Teacher Quotes

The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it.

Life isn’t as serious as the mind makes it out to be.

Anyone can practice. Young man can practice. Old man can practice. Very old man can practice. Man who is sick, he can practice. Man who doesn't have strength can practice. Except lazy people; lazy people can't practice Ashtanga yoga.

Change your conception of yourself and you will automatically change the world in which you live. Do not try to change people; they are only messengers telling you who you are. Revalue yourself and they will confirm the change.

Do not waste one moment in regret, for to think feelingly of the mistakes of the past is to re-infect yourself.

Yoga is for internal cleansing, not external exercising. Yoga means true self-knowledge.

The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it.

Yoga, as a way of life and a philosophy, can be practiced by anyone with inclination to undertake it, for yoga belongs to humanity as a whole. It is not the property of any one group or any one individual, but can be followed by any and all, in any corner of the globe, regardless of class, creed or religion.

In today's rush we all think too much, seek too much, want too much and forget about the joy of just Being.

Stop trying to change the world since it is only the mirror.

Man’s attempt to change the world by force is as fruitless as breaking a mirror in the hope of changing his face. Leave the mirror and change your face. Leave the world alone and change your conceptions of yourself.

It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living.

Most of us are reflecting life and not affecting it.

Your inner speech mirrors your mind, and your mind mirrors God. If you do not change your thoughts, you haven't changed their activity. And if you do not change their activity, the conditions of your life cannot change, for they are only bearing witness to the inner action of your mind.

Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge.

People don't realize that now is all there ever is; There is no past or future except as memory or anticipation in your mind.

When you become comfortable with uncertainty, infinite possibilities open up in your life.

You must assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled until your assumption has all the sensory vividness of reality. You must imagine that you are already experiencing what you desire. That is, you must assume the feeling of the fulfillment of your desire until you are possessed by it and this feeling crowds all other ideas out of your consciousness.

The full ashtanga system practiced with devotion leads to freedom within one's heart.

Real fearlessness is the product of tenderness.

It comes from letting the world tickle your heart, your raw and beautiful heart. You are willing to open up, without resistance or shyness, and face the world. You are willing to share your heart with others.

It is not what you want that you attract, you attract what you believe to be true.

To be a spiritual warrior, one must have a broken heart;

without a broken heart and the sense of tenderness and vulnerability, your warriorship is untrustworthy.

Be the silent watcher of your thoughts and behavior. You are beneath the thinker. You are the stillness beneath the mental noise. You are the love and joy beneath the pain.

The bad news is you're falling through the air, nothing to hang on to, no parachute. The good news is, there's no ground.

Body is not stiff, mind is stiff.

We need spirited, energetic and strong young people whose hearts are filled with life, enthusiasm, zeal and dynamism; whose souls are full of ambition, aspiration and vigor and have great goals, rising and aspiring to reach them until they eventually arrive at their destination.

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.

So whether you do your first downward dog at 14 or 44, it’s not your history but your presence on your mat that counts.

It is very important to understand yoga philosophy: without philosophy, practice is not good, and yoga practice is the starting place for yoga philosophy. Mixing both is actually the best.

If the only prayer you ever say is "thank you", that will be enough.

Stop looking outside for scraps of pleasure or fulfillment, for validation, security, or love - you have a treasure within that is infinitely greater than anything the world can offer.

Do not pollute your beautiful, radiant Being nor the Earth with negativity.

Do not give unhappiness in any form whatsoever a dwelling place inside you.

Each person is born with an infinite power, against which no earthly force is of the slightest significance.

When you complain, you make yourself a victim.

Leave the situation, change the situation or accept it, all else is madness.

Do your practice and all is coming.

Your nafs (soul/desires) is your first battlefield.

If you are victorious over it, then you will find the other battlefields easier.

The past has no power over the present moment.

Health, wealth, beauty, and genius are not created;

they are only manifested by the arrangement of your mind-that is, by your concept of yourself, and your concept of yourself is all that you accept and consent to as true.

The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, person and family history, belief systems, and often also political, nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you.

Education, you know, means broadening, advancing;

and if you limit a teacher to only one side of anything, the whole country will eventually have only one thought, be one individual. I believe in teaching every aspect of every problem or theory.

Meditation practice is a way of making friends with ourselves.

Whether we are worthy or unworthy, that's not the point. It's developing a friendly attitude to ourselves, accepting the hidden neurosis coming through.

Master your breath, let the self be in bliss, contemplate on the sublime within you.

Yoga is 99% practice and 1% theory.

Stress is caused by being here but wanting to be there.

Remember that your perception of the world is a reflection of your state of consciousness. You are not separate from it, and there is no objective world out there. Every moment, your consciousness creates the world that you inhabit.

Rid your body of its impurities, let your speech be true and sweet, feel friendship for the world, and with humility seek wealth and knowledge.

If we practice the science of yoga, which is useful to the entire human community and which yields happiness both here and hereafter - if we practice it without fail, we will then attain physical, mental, and spiritual happiness, and our minds will flood towards the Self.

Nowadays, the practice of yoga stops with just asanas.

Very few even attempt dharana and dhyana (deeper meditation) with seriousness. There is a need to search once more and reestablish the practice and value of yoga in modern times.

You are not separate from the whole. You are one with the sun, the earth, the air. You don’t have a life. You are life.

My advice to you is not to undertake the spiritual path.

It is too difficult, too long, and is too demanding. I suggest you ask for your money back, and go home. This is not a picnic. It is really going to ask everything of you. So, it is best not to begin. However, if you do begin, it is best to finish.

The past has no power over present moment

In the garden of gentle sanity, May you be bombarded by coconuts of wakefulness.

The hardest thing is to give up something you love, for the sake of Allah.

But remember Allah never takes without giving something better.

You can't touch love, but you can feel the sweetness that it pours into everything.

A change of circumstance happens as a result of a change in your state of consciousness.

You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.

We cannot change the way the world is, but by opening ourselves to the world as it is, we may find that gentleness, decency and bravery are available - not only to us, but to all human beings.

Whatever the present moment contains, embrace it as if you has chosen it.

We are always in transition. If you can just relax with that, you'll have no problem.

The body is your temple. Keep it pure and clean for the soul to reside in.