Meditation & Yoga
Foundations of Yoga
10 Important Principles Every Meditator Should Know
Successful meditation does not rest on technique alone. As Shankara observed, there can be no lamplight unless the oil, wick, and flame are brought together. In the same way, the practice of yoga requires a foundation—a way of living that steadies the mind, strengthens spiritual practice, and removes the obstacles that prevent deeper realization.
In Foundations of Yoga, Swami Nirmalananda Giri explores the ten principles traditionally known as Yama and Niyama: five forms of self-restraint and five positive observances that Patanjali places at the foundation of yoga. They are not presented here as commandments imposed by an external authority, nor as abstract rules of morality. Their basis is practical: whatever strengthens and facilitates yoga should be cultivated; whatever weakens or obstructs it should be relinquished.
The ten foundations are:
- Ahimsa — non-violence and harmlessness
- Satya — truthfulness and honesty
- Asteya — non-stealing and non-misappropriation
- Brahmacharya — conservation and mastery of the senses and vital energies
- Aparigraha — non-possessiveness and freedom from greed
- Shaucha — purity and cleanliness
- Santosha — contentment and peacefulness
- Tapas — practical, result-producing spiritual discipline
- Swadhyaya — spiritual study and inquiry into the Self
- Ishwarapranidhana — offering one’s life to God
Drawing upon Patanjali, Vyasa, Shankara, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and modern teachers of yoga, Swami Nirmalananda explains not only what these principles mean, but why they directly affect meditation, intuition, consciousness, and spiritual development. The book also explores the results traditionally associated with their perfection and shows how these seemingly simple disciplines open into profound dimensions of yogic life.
A substantial concluding section, “What is Yoga?”, then places these foundations within the larger purpose of spiritual practice: the recovery of our awareness of the Self and conscious union with the Supreme. Yoga, the author emphasizes, is not merely a philosophy but a discipline meant to culminate in direct realization.
Compact, practical, and rooted in the classical yoga tradition, Foundations of Yoga is particularly valuable for meditators who want to understand why the way we live matters to the way we meditate.
A book to live with
Why Read This Book?
Understand the ten classical foundations of yoga—Yama and Niyama, and why they directly support successful meditation.
See spiritual discipline as practical rather than moralistic, learning what strengthens consciousness and what creates obstacles to deeper practice.
Explore these principles through Patanjali, Vyasa, Shankara, the Upanishads, and other authoritative sources, with clear application to everyday spiritual life.
Go beyond rules of conduct to the larger purpose of yoga itself, Self-knowledge, transformation of consciousness, and union with God.
Experience the writing
From the Book
Featured excerpt
Truthfulness and the Yogi
“Satya is said to be speech and thought in conformity with what has been seen or inferred or heard on authority. The speech spoken to convey one’s own experience to others should be not deceitful, nor inaccurate, nor uninformative. It is that uttered for helping all beings. But that uttered to the harm of beings, even if it is what is called truth, when the ultimate aim is merely to injure beings, would not be truth. It would be a wrong.” So says Vyasa.
Shankara says that truthfulness means saying what we have truly come to know is the truth–mostly through our own experience or through contact with sources whose reliability we have experienced for ourselves.
“Untruthfulness in any form puts us out of harmony with the fundamental law of Truth and creates a kind of mental and emotional strain which prevents us from harmonizing and tranquillizing our mind. Truthfulness has to be practiced by the sadhaka because it is absolutely necessary for the unfoldment of intuition. There is nothing which clouds the intuition and practically stops its functioning as much as untruthfulness in all its forms,”
says Taimni regarding the most personal and practical aspect of satya.
Bending the truth, either in leaving out part of the truth or in “stacking the deck” to create a false impression, cannot be engaged in by the yogi. Regarding numbers it is said that “figures do not lie–but liars figure.” The same is true here. Equally heinous is the intentional mixing of lies and truth. (Some liars tell a lot of truth.) This is particularly true in the manipulative endeavors of advertising, politics, and religion.
Refusing to speak the truth, as well as avoiding speaking or facing the truth, is a form of untruth.
Excerpt twoPurity and Clarity of Consciousness+
Shaucha means purity and cleanliness within the context of attaining unobstructed clarity of consciousness. “He is not grasped by the eye nor even by speech nor by other sense-organs, nor by austerity nor by work, but when one’s (intellectual) nature is purified by the light of knowledge then alone he, by meditation, sees Him who is without parts” (Mundaka Upanishad 3.1.8).
“When nature is pure, memory becomes firm. When memory [smriti–memory of our eternal spirit-Self] remains firm, there is release from all knots of the heart. To such a one who has his stains wiped away, Bhagavan Sanatkumara shows the further shore of darkness” (Chandogya Upanishad 7:26:2). Which is why Jesus said: “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8) And Saint John: “Every man that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself, even as He is pure.” (I John 3:2-3)
“Internal shaucha is the washing away of the stains of the mind” according to Vyasa. “Shaucha implies purity in seeing and listening… and washing away the stains of the mind, such as desire and anger, by the waters of meditation,” adds Shankara.
Physical cleanliness is important for it eliminates bodily toxins and prevents disease. Inner purification is important for it eliminates mental toxins and prevents inner ills.
Excerpt threeThe Highest Form of Self-Study+
Swadhyaya means “Self-study.” This is usually interpreted as the study of the sacred texts which deal with the nature of the true Self (spirit) and its realization. “Swadhyaya is study of works on liberation (moksha),” says Vyasa. “Swadhyaya is study of works on liberation such as the Upanishads,” comments Shankara.
But it also means keeping a careful watch on the ego-based mind so as to be aware of its delusive and destructive tricks. For it is no external “devil” or “Satan” we need fear, but the “enemy within,” the “Dweller at the Threshold” which is our ego-mind complex that has blinded and enslaved us from life to life and has no intention of giving up its domination of us just because we practice a bit of meditation.
Therefore we must be wary of its cunning and subtle ways and carefully analyze the debris it casts up into our consciousness in the form of thoughts and emotions. In this way we will see the direction in which it would pull us. We must take our susceptibility to its machinations most seriously. In swadhyaya we look at and analyze the mind in the calmness and intuition born of meditation.
The highest form of Self-study is that which is known as Atma Vichar–inquiry into the Self (spirit). We must never let go of the vital question: Who am I? We must do all we can to find the answer–not from others or from our intellectual ponderings, but by direct experience of ourselves as pure spirit.
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