B.k.s Iyengar Quotes

The hardness of a diamond is part of its usefulness, but its true value is in the light that shines through it.

Yoga is like music: the rhythm of the body, the melody of the mind, and the harmony of the soul create the symphony of life.

It is through your body that you realize you are a spark of divinity.

Yoga does not just change the way we see things, it transforms the person who sees.

You must purge yourself before finding faults in others. When you see a mistake in somebody else, try to find if you are making the same mistake. This is the way to take judgment and to turn it into improvement. Do not look at others' bodies with envy or with superiority. All people are born with different constitutions. Never compare with others. Each one's capacities are a function of his or her internal strength. Know your capacities and continually improve upon them.

It is through the alignment of the body that I discovered the alignment of my mind, self, and intelligence.

Yoga allows you to find a new kind of freedom that you may not have known even existed.

Yoga allows you to rediscover a sense of wholeness in your life, where you do not feel like you are constantly trying to fit broken pieces together.

Be inspired but not proud.

Breath is the king of mind.

Health is a state of complete harmony of the body, mind and spirit. When one is free from physical disabilities and mental distractions, the gates of the soul open.

Action is movement with intelligence. The world is filled with movement. What the world needs is more conscious movement, more action.

There is only one reality, but there are many ways that reality can be interpreted.

Nothing can be forced, receptivity is everything.

One's spiritual realization lies in none other than how one walks among and interacts with one's fellow beings.

Spirituality is not some external goal that one must seek, but a part of the divine core of each of us, which we must reveal.

There is a universal reality in ourselves that aligns us with a universal reality that is everywhere.

You do not need to seek freedom in a different land, for it exists with your own body, heart, mind, and soul.

Do not aim low, you will miss the mark. Aim high and you will be on a threshold of bliss.

Love begets courage, moderation creates abundance and humility generates power.

Yoga allows you to find an inner peace that is not ruffled and riled by the endless stresses and struggles of life.

As animals, we walk the earth. As bearers of divine essence, we are among the stars. As human beings, we are caught in the middle, seeking to reconcile the paradox of how to make our way upon earth while striving for something more permanent and more profound.

There is no progress toward ultimate freedom without transformation, and this is the key issue in all lives.

The union of nature and soul removes the veil of ignorance that covers our intelligence.

You exist without the feeling of existence.

We must create a marriage between the awareness of the body and that of the mind. When two parties do not cooperate, there is unhappiness on both sides.

By drawing our senses of perception inward, we are able to experience the control, silence, and quietness of the mind.

As breath stills our mind, our energies are free to unhook from the senses and bend inward.

As we explore the soul, it is important to remember that this exploration will take place within nature (the body), for that is where and what we are.

It is Einstein’s famous equation E=MC^2, in which E is energy (rajas), M is mass (tamas), and C is the speed of light (sattva). Energy, mass, and light are endlessly bound together in the universe.

Yoga is about the will, working with intelligence and self-reflexive consciousness, can free us from the inevitability of the wavering mind and outwardly directed senses.

True concentration is an unbroken thread of awareness.

A fusion of nature and soul.

Life itself seeks fulfillment as plants seek sunlight.

Breath is the vehicle of consciousness and so, by its slow measured observation and distribution, we learn to tug our attention away from external desires toward a judicious, intelligent awareness.

Meditation is oneness, when there is no longer time, sex, or country. The moment when, after you have concentrated on doing a pose (or anything else) perfectly, you hold it and then forget everything, not because you want to forget but because you are concentrated: this is meditation.

When we free ourselves from physical disabilities, emotional disturbances, and mental distractions, we open the gates to our soul.

The physical body is not only a temple for our soul, but the means by which we embark on the inward journey toward the core.

Asanas maintain the strength and health of the body, without which little progress can be made. Asanas keep the body in harmony with nature.

There is no difference in souls, only the ideas about ourselves that we wear.

The head is the seat of intelligence. The heart is the seat of emotion.

But a yogi never forgets that health must begin with the body. Your body is the child of the soul. You must nourish and train your child. Physical health is not a commodity to be bargained for. Nor can it be swallowed in the form of drugs and pills. It has to be earned through sweat.

All games are meaningless if you do not know the rules.

We are a little piece of continual change, looking at an infinite quantity of continual change.

You have to create love and affection for your body, for what it can do for you. Love

We often fool ourselves that we are concentrating because we fix our attention on wavering objects.

If we become aware of its limitations and compulsions, we can transcend them.

Anything physical is always changing, therefore, its reality is not constant, not eternal.

Yoga is the teacher of yoga; yoga is to be understood through yoga. So live in yoga to realize yoga; comprehend yoga through yoga; he who is free from distractions enjoys yoga through yoga.

Asana has two facets, pose and repose. Pose is the artistic assumption of a position. ‘Reposing in the pose’ means finding the perfection of a pose and maintaining it, reflecting in it with penetration of the intelligence and with dedication.

Asana is perfect firmness of body, steadiness of intelligence, and benevolence of spirit.

Action is movement with intelligence.

Ignorance has no beginning, but it has an end. There is a beginning but no end to knowledge.

