5 Beneficial Rules or Niyamas by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Please not this is one of the 8 limbs of Yoga – What You Know as Yoga is Really Called Asanas / Poses, which is 1/8th of Yoga – Infographics (Spread The Word)

1: Cleanliness
By personal hygiene and cleanliness, the attachment to your physical body is lifted up. You become more aware of your inner body, inner self, the light body that you are.

Craving for different and certain parts of the body begins in the mind because one does not totally understand this body. The mind becomes clear and harmonious, one-pointed, control of senses and the ability to realise one self comes to you by purity.

2: Happiness
By contentment the greatest joy can be gained. Happiness or contentment gives you the greatest joy. When you are not happy from within, nothing can bring you pleasure. Just cultivate this habit of being happy .This is just an attitude, .

Okay I will be happy. I will work through this ,and that brings you the greatest happiness in life. It cannot be compared to anything. You are the source of happiness. Nobody else can make you happy other than yourself. You need to say without saying, Hey come on. You cannot put me, down and take my mood off .This should be the message from you.

3: Penance
What is tapas? (Paras answer: Spanish appertisers yum yum)
Tapas is indeed endurance of the opposites of pain-pleasure, heat-cold, good-bad, friends-enemies, praise-blame. These things do come in life. Just take them with equanimity. How much ability you have to endure the opposites, that much is tapas.

What does tapas do?
This brings strength to your body and mind. Body gets prepared to hold the infinite consciousness. The body-mind complex gets prepared to emit the divinity that is there in everyone.

4: Self-study
Swadhyaya or self-study is usually mentioned as the study of scriptures and books. Just by reading scriptures without any experience is of no use.

By self study, by observing, by becoming hollow and empty, we become the Divine’s channel. You are part of the Divine. You are able to feel the presence of the divinity and all different forms of consciousness starts blossoming.

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5: Devotion to God
Means letting go and surrendering to the higher self, to the divine. The state of Samadhi is attained by devotion to God.This means seeing life with context to the universe. This universe which is so vast and enormous has been here for billions of years and will continue to be here for billions of years.

By surrendering to that consciousness which loves you so dearly and which is free from any imperfections or suffering, one attains Samadhi.

What happens by practising all this?
Your body becomes strong. Your resistance power increases and your senses become strong because the impurities in you are eliminated.