B.K.S. Iyengar Quotes - Page 7

That's the beauty of backbends. Emotionally we can never be disturbed, for the emotional centre becomes an extrovert. When you do Viparita Dandasana, your head looks backwards, but your conscious mind stretches everywhere. Study by observing how the mind gets regulated. You not only know the freedom in the spine, but also the freedom in the spirit.

I can remain thoughtfully thoughtless, It is not an empty mind.

As long as you do not feel the serenity in the body, in each and every joint, there is no chance for emancipation. You are in bondage. So while you are sweating and aching, let your heart be light and let it fill your body with gladness. You are not only becoming free, but you are also being free. What is not to be glad about? The pain is temporary. The freedom is permanent.

If everyone practiced yoga, pharmacies would have to close.

When I practice, I am a philosopher. When I teach, I am a scientist. When I demonstrate, I am an artist.

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

Yoga releases the creative potential in life.

In Savasana or in meditation, the light of the eyes is drawn towards the lotus of the heart, so that the seat of the intelligence of the head is brought into contact with the seat of the intelligence of the heart, which is called the mind. Thus one passes from the individualistic state of consciousness to the universal state of consciousness. It is the merging of the intellect of the brain with the intellect of the soul.

You must continue to go back to the beginning, to the foundation, and question the foundation. Even once you‘ve reached Samadhi you must go back so you can create it at will. Samadhi is the beginning of spiritual growth, not the end. You must always be questioning. Enlightenment comes as an accident at first, then you have to learn to recreate it.

Where there is yoga, there is prosperity, success, freedom and bliss.

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

You have to create love and affection for your body, for what it can do for you. Love must be incarnated in the smallest pore of the skin, the smallest cell of the body to make them intelligent so they can collaborate with all the other ones, in the big republic of the body. This love must radiate from you to others.

If you practice yoga every day with perseverance, you will be able to face the turmoil of life with steadiness and maturity.

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

Yoga aims for complete awareness in everything you do.

The needs of the body are the needs of the divine self, which lives through the body.

When the mind is controlled and still what remains is the soul

When I stretch, I stretch in such a way that my awareness moves, and a gate of awareness finally opens.

The back is like a frame, the front body, the painting that it throws into relief.

It is while practicing yoga asanas that you learn the art of adjustment.

All of us have a dormant spark of divinity in us which has to be fanned into flame by yoga.

Yoga is more than physical. It is cellular, mental, intellectual and spiritual-it involves man in his entire being

Yoga is an interior penetration leading to integration of being, senses, breath, mind, intelligence, consciousness, and Self. It is definitely an inward journey, evolution through involution, toward the Soul, which in turn desires to emerge and embrace you in its glory.

As each individual is electrically alive and dynamic, so yoga is a living, dynamic force in life. In order to savor its essence, one needs a religiously attentive dynamic practice done with awareness and absorption.

Death is unimportant to a yogi; he does not mind when he is going to die. What happens after death is immaterial to him. He is only concerned with life-with how he can use his life for the betterment of humanity. Having undergone various types of pain in his life and having acquired a certain mastery over pain, he develops compassion to help society and maintains himself in purity and holiness. The yogi has no interest beyond that.