Happy is the man who knows how to distinguish the real from the unreal, the eternal from the transient and the good from the pleasant by his discrimination and wisdom. Twice blessed is he who knows true love and can love all God's creatures. He who works selflessly for the welfare of others with love in his heart is thrice blessed. But the man who combines within his mortal frame knowledge, love and selfless service is holy and becomes a place of pilgrimage.

Patañjali is saying that yoga is a preventive healing art, science and philosophy, by which we build up robust health in body and mind and construct a defensive strength with which to deflect or counteract afflictions that are as yet unperceived afflictions.

Our Parusa or Universal Soul is an abiding reality. It is logical, but remains conceptual to our minds under we experience it;s realization within ourselves.

An opening is like a doorway, and there is no such thing as a doorway that you can only go through one way. Yes, we are trying to penetrate in, but what is trying to come out to meet us? It

If you have smoked since you were sixteen, every time you pick up a cigarette in the day you are also brainwashing yourself. "In this situation I pick up a cigarette" sends a little ripple down through consciousness that adds to the "take a cigarette" mound. That's why cigarettes are more difficult than almost anything else to give up. Aside from their physical cravings, we create mental cravings because the habit is very repetitive. The habit of smoking puts itself into every situation. The triggers to that situation are so many that many smokers still sometimes want to smoke even years after they have stopped because the mound is still there.

When you have an anger, irritability, or disappointment mound, the conditioned reflex works like this: Suppose you're irritable with your parents, and your mother comes into the room. She might only say "Dinner's ready," but the irritability reflex is ready to spring up.

Our flawed mechanisms of perception and thought are not a cause for grief, but an opportunity to evolve, for an internal evolution of consciousness that will also make possible, in a sustainable form, our aspirations toward what we call individual success and global progress.

The seeker should have faith in himself and in his master. He should have faith that God is ever by his side and that no evil can touch him. As faith springs up in the heart it dries out lust, ill-will, mental sloth, spiritual pride and doubt, and the heart freed from these hindrances becomes serene and untroubled.

Life itself seeks fulfillment as plants seek the sunlight. The Universe did not create Life in the hope that the failure of the majority would underscore the success of the few.

Samadhi is an opportunity to encounter our imperishable Self before the transient vehicle of body disappears, as in the cycle of nature, it surely must.

Without education, confidence does not come.

To my father, Bellur Krishnamachar, my mother, Seshamma, and my birthplace, Bellur

Stability-The Physical Body (Asana)

The body is your temple. Keep it pure and clean for your soul to reside in.

Pain is a great philosopher, because it thinks constantly of how to get rid of itself and demands discipline.

To do nothing is an action too, with inevitable consequences, and so that is not a way to escape pain and suffering either.

There are only two ways to confront pain: to live with the pain forever or to work with the pain and see if you can eradicate it.

Extend the energy of the asana out through your extremities. Let the river flow through you.

disturbances of the mind and emotions fade away, and we are able to see true reality.

The mind (manas) and the breath (prana) are intimately connected and the activity or the cessation of activity of one affects the other.

Undoubtedly, the mind is restless and hard to control But it can be trained by constant practice and by freedom from desire." - B.K.S. Iyengar. Climbing is really great, we all love climbing. But what's interesting to me is what happens in my head or in my life because of it. Ultimately, I think climbing is a vehicle for exploration - of the world, of the self.

For one who lacks ethical discipline and perfect physical health, there can be no spiritual illumination. Body, mind and spirit are inseparable: if the body is asleep, the soul is asleep. The

The yogi uses all his resources - physical, economic, mental or moral - to alleviate the pain and suffering of others. He shares his strength with the weak until they become strong. He shares his courage with those who are timid until they become brave by his example. He denies the maxim 'survival of the fittest', but makes the weak strong enough to survive. He comes a shelter to one and all.

You watch yourself from the inside. It is a full silence. Maintain a detached attitude toward the body and, at the same time, do not neglect any part of the body or show haste but remain alert while doing the asana.

So we would say in yoga that the subtle precedes the gross, or spirit precedes matter. But yoga says we must deal with the outer or most manifest first, i.e. legs, arms, spine, eyes, tongue, touch, in order to develop the sensitivity to move inward. This is why asana opens the whole spectrum of yoga’s possibilities. There can be no realization of existential, divine bliss without the support of the soul’s incarnate vehicle, the food-and-water-fed body, from bone to brain. If we can become aware of its limitations and compulsions, we can transcend them. We all possess some awareness of ethical behavior, but in order to pursue yama and niyama at deeper levels, we must cultivate the mind. We need contentment, tranquility, dispassion, and unselfishness, qualities that have to be earned. It is asana that teaches us the physiology of these virtues.

In practical terms, most of us have built up negative habits. You want to turn them into positive habits and then into no habits. As progress reaches into the subtle levels of kosa, you don't avoid smoking because you are "a nonsmoker" or because smoking is bad. You are not invoking a duality of good versus bad. Similarly, you do not have to bite off your tongue to avoid giving an angry retort to people who irritate you; you're not being self-consciously good. It simply becomes second nature to be free. You might give an angry answer to a rude person, you might give a courteous answer to a rude person, but either way you act in freedom, you act appropriately, unconditioned by the past.

