B.K.S. Iyengar Quotes

When I practice, I am a philosopher. When I teach, I am a scientist. When I demonstrate, I am an artist.

We must create a marriage between the awareness of the body and that of the mind. When two parties do not cooperate, there is unhappiness on both sides.

Action is movement with intelligence

Without the accurate spine movement, one can't exist dynamically.

It is through the body that everything comes to the mind. It is through and with your body that you have to reach realization of being a spark of divinity. How can we neglect the temple of the spirit?

Yoga is effort. Only practice is important. The rest of knowledge is only theory.

Spirituality is not some external goal that one must seek, but a part of the divine core of each of us, which we must reveal.

Health is not a commodity to be bargained for. It has to be earned through sweat.

When stability becomes a habit, maturity and clarity follow.

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.

We often fool ourselves that we are concentrating because we fix our attention on wavering objects.

One has to see oneself through one's actions, works, and mind. Knowing the Self by the self is not as easy as writing that line. A #‎ yogi sees things in every movement he makes, maybe when practicing, maybe when teaching, or maybe when talking to people. You should have courage in your convictions and pursue what is dear to you all these years.

The best way to overcome fear is to face with equanimity the situation of which one is afraid.

For me there were only two ways on the precipice - either I have to fall in or I have to fall out, to accept or say good-bye. The moment I crossed the precipice, it no longer was a discipline - it became a passion, an urge to pursue. Then I experienced freedom. Freedom comes when the discipline revolutionizes the discipline as a passion for the art.

That's the beauty of backbends. Emotionally we can never be disturbed, for the emotional centre becomes an extrovert. When you do Viparita Dandasana, your head looks backwards, but your conscious mind stretches everywhere. Study by observing how the mind gets regulated. You not only know the freedom in the spine, but also the freedom in the spirit.

Purity is when there is no anxiety, no worry, no thinking.

The decision to relax rather than to grip, even in the face of impatience or fear, is a conscious and brave choice.

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.

When you cannot hold the body still, you cannot hold the brain still. If you do not know the silence of the body, you cannot understand the silence of the mind. Action and silence have to go together. If there is action, there must also be silence. If there is silence, there can be conscious action and not just motion.

To do is hard, but to teach is still harder. Do not teach only to teach. Teach to improve the pupil. To be a teacher requires tremendous, vigorous discipline on oneself. We are teachers because somebody demands it from us. But the teacher should first rub his own self, and teach afterwards

Feeling the movement of movements is wandering to the past or future. Living in the movements of movement is being in the present.

You have to get rid of borders, limits, and classifications; then light comes. We see everything on the screen of our ideas. We must get rid of that screen to be able to see what is behind. X's ideas are limited, that is why he remains on the surface. Y got rid of the limits, so she always goes to the depths. We should always meet people and new subjects with no set frame of mind. We have to live like that even after long acquaintance. We must get rid of every set idea to approach everything and everyone with love.

The brain is the hardest part of the body to adjust in asanas.

The pose begins when you want to leave it.

You exist without the feeling of existence.

We can rise above our limitations, only once we recognize them.

After a session of yoga, the mind becomes tranquil and passive.

A good teacher helps you explore the maximum.

The back is like a frame, the front body, the painting that it throws into relief.

Yoga aims for complete awareness in everything you do.

Asana done from the brain makes one heavy and done from the heart makes one light.

Your whole being should be symmetrical. Yoga is symmetry. That is why yoga is a basic art.

Yoga is the music of the soul. So do continue, and the gates of the soul will open.

Mind is the king of the senses; breath is the king of the mind; and the nerves are king of the breath.

Your body exists in the past and your mind exists in the future. In yoga, they come together in the present.

Yoga takes us to an unconditioned freedom, because yoga sees even good habits as a form of conditioning or limitation.

The supreme adventure in a man’s life is his journey back to his Creator. To reach the goal he needs well developed and co-ordinated functioning of his body, senses, mind, reason and Self.

The body has to be invaded by the intelligence; each part has to become intelligent.

It is not yoga that injures, but the way one does yoga that leads to injury.

The physical body is not only a temple for our soul, but the means by which we embark on the inward journey toward the core.

It is through the alignment of the body that I discovered the alignment of my mind, self, and intelligence.

If you practice yoga every day with perseverance, you will be able to face the turmoil of life with steadiness and maturity.

The ribs are the wings of the body. Open your wings.

In whatever you are doing, be one: body, soul, mind. Do it beautifully and with purity.

In Savasana or in meditation, the light of the eyes is drawn towards the lotus of the heart, so that the seat of the intelligence of the head is brought into contact with the seat of the intelligence of the heart, which is called the mind. Thus one passes from the individualistic state of consciousness to the universal state of consciousness. It is the merging of the intellect of the brain with the intellect of the soul.

Do not live in the future, only the present is real

The practice of yogasana for the sake of health, to keep fit, or to maintain flexibility is the external practice of yoga. While this is a legitimate place to begin, it is not the end. Even in simple asanas, one is experiencing the three levels of quest: the external quest, which brings firmness of the body; the internal quest, which brings steadiness of intelligence; and the innermost quest, which brings benevolence of spirit.

We are a little piece of continual change, looking at an infinite quantity of continual change.