Patañjali · Yoga Sūtra
A progressive framework for practice, awareness, concentration, meditation and deeper realisation. Each limb rests on the one before it.
Purpose
Ethical grounding in relation to others.
Explanation
Five restraints are traditionally listed: non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, continence and non-possessiveness. They concern how one meets other people and the world.
Relationship to yoga
The path begins outside the self: practice that does not change conduct is treated as incomplete.
Reflect
Which restraint would be hardest for you to keep for a week?
In the source text
yoga-sutra · Yoga Sūtra 2.30
अहिंसासत्यास्तेयब्रह्मचर्यापरिग्रहा यमाः॥
ahiṁsā-satyāsteya-brahmacaryāparigrahā yamāḥ
“Non-harming, truthfulness, not taking what is not given, restraint of desire and non-possessiveness: these are the restraints.”
The first limb is stated as a list of relationships to others, before anything inward is asked for.
Patañjali, Yoga Sūtra 2.30 (traditional Sanskrit text). English rendering by Frenly Divine — a working translation, not an authoritative one.
yoga-sutra · Yoga Sūtra 2.35
ahiṁsā-pratiṣṭhāyāṁ tat-sannidhau vaira-tyāgaḥ
“When non-harming is firmly established, hostility is given up in that presence.”
Each restraint is followed in the text by a described effect; this is the one given for non-harming.
Patañjali, Yoga Sūtra 2.35 (traditional Sanskrit text). English rendering by Frenly Divine — a working translation, not an authoritative one.
Source — Patañjali, Yoga Sūtra 2.30
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