Slouching acts like a narcotic to the body. When our parents tell us not to slouch, it is because they instinctively understand that collapsing our chest caves in the very Self. It is because you mind shrinks that your soul shrinks. It is the spine's job to keep the mind alert. It is the spine's job to keep the mind alert. To do this, the spine has to keep the brain in position.

Consciousness is imbued with the three qualities (gunas) of luminosity (sattva), vibrancy (rajas) and inertia (tamas). The gunas also colour our actions: white (sattva), grey (rajas) and black (tamas). Through the discipline of yoga, both actions and intelligence go beyond these qualities and the seer comes to experience his own soul with crystal clarity, free from the relative attributes of nature and actions. This state of purity is samadhi. Yoga is thus both the means and the goal. Yoga is samadhi and samadhi is yoga. There

If the stretch is even, throughout the whole body, there is no strain at all. This does not mean that there is no exertion. There is exertion, but this exertion is exhilaration. There is no wrong stress or strain. A state of elation is felt within. When there is strain, the practice of yoga is purely physical and leads to imbalances and misjudgement. One feels weary and tired and get irritated or disturbed. When one stops straining and the brain is passive, it becomes spiritual yoga. When you have extended to the extreme, live in that asana, and experience the joy of freedom in that asana.

Patañjali describes the fluctuations, modifications and modulations of thought which disturb the consciousness, and then sets out the various disciplines by which they may be stilled. This has resulted in yoga being called a mental sadhana (practice). Such a sadhana is possible only if the accumulated fruits derived from the good actions of past lives (samskaras) are of a noble order. Our samskaras are the fund of our past perceptions, instincts and subliminal or hidden impressions. If they are good, they act as stimuli to maintain the high degree of sensitivity necessary to pursue the spiritual path. Consciousness

The chameleon nature of asmita is apparent when we set ourselves a challenge. The source of the challenge lies in the positive side of asmita, but the moment fear arises negatively, it inhibits our initiative. We must then issue a counter-challenge to disarm that fear

is

When you see a mistake in somebody else, try to find if you are making the same mistake. This is the way to take judgment and to turn it into improvement.

The yogi’s life is not measured by the number of his days, but the number of his breaths,” wrote B. K. S. Iyengar, an Indian yoga teacher who had spent years in bed as a sickly child until he learned yoga and breathed himself back to health. He died in 2014, at age 95.

yielded

Without certain stress, the true asana is not experienced, and the mind will remain in its limitations and will not move beyond its existing frontiers. This limited state of mind can be described as the petty, small mind.

As mammals, we are homeostatic. That means we maintain certain constant balances within our bodies, temperature for example, by adapting to change and challenge in the environment. Strength and flexibility allow us to keep an inner balance, but man is trying more and more to dominate the environment rather than control himself. Central heating, air conditioning, cars that we take out to drive three hundred yards, towns that stay lit up all night, and food imported from around the world out of season are all examples of how we try to circumvent our duty to adapt to nature and instead force nature to adapt to us. In the process, we become both weak and brittle. Even many of my Indian students who all now sit on chairs in their homes are becoming too stiff to sit in lotus position easily.

When you stand in the warrior pose with your arms extended, you can see the fingers of your hand in front of you, but you can also feel them. You can sense their position and their extension right to the tips of your fingers. You can also sense the placement of your back leg and tell whether it is straight or not without looking back or in a mirror. You must observe and correct the body position (adjusting it from both sides) with the help of the trillions of eyes that you have in the form of cells. This is how you begin to bring awareness to your body and fuse the intelligence of brain and brawn. This intelligence should exist everywhere in your body and throughout the asana. The moment you lose the feeling in the skin, the asana becomes dull, and the flow or current of the intelligence is lost.

When most people stretch, they simply stretch to the point that they are trying to reach, but they forget to extend and expand from where they are. When you extend and expand, you are not only stretching to, you are also stretching from. Try holding out your arm at your side and stretch it. Did your whole chest move with it? Now try to stay centered and extend out your arm to your fingertips. Did you notice the difference? Did you notice the space that you created and the way in which you stretched from your core? Now try expanding your arm outward in every direction like the circumference of a circle. The stretch should bring the sensitivity and experience of creating space in every direction.

When we direct our eyes looking forward from the corner of the temple in its normal field of vision, the frontal brain is working with analysis (vitarka). But when we spread our ocular awareness from the back corner of the temple, near the ear, the back brain is brought into play and works with synthesis (vicara). The front brain can dismantle because of its powerful penetration. The back brain is holistic and reassembles. If you find this difficult to imagine, just think what happens when you first walk into a great medieval cathedral. Your eyes may appear to focus on what is before them, the altar for example, but your real awareness takes in the whole immense volume of the space surrounding you, its grandeur and the hum of its ancient silence. This is holistic meditative vision. While working in asana, if the action is “done” solely from the front brain, it blocks the reflective action of the back brain. The form of each asana needs to be reflected to the wisdom body (vijnanamaya kosa) for readjustment and realignment. Whenever asana is done mechanically from the front brain, the action is felt only on the peripheral body, and there is no inner sensation, there is no luminous inner light. If the asana is done with continual reference to the back of the brain, there is a reaction to each action, and there is sensitivity. Then life is not only dynamic, but it is also electrified with life force.

