Quotes from B.K.S. Iyengar

begins the Yoga S?tras with atha, meaning 'now', and ends with iti, 'that is all'. Besides this search for the soul, there is nothing.

You must keep your balance by using the intelligence of the body (whether instinct, feeling, or ability) but not by strength. When you keep the balance by strength, it is physical action; when by intelligence of the body, it is relaxation in action. Evenness is harmony, and in that evenness alone you learn.

When performing asanas, no part of the body should be idle, no part should be neglected.

Always watch your base: Be attentive to the portion nearest the ground. Correct first form the root.

Balance does not mean merely balancing the body. Balance in the body is the foundation for balance in life. In whatever position one is in, or in whatever condition in life one is place, one must find balance. Balance is the state of the present - the here and now. If you balance in the present, you are living in Eternity.

Ballet dancers have the opposite problem to most people in that, because of their excessive flexibility, their physical capacity outstrips their intellectual consciousness.

The answer lies in the three qualities of nature, which are the guna. These three qualities must be balance in your asana practice and in your body, mind, and soul. Roughly they are translated as solidity, dynamism, and luminosity.

We use right pain like a vaccine against the unavoidable pain and suffering that life always sends our way, but the dose must be correct. Asana practice is an opportunity to look at obstacles in practice and life and discover how we can cope with them.

Many intellectually developed people are still emotionally immature. If they have to face pains, they try to escape from them. They are seldom prepared to face that pain and to work through it when they are taken intensely into a posture. This practice brings them face to face with the reality of their bodies' natures. We must face up to our emotions, not run away from them. We do not do yoga just for enjoyment; we do it for ultimate emancipation.

Mathematicians say that numbers progress from one to two to three to many. Its is the number three that unlocks the possibility of infinite diversity. Infinite, unmanifested origin is one. Duality is two.

With regard to asana practice, this means that initially we need to exert ourselves more as resistance is greater. Of the two aspects of asana, exertion of our body and penetration of our mind, the latter is eventually more important. Penetration of our mind is our goal, but in the beginning to set things in motion, there is no substitute for sweat.

We all have presence of mind when everything goes well, but we need to have presence of mind when something goes wrong. If we face suffering and accept it as a necessary means, all anxiousness disappears.

Though the mass of our body is heavy, we are meant to tread lightly on this earth.

Many people focus on the past or the future to avoid experiencing the present, often because the present is painful or difficult to endure...The pain is there as a teacher, because life if filled with pain. In the struggle alone, there is knowledge. Only when there is pain will you see the light.

To do nothing is an action too, with inevitable consequences, and so that is not a way to escape pain and suffering either.

Pain is your guru.

As we experience pleasures happily, we must also learn not to lose our happiness when pain comes. As we see good in pleasure, we should learn to see good in pain. Learn to find comfort even in discomfort. We must not try to run from the pain but to move through and beyond it. This is the cultivation of tenacity and perseverance, which is a spiritual attitude toward yoga. This is also the spiritual attitude toward life.

Perfecting: Always Be Happy with the Smallest Improvement

While we do not actively seek out pain, we do not run from the inevitable pain that is part of all growth and change. The asanas help us to develop greater tolerance in body and mind so that we can bear the stress and strain more easily. In other words, the effort and its unavoidable pains are an essential part of what the asanas can teach us.

Avirati: This is the tremendous craving for sensory objects after they have been consciously abandoned, which is so hard to restrain. Without being attached to the objects of sense, the yogi learns to enjoy them with the aid of the senses which are completely under his control. By the practice of pratyahara he wins freedom from attachment and emancipation from desire and becomes content and tranquil.

The moment you say, "I have got it," you have lost everything you had.

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.

As you take great pains to learn, continue with devotion in what you have learned. Learning is very difficult, but it is twice as difficult to keep the ground gained.

The asana will not come by making faces.