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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

You exist without the feeling of existence.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Without education, confidence does not come.

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.

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.

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

Stability-The Physical Body (Asana)

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

...in all asanas, ascend to descend and descend to ascend.

As a farmer ploughs a field and makes the ground soft, a yogi ploughs his nerves so they can germinate and make a better life. This practice of yoga is to remove weeds from the body so that the garden can grow. If the ground it too hard, what life can grow there? If the body is too stiff and the mind is too rigid, what life can it live?

In contrast to rigidity, tension is not good or bad. it has to be present at the right time in the right amount. Weighing or balancing it evenly is life. There is nothing in this world where yogis say there should be no tension at all. Even dead bodies have tension. You have to find the right amount of tension in your body. The right amount will keep all of your energy in your body. Too much tension is aggression.

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.

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.

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.