Ahiṃsā and the other yama must not be limited by species or occupation, place, time or special circumstance. When observed on every level, with regard to every object and without exception, they are called the universal great vow (mahā-vrata).

External śauca includes cleansing with earth and water and consuming pure food; internal śauca is the washing away of impurities from citta. Saṃtoṣa is refraining from desiring more than the means at hand. Tapas is the endurance of opposites such as hunger and thirst, cold and heat, standing and sitting, as well as forms of silence and ascetic vows. Svādhyāya is study of teachings on liberation or recitation of the praṇava. Īśvara-praṇidhāna is the offering of all actions to the supreme teacher.

When intentions of violence, lying, theft, illicit sexuality or taking possession arise, the practitioner should contemplate their opposite: by taking refuge in the dharma of yoga, he has promised fearlessness to all beings. The Vyāsa-Bhāṣya makes the stark comparison that returning to abandoned vitarka would be like a dog eating its own vomit.

Violence and the other vitarka may be performed, commissioned or approved; motivated by greed, anger or delusion; and mild, moderate or intense in each case. The Vyāsa-Bhāṣya divides violence alone first into 27, then by further gradation into 81, and through additional circumstances into innumerable forms.

Their consequences are to be contemplated as the countermeasure: violence robs its victim of strength, inflicts pain and ends life; for the perpetrator it results in weakness, painful rebirths and suffering at death, or, when mixed with merit, in a short life. Lying and the other vitarka are to be assessed accordingly. Their fruit is suffering and ignorance without end.