Going deeper in your yoga practice - Īśvarapraṇidhāna

To offer more yogic knowledge, in conjunction with Lisa at Yoga Loft Carrickfergus, we have asked our teachers to write short articles about the yamas and niyamas. 
They are the first two limbs of the eightfold path of yoga described by Patanjali in the yoga sutras. These are fundamental concepts offering ethical and moral guidelines to yogis.

Īśvarapraṇidhāna by Patricia Lübeck

Who - or what - holds the weight of your deepest joys and your deepest grief? What is your relationship with both, discipline and devotion?

The fifth niyama, Īśvara Praṇidhāna, invites us into these questions.
The first time it appears in the Yoga Sūtras, Patañjali has already spent twenty-two sūtras describing a disciplined path towards stilling the mind, full of sustained practice and non-attachment.

Then, almost unexpectedly, he writes:
I.23 ईश्वरप्रणिधानाद्वा
īśvara-praṇidhānād vā
Or, through surrender to Īśvara.

That tiny word, vā, meaning or, is fascinating to me. Patañjali doesn't necessarily say one is better, in fact they may both immensely benefit from one another. He simply says one can do all of this, OR, just that. Between us, I don’t think this second path is any easier than the previous one. Just more succinct.

The Sanskrit praṇidhāna is often translated as surrender. It also carries the sense of dedicating, entrusting, or intentionally placing something into the care of another. This idea extends beyond simply putting down our burdens into an offering to something larger than ourselves.
Who or what that ‘something larger’ – or īśvara - is, is left beautifully open beyond some philosophical characteristics. I like that a lot.

There is a part in the Bhagavad Gītā where Arjuna is reluctant to step onto the battlefield. He wants to walk away but Krishna offers another path: Neither run away, nor to move forward thinking all outcomes are resting on his shoulders alone.

I have experienced much grief and trauma in my life, yet I don't think I truly understood this until I miscarried my babies. Feeling so utterly helpless, I knew there was nothing medicine could do to change what was happening.

I chose to stay home. There were flowers and hands squeezing my hips through each wave. It was not the birth I had imagined, but it was full of the mother I had hoped to be.
I can only describe it as desperately beautiful.

Patricia

Thank you Patricia.
You can find our other articles about the Yamas and Niyamas in the "features" page our this website.
You can find Patricia's profile here if you want to keep on exploring our website.