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I also say with backbends, you have to be cautiously bold. Not carelessly bold. You have to descend to the dictation of the spine. You cannot command from the brain to do the poses. As you play with a child, guarding the child from injuries, similarly you have to play in backbends, guarding your spine.
Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar -
Illuminated emancipation, freedom, unalloyed and untainted bliss await you, but you have to choose to embark on the Inward Journey to discover it
Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar
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Yoga uses the body to discipline the mind and to reach the soul.
Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar -
As the trunk is one but the branches are many, yoga is one but adaptations may vary.
Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar -
Yoga has a threefold impact on health. It keeps healthy people healthy, it inhibits the development of diseases, and it aids recovery from ill health.
Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar -
Yoga is more than physical. It is cellular, mental, intellectual and spiritual-it involves man in his entire being
Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar -
Do to your capacity. Always strive to extend your capacity. Ten minutes today, after a few days, twelve minutes. Master that, then again extend.
Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar -
Change is not something that we should fear. Rather, it is something that we should welcome. For without change, nothing in this world would ever grow or blossom, and no one in this world would ever move forward to become the person they're meant to be.
Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar
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Abhyasa (practice) is a dedicated, unswerving, constant, and vigilant search into a chosen subject pursued against all odds in the face of repeated failures, for indefinitely long periods of time.
Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar -
Backbends are not poses meant for expressionism. Backbends are meant to understand the back parts of our bodies. The front body can be seen with the eyes, but the back body can only be felt. That's why I say these are the most advanced postures, where the mind begins to look at the back.
Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar -
As we shave it happens that we cut ourself with the razor blade; this does not mean that we must not shave in the morning any longer. It is the same thing for yoga.
Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar -
A yogi's brain extends from the bottom of the foot to the top of his head
Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar -
You must continue to go back to the beginning, to the foundation, and question the foundation. Even once you‘ve reached Samadhi you must go back so you can create it at will. Samadhi is the beginning of spiritual growth, not the end. You must always be questioning. Enlightenment comes as an accident at first, then you have to learn to recreate it.
Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar -
Intellectuals tend to be arrogant. Intelligence, like money, is a good servant but a bad master. When practicing pranayama, the yogi [makes] himself humble and without pride in his intellectual attainments.
Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar
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As long as you do not live totally in the body, you do not live totally in the Self.
Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar -
Nothing is achieved by a mind that doubts
Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar -
Breath is the vehicle of consciousness and so, by its slow measured observation and distribution, we learn to tug our attention away from external desires toward a judicious, intelligent awareness.
Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar -
Yoga is nothing if it is not perfect
Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar -
Yoga is the rule book for playing the game of Life, but in this game no one needs to lose. It is tough, and you need to train hard. It requires the willingness to think for yourself, to observe and correct, and to surmount occasional setbacks. It demands honesty, sustained application, and above all love in your heart.
Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar -
Savasana is being without was, being without will be. It is being without anyone who is.
Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar
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Don't practice for cosmetic beauty, practice for cosmic beauty. Practice for inner beauty and inner light.
Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar -
When you inhale, you are taking the strength from God. When you exhale, it represents the service you are giving to the world.
Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar -
Keep your attention internal, not external, not worrying about what others see, but what the Self sees.
Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar -
There is only one reality, but there are many ways that reality can be interpreted.
Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar