Yoga Is Quotes & Sayings

There is no doubt that the foundation of being a great yoga teacher is being a great yoga student. — Rod Stryker

There are certain ways in which I cultivate awareness, both through mindful yoga and taking care of my body and taking time to actually drop as deeply as possible into stillness, into whatever is unfolding in the present moment. — Jon Kabat-Zinn

The true purpose of yoga is to discover that aspect of your being that can never be lost. — Deepak Chopra

Like any other science, yoga is applicable by people of every clime and time. The theory advanced by certain ignorant writers that yoga is "dangerous" or "unsuitable" for Westerners is wholly false, and has lamentably deterred many sincere students from seeking its manifold blessings. Yoga is a method for restraining the natural turbulence of thoughts, which otherwise impartially prevents all men, of all lands, from glimpsing their true nature of Spirit. Like the healing light of the sun, yoga is beneficial equally to men of the East and to men of the West. The thoughts of most persons are restless and capricious; a manifest need exists for yoga: the science of mind control. — Paramahansa Yogananda

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. — B.K.S. Iyengar

Selfless giving is like putting on make-up. We're covering up a part of ourselves thats not very aware. The thing is when we take the make up off, the selflish part leaves us. We are freeer, clearer. — Frederick Lenz

Well look, it seems as though you do have some experience now at least of threefold bliss, luminosity, and emptiness that is such an important feature of the first yoga. On top of that, you are in an excellent position, having had introduction from myself and having all the things on your side that you have going for you. But look out! Your mind is probably not strong enough yet that you can go wandering into town, as a lot of yogi-types would, drinking liquor and womanizing, and trying to incorporate that into your practice. Instead, and until you have advanced far enough that you can actually take these things onto the path, you should be practicising!

- Gampopa to Phagmo Drupa

(Duff T. Gampopa Teaches Essence Mahamudra: Interviews with His Heart Disciples, Dusum Khyenpa and Others. Padma Karpo Translation Committee, 2012. Pp. xxviii-xxix) — Tony Duff

Yoga is a generic name for any discipline by which one attempts to pass out of the limits of one's ordinary mental consciousness into a greater spiritual consciousness. — Sri Aurobindo

Spiritual process is not for the dead or the dying; it is for the living who want to become fully alive in all dimensions of life. — Jaggi Vasudev

Meditation is not a means to an end. It is both the means and the end. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

Yoga is meant for the purification of body and its exploration as well as for the refinement of the mind. — B.K.S. Iyengar

The reality is that you are the spirit. The rest is a myth. — Nirmala Srivastava

When you follow the path of love you should feel that each one is perfect in their own right. While you can love others, never, ever, ever judge them. — Frederick Lenz

There is nothing but eternity. Eternity has always been and will always be. — Frederick Lenz

Understand that wisdom is higher than intellect and discretion is higher than debating. — Nirmala Srivastava

In the Far East, studying yoga is comparable to a mixture of attending one of the best Western universities, and of being an intrepid explorer. — Frederick Lenz

No. I'm a wreck," she said in the squeaky high voice of one who is determined not to cry. "You do not seem like it," Mrs. Wattlesbrook squeaked back. "Thanks," Charlotte chirped. "I do yoga. Ninety percent of confidence is posture. — Shannon Hale

Using the combined, integrated force of the mind and body is more efficient than using one without the other. Since the body can only exist in the present, that's where the mind should be too (unless we deliberately choose to contemplate the past or future). At the same time, the body needs to be healthy and in optimum operating condition so that it can respond effectively to the mind's directives. — H.E. Davey

Exercises are like prose, whereas yoga is the poetry of movements. Once you understand the grammar of yoga; you can write your poetry of movements. — Amit Ray

The Spirit which is within you is a collective being and once you are awakened into the light of Spirit, you become a collective being. That means, on your finger tips you can feel the centers of others also as you can feel yourself. By knowing yourself you know the self knowledge, the inner self knowledge and by knowing others you are in collective consciousness. — Nirmala Srivastava

When it comes right down to it, all you have is your self. Your Self is a sun with a thousand rays ... — Pablo Picasso

By becoming clearly contemplative in a matter of weeks, my prayer had been given a particular and novel cast; and this was matched by the distinctness in the reprecussions my daily sessions of exercises were having on my everyday life, as well as on the many different occupations which a monk is vowed to carry out. The genuine sense of euphoria that followed the exercises persisted in me and transfigured my day. During the early months I had to face up to the sort of difficulties which put one's nerves to the test, and which would certainly have put me on my back before. As it was, everything went off so smoothly and I took it all so well that I trained everyone under my charge to develop the attitude of 'accepting rather than undergoing. — Jean Dechanet

