Yoga Meditation 3 - Attentiveness to higher consciousness( ishvara pranidhana )

This involves letting go of your ego’s grip and placing trust in the validity of your spiritual practice. It is an invitation to stop clinging, and therefore to trust that all will work out better for you if you follow the path of mindfulness rather that the blind slavery of the ego and senses. For the more religiously inclined, this could mean ‘giving oneself ‘or ‘surrendering’ to the Divine. For others, it can mean
unconditionally trusting a guru or at least some higher principle.

These first two limbs (the yamas and niyamas) lay down guidance for the moral standards and conduct expected of the sincere seeker. They are not meant to delay practice of meditation until one has developed a flawless morality, but offer a checklist to measure your higher personal growth and development. In other words, the list is not strictly hierarchical. It does not mean that you must first master the abstinences and observances before practicing the postures and then the breathing; all before specifically working on the mind. Instead, you should take note of the abstinences and observances and press on with your practice of meditation (and yoga asanas if you practice hatha yoga).

Whats is being said here is that the practice of meditation is much easier if you have your ethics and morals under control, because that majes for less distraction and guilt in life. But the practice of meditaion will of itself cause you to reflect and be more aware of your conduct and interaction with others. As a result, your ethical and moral standards and practices will naturally be modified if you meditate regularly.
Limbs three and four are the postures (asanas) and the breath controls (pranayama) that belong to the practice of mastering the body, known as hatha yoga. This subject is covered within innumerable books. Since we are focusing on the methods of meditation, we will move on to limbs five to eight on the next post.

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