Y A M A   A N D    N I Y A M A    -    T H E    H I N D U    C O M M A N D M E N T S

The truth that reflects the Ultimate reality does not represent the exclusive possession of
one person, group, or spiritual system. God revealed this Supreme Truth to certain human
beings, whom transmitted them to humanity orally or in the form of writings, according to
the needs, temperament, level of consciousness and the degree of development of mankind
in a certain moment.

The divine messengers (named saints, sages, prophets, or initiates), regardless of the
geographic space or religion, have enounced certain rules (guiding principles, or
commandments), which allow human beings to feel and manifest the Universal Harmony,
when respected.

Thus, in the West there are the Ten Commandments, while in the East there are the Ten
Rules of the ethical and moral plan (Yama and Niyama in the Hindu tradition). Such guiding
rules are characteristic to any spiritual path.

It is not a coincidence that in each case, there are ten such commandments, and nor that
the inducement of these commandments is essentially identical, expressed only with a
language specific to each civilization and tradition. This identity is based on the fact that
behind these laws there is something unique and everlasting - God.

In the Hindu tradition, we may distinguish two

categories within these "Ten Commandments": the
first five commandments make up the Moral Plan (in
Hindu terminology Yama) and the other five - the
Ethical Plan (Niyama).

These divine rules favor a specific state of resonance

with the sublime energies in the Macrocosm, and
make the human being act in accordance with the
universal laws.

In any spiritual tradition, there is an important note

regarding the significance of reaching a state of
harmony in one's individual life, before moving on to more "advanced" techniques. Thus,
before moving on, the novice is recommended to observe the rules. In truth, when
observed, these rules may spontaneously lead to states of ecstasy.
However, these rules are respected also by other people besides those engaged in a
spiritual quest. To a certain degree, each human being observes at least partially some of
these rules. But the one who is consciously and actively trying to find his/her spiritual path
should try to transform them into inner convictions, into life-guidelines. Such an attempt
requires total commitment, aspiration, perseverance and courage.

Consequently, the first and most important stage is represented by harmony in one's
individual life, because this harmony is the foundation of the spiritual life. Regardless of the
body's harmony and vitality, regardless of the number of the techniques known and applied,
the seeker will not meet any spiritual progress until his/her behavior refines.

The Moral Code (in Hindu - YAMA) implies five rules of behavior in order to reach a state of
profound equilibrium with the other beings.

These five rules refer to the control of certain negative tendencies, frequently met in human
beings. These rules are mentioned in the secret oriental/eastern treaties as follows: non-
violence, truth, non-theft, sexual purity, non-possession.

The Personal Code (in the Hindu tradition - NIYAMA) is based on the idea that external rules
are sufficient for a truly deep transformation/change, and that the personality has to be
restructured through a personal code involving other five rules. They refer to the perfect
structure of our inner attitudes, emotions, and feelings. Consequently, they are rules of
individual discipline and allow to the person who observes them to reach a state of
equilibrium with one's own person and purpose in life.

The secret treaties mention them as follows: austerity, individual study, contentment,
physical and mental purity, complete devotion towards God.

It is important to understand that as long as we have not attained spiritual self-realization

yet, we will not be able to observe perfectly these rules. However, it is also important to try
constantly to observe them day by day.

Making from these guidelines a true day to day practice, a living "barometer" of our
presence and awareness in our actions, words and thoughts certainly improves our
perspective on ourselves, as well as on what man can be - that is a perfect divine being!
  Y A M A
P A R T   1

by Dinu Roman
(Yoga Teacher of NATHA)
 AHIMSA
The word AHIMSA is composed of "A" which means "no",
and "HIMSA" which means "violence, opposition".

AHIMSA is that inner quality which stops you to do any

harm to any living being through speech, thinking or
action.

AHIMSA imply the kindness not to torture and kill other

living beings, the profound respect and admiration for Life
in any form: plants, insects, animals, humans.

AHIMSA is much more than a request of not being violent.

It has the positive meaning of intense and detached love
for every living creature. Violence is born out of fear,
weakness, ignorance or restlessness.

For controlling violence is thus necessary to overcome these symptoms through a new,
superior attitude toward life and through reintegrating all your being into the Eternal
aspects of the Supreme Reality.

Every living creature has the same right to live in peace as you have and all beings should
respect that right. There are different levels of
violence and non-violence.

With a very bad motivation one can show a

kind attitude, the goal of which is to try to lead
us in the wrong direction. That attitude is the
worst kind of violence.

For a bad action done by others, people ask for

severe justice but for a bad action done by
themselves they beg for mercy and
forgiveness.

But the TANTRICS know that the superior man is the man of mea culpa (my fault)(realizing
in total honesty the effects of your own mistakes); the inferior man is the man of tua culpa
(your fault)(seeing other's mistakes only).

