Yoga is Bodily Gospel.!

A photographer gets people to pose for him. A yoga instructor gets people to pose for themselves.

Anyone who practices can obtain success in yoga but not one who is lazy. Constant practice alone is the secret of success.

By embracing your mother wound as your yoga, you transform what has been a hindrance in your life into a teacher of the heart.

Before you’ve practiced, the theory is useless. After you’ve practiced, the theory is obvious.

Basketball is an endurance sport, and you have to learn to control your breath; that’s the essence of yoga, too. So, I consciously began using yoga techniques in my practice and playing. I think yoga helped reduce the number and severity of injuries I suffered. As preventative medicine, it’s unequaled.

Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape.

Concentrating on poses clears the mind, while focusing on the breath helps the body shift out of fight-or-flight mode.

Don’t just do something

For me, yoga is not just a workout – it’s about working on yourself.

For those wounded by civilization, yoga is the most healing salve.

If I’m losing balance in a pose, I stretch higher and God reaches down to steady me. It works every time, and not just in yoga.

Inhale, and God approaches you. Hold the inhalation, and God remains with you. Exhale, and you approach God. Hold the exhalation, and surrender to God.

I was in yoga the other day. I was in full lotus position. My chakras were all aligned. My mind is cleared of all clatter and I’m looking out of my third eye and everything that I’m supposed to be doing. It’s amazing what comes up, when you sit in that silence. “Mama keeps whites bright like the sunlight, Mama’s got the magic of Clorox 2.”

Mountain pose teaches us, literally, how to stand on our own two feet…. teaching us to root ourselves into the earth…. Our bodies become a connection between heaven and earth.

Sun salutations can energize and warm you, even on the darkest, coldest winter day.

The autonomic nervous system is divided into the sympathetic system, which is often identified with the fight-or-flight response, and the parasympathetic, which is identified with what’s been called the relaxation response. When you do yoga – the deep breathing, the stretching, the movements that release muscle tension, the relaxed focus on being present in your body – you initiate a process that turns the fight-or-flight system off and the relaxation response on. That has a dramatic effect on the body. The heartbeat slows, respiration decreases, blood pressure decreases. The body seizes this chance to turn on the healing mechanisms.

The yoga mat is a good place to turn when talk therapy and antidepressants aren’t enough.

Yoga is the fountain of youth. You’re only as young as your spine is flexible.

You cannot do yoga. Yoga is your natural state. What you can do are yoga exercises, which may reveal to you where you are resisting your natural state.

Yoga teaches us to cure what need not be endured and endure what cannot be cured.

Yoga is the practice of quieting the mind.

Yoga is the perfect opportunity to be curious about who you are.

Yoga accepts. Yoga gives.

Yoga is possible for anybody who really wants it. Yoga is universal…. But don’t approach yoga with a business mind looking for worldly gain.

Yoga is 99% practice and 1% knowledge.

Yoga, an ancient but perfect science, deals with the evolution of humanity. This evolution includes all aspects of one’s being, from bodily health to self-realization. Yoga means union – the union of body with consciousness and consciousness with the soul. Yoga cultivates the ways of maintaining a balanced attitude in day-to-day life and endows skill in the performance of one’s actions.

Yoga is invigoration in relaxation. Freedom in routine. Confidence through self control. Energy within and energy without.

Yoga has a sly, clever way of short-circuiting the mental patterns that cause anxiety.

When asked what gift he wanted for his birthday, the yogi replied: “I wish no gifts, only presence.”

When you inhale, you are taking the strength from God. When you exhale, it represents the service you are giving to the world.