B.K.S. Iyengar Quotes

The art of teaching is tolerance. Humbleness is the art of learning.

Yoga teaches us to cure what need not be endured and endure what cannot be cured.

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

The yogi cannot be afraid to die, because he has brought life to every cell of his body. We are afraid to die, because we are afraid we have not lived. The yogi has lived.

Fear and fatigue block the mind. Face both, then courage and confidence flows into you.

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.

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.

Whenever asana is done mechanically from the front brain, the action is felt only on the peripheral body, and there is no inner sensation, there is no luminous inner light. If the asana is done with continual reference to the back of the brain, there is a reaction to each action, and there is sensitivity. Then life is not only dynamic, but it is also electrified with life force.

Pranayama teaches the aspirant to regulate his breathing and thereby control the mind.

Health begins with firmness in the body, deepens to emotional stability, then leads to intellectual clarity, wisdom and finally the unveiling of the soul.

Sometimes our body is willing, but our mind is weak.

Sometimes our mind is willing, but our body is weak. Do not be afraid. Strive to extend your capacity but do not be disappointed with yourself. What does not challenge us, cannot change us.

Hatha Yoga teaches us to use the body as the bow, asana as the arrow, and the soul the target.

Everybody should live quietly whether his experiences are happy or sad, whether they are successes or failures. That is contentment.

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.

Yoga is a means and an end.

Yoga is firstly for individual growth, but through individual growth, society and community develop.

First yoga deals with health, strength and conquest of the body.

Next, it lifts the veil of difference between the body and the mind. Lastly, it leads the Sadhaka to peace and unalloyed purity.

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.

Learning is as much an art as teaching

When you are practicing, do not just do that for the sake of doing.

Learn to reflect while you are practising. Make your mind and brain observe and relearn what you are doing. Doing is mechanical; learning is dynamic.

When you cannot hold the body still, you cannot hold the brain still.

If you do not know the silence of the body, you cannot understand the silence of the mind. Action and silence have to go together. If there is action, there must also be silence. If there is silence, there can be conscious action and not just motion.

Life without tapas, is like a heart without love.

When you inhale, you are taking the strength from God.

When you exhale, it represents the service you are giving to the world.

Yes, flexibility of body and physical perfection for Yogasana is important.

However more important is the state of your mind, Meditative mind. Your flexibility might be excellent but if your mind is not attentive, you are merely doing some physical exercise, not Yoga.

We can wash the skin of our bodies with a bath, but through asana practice we not only purify our blood and cells, we are cleansing the inner body as we practice.

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.

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.

By persistent and sustained practice, anyone and everyone can make the yoga journey and reach the goal of illumination and freedom.

Your body is the child of the soul. you must nourish and train that child.

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

Yoga allows you to find a new kind of freedom that you may not have known even existed.

Feeling the movement of movements is wandering to the past or future.

Living in the movements of movement is being in the present.

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.

The sleeping tortoise takes all its limbs into its carapace.

So does the yogi: going back into himself he does not see anything worldly any longer, he makes peace in himself.

Why should you practice Yoga? To kindle the divine fire within yourself.

Everyone has a dormant spark of divinity in him which has to be fanned into flame.

A yogi never forgets that health must begin with the body.

. . .Physical health is not a commodity to be bargained for. Nor can it be swallowed in the form of drugs and pills. . . . It is something that we must build up. You have to create within yourself the experience of beauty, liberation, and infinity. This is health.

Backbends are to be felt more than expressed.

The other postures can be expressed and then felt. Like in meditation each person has to feel backbends.

Balance in the body is the foundation for balance in life.

Health is a state of complete harmony of the body, mind and spirit.

I think many of my students have followed the advice I gave years ago, to give more than you take.

Your body exists in the past and your mind exists in the future.

In yoga, they come together in the present.

The practice of asanas purges the body of its impurities, bringing strength, firmness, calm, and clarity of mind.

Yoga is the music of the soul. So do continue, and the gates of the soul will open.

Live before you die, so that death is also a lively celebration.

It is through the alignment of the body that I discovered the alignment of my mind, self, and intelligence.

Yoga cultivates the ways of maintaining a balanced attitude in day-to-day life and endows skill in the performance of one's actions.

The best way to overcome fear is to face with equanimity the situation of which one is afraid.

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

Give more than you receive. That is the principle I tell all my students.

Be inspired but not proud.