AHIMSA does not mean to tolerate or passively accept violence or evil. It means to resist
violence and evil, but with detachment and loving the person through which that evil
manifests.

This is the genuine attitude of Martial Arts, for instance. Repentance is more valuable that
severe punishment. Opposition to evil and love for the person who commits it can and must
coexist.
Resistance to evil without love leads to violence. Loving a person who commits evil, without
resisting that evil is madness. The battle is always won by he who fights with love.

AHIMSA imply also lack of unnecessary

criticism. It requests to respect other's views
and convictions, to listen to and approach with
an open mind ideas which are not identical with
your own, to respect other's right to think
differently and to believe on different values
that your own.

Besides AHIMSA, one should practice ABHAYA

(lack of fear) and AKRODHA (lack of anger).
When one relates permanently to the immortal
aspect of his being, there can be no more fear
or anger, only wisdom and beatitude.
   Y A M A
P A R T   2

2. SATYA
SATYA, or truthfulness, is the most important
rule in TANTRA. Mahatma Gandhi said: "Truth
is God and God is Truth." The Truth was and
still is highly respected and worshipped in
YOGA Tradition.

All human activities are based upon the spoken word and the person who dishonors the
spoken word by being dishonest can be considered a thief: he steals the Reality.

SATYA means that you should not say something that you know is false. It means also that
you should not lead others into error by making them believe that you know something
when you only presume. SATYA implies also not to make hurried judgements about
something you know superficially only.

SATYA is a very large concept. It requires to be fair play, to

behave rightly with everybody and to respect the truth in
thinking, in action and in speech. The true TANTRIC
consecrates his entire life to the Truth in its broadest sense.

This implies to think in the highest patterns and to relate to

everything that is superior, universally valid and in
accordance with the Cosmic Harmony.

Gurdjieff, the great Caucasian Initiate, said that lying is

thinking or speaking about things one does not know. It
does not mean intentional lying only.

If you collect all the theories that people put forward on any
given subject, without knowing anything about it or
knowing it superficially only, you will see where lying
begins.

Man does not know himself, he does not know anything, yet he has theories about
everything. Most of these theories are lying. The most serious lying is when we know
perfectly well that we do not and cannot know the truth about things and yet never act
accordingly.
We always act and think as if we knew the truth. This is lying. For instance, we know
nothing about ourselves, and we really know that we know nothing, yet we never recognize
or admit the fact; we never confess it even to ourselves, we act and think and speak as
though we knew who we are. This is the origin, the beginning of lying.

Therefore it is necessary to learn to tell the truth. This may seem strange. Most people think
that it is enough to want to tell the truth for being able to tell the truth. But it is relatively
rare that people say a deliberate lie.

In most of the cases, they think they say the truth. In spite of that, they lie all the time,
both themselves and the people around them. Saying the truth is the most difficult thing in
the world; it is necessary to study and practice a lot, for a long time, for becoming able, one
day, to say the truth.

The desire to tell the truth, alone, is not enough. For telling the truth, you must be able to
know what is true and what is false - most of all, inside yourselves.

Saying the truth is extremely difficult: before telling

the truth, you must know it through personal
experimentation, you must discover the truth about
yourself.

We can lie not through speech only but through

actions and attitudes also. To behave as if we did
something we did not or to pretend we have
achieved something that is still far away from us, is
lying.

Being dishonest with ourselves and/or emulating

(superficially imitating what we admire in others) is
not in accordance with SATYA.

Another aspect of SATYA was perfectly expressed

by Jesus: "Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not
throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn
and tear you to pieces." (Matthew 7:6)

In other words, the Truth (mainly as the Sacred Spiritual Teaching) must not be given
without discrimination to someone who does not appreciate it and recognize its value.

Sometimes the fantasy distorts the truth, with or without conscious intention. As a result,
we live in a world of dreams where we see the world as we would like it to be and not as it
is. From the YOGA point of view, this is a violation of SATYA due to a great superficiality in
thinking.
The sacred texts of the YOGA tradition say that the truth will be used to everybody's benefit
and not to destroy or harm the living beings. Even if you tell the truth but by doing so you
harm a living being, you commit a big mistake and you do not follow correctly SATYA,
violating in the same time AHIMSA.

The Great Sage VYASA said: "The wise man must first decide what is good for the living
beings and only after that he can speak, refraining from lying." As we saw above, in order
to tell and especially to impart the truth, it is imperiously necessary to realize that truth in
ourselves in the first place.

This is done through practical experimentation

of that truth. This is why the deepest and the
highest meaning of SATYA is the complete inner
transformation leading to the discovery of the
Eternal Inner Essence, the Immortal Spirit
(ATMA).

In accordance with our level of consciousness,

the truth becomes more complex. That which
you believed was true during childhood, reveals
to be false or unimportant when you reach the
mature age.

