducting our own Gandhi-esque "experiments" in truth.
There is so much more to this chapter than the glimpse I've given here, but I hope I've communicated the fact that this chapter (and the book as a whole) has great depth and breadth. It is evident that Adele has immersed herself in the yamas and niyamas, emerging with lessons, teachings, and insights that could be of value to anyone. Highly recommended. I learned plenty.
The author's website provides lots of useful supplementary material, including some excellent video overviews, radio interviews and discussions. I liked the fact that Adele SOUNDED like a gentle, wise, effective person.
I confess that I have a bias here. I believe that my own life has been influenced, and even transformed, whenever I've aligned with the yamas and niyamas over the last 15+ years. And as a result, I was in the process of writing my own (first) book on this long-neglected topic, emphasizing how it relates to progress in psychotherapy. Well, I still think there's a future in that book! Suffice it to say that I share the author's enthusiasm for her topic.
First up in our course we laid the foundations, which is the studying of the Yamas and the Niyamas. I loved them, they made total sense to me. What a great set of guides to help you steer your life.
However, my notes didnt go deep enough for me. So I googled Yamas and Niyamas and found this book.
WOW. Its a wonderful read for anyone, even if they arent studying. I love how she expanded on Ahimsa, non violence. It runs so much deeper than I imagined. I used to be a "rescuer" when my friends were in trouble, now I can see how what I was doing wasnt helping them and how I can support them on their path.
Deborah, thank you for writing such an awesome book. Children should study these guides in school!
No 1 fan, Sara