limbs of Yoga, yama and niyama form the ground upon which all subsequent teaching is based. This first stage in the practice of the aspirant really focuses his mind on the commencement of personal effort, where the person endeavours to act from all that he understands - and has understood through his past experience - before he is introduced to new teaching, or new knowledge.
The stage called yama and niyama states the first truth about the original Yoga teaching, which is that it is about change of being, and not simply about the acquisition of knowledge. It is about learning to act from the knowledge gained from experience - about each person learning to act from his own individual storehouse of knowledge, through which he makes it truly his own. This is knowledge abstracted from empirical experience about man and his spiritual evolution. In this yoga, the enlightenment or wisdom has to be generated from daily practice and observances whose wellsprings are from within the body and within the mind. External authority or sacred papal commandments cannot command the kundalini. But they have to come from inner discernment, inner understanding, and inner truth.
Yama or niyama are activities of mind, in which a person seeks to discern what is the right goal and what is the wrong expression of it for himself. He peels away before uncovering the kundalini fire, all the dross that has been laid upon the true spiritual nature of man.
In the earliest form of Sanskrit the word yama meant an activity of discernment, and the ability, not only to distinguish right expression from wrong expression, but to have control over all forms of expression that derive from external commands or authority. The abstentions are only part of distancing oneself from the dross external. The five yamas include seeking the motives for a man's actions and the direction of his energy. Through this he realizes the persistence and courage to embark on the self-threatening process of discovery.
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