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.
It is through your body that you realize you are a spark of divinity.
Change is not something that we should fear. Rather, it is something that we should welcome. For without change, nothing in this world would ever grow or blossom, and no one in this world would ever move forward to become the person they're meant to be.
Fear and fatigue block the mind. Face both, then courage and confidence flows into you.
Nothing is achieved by a mind that doubts.
You must fill every inch of your body with the asana from your chest and arms and legs to the tips of your fingers and toes so that the asana radiates from the core of your body and fills the entire diameter and circumference of your limbs. You must feel your intelligence, your awareness, and your consciousness in every inch of your body.
The Yogi conquers the body by the practice of asanas, making the body a fit vehicle for the spirit. The Yogi knows that it is a necessary vehicle for the spirit, for a soul without a body is like a bird deprived of its power to fly.
We are a little piece of continual change, looking at an infinite quantity of continual change.
In whatever you are doing, be one: body, soul, mind. Do it beautifully and with purity.
The ultimate goal of yoga is to realize the brilliance of your soul.
An intellectual mind that is unconnected to the heart is an uncultivated mind.
When you see a mistake in somebody else, try to find if you are making the same mistake.
There is no progress toward ultimate freedom without transformation, and this is the key issue in all lives.
It is not yoga that injures, but the way one does yoga that leads to injury.
We can rise above our limitations, only once we recognize them.
Yoga releases the creative potential in life.
Change leads to disappointment if it is not sustained. Transformation is sustained change, and it is achieved through practice.
Yoga is a mirror to look at ourselves from within.
The body is your temple. Keep it pure and clean for the soul to reside in.
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.
The lotus grows in muddy waters but this flower does not show any trace of it: So we have to live in the world.
Extension brings space, space brings freedom, freedom brings precision. Precision is truth.
The decision to relax rather than to grip, even in the face of impatience or fear, is a conscious and brave choice.
