5 Steps towards Self:
- Self-Reflection (Swadhyaya): Embrace honesty with oneself to identify areas of ignorance and acknowledge one’s limitations.
- Swadhyaya encourages inner exploration and self-knowledge, a key component for personal evolution.
- Observe your behaviours and patterns without judgement to understand your true nature and motivations better.
- Use mantras or affirmations during meditation to focus on qualities you wish to cultivate or understand within yourself.
- Engage in a meditation practice that asks you to visualise your actions and their consequences, helping to build a bridge between your inner intentions and outer expressions.
- Nonviolence (Ahimsa): Cultivate compassion towards all beings, including oneself, and strive to cause no harm in thought, word, or deed.
- Embrace kindness and develop patience, understanding that all beings are on their own unique path, just as you are on yours.
- Ahimsa ensures that this inward journey is aligned with the outward expression of living in harmony with all existence, creating a feedback loop where internal changes positively affect one’s interactions with the world, and vice-versa.
- Develop techniques such as meditation and breathing exercises to maintain calmness and avoid violent thoughts and emotions.
- 5 Steps towards Self: The five qualities of the steps toward self encompass Shraddha’s unwavering faith, Virya’s inspired and dynamic energy, Smriti’s continuous and conscious recollection, Dharana’s deep and singular focus, and Viveka’s clear and discerning wisdom.
- These five aspects correspond closely with the later stages of Ashtanga Yoga, particularly with the last three limbs known as Dharana (concentration), Dhyana (meditation), and Samadhi (union, or enlightenment). Together, they form the internal practice known as Samyama, which can lead to profound insight and realisation.
- Cultivate belief, harness vitality, honour memory, focus intently, and choose wisely.
