Quotes from Gudjon Bergmann

Traffic will not yield to our will, neither will global finances, the environment, political rhetoric, nor people in general. There is no way to solve the problem of stress through blaming environmental factors.

we are all guilty of oversimplification at one point or another. It's an enticing idea. It fulfills our need for instant gratification. We find one thing and scream, "Eureka!" We found IT—the one thing that explains it all. The only trouble is that it never works. We are more likely to squeeze gold from our coffee grinder than we are to meet with success when adopting an idea that has been simplified beyond recognition.

Walk into any church, and you will see people swimming in a sea of emotions (everything from shame and guilt to love and ecstasy). That may be the reason some people think that the more emotional they are, the more spiritual they are. But, as we will explore later in the book, undiluted spirituality has little to do with emotions, and what little it does have has more to do with emotional growth than feelings of elation.

The term stress has effectively become an umbrella concept, which gives us permission to call any kind of discomfort that we don't know how to define in other terms stress, be it physical, emotional or mental. Pretty much everything can become stress, or stressful, without any further evidence being presented.

both spiritual teachers and preachers fall into the trap of using imprecise, emotional mumbo jumbo—if you can't define it or explain it, then it's mumbo jumbo—to connect with an audience. The audience reads into it what they want, and it makes for good theater.

I realized that moderate amounts of stress, when directed or funneled in specific directions, could be both beneficial and practical.

Too much stress is bad, but occasional stress is good – it's the zest of life.

For reasons unknown, the philosophical aspect of the yoga movement has had to make way for the yoga fit revolution; today's image of a yogi is a slender and scantily clad young female doing postures on the cover of a bestselling magazine, whereas the older image was of an Indian man with long beard sitting in a cave wearing a loin cloth.

The spiritual-but-nonreligious movement is largely driven by charismatic authors and speakers who attract like-minded people to their workshops and intensives.

in the latter half of the twentieth century, postmodernism upended everything. Universal truths were no longer accepted. "Truth" (postmodernism loves quotation marks) was instead a social construct that depended heavily on cultural context. Nothing was either true or false, but was instead open to interpretation.

If stress were only caused by external events or other people, everyone, without exception, would respond in the same way to the same kind of external provocations.

Not everything that is related to yoga is equally beneficial.

Prior to postmodernism, it was all but impossible to claim that one was a cultural Christian, Jew, or Muslim. There was no such thing. Now, being culturally religious is a widely accepted stance.

By exclaiming that "there are no absolute truths" the postmodern stance is also claiming that the statement it just made is an absolute truth—trying to have it both ways, rejecting absolutism with absolutism.

Such public shaming is rampant and sometimes appropriate, but unfortunately, in recent years, shaming has morphed into coordinated reputation murders, and anyone who is slightly insensitive or not PC enough can be led to a public character lynching without due process.

My rule in relation to time management and teaching is simple: "If you're on time, you're late!" That means that if you arrive just on time to teach, you have no flexibility. In essence nothing can go wrong, and in addition to that, your mind probably won't settle until halfway through the class.

Today, religious fanatics and scientific rejectionists flourish under the protective wing of postmodernism, claiming that theirs is just one more valid viewpoint—a form of mental aikido (using the opponent's strength against him).

Saying, "I don't agree with you," or going so far as to say, "I think your belief structure is childish," does not amount to persecution. Insensitivity is not the same as harassment or oppression.

You are wrong about that, you know, Dr. Andersen replied calmly. This, right here—us talking, sitting in this overlit room, a bunch of shrinks watching us through the tinted windows—this is the dream. The peace you felt before, that is reality. It is the I. The only part of existence that does not change, that cannot change, that will not change. You may not be ready to understand this quite yet, but if you continue meditating, you will.

Breath is life.

We attend a postmodern meeting, and everyone leaves happy because everyone at the meeting was able to express himself or herself, even if no decisions were made. We give equal awards to our kids so nobody feels left out. Our news media is more concerned with the question, "How did that make you feel?" than any other.

Firemen, police officers, professional athletes and military service personnel are all trained with this in mind, they are taught to direct their energy, to use stress constructively.

When the patient began speaking, Robert continued, he sounded unlike any person I have ever met before. Sure, his actions signaled that he was crazy, but his presence… Jessica, his presence was like what I imagine it would be to be close to a holy person or a spiritual master. I mean, that is really the only conclusion I can come to. And the holy guy tried to kill himself? Come on Robert. That just sounds ridiculous.

Speaking softly and slowly, and breathing through the vocal chords in a low voice, has become the mythical ideal voice for a yoga teacher.