“The lotus grows in muddy waters but this flower does not show any trace of it: So we have to live in the world.”

Move from the known to the unknown.

Yoga is when every cell of the body sings the song of the soul.

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.

Telling what you feel, trying to talk about what’s important to you, does not make you weaker.

I’m black, and black don’t crack. It does droop.

I really like Katy Perry and the music she does. She’s an amazing musician and it’s an honour to be opening for her in London.

Self pity is a disease which does not kill but corrodes.

I think the main problem we have is the pricing of oil as it is now. I think it’s wrong. It does not reflect the fundamentals of supply/demand.

What counts in the end is what the government does.

Peace does not include a vendetta; there will be neither winners nor losers.

I now find myself looking at every sentence, every image, that purports to tell the West about the Arabs and the Muslims with this question in mind: to what extent does it feed into existing stereotypes and established prejudice?