Quotations about Yoga

When this body has been so magnificently and artistically created by God, it is only fitting that we should maintain it in good health and harmony by the most excellent and artistic science of Yoga. ~Geeta Iyengar


Yoga teaches us to cure what need not be endured and endure what cannot be cured. ~B.K.S. Iyengar


The yoga mat is a good place to turn when talk therapy and antidepressants aren't enough. ~Amy Weintraub


The yogi will tell you that you feel and look as young as your spine is elastic. ~Richard Hittleman


Yoga is the fountain of youth. You're only as young as your spine is flexible. ~Bob Harper


You cannot do yoga. Yoga is your natural state. What you can do are yoga exercises, which may reveal to you where you are resisting your natural state. ~Sharon Gannon


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


By embracing your mother wound as your yoga, you transform what has been a hindrance in your life into a teacher of the heart. ~Phillip Moffitt


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


I would like for people to realize that yoga is not about touching your toes. ~Gary Kraftsow


I like the physical part, but I'm also drawn to the spiritual. For me, yoga is not just a workout—it's about working on yourself. ~Mary Glover, "Health Profile: Yoga leaves aches and pains behind," Arizona Republic, 2004 April 6


In our uniquely human capacity of connect movement with breath and spiritual meaning, yoga is born. ~Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa


A photographer gets people to pose for him. A yoga instructor gets people to pose for themselves. ~Terri Guillemets


I do yoga so that I can stay flexible enough to kick my own arse if necessary. ~Betsy Cañas Garmon, www.wildthymecreative.com


The beauty is that people often come here for the stretch, and leave with a lot more. ~Liza Ciano, co-owner & co-director of Yoga Vermont, yogavermont.com


Yoga in Mayfair or Fifth Avenue, or in any other place which is on the telephone, is a spiritual fake. ~Carl Jung


Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape. ~Author Unknown


Vogue and Self are putting out the message of yoginis as buff and perfect. If you start doing yoga for those reasons, fine. Most people get beyond that and see that it's much, much more. ~Patricia Walden


When asked what gift he wanted for his birthday, the yogi replied: "I wish no gifts, only presence." ~Author Unknown


While doing yoga we are more ourselves, and more than ourselves. ~Valerie Jeremijenko


Yoga is bodily gospel. ~Reaven Fields


The aim of yoga is to eliminate the control that material nature exerts over the human spirit, to rediscover through introspective practice what the poet T.S. Eliot called "the still point of the turning world." ~Barbara Stoler Miller


Without proper breathing, the yoga postures are nothing more than calisthenics. ~Rachel Schaeffer


If I'm losing balance in a pose, I stretch higher and God reaches down to steady me. It works every time, and not just in yoga. ~Terri Guillemets


Yoga, an ancient but perfect science, deals with the evolution of humanity. This evolution includes all aspects of one's being, from bodily health to self-realization. Yoga means union—the union of body with consciousness and consciousness with the soul. Yoga cultivates the ways of maintaining a balanced attitude in day-to-day life and endows skill in the performance of one's actions. ~B.K.S. Iyengar,Astadala Yogamala


Yoga is not about self-improvement, it's about self-acceptance. ~Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa


Anyone who practices can obtain success in yoga but not one who is lazy. Constant practice alone is the secret of success. ~Svatmarama


Yoga is the practice of quieting the mind. ~Patañjali


Asanas attune the body to meditation, just as a guitar is tuned before a performance. ~Author Unknown


Yoga is the perfect opportunity to be curious about who you are. ~Jason Crandell, quoted in Yoga Journal, November 2005


Yoga is difficult for the one whose mind is not subdued. ~Bhagavad Gita


Yoga is essentially a practice for your soul, working through the medium of your body. ~Tara Fraser


Yoga doesn't take time, it gives time. ~Ganga White


Yoga has a sly, clever way of short-circuiting the mental patterns that cause anxiety. ~Baxter Bell, quoted in "Worry Thwarts," Yoga Journal, March 2006


Concentrating on poses clears the mind, while focusing on the breath helps the body shift out of fight-or-flight mode. ~Melanie Haiken, "Worry Thwarts," Yoga Journal, March 2006


The practice of Yoga brings us face to face with the extraordinary complexity of our own being. ~Sri Aurobindo


That's exactly how it is in yoga. The places where you have the most resistance are actually the places that are going to be the areas of the greatest liberation. ~Rodney Yee


The ultimate essence of yoga is the contact and the union between the individual consciousness and the divine consciousness. ~Raphael, Essence and Purpose of Yoga: The Initiatory Pathways to the Transcendent


Practicing yoga during the day is a matter of keeping your eyes on the road and one ear turned toward the infinite. ~Erich Schiffmann