In his history of solitude, Anthony Storr writes about the importance of being able to feel at peace in one's own company. But many find that, trained by the Net, they cannot find solitude even at a lake or beach or on a hike. Stillness makes them anxious. I see the beginnings of a backlash as some young people become disillusioned with social media. There is,. too, the renewed interest in yoga, Eastern religions, meditating, and slowness. — Sherry Turkle

When the truth is known, all descriptions cease, and silence alone remains. #Yoga Vasistha — Abhishek Kumar

One reason that challenge brings happiness is that it allows you to expand your self - definition. You become larger. Suddenly you can do yoga or make homemade beer or speak a decent amount of Spanish. Research shows that the more elements make up your identity, the less threatening it is when any one element is threatened. — Gretchen Rubin

The aim of yoga is to calm the chaos of conflicting impulses — B.K.S. Iyengar

Yoga is an ongoing experiment. — Nils Horn

Where there is yoga,
there is prosperity,
success, freedom and bliss. — B.K.S. Iyengar

Yoga is possible for anybody who really wants it. Yoga is universal ... But don't approach yoga with a business mind looking for worldly gain. — K. Pattabhi Jois

I have a treadmill in my house, which is great because even if I jump on it for a little bit, it makes me feel better. I love yoga and Pilates too. I have a private Pilates instructor I go to once a week. — Holly Madison

A master bestows the divine experience of cosmic consciousness when his disciple, by meditation, has strengthened his mind to a degree where the vast vistas would not overwhelm him. Mere intellectual willingness or open-mindedness is not enough. Only adequate enlargement of consciousness by yoga practice and devotional bhakti can prepare one to absorb the liberating shock of omnipresence. — Paramahansa Yogananda

Consider your will and your body as two dancers, moving in total unison. Too many beginning and even experienced yoga students make their yoga into a wrestling match - the mind contending with the body, forcing it into postures that the body is resisting. Yoga is a dance, not a wrestling match. — Bernie Clark

Love is connection with others. Union with another human being or living thing. That's also Yoga. — Christy Turlington

It takes an honest look to observe our selves without judgment, and then to do something about it. Observing without judgment is the practice of yoga. Doing something about it is the stuff that makes up your life. — Tara Stiles

Yoga is about awakening. Yoga is about creating a life that brings more beauty and more love into the world. — John Friend

Consciousness is the screen. The images on the screen are your perceptions, the illusion that life is solid, that there is a material universe. — Frederick Lenz

Everybody out there is just doing things for themesleves. So if you don't do that you've got to be crazy ... crazy about selfless giving! — Frederick Lenz

The Spirit is the one that is love. Can you understand total love ? Can you understand something that just gives and enjoys giving and not asking for anything ? Loving for loves sake, that's what is your Spirit. It is watching you with that love, that total love. — Nirmala Srivastava

My life is so tumultuous. I dive into everything. I'm feeling all up and down and sleepy and moody and hormonal - it just gets crazy. Just to keep myself balanced, I do things like yoga and meditation. — India.Arie

Do workout or Yoga in the morning: According to me, the real meaning of the morning is to get ready for your entire day. You can charge your body through workout or Yoga, whichever inspires you. When you work out or do yoga, your blood circulation improves and all parts of your body get good amount of oxygen. — Samir Kunvaria

The two seem, at first glance, to be opposed, but when you have advanced a little in both, you find that concentration learned in Yoga is of immense use in attaining the mental powers necessary in Magick; on the other hand, the discipline of Magick is of the greatest service in Yoga. — Aleister Crowley

Crying is one of the highest devotional songs. One who knows crying, knows spiritual practice. If you can cry with a pure heart, nothing else compares to such a prayer. Crying includes all the principles of Yoga. — Kripalvanandji

To talk about realizing the Self is discontinuous because there is nothing to realize but the Self. There is nothing but realization. — Frederick Lenz

Yoga is 99% practice and 1% theory. — K. Pattabhi Jois

To be spiritual means to be an emperor within yourself. This is the only way to be. — Jaggi Vasudev

What is there when the ego is gone? Eternity, love. — Frederick Lenz

Perseverance is the essential requirement in the practice of yoga. It has to be done day by day, week by week, year by year, until the mind is brought to the 'still point' where it is open to the grace of God. — Bede Griffiths

Innocence is the source of love. — Nirmala Srivastava

If we are not living IN our bodies, honoring them as our TEMPLE, we are closing off the divine channels (nadis) of energy that run through us. Additionally, when we are not in good physical shape, we limit our enjoyment of our life experience. Thus, yoga is spiritual and physical. — Dashama Konah Gordon

A big group of daily friends or a white painted house with bills and mirrors, are not a necessity to me - but an intelligent conversation while sharing another coffee, is. — Charlotte Eriksson

