Inspiring Quotes on Ashtanga Yoga
Yoga.com Staff
©Yoga People, LLC 2017
"If we practice the science of yoga, which is useful to the entire human community and which yields happiness both here and hereafter - if we practice it without fail, we will then attain physical, mental, and spiritual happiness, and our minds will flood towards the Self."
Sri K. Pattabhi Jois
"The eight limbs of yoga are: respect toward others, self-restraint, posture, breath control, detaching at will from the senses, concentration, meditation & contemplation....
When harassed by doubt, cultivate the opposite mental attitude"
Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, 11.29 - 11.33.
"Yoga is possible for anybody who really wants it. Yoga is universal.
Yoga is not mine. But don't approach yoga with a business mind -
looking for worldly gain. If you want to be near God, turn your mind
toward God, and practice yoga. As the scriptures say "without yoga
practice, how can knowledge give you moksha [liberation]?"
Sri K. Pattabhi Jois
"There is no need to be overwhelmed by the many dimensions of astanga; just come in and take from it what you want."
Kathy McNames, co-owner of Yoga Vermont, Burlington's ashtanga studio.
"The beauty is that people often come here for the stretch, and leave with a lot more."
Liza Ciano, partner to Kathy McNames at Yoga Vermont
"Do your practice and all is coming."
Pattabhi Jois, originator of Ashtanga Yoga
"Before you’ve practiced, the theory is useless. After you’ve practiced, the theory is obvious."
David Williams, an Ashtanga teacher on the Hawaiian island of Maui
"Ashtanga yoga is 99 percent practice, one percent theory."
Pattabhi Jois, originator of Ashtanga Yoga
"Then there are those moments that make it all worthwhile. I’m carried on my breath like a leaf on the wind: folding, arching, twisting, bending, leaping lightly from one posture to the next. My body tingles with energy; my mind is quietly absorbed in the hypnotic rhythm of practice. The poses seem strung on the breath like prayer beads on a mala; I enter each one to the best of my ability, savoring the silky stretches, the pleasurable ache of muscles taxed to their edge."
Anne Cushman, Yoga Journal, January/February 1995
"After asana & pranayama are perfect, pratyahara, sense control [the fifth limb of ashtanga yoga], follows. The first four limbs are external exercises: yama, niyama, asana, pranayama. The last four are internal, and they automatically follow when the first four are mastered. Pratyahara means that anywhere you look, you see God. Good mind control gives that capacity, so that when you look, everything you see is Atman (the God within). Then for you the world is colored by God. Whatever you see, you identify it with your Atman. The scriptures say that a true yogi's mind is so absorbed in the lotus feet of the Lord that nothing distracts him, no matter what happens in the external world."
Sri Sri Guruji Pattabhi Jois
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