The autonomic nervous system is divided into the sympathetic system, which is often identified with the fight-or-flight response, and the parasympathetic, which is identified with what's been called the relaxation response. When you do yoga — the deep breathing, the stretching, the movements that release muscle tension, the relaxed focus on being present in your body — you initiate a process that turns the fight-or-flight system off and the relaxation response on. That has a dramatic effect on the body. The heartbeat slows, respiration decreases, blood pressure decreases. The body seizes this chance to turn on the healing mechanisms. ~Richard Faulds


When you inhale, you are taking the strength from God. When you exhale, it represents the service you are giving to the world. ~B.K.S. Iyengar


Inhale, and God approaches you. Hold the inhalation, and God remains with you. Exhale, and you approach God. Hold the exhalation, and surrender to God. ~Tirumalai Krishnamacharya


Hatha is the sanctuary for those suffering every type of pain. It is the foundation for those practicing every type of Yoga. ~Svatmarama, The Hatha Yoga Pradipika, translated from Sanskrit by Brian Dana Akers (yogavidya.com)


One succeeds in all Yogas through energetic practice—even if one is young, old, very old, sick, or weak. ~Svatmarama, The Hatha Yoga Pradipika, translated from Sanskrit by Brian Dana Akers (yogavidya.com)


For those wounded by civilization, yoga is the most healing salve. ~Terri Guillemets


What we're trying to do in yoga is to create a union, and so to deepen a yoga pose is to actually increase the union of the pose, not necessarily put your leg around your head. ~Rodney Yee


Sun salutations can energize and warm you, even on the darkest, coldest winter day. ~Carol Krucoff


I was in yoga the other day. I was in full lotus position. My chakras were all aligned. My mind is cleared of all clatter and I'm looking out of my third eye and everything that I'm supposed to be doing. It's amazing what comes up, when you sit in that silence. "Mama keeps whites bright like the sunlight, Mama's got the magic of Clorox 2." ~Ellen DeGeneres


Warrior pose battles inner weakness and wins focus. You see that there is no war within you. You're on your own side, and you are your own strength. ~Terri Guillemets


Mountain pose teaches us, literally, how to stand on our own two feet.... teaching us to root ourselves into the earth.... Our bodies become a connection between heaven and earth. ~Carol Krucoff


Mountain pose is an affirmation. You can conquer anything with your natural boldness and resolute strength. Only you can reach the peak of your success. ~Terri Guillemets


All unimportant matters drop off you in ragdoll pose. Very few things are genuinely important. The Truth sways before you. ~Terri Guillemets


Tree pose grows confidence. ~Terri Guillemets


Chair pose is a defiance of spirit, showing how high you can reach even when you're forced down. ~Terri Guillemets


Corpse pose restores life. Dead parts of your being fall away, the ghosts are released. ~Terri Guillemets


Yoga practitioners advise the times around sunrise and sunset, well before eating a meal, as the best time for yoga and meditation practice. The science of biometeorology (the study of natural forces on human and animal life) tells us that the sun has a tremendous impact upon the lives of plants, animals, and human beings. Even our blood chemistry changes with the rising and setting of the sun! Therefore, there may be a chemical basis for the thousands of years of belief, in every spiritual tradition, that to meditate and pray at sunrise and sunset is somehow more effective, more auspicious. ~Vimala Schneider McClure, A Woman's Guide to Tantra Yoga


We are aware of yoga only as a technique to gain physical strength, flexibility, or increased health. And indeed these are potent side effects of the practice. But that is what they are: side effects. To focus on these largely insignificant manifestations is to miss the point entirely. ~John McAfee


The asanas are useful maps to explore yourself, but they are not the territory. ~Donna Farhi


The harmonizing of opposing forces is a key aspect of yoga — hot energy is united with cool energy, strong with soft, and masculine with feminine. ~Tara Fraser


Yoga accepts. Yoga gives. ~Terri Guillemets


Basketball is an endurance sport, and you have to learn to control your breath; that's the essence of yoga, too. So, I consciously began using yoga techniques in my practice and playing. I think yoga helped reduce the number and severity of injuries I suffered. As preventative medicine, it's unequaled. ~Kareem Abdul-Jabbar


Before you've practiced, the theory is useless. After you've practiced, the theory is obvious. ~David Williams, Ashtanga yoga teacher in Maui, Hawaii, quoted from yoga.com


I tried yoga once but took off for the mall halfway through class, as I had a sudden craving for a soft pretzel and world peace. ~Terri Guillemets


The last time I opened my chakra so I could feel my peace, I got thrown right out of the pub. ~Terri Guillemets
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