The yogi’s life is not measured by the number of his days, but the number of his breaths,” wrote B. K. S. Iyengar,

To make life healthy, happy and peaceful, it is essential to study regularly divine literature in a pure place. This study of the sacred books of the world will enable the sadhaka to concentrate upon and solve the difficult problems of life when they arise. It will put an end to ignorance and bring knowledge. Ignorance has no beginning, but it has an end. There is a beginning but no end to knowledge.

The body is my temple, asanas are my prayers.

Yoga is a light, which once lit, will never dim. The better your practice, the brighter the flame.

Yoga is a mirror to look at ourselves from within.

hallar un equilibrio de polaridad, no el antagonismo de la dualidad.

begins the Yoga Sūtras with atha, meaning ‘now’, and ends with iti, ‘that is all’. Besides this search for the soul, there is nothing.

Freedom, that is to say direct experience of samadhi, can be attained only by disciplined conduct and renunciation of sensual desires and appetites. This is brought about through adherence to the ‘twin pillars’ of yoga, abhyasa and vairagya. Abhyasa

If citta is the sea, its movements (vrttis) are the ripples. Body, mind and consciousness are in communion with the soul; they are now free from attachments and aversions, memories of place and time. The impurities of body and mind are cleansed, the dawning light of wisdom vanquishes ignorance, innocence replaces arrogance and pride, and the seeker becomes the seer. Vibhuti

Tenemos setecientos músculos, trescientas articulaciones, dieciséis mil kilómetros de corriente nerviosa fluyendo por un mismo organismo y cerca de noventa y seis mil kilómetros de venas, arterias y capilares portadores de sangre. La

You do not need to seek freedom in a different land, for it exists with your own body, heart, mind and soul. B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on Life

yoga teachers B. K. S. Iyengar, Pattabhi Jois, and T. K. V. Desikachar.

Opposition without love leads to violence; loving the wrong-doer without opposing the evil in him is folly and leads to misery.

The Six Emotional Disturbances Through yoga we are able to lessen the six emotional disturbances that cause us so much anguish: lust, pride and obsession, anger, hatred, and greed. They are called negative emotions by Western psychology or deadly sins by Christianity, and indeed these emotional reactions are enemies of spiritual growth when they are beyond our control. However, each of these emotions exists for a purpose and can be used wisely.

Religions tell us to get rid of these emotions, but we cannot. They are human emotions that we will feel whether we want to or not. Suppression does not work. George Stevenson invented the steam engine because he noticed that the steam in a boiling kettle lifted the lid. The force was irresistible. yoga is about channeling and transforming that energy to higher purposes, just as Stevenson used the energy of steam to drive locomotives.

As the modern saying goes, we should live in the solution, not in the problem.

I am fanatical with myself when I practice yoga. It is true. You should be fanatical with yourself, but not with others.

The first specific advice that Patanjali gives us about these disturbances I will translate very loosely. "If you are happy, pleasant, and unselfish in your behavior toward others, obstacles will shrink. If you a miserly with your emotions and judgmental in your mind, obstacles will grow." More precisely, what Patanjali said is this. In order to achieve a serene consciousness, we have to be willing to change our behavior and approach toward the external world. This is for our own good. Certain treatments, known as the Healthy and Healing Qualities of Consciousness, cultivate the mind and smooth the yogic path. They are: 1. Maitri - Cultivation of friendliness toward those who are happy. 2. Karuna - Cultivation of compassion toward those who are in sorrow. 3. Mudita - Cultivation of joy toward those who are virtuous. 4. Upeksa - Cultivation of indifference or neurtrality toward those who are full of vices.

To take joy in the well-being of others is to share in the riches of the world.

It is a modern illusion to imagine that positive emotions, sympathy, pity, kindness, and a general but diffused goodwill are equivalent of virtues. These "soft" emotions can serve as a form of narcissistic self-indulgence. Often they are impotent. They make us feel good about ourselves, like when we give a coin to a beggar. They create the illusion of health and well-being. But sensitivity should be used as a diagnostic tool, not as a mirror to our own vanity. Real compassion is potent as it implies the question, "What can I do to help?" The compassion Mother Teresa of Calcutta felt for the dying and dispossessed was always a spur to action, to care, to intelligent conversation.

Positive emotions are not the same as virtue. Virtue is valor, moral courage, persistence in adversity, and protection of the weak against the tyranny of the strong - not hand-wringing sympathy. Compassion is the recognition of sameness, of kinship with others.

When you empty the brain, you also empty the toxins of memory. With an exhalation and retention, you let go of resentment, anger, envy, and rancor. Exhalation is a sacred act of surrender, of self-abandonment. At the same time we abandon all those stored up impurities that cling to the self- our resentments, angers, regrets, desires, envies, frustrations, and feelings of superiority and inadequacy and also the negativity that causes the obstacles to adhere to consciousness. When ego falls away, they all fall away with it.

