Patanjali's guide to clear living

A Visualization of Aṣṭāṅga Yoga

It has always fascinated me to see an idea given a visual form—a formula, a path, or a tool through which we can grasp it more clearly and perhaps even begin to live it.

Over time, these visualizations and interpretations continue to be refined. Ideas are contemplated, debated, and tested in practice. Practitioners, scholars, teachers, and moral thinkers wrestle with their relevance to changing times and changing needs. Through that process, an ancient teaching finds new ways to speak to us.

The Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali, once considered mystical and inaccessible by many because they were written in another language and cultural context, are now available through numerous translations and interpretations.

More importantly, people across the world are practicing one or more of the eight limbs of yoga:

Yama, Niyama, Āsana, Prāṇāyāma, Pratyāhāra, Dhāraṇā, Dhyāna, and Samādhi.

These practices are approached in many ways—from ethical living, physical well-being, and breath regulation to concentration, meditation, stress management, community, and self-understanding. The many ways in which people enter this path speak to the breadth of the framework offered by Sage Patañjali.

I have seen Aṣṭāṅga Yoga visualized as a ladder, a flower unfolding, a tree, and in many other forms.

In my own visualization, I wanted to show the eight limbs as a concentric movement.

It is the same practitioner travelling through the entire path.

The journey begins within the context of society, where we are shaped by others and also help shape the world around us. Through Yama, we examine how we relate to others. Through Niyama, we develop personal discipline and refine our relationship with ourselves.

Through Āsana, the body becomes stronger, steadier, and more resilient. Through Prāṇāyāma, we learn to understand and regulate energy. Through Pratyāhāra, we develop the ability to engage with the senses when needed and withdraw inward when that is more appropriate.

The journey then moves toward attention.

Through Dhāraṇā, attention begins to shift from many things toward one. Through Dhyāna, we learn to remain with that one thing for longer and longer. In Samādhi, the separation between the observer, the act of observing, and what is being observed begins to dissolve.

This is not simply textbook knowledge that we read, understand intellectually, and arrive at as an objective conclusion.

It is a path that becomes clearer through living.

As the practitioner engages each limb, something within becomes steadier and more transparent. The practice reveals the inner source of clarity and life—not as something newly created, but as something increasingly recognized.

The movement is inward, but it does not end there.

What is discovered inwardly begins to shape how one lives outwardly—through relationships, choices, words, actions, and participation in the world.

So the journey is not simply from the outside to the inside. It is also from the inside out.

Sādhana moves inward. Living expresses itself outward.

The two movements are not separate. They are part of one continuing cycle of practice, recognition, and participation.

This visual began as a simple drawing on paper—an attempt to express that inward and outward movement. It then evolved, with the help of ChatGPT, into the image presented here.

The visual is not meant to define Aṣṭāṅga Yoga once and for all. It is one way of seeing the path: as a lived, concentric journey in which practice reveals clarity, and clarity returns to life.