Nevertheless, that "truth" of childhood was

necessary and useful because through it you have discovered the real truth of the mature
age. This apply to the spiritual practice also. At the beginning, only small truths can be
given and received.

After the inner transformation, these small truths become unimportant aspects of a general
truth that you grasp now in its fullness. Lao Tze, the famous chinese Sage, said that
everything that can be said about the Supreme Truth becomes a lie when you reach it.
  Y A M A
P A R T   3
 3. ASTEYA
ASTEYA means "not stealing". This implies not to take
something that is not yours, to use something only the
way it is supposed to be used or the way it is permitted
to be used.

ASTEYA requires therefore lack of greed. Wishing

obsessively to have something that somebody else has,
even if it is necessary or valuable for us, leads to lack of
balance and unhappiness.

The Sage VYASA said: "ASTEYA is realized when the

yogi, free from any desire, refuses to take
possession of things that belong to others."

Therefore, if somebody wants obsessively something that

belon gs to another person and takes it, he is a thief. If
he does not take it, then it is not a thief but he doesn't follow ASTEYA either.

ASTEYA is when you do not take and do not desire something valuable that belongs to
another person. ASTEYA implies also to refrain from any
kind of injustice, to let everybody have exactly what he /
she deserves.

4. BRAHMACHARYA
BRAHMACHARYA means continence, refrain, retention.
In the TANTRIC vision, BRAHMACHARYA is realized
through the sublimation and transmutation of the sexual
energy, using it for psycho-mental and spiritual
purposes.

The secret here is to realize a perfect control over the

sexual energy but not through giving up sex but through
a plenary erotic activity in which the couple separates
orgasm from ejaculation and suspends ejaculation no
matter how long, intense of often the lovemaking.

The purpose of suspending ejaculation is double: to retain seminal fluid (conserve energy
and thus achieve higher states of sexual pleasure and fulfillment) and to transmute its
energy (achieve expanded levels of consciousness).

The most recent conclusions of modern sexology agree with traditional TANTRIC teachings.
Sexual therapists are now starting to encourage couples to focus more on the process of
lovemaking rather than the end result (ejaculation).
The secret treatise VIJNANA BHAIRAVA TANTRA says: "Stay with the (erotic) fire of the
beginning and avoid the poison of the end."

The satisfaction found in this way is

incomparably greater than having an
ejaculatory orgasm. The most revolutionary
conclusion of the sexual researches is that man
doesn't need to ejaculate at all when making
love to a woman.

The fundamental error couples make, due to

ignorance and bad habit, is to believe that
ejaculation and orgasm are one and the same
thing, that orgasm can be achieved through
ejaculation only and therefore ejaculation is the
peak pleasure for the couple.

Some women believe that if they are not capable of bringing their man to a powerful
ejaculation they are not sensual enough. There is nothing more false.

Stated with extreme simplicity, orgasm is an intense beatific state of consciousness and
canceling of ego, with profound harmonizing, relaxing and regenerative effects.

Male and female ejaculations are only complex physiologic processes of explosively
energetic discharge with dim manifestation of a brief, incipient orgasm, experienced in a
selfish unilateral way. During ejaculation the vital energy is quickly wasted for no purpose
(except, of course, when conception is wanted).

In this completely new and spiritual approach, sexuality

becomes a modality of self-knowledge and spiritual growth.
The extraordinary intensity of emotions felt in this way
transfigures both man and woman, revealing unknown
dimensions of their psyche.

Sexual union between two lovers which love deeply each

other becomes a modality of concentrating and directing
the consciousness' activity toward the Supreme Being.

Due to the enormous intensity of this union, the

consciousness of both lovers develop and fuse, at the
beginning between themselves and later with the Cosmic
Consciousness.

The indescribable beatitude then felt embraces all things

and beings. All that still subsists is a never-ending thirst for
Unity, only a Lover and a Loved-one.
5. APARIGRAHA
APARIGRAHA means "not to pile up". The meaning of this is not to accumulate that which
you don't really need, because this creates undesirable links, hindering the harmonious
development of the human being.

APARIGRAHA does not mean to be satisfied with little,

but to totally enjoy what you have, even if your
possessions are very modest.

The key here is to have full control over your

possessions and not to allow them to control you
through the greed or possessiveness that they may
create.

With the same happiness we enjoy physical, mental or

spiritual possessions, we should be able to give them
avay. Possess your things and inner qualities as if you
would not have them.

However, the material possessions are not an

impediment if you are perfectly detached, and this
does not mean indifferent but fully aware of the place
of those possessions in your life.
NIYAMA
P A R T   1
 1. SAUCHA
SAUCHA means cleanliness, purification. It
implies cleanliness of the body (both inside and
outside) and mental purification (eliminating
negative thoughts and mental agitation).

