Quotes About Asana

Yoga Practice gives us internal strength and resilience. Each breath taken during uncomfortable Asana forces us to observe our own internal resistance and hence the practice helps us to master our internal resilience.

A good generic sequence to use for your asana practice is — Warm-ups, standing poses, inverted poses, backbends, forward bends and twists, ending with Savasana.

One of the main purposes of asana practice is to be able to do Savasana well. It is the time when the body replenishes itself and balances the energy created in your practice. Many great teachers have said that savasana is the most important position and the reason we practice all of the other asanas. It is also a form of pratyahara or sensory withdrawal in which we can rest our motor organs and contact the peace within that is the real goal of Yoga.

An asana should be a kind of meditation in form or movement. Therefore, we should always put our minds into a sacred space of silence, observation, and detachment while performing Yoga.

In summary, therefore, the structural effect of the asana is the first factor. The way we energize the asana through Prana is the second. This includes how we move through the asana and breathe within it. Our state of mind is a third factor.

Asana is perfect firmness of body, steadiness of intelligence, and benevolence of spirit.

Asana means the full expression of mind-body integration, in which you become consciously aware of the flow of life energy in your body.

The conjunction of effort, concentration and balance in asana forces us to live intensely in the present moment, a rare experience in modern life.

Since my asana techniques increase circulation to all organs in the body and increase lung efficiency, I recommend Bikram Balance natural whole food beverage as a way to provide all the critical nutrients to oxygenate the blood and restore the acid/alkaline balance.

In an asana, the mind has to reach inside the body to find a quiet space until a point comes where perfect balance is felt.

The flexibility we gain in asana is the living symbol of the suppleness we gain in relation to life's problems and challenges.

Asana has two facets, pose and repose. Pose is the artistic assumption of a position. 'Reposing in the pose' means finding the perfection of a pose and maintaining it, reflecting in it with penetration of the intelligence and with dedication.

Asana is perfect firmness of body, steadiness of intelligence, and benevolence of spirit.

Without certain stress, the true asana is not experienced, and the mind will remain in its limitations and will not move beyond its existing frontiers. This limited state of mind can be described as the petty, small mind.

From head to heels, you must find your center, and from this center you must extend and expand longitudinally and latitudinally. If extension is from the intelligence of the brain, expansion is from the intelligence of the heart. While doing asana, both the intellectual intelligence and the emotional intelligence have to meet and work together. Extension is attention, and expansion is awareness, I often say.

One should not overstretch, nor understretch. If one thing is overstretched, something else get understretched. If overstretching comes from a swollen ego, then understretching results from lack of confidence. If overstretching is exhibitionism, understretching is escapism. Overstretching and understretching are both wrong: Always stretch from the source, the core, and the foundation of each asana.

Extend the energy of the asana out through your extremities. Let the river flow through you.

Although I final asana can be judged objectively only from the exterior, it is sustained from within.

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.

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.

Pain comes only when the body does not understand how to do the asana, which is the case in the beginning. In the correct posture, pain does not come. To learn the right posture, you have to face the pain. There is no other way.

If you want a simple way to remember the relationship between asana and concentration (dharana), it is this: If you learn a lot of little things, one day you may end up knowing a big thing.

You must observe and correct the body position (adjusting it from both sides) with the help of the trillions of eyes that you have in the form of cells. This is how you begin to bring awareness to your body and fuse the intelligence of brain and brawn. This intelligence should exist everywhere in your body and throughout the asana. The moment you lose the feeling in the skin, the asana becomes dull, and the flow or current of the intelligence is lost.

As I have said, while doing yoga, the body must tell one what to do, not the brain. Brain has to cooperate with the message it receives from the body. I will often say to a student, "Your brain is not in your body! That is why you can't get the asana." I mean of course that his intelligence is in his head and not filling his body.