There is something called "echo" exhalation that impresses this point even further. Exhale slowly and fully. Pause. Then exhale again. There is always a slight residue left in the lungs. In that residue is to be found the sludge of toxic memory and ego. In that brief further exhalation, let them go - and experience an even deeper state of relief from burden, of peace and emptiness.

All illness fragments and so whatever integrates also heals. It is axiomatic in yoga that illness has its origin in the consciousness. Self-cultivation really begins only with total self-absorption, so anything that facilitates concentration, reflection, and inward absorption, is going to begin to heal the problems of the fissured, imbalanced self.

Many ask me whether pranayama, controlling the breath, postpones old age. Why worry about it? Death is certain. Let it come when it comes. Just keep working. The Soul has no age. It doesn't die. Only the body decays. And yet, we must never forget the body, since it is the garden we must cherish and cultivate.

So often what prevents us from living an admirable life is the catering of our minds, which pester us with long outdated doubts and despair. Our minds are truly one of the greatest creations in God's world, but they are so easily disoriented and set spinning.

Yoga offers us very useful ways to fix the mental problems that cause most of us so much suffering, but first we must understand yoga philosophy's simple description of consciousness. I introduce the word philosophy advisedly here and purposely place it in the same sentence as the word simple. We have the idea that philosophy, which literally means "love of wisdom," has to be complicated, theoretical, and probably incomprehensible to quality for its name. Yoga philosophy opts for different criteria of excellence; it is straightforward, practical, and most important, applicable now.

There is nevertheless a chance that we can break free from the imprisoning past and individually train ourselves to control this reactive mechanism in such a way that the old patterns are not repeated; new things truly can happen, and real changes can in fact take place. This dawning clarity is, in essence, the path of yoga.

Mind, all minds, whether brilliant or dull, are equipped with a simple and instinctual survival tool that is, "Repeat pleasure and avoid pain." This enables us to avoid putting our hands in the fire twice or continually trying to quench our thirst with sea water. The converse of "nasty" implying danger is that "nice" or pleasurable implies the opposite, which is a survival advantage. You can see this most strongly in sexual reproduction. If the sexual act were unpleasant, it would hardly favor the propagation of either our individual genes or the species in general.

This is the problem with "long termism," a problem yoga identified more than two thousand years ago. When life's rap on the knuckles is not immediate enough to react as a deterrent, or the reward does not come fast enough to act as a spur, we tend to fell and act like children. We seek immediate gratification.

Lao Tzu, the Chinese philosopher, said, "Know yourself. Know what is good. Know when to stop.

Do we really want "More is better" to be the epitaph of the human race? In our individual lives, we struggle most with two sorts of action. The first is: Do something "nice" now and at some specified time in the future a "nasty will emerge. Repeat it often enough, and a "nasty" will appear with compound interest we could well do without. You might call this "From first hangover to cirrhosis." The second is: Do something now that it would be easier not to do (e.g. math homework instead of TV or get up an hour earlier for some yogasana practice) and reap the benefit a bit later. Repeat it often enough and harvest the compound interest as the future unrolls.

Consider this analogy. When it rains heavily, the water does not necessarily penetrate the earth. If the surface is dry and hard, the rain water floods the surface and runs off. But if it rains gradually for many days continuously, and the ground is moist, then the water seeps deep into the earth, which is good for cultivation and for life. Similarly in ourselves, we must moisten our muscles and nerves through the expansion and extension of the various asana. In this way, the stress that saturates the brain is diffused throughout the rest of the body, so the brain is rested and released from strain and the body releases its stress and strain through movement. Similarly, while doing the various types of pranayama the whole body is irrigated with energy. The nerves are soothed, the brain is calmed, the hardness and rigidity of the lungs are loosened. The nerves are made to remain healthy. There is a certain vibration, which you can make rhythmic and subtler in your asana and pranayama practice without force or stress. You are one with yourself and that is in and of itself a meditative state.

Pain: Find Comfort Even in Discomfort

Many people focus on the past or the future to avoid experiencing the present, often because the present is painful or difficult to endure...The pain is there as a teacher, because life if filled with pain. In the struggle alone, there is knowledge. Only when there is pain will you see the light.

Pain is your guru.

To get freedom, you have to bear the pain. this is equally true in life.

In this way, pain can be a great teacher, which educates us how to live with it and eventually say goodbye.

Right pain is not only constructive but also exhilarating and involves challenge, while wrong pain is destructive and causes excruciating suffering.

We continually expand the frame of the mind by using the canvas of the body. It is as if you were to stretch a canvas more and create a larger surface for a paining. But we must respect the present form of our body. If we pull too fast or too much at once, we will rip the canvas. If the practice of today damages the practice of tomorrow, it is not correct practice.

Many yoga teachers ask you to do the asanas with ease and comfort and without any stress or true exertion. this ultimately leaves the practitioner living within the limits of his or her mind, with the inevitable fear, attachment, and pettiness.

From head to heels, you must find your center, and from this center you must extend and expand longitudinally and latitudinally. If extension is from the intelligence of the brain, expansion is from the intelligence of the heart. While doing asana, both the intellectual intelligence and the emotional intelligence have to meet and work together. Extension is attention, and expansion is awareness, I often say.

When most people stretch, they simply stretch to the point that they are trying to reach, but they forget to extend and expand from where they are. When you extend and expand, you are not only stretching to, you are also stretching from.

Overstretching occurs when one loses contact with one's center, with the divine core. Instead, the ego wants simply to stretch further, to reach the floor, regardless of its ability, rather than extending gradually from the center. Each movement must be an art. It is an art in which the Self is the only spectator.

Ballet dancers have the opposite problem to most people in that, because of their excessive flexibility, their physical capacity outstrips their intellectual consciousness.

We use right pain like a vaccine against the unavoidable pain and suffering that life always sends our way, but the dose must be correct. Asana practice is an opportunity to look at obstacles in practice and life and discover how we can cope with them.

Many intellectually developed people are still emotionally immature. If they have to face pains, they try to escape from them. They are seldom prepared to face that pain and to work through it when they are taken intensely into a posture. This practice brings them face to face with the reality of their bodies' natures. We must face up to our emotions, not run away from them. We do not do yoga just for enjoyment; we do it for ultimate emancipation.

Most people want to take joy without suffering. I will take both. See how far suffering takes me. when you do not resist suffering, you will make friends with other people who suffer. I suffered a lot in my own body. Now when someone tells me of his sufferings, I feel in my body what that suffering is. My personal experience provides me with great love and compassion. So I say, "My friend, let me try and do something." Pain comes to guide you. When you have known pain, you will be compassionate. Shared joys cannot teach us this.

We all have presence of mind when everything goes well, but we need to have presence of mind when something goes wrong. If we face suffering and accept it as a necessary means, all anxiousness disappears.

Perfecting: Always Be Happy with the Smallest Improvement

You have to ask yourself, using your intelligence and you willpower, can I do a little better than I am doing? Light comes to a person who extends his awareness a little more than seems possible. We limit ourselves by settling. We say, "Oh, I do not want to go beyond this, because I know this is good." This is living in one's old mind. Question whether you can do a little more. Then immediately you experience the movement is coming. If you are conscientious, your conscience whispers, "Try to go a little further." If one keep one's aim to the maximum, Self-knowing will come.

Do not allow past experiences to be imprinted on your mind. Perform asanas each time with a fresh mind and with a fresh approach. If you are repeating what you did before, you are living in the memory, so you are living in the past. That means you don't want to proceed beyond the experience of the past. Retaining that memory is saying, "Yesterday I didn't it like that." When I ask, "Is there anything new from what I did yesterday?" then there is progress. Am I going forward or am I going backward? Then you understand how to create dynamism in a static asana. That memory has to be used as a springboard from which you can ask yourself, "What more can I do than what I did yesterday?" This is equally true in life as in asana practice.

The moment you say, "I have got it," you have lost everything you had.

As you take great pains to learn, continue with devotion in what you have learned. Learning is very difficult, but it is twice as difficult to keep the ground gained.

You must purge yourself before finding faults in others. When you see a mistake in somebody else, try to find if you are making the same mistake. This is the way to take judgement and turn it into improvement. Do not look at others' bodies with envy or with superiority. All people are born with different constitutions. Never compare with others. Each one's capacities are a function of his or her internal strength. Know your capacities and continually improve upon them.

Hindus often say the GOD is Generator, Organizer, and Destroyer. Inhalation is the generating power, retention is the organizing power, and exhalation, if the energy is vicious, is the destroyer. This is prana at work. Vigor, power, vitality, life, and spirit are all forms of prana.

Prana is special because it carries awareness. it is the vehicle of consciousness.

The genius of nature's intelligence is self-expression. That is why nature is infinitely varied, infinitely inventive. Prana is out link to this infinite intelligence.

You have to tame your breath to tame your brain. Live from moment to moment absorbed in the unruffled flow of the circular movement of the in- and out-breaths. It's current should be like that of a very full, stately river, whose movements cannot be seen.

The main causes of negative stress are anger, fear, speed, greed, unhealthy ambition, and competition, which produce a deleterious effect on the body and mind. When one does good work without selfish motives, though there is the stress of work, it is positive, and it does not cause the far greater stress that comes from grasping and greed. The practice of asana and pranayama not only de-stress you, but energize and invigorate the nerves and the mind in order to handle the stress that comes from the caprices of life.

It is not just that yoga is causing all of this pain; the pain is already there. It is hidden. We just live with it or have learned not to be aware of it. It is as if your body is in a coma. When you begin yoga, the unrecognized pains come to the surface. When we are able to use out intelligence to purify our bodies, then the hidden pains are dispersed.

Internal mistakes such as forcing , acting without observing, tightening the throat, and blocking the ears create habits, and these habits create lack of awareness, constriction, heaviness, tightness, imbalance, and pain.

The challenge of yoga is to go beyond our limits - within reason.

If the practice of today, damages the practice of tomorrow, it is not correct practice.

You must keep your balance by using the intelligence of the body (whether instinct, feeling, or ability) but not by strength. When you keep the balance by strength, it is physical action; when by intelligence of the body, it is relaxation in action. Evenness is harmony, and in that evenness alone you learn.

When performing asanas, no part of the body should be idle, no part should be neglected.

