23
Yoga — The Inner Technology
before this →Sāṅkhya & Yoga — The Map and the Method
The last practice is the one turned inward. Yoga is not stretching; it is a precise discipline for separating the seer from what is seen. Patañjali gives eight limbs.
1–2
yama · niyama — conduct and restraint — the ethical floor
3–4
āsana · prāṇāyāma — the body settled, the breath regulated
5
pratyāhāra — the senses withdrawn from their objects
6–7
dhāraṇā · dhyāna — attention held, then continuous
8
samādhi — absorption — the seer rests in its own form
Listening, thinking, seeing
śravaṇa · manana · nididhyāsana
Across the schools the method recurs: hear the teaching from a living voice (śravaṇa), reason it through until no doubt remains (manana), then dwell in it until it is not a proposition but a state (nididhyāsana).
the whole landscape in one methodThis is why the tradition is
oral, why it demands a guru, and why it ends in direct knowing rather than assent. The
instrument is the person, refined.
ŚRAVAṆAhearing — the teaching enters
MANANAreflecting — doubt is worked out
NIDIDHYĀSANAdwelling — knowing becomes being
introduces →aṣṭāṅga-yogaprāṇāyāmadhyānasamādhiśravaṇa