SAUCHA comprise six traditional techniques of

purification called SHAT KRIYAS.

An important factor of keeping the body and mind

clean is the diet. Know that meat brings a lot of
toxic substances into your system. Clean and
fresh food must be the rule for a health conscious
individual.

The
way
we
eat
can make a difference too. Chew very well,
focus your mind upon the sacred act of eating,
make it holy through your awareness about it.

2. SANTOSHA
SANTOSHA means "contentment". It is
imperiously necessary to accept with joy
whatever life offers here and now, without
uselessly spending energy living in the past or
fantasizing about the future.

This activities are most of the time useless and sterile. SANTOSHA is not fatalism but
focusing in the present and living it fully. It means opening toward the continuous
experimentation and clear perception of what is now:
the uniqueness of every moment.

SANTOSHA is loving the world the way it is. The fact

of being here and now reveals the greatest possible
ecstasy. Nothing of what exists in this world must be
changed: what must be really changed is your inner
attitude toward everything that surrounds you.

3. TAPAS
The word TAPAS is formed from the root "TAP" which
means "to burn", "to radiate", "to be consumed by
fire". Fire is the symbol for the ardent desire or for
the invincible will to achieve something.

However, this desire or will must be exerted in a

totally detached and patient manner, renouncing the
fruits (the results) of your actions (consecrating your
effort to the Supreme Cosmic Consciousness).
Therefore TAPAS implies an ardent effort directed toward a defined purpose. TAPAS is
realized through discipline and austerity, i.e. through a conscious and sustained effort to
resist all temptations and to overcome all obstacles that stand between you and your goal.

TAPAS is of three kinds:

 TAPAS of the body (KAYIKA), for example continence (BRAHMACHARYA), non-

violence (AHIMSA), fasting (once a week), etc.
 TAPAS of the speech: using words that are true and do not prejudice any living
being. A very special form of TAPAS of the speech is MAUNA - the silence.

MAUNA implies not to talk at all for a certain

period of time (one day or a few hours). A
superior level in MAUNA is mental silence, i.e.
keeping the mind totally quiet. MAUNA has
extremely beneficent effects, conserving
energy and sharpening the insight.

 TAPAS of the mind (MANASIKA): a perfect

peace of mind, effortless self-control, lack of
negative thoughts, removing pessimism.

TAPAS is very much related to will power. In YOGA

practice, TAPAS implies perseverance and daily
practice.

Some people start to practice YOGA and are

enthusiastic at the beginning but when some
obstacles appear they quit immediately. The avoiding
of discomfort is not a positive attitude, but a sign of
weakness.
   N I Y A M A
P A R T   2

4. SVAADHYAYA
"SVA" means "self" and "ADHYAYA" means "study through
contemplation". Therefore, SVAADHYAYA means "the study of
the self through contemplation".

This means both the study of the inner human Self and the study of the Objective Science
of the Whole (YOGA) which leads to the discovery of the Self.

This science includes all the authentic spiritual knowledge of

our planet. As a bee collects the nectar of many flowers, the
yogi should enrich himself with all the genuine truths of all
spiritual paths.

A continuous reading of, and sincere reflection upon the

traditional texts of Wisdom, prepares the way for
experimenting through personal practice the higher levels of
knowledge and awareness.

Contrary to the general opinion, these texts are not

philosophical points of view only, but practical instructions of
experimenting new states of mind.

Language is used as an explanatory inducement toward the

liberating experience. At the beginning, some of these texts
may seem to make no sense, especially to a westerner.

But they convey extremely profound wisdom and contain condensed information which is
supposed to be meditated (SAMYAMA) upon.

Suggested readings:

 SHIVA SAMHITA
 YOGA SUTRA of PATANJALI
 GERANDA SAMHITA
  BHAGAVAD GITA
 The Four Gospels
 The Gospel according to Thomas
 TAO TEH CHING by LAO TZE
 The UPANISHADS
 TABULA SMARAGDINA and SEPHER JESIRAH, two cabalistic texts
 HATHA YOGA PRADIPIKA

Usually, the traditional texts are available in translation only. Unfortunately, through
translation a lot of the original meaning is lost.

Read more than two translations of the same texts and try to become familiar with the
technical terms and with their multiple meanings.

5. ISHVARA PRANIDHANA
ISHVARA designates a level of Cosmic Consciousness which is
very close to the western idea of God.

ISHVARA PRANIDHANA is the state of permanent communion with the Cosmic

Consciousness and of total surrender to the Cosmic Will. It means placing your
consciousness, mind and body completely, absolutely, thoroughly into the Superior Cosmic
Will.

It means to cooperate with the higher levels of cosmic manifestation through a sincere and
intense yearning toward integrating your being into the Universal Harmony.