Yoga is a big misnomer in the west, people don't know what this yoga is. Yoga means union with the divine. When you become one with the divine, the divine starts flowing through you and you become part and parcel of the whole. — Nirmala Srivastava

I've never had one of those amazing yoga bodies. My body is what it is. I am sure if I went on a crash diet, lost two stone and toned up I could make loads of money by making fitness videos and selling my story to the tabloids. But I don't want to encourage women to be anything other than what they are. That's very important to me. — Kelly Brook

Because all actions and expressions
stem from the mind, it is vital to know the
mind as well as decide in what way we'll use it. Everyone has heard of psychosomatic illness, and most of us acknowledge that psychosomatic sicknesses can and do occur. But what
about psychosomatic wellness? — H.E. Davey

Yoga is more a state than a methodology. A state where there is nothing missing. You don't feel like you have to grab this or grab that in order to be complete or full. From wringing out the body and the mind, from sitting in meditation, from studying scripture, from selfless service. — Colleen Saidman

Any teaching will not transform you as long as you are deeply attached to your body. Yoga is towards reducing this attachment. — Jaggi Vasudev

Coming to Haramara is like coming home. My body returns to the earth, my mind mesmerized by the rhythms of the ocean and my spirit flies in this magical place. Yoga is a way of life and Haramara Retreat is where we can re-educate ourselves to live in balance. — Rodney Yee

Love is the easiest and most effective way to begin our search for self-realization. — Frederick Lenz

Although yoga is commonly portrayed as a popular fitness trend, it's actually the core of the Vedic science that developed in the Indus Valley more than 5,000 years ago. — Deepak Chopra

The desire of your vital being is towards work. And the vital being won't find any interest in yoga so long as you do not have any experience of the higher and fuller life that is in yoga. As long as this experience is not there, the vital being will not find any interest. — Sri Aurobindo

Jivamukti Yoga is a path to enlightenment through compassion for all beings. Jivamukti is a Sanskrit word that means to live liberated in joyful, musical harmony with the Earth. The Earth does not belong to us - we belong to the Earth. Let us celebrate our connection to life by not enslaving animals and exploiting the Earth, and attain freedom and happiness for ourselves in the process. For surely, the best way to uplift our own lives is to do all we can to uplift the lives of others. Go vegan! — Sharon Gannon

Raja yoga is the mental practice and incorporates meditation, pranayama, and mudra. What are the benefits of having a raja yoga practice? The benefit is spirituality. — Rajashree Choudhury

yoga is an extremely effective way to unlock your reserves of vitality. — Robin S. Sharma

That's why it's called a practice. We have to practice a practice if it is to be of value. — Allan Lokos

A kaleidoscope consists of a tube (or container), mirrors, pieces of glass (or beads or precious stones), sunlight, and someone to turn it and observe and enjoy the forms. Metaphorically, perhaps the sun represents the divine light, or spark of life, within all of us. The mirrors represent our ability to serve as mirrors for one another and each other's alignment, reflecting sides of ourselves that we may not have been aware of. The tube (or container) is the practice of community yoga. We, as human beings, are the glass, the beads, the precious stones. The facilitator is the person turning the Kaleidoscope, initiating the changing patterns. And the resulting beauty of the shapes? Well, that's for everyone to enjoy... — Lo Nathamundi

Man in his madness doesn't realize that God has made him from amoeba to this stage for some purpose. There is a big purpose behind it. And the purpose is that now you have to know your Spirit, by which you enter into the Kingdom of God. You have to enter into the Kingdom of God. How? What is your passport? Is your Spirit. Because when the Spirit starts shining within you, you start transforming. You start transforming into a new being - into a new personality with a new awareness and you are a different person. Your priorities change. — Nirmala Srivastava

If you want to follow the path of love, it's a good idea to meditate on the heart chakra everyday. The heart chakra is in the center of the chest. — Frederick Lenz

Wherever you go, there you are. Your emptiness goes with you. Maddening. Things that help: writing, reading, water, walks, forgiving myself every other minute, practicing easy yoga, taking deep breaths, and petting my dogs. These things don't fill me completely, but they remind me that it is not my job to fill myself. It's just my job to notice my emptiness and find graceful ways to live as a broken, unfilled human ...
If there's a silver lining to the emptiness, here it is: the unfillable is what brings people together. I've never made a friend by bragging about my strengths, but I've made countless by sharing my weakness and my emptiness. — Glennon Doyle Melton

When we talk about self-realization, we're talking from the point of view of limitation of the mind. Real knowledge is to see that you are that - you are eternity. — Frederick Lenz

At first you might find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred space and use it, eventually something will happen. Your sacred space is where you find yourself again and again. — Joseph Campbell

Please act in and through me. Please let my love increase, if it is your will. I feel that's the right thing; but even if it's not the right thing, I'm willing to abide by your judgment. — Frederick Lenz

