Quotes About Awareness

You have to tame your breath to tame your brain. Live from moment to moment absorbed in the unruffled flow of the circular movement of the in- and out-breaths. It's current should be like that of a very full, stately river, whose movements cannot be seen.

Pranayama is not performed by the power of will. The breath must be enticed or cajoled, like catching a horse in a field, not by chasing after it, but by standing still with an apple in one's hand.

It is not just that yoga is causing all of this pain; the pain is already there. It is hidden. We just live with it or have learned not to be aware of it. It is as if your body is in a coma. When you begin yoga, the unrecognized pains come to the surface. When we are able to use out intelligence to purify our bodies, then the hidden pains are dispersed.

Internal mistakes such as forcing , acting without observing, tightening the throat, and blocking the ears create habits, and these habits create lack of awareness, constriction, heaviness, tightness, imbalance, and pain.

Sensitivity is not weakness or vulnerability. It is clarity of perception and allow judicious, precise action.

Awareness: Every Pore of the Skin Has to Become an Eye

We continually expand the frame of the mind by using the canvas of the body. It is as if you were to stretch a canvas more and create a larger surface for a paining. But we must respect the present form of our body. If we pull too fast or too much at once, we will rip the canvas. If the practice of today damages the practice of tomorrow, it is not correct practice.

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.

You must learn to move the brain a bit more slowly so that it follows the body, or you have to make the body move faster to match the intelligence of the brain. Let the body be the doer, the brain the observer.

After acting, reflect on what you have done. Has the brain interpreted the action correctly? If the brain does not observe correctly, then there is confusion in action. The duty of the brain is to receive knowledge from the body and then guide the body to further refine the action. Pause and reflect between each movement.

Pausing to reflect on your movement does not mean that you are not reflecting through the movement. There should be constant analysis throughout the action, not just afterward. This leads to true understanding.

When we ask ourselves, "What am I doing?" and "Why am I doing it?" our minds open. This is self-awareness.

Self-awareness is the opposite of self-consciousness. When you are self-aware, you are fully within yourself, not outside yourself looking in. You are aware of what you are doing without ego or pride.

When you cannot hold the body still, you cannot hold the brain still. If you do not know the silence of the body, you cannot understand the silence of the mind. Action and silence have to go together.

You watch yourself from the inside. It is a full silence. Maintain a detached attitude toward the body and, at the same time, do not neglect any part of the body or show haste but remain alert while doing the asana.

The moment you bring attention, you are creating something, and creation has life and energy.

Even a nation brainwashed to equate artsiness with art knows when its eyelids are drooping.

Life cannot be classified in terms of a simple neurological ladder, with human beings at the top; it is more accurate to talk of different forms of intelligence, each with its strengths and weaknesses. This point was well demonstrated in the minutes before last December's tsunami, when tourists grabbed their digital cameras and ran after the ebbing surf, and all the 'dumb' animals made for the hills.

For in the end, we will conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught.

If a pickpocket meets a Holy Man, he will see only His pockets.

The mind is the main instrument to gain enlightenment, but enlightenment is only reached when the mind stops. Q: How can we stop the mind? A: Not hitting it with a hammer. Stop the mind by the mind.

Q: Is life a dream or a meditation? A: Life is a meditation when you know it is a dream.

Religion of your upbringing is like a cloak -- you must know how it is made in order to take it off.