Always watch your base: Be attentive to the portion nearest the ground. Correct first form the root.

Balance does not mean merely balancing the body. Balance in the body is the foundation for balance in life. In whatever position one is in, or in whatever condition in life one is place, one must find balance. Balance is the state of the present - the here and now. If you balance in the present, you are living in Eternity.

The answer lies in the three qualities of nature, which are the guna. These three qualities must be balance in your asana practice and in your body, mind, and soul. Roughly they are translated as solidity, dynamism, and luminosity.

Mathematicians say that numbers progress from one to two to three to many. Its is the number three that unlocks the possibility of infinite diversity. Infinite, unmanifested origin is one. Duality is two.

With regard to asana practice, this means that initially we need to exert ourselves more as resistance is greater. Of the two aspects of asana, exertion of our body and penetration of our mind, the latter is eventually more important. Penetration of our mind is our goal, but in the beginning to set things in motion, there is no substitute for sweat.

Though the mass of our body is heavy, we are meant to tread lightly on this earth.

As we experience pleasures happily, we must also learn not to lose our happiness when pain comes. As we see good in pleasure, we should learn to see good in pain. Learn to find comfort even in discomfort. We must not try to run from the pain but to move through and beyond it. This is the cultivation of tenacity and perseverance, which is a spiritual attitude toward yoga. This is also the spiritual attitude toward life.

While we do not actively seek out pain, we do not run from the inevitable pain that is part of all growth and change. The asanas help us to develop greater tolerance in body and mind so that we can bear the stress and strain more easily. In other words, the effort and its unavoidable pains are an essential part of what the asanas can teach us.

If you can adapt to and balance in a world that is always moving and unstable, you learn how to become tolerant to the permanence of change and difference.

The asana will not come by making faces.

Pain comes only when the body does not understand how to do the asana, which is the case in the beginning. In the correct posture, pain does not come. To learn the right posture, you have to face the pain. There is no other way.

While me must recognize the existence and importance of pain, we must not glorify it. Where pain exists, there must be a reason for it.

Right pain is not only constructive but also exhilarating and involves challenge, while wrong pain is destructive and cause excruciating suffering. Right pain is for our growth and for our physical and spiritual transformation. Right pain is usually felt as a gradual lengthening and strengthening feeling and must be differentiated form wrong pain, which is often a sharp and sudden cautionary feeling that our body uses to tell us we have gone too far beyond our present abilities. In addition, if you get a pain that is persistent, and intensifying as you work, it's likely a wrong pain.

One should not overstretch, nor understretch. If one thing is overstretched, something else get understretched. If overstretching comes from a swollen ego, then understretching results from lack of confidence. If overstretching is exhibitionism, understretching is escapism. Overstretching and understretching are both wrong: Always stretch from the source, the core, and the foundation of each asana.

When you extend to your skin, you are also extending your nerve endings. Extending them opens them so that they can throw out their stored impurities. That is why I teach extension and expansion. The nerves release and relax. You feel as if you are extending the skin, the muscles, and even the bones of your body. Practice asanas by creating space in the muscles and skin, so that the body fits into the asana. To do this, the whole body has to act. To extend the part, you must extend the whole.

In laxity there is chaos and heedlessness as well as carelessness, and therefore the flow of energy is erratic. In relaxation there is careful adjustment, and hence energy is rhythmic.

The mind does not balance when you force.

Inhalation is tension, exhalation is freedom.

Although I final asana can be judged objectively only from the exterior, it is sustained from within.

Focus on relaxing as you hold the stretch, not clenching, but relaxing and opening. This relaxes the brain as well as the body. You must relax the neck and head as well. If you keep the back skin of the neck passive and the tongue soft, there is no tension in the brain. This is silence in action, relaxation in action. As soon as you learn how to relax the tongue and throat, you know how to relax the brain, because there is also a connection between the tongue and the throat and the brain.

Notice your eyes as well, as you hold the stretch. Tenseness of the eyes also affects the brain. If the eyes are still and silence the brain is still and passive.

When we direct our eyes looking forward from the corner of the temple in its normal field of vision, the frontal brain is working with analysis (vitarka). But when we spread our ocular awareness from the back corner of the temple, near the ear, the back brain is brought into play and works with synthesis (vicara). He front brain can dismantle because of its powerful penetration. The back brain is holistic and reassembles.

The form of each asana needs to be reflected to the wisdom body (vijnanamaya kosa) for readjustment and realignment.

Relaxation begins from the outer layer of the body and penetrates the deep layers of our existence.

In his book The Art of Yoga, B. K. S. Iyengar calls Yoga a “disciplinary art which develops the faculties of the body, mind and intellect” and whose “purpose is to refine man.”4 Initially he practiced Yoga for health reasons, but gradually he developed the yogic postures into an art form bringing “charm and delicacy, poise and peace, harmony and delight in presentations.”5 Undoubtedly he relates in this artistic way to the rest of Yoga as well. At the same time, Iyengar—whose method of āsana practice is the most exacting of all—makes it clear that the yogic techniques, if practiced correctly, have predictable results. Iyengar sees the relationship between art and science as follows: “Art in its initial stages is science; science in its highest form is art.”6 That is to say, at first the artist must master technique (the scientific part of art), just as the scientist who wants to master science must see beauty in truth. The delight and awe of mathematicians when looking at a particularly concise formula is a well-known manifestation of artistic sensibility. Long ago, Pythagoras knew of the meeting place of science (in the form of mathematics) and art (in the form of music). Even before him, the Indians had discovered the same connection, as expressed in their Shulba-Sūtras. Yoga practitioners look upon their own body-mind as an artistic instrument that can be explored fairly precisely by carefully observing the timehonored rules of the yogic heritage. This effort yields what the Western esoteric traditions call the “music of the spheres”—the mystical sound om reverberating throughout the cosmos followed by the wondrous realization of absolute oneness (ekatva) beyond all qualities.

The yogi stills his mind by constant study and by freeing himself from desires. The eight stages of Yoga teach him the way.

The yogi's life is not measure by the number of his days but by the number of his breaths. Therefore, he follows the proper rhythmic patterns of slow deep breathing. These rhythmic patterns strengthen the respiratory system, soothe the nervous system and reduce craving. As desires and cravings diminish, the mind is set free and becomes a fit vehicle for concentration.

It has been said by Kariba Ekken, a seventeenth-century mystic; 'If you would foster a calm spirit, first regulate your breathing; for when that is under control, the heart will be at peace; but when breathing is spasmodic, then it will be troubled. therefore, before attempting anything, first regulate your breathing on which your temper will be softened, your spirit calmed.

Avirati: This is the tremendous craving for sensory objects after they have been consciously abandoned, which is so hard to restrain. Without being attached to the objects of sense, the yogi learns to enjoy them with the aid of the senses which are completely under his control. By the practice of pratyahara he wins freedom from attachment and emancipation from desire and becomes content and tranquil.

Upeksa: It is not merely a feeling of disdain or contempt for the person who has fallen into vice (apunya) or one of indifference or superiority towards him. It is a searching self-examination to find out how one would have behaved when faced with the same temptations. It is also an examination to see how far one is responsible for the state to put him on the right path. The yogi understands the faults of others by seeing and studying them first in himself. This self-study teaches him to be charitable to all.

You, my readers, must understand that you are already starting from somewhere. You have the beginning already shown to you, and no one knows in what wholeness and felicity you may end. I you take up any noble line and stick to it, you can reach the ultimate. Be inspired but not proud. Do not aim low; you will miss the mark. Aim high; you will be on the threshold of bliss.

What Patanjali said applies to me and will apply to you. He wrote, "With this truth bearing light will begin a new life. Old unwanted impression are discarded and we are protected from the damaging effects of new experiences." (Yoga Sutras, Chapter 1, Verse 50)

Yoga is not meant to be a religion or dogmas for any one culture. While yoga sprang from the soil of India, it is meant as a universal path, a way open to all regardless of their birth and background.

Yoga does not look on greed, violence, sloth, excess, pride, lust, and fear as ineradicable forms of original sin that exist to wreck our happiness - or indeed on which to found our happiness. They are seen as natural, if unwelcome, manifestations of the human disposition and predicament that are to be solved, not suppressed or denied. Our flawed mechanisms of perception and thought are not a cause for grief (though they bring us grief), but an opportunity to evolve, for an internal evolution of consciousness that will also make possible in a sustainable form our aspirations toward what we call individual success and global progress.

There is no progress toward ultimate freedom without transformation, and this is the key issue in all people's lives, whether they practice yoga or not. If we can understand how our mind and heart works, we have a chance to answer the question, "Why do I keep making the same old mistakes?

Sensitivity is not weakness or vulnerability. It is clarity of perception and allow judicious, precise action.

As mammals, we are homeostatic. That means we maintain certain constant balances within our bodies, temperature for example, by adapting to change and challenge in the environment. Strength and flexibility allow us to keep inner balance, but man is trying more and more to dominate the environment rather than control himself. Central heating, air conditioning, cars that we take out to drive three hundred yards, towns that stay lit up all night, and food imported from around the world out of season are all examples of how we try to circumvents our duty to adapt to nature and instead force nature to adapt to us. In the process, we become both weak and brittle.

Does not the American Declaration of Independence talk of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness? If a yogi had written that, he would have said, Life, Happiness, and the Pursuit of Liberty. Sometimes happiness may bring stagnation, but if freedom comes from disciplined happiness, there is the possibility of true liberation.

If you say you are your body, you are wrong. If you say you are not your body, you are also wrong. The truth is that although body is born, lives, and dies, you cannot catch a glimpse of the divine except through the body.

You must observe and correct the body position (adjusting it from both sides) with the help of the trillions of eyes that you have in the form of cells. This is how you begin to bring awareness to your body and fuse the intelligence of brain and brawn. This intelligence should exist everywhere in your body and throughout the asana. The moment you lose the feeling in the skin, the asana becomes dull, and the flow or current of the intelligence is lost.

It is almost impossible to jump from "bad" to "best" without passing through "good." Also, as ignorance recedes, "good" is an infinitely more comfortable place to be than "bad." What we call "bad" is ignorance in action and, as a strategy for life, thrives only on darkness.