The reality of en-masse inner transformation of human beings by self-realisation is the most revolutionary discovery of the present age. — Nirmala Srivastava

After facing backlash from customers, Subway says it will remove a chemical in its bread that is also found in yoga mats. Some people were like, 'You mean I've been eating a dangerous chemical?' While most people were like, 'You mean I can eat my yoga mat?' — Jimmy Fallon

The essence of love is concern. — Nirmala Srivastava

The key to selfless giving is that you feel good when you do it and you feel good afterwards. — Frederick Lenz

When the mind is left without anything to cling to, it becomes still. — Ramana Maharshi

Meditation is a way of moving into the unlimited dimension of who you are - it is the ultimate freedom. — Jaggi Vasudev

I can be highly competitive, which is ultimately why I chose yoga as a career. I thought it would drain the competitive drive out of me and allow me to be present and content. The yoga world has become highly competitive since then and it used to drive me crazy until I realized there's work for everyone. — Kathryn Budig

Illusion doesn't mean that something is not real. Illusion simply means that something is less real than something else. This life and this world certainly exist - who is to say the reality of the dream is not real? — Frederick Lenz

I bow to all the seekers of truth. At the very outset, I have to say that truth is what it is. We cannot change it, we cannot transform it. We cannot compromise with it. It is what it is, it has been what it has been, and it will be what it has been. So it doesn't change. What is needed is that we have to change. So, what is the truth? Truth is that you are not this body, this mind; you are not these emotions, intellect or conditionings. Nor you are ego. So what are you ? You are the pure Spirit. — Nirmala Srivastava

It is important to learn that love is your life, love is spirituality. — Nirmala Srivastava

Yoga is a gift that you give yourself. — Bethenny Frankel

Realization is to get rid of the delusion that you have not realized. — Ramana Maharshi

To the yogi, all experience is seen as one, as a means to help him cultivate devotion. All experiences have equal meaning and value. (154) — Prem Prakash

A peculiarity of the nature of your mind is that, in contrast to your physical constitution (dosha) that is fixed from birth, it can be altered through discrimination and choice. — Sebastian Pole

The attention is to be kept pure. In Sahaja Yoga you know all the methods how the attention, one can keep it pure. If the attention is not pure, then this desire will be always attacked by all petty, nonsensical things which have no meaning in your ascent. — Nirmala Srivastava

It is not arrogant or egotistical to feel good inside. You had nothing to do with it. It's simply the honest response to clearly perceived Reality. — Erich Schiffmann

There is no mind to control if you realise the self. The mind having vanished, the self shines forth. In the realised man, the mind may be active or inactive, the self remains for him. — Ramana Maharshi

...the experience of reading a novel has certain qualities that remind us of the traditional apprehension of mythology. It can be seen as a form of meditation. Readers have to live with a novel for days or even weeks. It projects them into another world, parallel to but apart from their ordinary lives. They know perfectly well that this fictional realm is not 'real' and yet while they are reading it becomes compelling. A powerful novel becomes part of the backdrop of our lives, long after we have laid the book asie. It is an exercise of make-believe that, like yoga or a religious festival, breaks down barriers of space and time and extends our sympathies, so that we are able to empathise with others lives and sorrows. It teaches compassion, the ability to 'feel with' others. And, like mythology, an important novel is transformative. If we allow it to do so, it can change us forever. — Karen Armstrong

The reason why we're not happy is because we believe consciously and subconsciously that we're separate from god, eternal awareness. — Frederick Lenz

One who is established in a comfortable posturewhile concentrating on the inner self alonenaturally becomes immersed in the spontaneousarising of the heart's ocean of bliss. — Jaideva Singh

Yoga is not a religion to me. — Christy Turlington

Silence is the true friend that never betrays. — Confucius

The world as it appears to us through our mind and senses is seen as an illusion (maya). That doesn't mean that it doesn't exist, but that it doesn't represent the Truth, the Real. — Hridaya Yoga

Finally, we see that there is no one and nothing but God. — Frederick Lenz

The best way to be with your spirit is to forgive. — Nirmala Srivastava

I try to go through it [emotional pain]; understanding is going to take me to a better place. And I do hot yoga. — Patricia Velasquez

I don't really begrudge anyone who uses substances, I just feel that yoga is a more sustainable way to find peace because it's from the inside out. — MC Yogi

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. — B.K.S. Iyengar

Yoga's most sublime objective is to awaken an exalted state of spiritual realization; however, the tradition also recognizes that this state does not exist in absolute isolation from the world and worldly matters. — Rod Stryker

I used to spend a couple of hours in the weight room, but really, an hour is long enough. I lift twice a week and on other days incorporate more core yoga and different exercises. It's important to listen to your body. I will shut it down if I'm tired. — Misty May-Treanor