In popular yoga, there is so much confusion because of surface-level information. Here in America, it seems like many yoga teachers think that yoga is a linear step-by-step process. People are trying to template it which results in many people walking away from their practice of yoga thinking that yoga doesn’t seem to work for them.
The subject of the eight limbs of yoga particularly gets a lot of limelight in general because it’s a “list” but we skim over it often in popular yoga. Think back to your own yoga teacher training, did they really do justice to yoga philosophy and the 8 limbs?
More often than not, people think of the eight-limbed path as the main thing for yoga practitioners and teachers to know about and a lot of contexts are actually missing.
Are the eight limbs of yoga applicable to everybody? Or is it different for a yogi than it is for you and me? Where does one even start? Is it black or white? To put everything into perspective and help us answer these important questions, I invited back one of our favorite guests, Prasad Rangnekar.
I encourage you to listen to this whether you think you know the eight limbs or not because there are definitely contexts in here that we should all revisit ever so often. As always, I really think you will find a lot of insight in Prasad’s responses!
Prasad Rangnekar, E-RYT500, is a Yoga Educator from India who teaches in over 15 countries for the past 26 years. Prasad’s Yoga education started at the age of 9, and over the last 36 years, he has been studying Yoga traditionally, in a lineage, as well as academically, at a university. Prasad regards meditative silence as his greatest teacher and goes into 3 month-long silence retreats every year.
Prasad is associated with the Natha Lineage, the founding lineage of Hatha Yoga, over the last 16 years and has stayed and studied with Natha Yoga Masters in India and Nepal.
