Patanjali's writing also became the basis for a system referred to as "Ashtanga Yoga" ("Eight-Limbed Yoga"). This eight-limbed concept derived fromthe 29th Sutra of the 2nd book, and is a core characteristic of practically every Raja yoga variation taught today. The Eight Limbs are:
(1) Yama (The five "abstentions"): non-violence, non-lying, non-covetousness, non-sensuality, and non-possessiveness.
(2) Niyama (The five "observances"): purity, contentment, austerity, study, and surrender to god.
(3) Asana: Literally means "seat", and in Patanjali's Sutras refers to the seated position used for meditation. (4) Pranayama ("Lengthening Prāna"): Prāna, life force, or vital energy, particularly, the breath, "āyāma", to lengthen or extend. Also interpretedas control of the life force.
(5) Pratyahara ("Abstraction"): Withdrawal of the sense organs from external objects.
(6) Dharana ("Concentration"): Fixing the attention on a single object.
(7) Dhyana ("Meditation"): Intense contemplation of the nature of the object of meditation.
(8) Samādhi ("Liberation"): merging consciousness with the object of meditation. In the view of this school, the highest attainment does not reveal the experienced diversity of the world to be illusion. The everyday world is real.
Furthermore, the highest attainment is the event of one of many individual selves discovering itself; there is no single universal self shared by all persons
