After-Class Questions: Eight Limbs, a Blank Mind, and "Rules"
During the closing minutes of a 60-minute Hatha class, three students raise questions. One says: "My doctor told me yoga is just stretching with breathing - so why do you talk about eight limbs and chant at the start?" A second says: "In the last five minutes I felt completely blank, like I wasn't there. Was that the goal?" A third, who has recently left a strict religious community, says she is uncomfortable with the yamas because she was raised with rules and does not want another set of commandments. You have ten minutes and the rest of the class is still in the room, mats half-rolled.
1. Explain the eight limbs accurately and show which of them were actually touched in the class they have just done, in language a beginner can follow.
Read the worked answer
Patanjali's Ashtanga Yoga is set out in Yoga Sutra 2.29 as eight limbs (anga = limb, not step): yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana, samadhi. "Eight limbs" is the right image - they are held simultaneously, like the limbs of a body, not eight rungs you finish and leave behind. Hatha is a different lineage with a different emphasis: the Hatha Pradipika organises practice around asana, pranayama, mudra and bandha (with shatkarma cleansing in the second chapter) as a route through the body to the same meditative end.
What they actually did in 60 minutes:
- Yama and niyama - present in how the class was conducted: not competing with the neighbour (asteya, non-stealing applies to other people's range), not forcing a pose (ahimsa towards oneself), cleanliness of the mat (shaucha).
- Asana - the bulk of the class: sthira sukham asanam, Yoga Sutra 2.46, a steady and comfortable seat, which was the point of the alignment cues.
- Pranayama - the counted breathing in the last ten minutes, and the regulation of breath that ran throughout.
- Pratyahara - the withdrawal of attention from the room's noise towards the felt sense of the body, which is why the eyes were closed at the end.
- Dharana, dhyana, samadhi - touched only in glimpses; they are not manufactured by a 60-minute class, but the settling at the end is the doorway.
Say plainly: the doctor is not wrong - the physical practice is real and measurable. The limbs simply explain why the stretching is arranged the way it is.
2. A student reports feeling "completely blank, like I wasn't there". How do you distinguish that from the goal, and what do you tell her?
Read the worked answer
Yoga Sutra 1.2 defines yoga as chitta vritti nirodhah - the settling of the fluctuations of the mind. The key word is settling, not blankness, and the test is quality of awareness afterwards, not absence of content during.
Likely dullness (tamas/laya): she cannot recall the breath or the body, she feels heavy, foggy or sleepy, her head nodded, she lost the room. She may have drifted into hypnagogic sleep. That is not nirodhah; it is the classic trap of a long savasana in a warm room after a working day.
Likely genuine settling: she was relaxed and alert, she could hear sounds without following them, the breath was quiet, time passed oddly, and she came out calm and clear rather than groggy.
What to tell her:
- "Blank can be two different things. If you were sleepy and foggy, that is rest and it is not a failure - but it is not the goal either; next time keep the breath slightly more present and stay upright a little more."
- "The instruction is not to empty the mind. It is to stop being pulled around by every thought. Thoughts will still come; noticing them arrive is the practice."
- "Pratyahara means the senses turn inward - you still hear the room, you simply do not chase it. That is what you are training; the blankness is not the target."
- Practical fix: shorter savasana, sit rather than lie if she is sleep-deprived, eyes slightly open, and attention on the exhale.
3. How do you answer the student who does not want "another set of commandments" about the yamas, without diluting the teaching?
Read the worked answer
Take her objection seriously and reframe accurately. The yamas are five restraints - ahimsa (non-harming), satya (truthfulness), asteya (not taking what is not given), brahmacharya (moderation in sensual life, often read as fidelity/continence) and aparigraha (non-possessiveness) - and they are described in the sutras as mahavratam, a great vow, universal and not limited by birth, place, time or circumstance (YS 2.31). So I should not pretend they are optional lifestyle preferences when the text calls them universal. What I can honestly say is what they are not.
They are not:
- Commandments handed down by an authority who punishes. There is no enforcement mechanism; they are described as practices that reduce suffering, and Patanjali's framework is about cause and effect in one's own mind. The consequences of breaking them are experienced internally, not imposed externally.
- A gate you must pass before practising asana. They sit alongside asana as limbs of one body; you work on them at the same time, imperfectly, for years.
- A demand for perfection. Ahimsa in a yoga class can begin as simply not forcing your hamstring - a small, concrete, testable act, not a purity code.
Also acknowledge the personal history: "your discomfort is information, not a problem to argue away. Many people have been hurt by rule systems. Read the yamas as a description of how a settled mind behaves, and test them against your own experience rather than accepting them on authority."
Then hand it back practically: one yama for one week - aparigraha on the mat, meaning not grabbing for the deepest pose - and let her report what she noticed. That keeps the teaching intact and gives her agency, which is precisely what a rule-based upbringing took away.