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OPEN MIND OPEN BODY Teaching Tools |
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Inspirational Quotes from Yoga and Meditation Teachers
SURRENDER
“I’ve learned to trust what I call the Braille method of living – relinquishing grand plans and schemes in favor of an intuitive approach, feeling my way from tree to tree, relinquishing my attempts to control the world and learning, instead, to trust a discerning surrender.” Stephen Cope
CHOOSING JOY
“When
you’re experiencing peace, it’s coming from within you, you’re
‘doing’ peace. And this is true of anything else you might be looking
for. Love, happiness, contentment, well-being come from within. Nothing
external needs to change for you to have what you want…..If you want to
be happier – be happier. If you want to be more relaxed – relax. If
you want more friends – be friendly. Sounds simple. It is.” Cheri
Huber
INTENTION
“I practice now not so much with ambition as with gratitude. And I ask myself frequently, ‘How can I express kindness right now?’ whether I am in a headstand of washing dishes.” Judith Lasater
“In truth, it matters les what we do in practice than how we do it and why we do it. The same posture, the same sequence, the same meditation with a different intention takes on an entirely new meaning and will have entirely different outcomes.” Donna Farhi
“Without intention, all these postures, these breathing practices, meditations, and the like can become little more than ineffectual gestures. When animated by intention, however, the simplest movement, the briefest meditation, and the contents of one breath cycle are made potent.” Donna Farhi
ACCEPTANCE
“If
your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.” Jack Kornfield
“Through practice, I’ve come to see that the deepest source of my misery is not wanting things to be the way they are. Not wanting myself to be the way I am. Not wanting the world to be the way it is. Not wanting others to be the way they are. Whenever I’m suffering, I find this ‘war with reality’ to be at the heart of the problem.” Stephen Cope
“These days, my practice is teaching me to embrace imperfection: to have compassion for all the ways things haven’t turned out as I planned, in my body and in my life – for the ways things keep falling apart, and failing, and breaking down. It’s less about fixing things, and more about learning to be present for exactly what is.” Anne Cushman
“One day, [teacher Jean Klien] said to me, ‘Your very trying to change yourself is actually taking you away from what you are.’ ” Richard Miller
“If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation." J. Krishnamurti “I was caught in the conundrum of believing that I needed to be different, that the way I was right now was not all right….Eventually I came to understand that it was this very non-acceptance that was keeping me stuck in my patterns.” Judith Lasater
CHANGE “The way that we see things today does not have to be the way we saw them yesterday. That is because the situations, our relationships to them, and we ourselves have changed in the interim. This notion of constant change suggests that we do not have to be discouraged.” T.K.V. Desikachar “Whether things get better or worse depends to a considerable extent on our own actions. The recommendation of a yoga practice follows the principle that through practice we can learn to stay present in every moment, and thereby achieve much that we were previously incapable of.” T.K.V. Desikachar
“I
feel certain that the change wrought by my practice also changes the
world. I don’t see how it can be otherwise. Everything is interconnected
in the fabric of oneness. Awakening affects the entire world.” Richard
Miller
"They must change often, who would be constant in happiness." Confucius
WHY PRACTICE YOGA?
“I did not come to yoga to stretch. I came to live.” Maya Breuer
“Practicing asanas began to teach me about myself. The body is such a great school of learning. It makes you pay attention.” Lilias Folan
“The challenge, and the opportunity, that Yoga presents to us is the possibility of breaking the conditioning cycle. We do this by becoming aware of the depth and pervasiveness of our patterns and, at the same time, by working to change them. And true transformation begins at the moment that we become aware of our actual condition.” Gary Kraftsow “What I want to say is that there is a strong relationship between yoga on the mat and yoga off the mat. I’ve really come to believe that the energy accumulated in practice has a lot to do with my ability to get clarity about the reality of things.” John Friend ON HOW YOGA HAS CHANGED THEIR LIVES
“People
sometimes ask me what difference practice has made in my life. The answer
is it’s changed everything for me. And, in a funny way, it’s changed
nothing." Lama Surya Das
“The most profound benefit of yoga and meditation for me has been a natural relaxing into my life. Obstacles are not so scary. I am more fluid, more curious, and at the same time more patient. I have more options for happiness because I don’t require specific conditions. It is a relief to discover that I can be happy even if the world doesn’t revolve around me or my agenda.” Cyndi Lee
“When I started doing asana, the yoga postures, I had a very strong feeling of many unnecessary things dropping away – especially tension and inadequacy.” Patricia Sullivan
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