“A lamp does not flicker in a place where no wind blows; so it is with a yogi, who controls his mind, intellect and self, being absorbed in the spirit within him.”

Fear and fatigue block the mind. Face both, then courage and confidence flows into you.

While doing the postures, your mind should be in half-consciousn ess, which does not mean sleep. It means silence, emptiness, space, which can then be filled with an acute awareness of the sensations given by the posture. You watch yourself from inside. It is a full silence.

Yoga is firstly for individual growth, but through individual growth, society and community develop.

A yogi’s brain extends from the bottom of the foot to the top of his head

Balance in the body is the foundation for balance in life.

There is no progress toward ultimate freedom without transformation, and this is the key issue in all lives.

We can wash the skin of our bodies with a bath, but through asana practice we not only purify our blood and cells, we are cleansing the inner body as we practice.

Is it necessary to practice all these asanas, further and further? Is it necessary to develop scientific researches further and further? To a yogi, the body is a laboratory, a field of experiments and perpetual researches.

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.

Health is not a commodity to be bargained for. It has to be earned through sweat.

Don’t practice for cosmetic beauty, practice for cosmic beauty. Practice for inner beauty and inner light.

When you see a mistake in somebody else, try to find if you are making the same mistake.

Before peace between the nations, we have to find peace inside that small nation which is our own being.

There is no difference in souls, only the ideas about ourselves that we wear.

The yogi cannot be afraid to die, because he has brought life to every cell of his body. We are afraid to die, because we are afraid we have not lived. The yogi has lived.

When you are practicing, do not just do that for the sake of doing. Learn to reflect while you are practising. Make your mind and brain observe and relearn what you are doing. Doing is mechanical; learning is dynamic.

There’s no such thing as a self-made man. I’ve had much help and have found that if you are willing to work, many people are willing to help you.

Everyone in society should be a role model, not only for their own self-respect, but for respect from others.

I think a toxic message in a lot of Christianity has been that the self has to be annihilated in order for God to be found. I think that has been a toxic message.

Wait for those unguarded moments. Relax the mood and, like the child dropping off to sleep, the subject often reveals his truest self.

I came to a clear internal realization that there was nothing I could do as a separated self that would ever fulfill me.

The man of fixed ingrained principles who has mapped out a straight course, and has the courage and self-control to adhere to it, does not find life complex. Complexities are all of our own making.

There is such wonderful balm in self-imposed sacrifice.

To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self.