B.K.S. Iyengar
Quotes
An influential Indian yoga teacher, he is renowned for developing Iyengar Yoga, a style that emphasizes precision, alignment, and the use of props like blocks and straps to make yoga accessible to people of all ages and abilities. His approach stresses the importance of both the mental and physical aspects of yoga, encouraging students to develop mindfulness and discipline. Iyengar’s teachings also integrate philosophy and breath control (pranayama) with postures (asanas), contributing significantly to the global spread and understanding of yoga.
B.K.S. Iyengar
Quotes
An influential Indian yoga teacher, he is renowned for developing Iyengar Yoga, a style that emphasizes precision, alignment, and the use of props like blocks and straps to make yoga accessible to people of all ages and abilities. His approach stresses the importance of both the mental and physical aspects of yoga, encouraging students to develop mindfulness and discipline. Iyengar’s teachings also integrate philosophy and breath control (pranayama) with postures (asanas), contributing significantly to the global spread and understanding of yoga.
If you open the armpits, the brain becomes light. You cannot brood or become depressed.
Your body exists in the past and your mind exists in the future. In yoga, they come together in the present.
You must purge yourself before finding faults in others.
If we become aware of its limitations and compulsions, we can transcend them.
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.
Keep your attention internal, not external, not worrying about what others see, but what the Self sees.
The highest point of yesterday should be the lowest point of today.
A lamp does not flicker in a place where no wind blows; so it is with a yogi, who controls his mind, intellect and self, being absorbed in the spirit within him.
As animals, we walk the earth. As bearers of divine essence, we are among the stars. As human beings, we are caught in the middle, seeking to reconcile the paradox of how to make our way upon earth while striving for something more permanent and more profound.
Awareness must be like the rays of the sun: extending everywhere, illuminating all.
If everyone practiced yoga, pharmacies would have to close.
Yoga cultivates the ways of maintaining a balanced attitude in day-to-day life and endows skill in the performance of one's actions.
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.
Life itself seeks fulfillment as plants seek sunlight.
We need sound bodies so we can develop sound minds.
Through surrender the aspirant's ego is effaced, and . . . grace . . . pours down upon him like a torrential rain.
The light that Yoga sheds on life is something special. It is transformative. It does not just change the way we see things; it transforms the person who sees.
Be inspired but not proud.
Savasana is being without was, being without will be. It is being without anyone who is.
Sirsasana the king of all asanas and the reasons are not hard to find.
Without the accurate spine movement, one can't exist dynamically.
Don't practice for cosmetic beauty, practice for cosmic beauty. Practice for inner beauty and inner light.
Do not aim low, you will miss the mark. Aim high and you will be on a threshold of bliss.
