B.K.S. Iyengar Quotes - Page 11

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.

I don’t bring yesterday’s poses to today’s practice. I know yesterday’s poses, but when I practice today I become a beginner. I don’t want yesterday’s experience. I want to see what new understanding may come in addition to what I felt up to now.

The body has to be invaded by the intelligence; each part has to become intelligent.

What I was is unimportant, what I am now is important.

As long as you do not live totally in the body, you do not live totally in the Self.

As the trunk is one but the branches are many, yoga is one but adaptations may vary.

Yoga is a means and an end.

I also say with backbends, you have to be cautiously bold. Not carelessly bold. You have to descend to the dictation of the spine. You cannot command from the brain to do the poses. As you play with a child, guarding the child from injuries, similarly you have to play in backbends, guarding your spine.

In backbends, one touches the body physically, mentally, intellectually, consciously and spiritually everywhere.

Intellectuals tend to be arrogant. Intelligence, like money, is a good servant but a bad master. When practicing pranayama, the yogi [makes] himself humble and without pride in his intellectual attainments.

When every asana is multi-petaled, why do you make it single petaled?

Yoga is the method by which the restless mind is calmed And the energy directed into constructive channels.

Classics postures, when practiced with discrimination and awareness, bring the body, mind, and consciousness into a single, harmonious whole.

The whole thrust of yogic philosophical and scientific inquiry has therefore been to examine the nature of being, with a view to learning to respond to the stresses of life without so many tremors and troubles.

The supreme adventure in a man’s life is his journey back to his Creator. To reach the goal he needs well developed and co-ordinated functioning of his body, senses, mind, reason and Self.

In forward bends, one uses the outer mind while in backbends the outer mind is silenced and the inner mind is made to work.

People say that steadiness of mind is an end; no, it is a beginning. I am there; I can explain everything up to that point. Then I struggle to discover what comes after, so this steadiness is not an end, it is the beginning and the instrument.

Knowledge of yoga is no substitute for practice.

For me there were only two ways on the precipice - either I have to fall in or I have to fall out, to accept or say good-bye. The moment I crossed the precipice, it no longer was a discipline - it became a passion, an urge to pursue. Then I experienced freedom. Freedom comes when the discipline revolutionizes the discipline as a passion for the art.

Yoga has a threefold impact on health. It keeps healthy people healthy, it inhibits the development of diseases, and it aids recovery from ill health.

I think overall the majority of people who are practicing it as a subject are following the right line. For the aberration, don't blame yoga or the whole community of yogis

Faith, courage, and intelligent and uninterrupted awareness - these qualities are to be present whether one is wide awake, half asleep, or in deep slumber. An individual who lives like this performs his daily actions with a mind free from selfishness. This is poise in action. And this poise leads to that serenity which is in the truest sense a healthy mind in a healthy body.

Think light! Try to impart a feeling of lightness to the body. Think light. This can be achieved by mentally extending yourself outwards from the centre of the body, i.e., think tall. Think not just of raising your arms but of extending them outwards and when you are holding them still, think again of reaching still further away from your body. Do not think of yourself as a small compressed suffering thing. Think of yourself as graceful and expanding - no matter how unlikely it may seem at the time.

Regarding perfection, that's a very difficult question. I can say that I have superseded most in my sadhana [practice]. I am in it, and my mind and my intelligence gets better in my sadhana, and it reaches a certain place. When I stretch, I stretch in such a way that my awareness moves, and a gate of awareness finally opens... My body is a laboratory, you can say. I don't stretch my body as if it is an object. I do yoga from the self towards the body, not the other way around.

As a well cut diamond has many facets, each reflecting a different color of light, so does the word yoga, each facet reflecting a different shade of meaning and revealing different aspects of the entire range of human endeavor to win inner peace and happiness.