When it comes to desire, it's not a matter of avoiding desire, but rather learning to discern those desires that are helpful and necessary for your growth - those that serve your soul and help you continue to thrive - from those that do not.

Beautiful women, wealth, sensations, celebrity, substances capable of distorting my perception, and even forcing my body into positions ready for the covers of important yoga magazines - I pursued them all, some wholeheartedly, but none would satisfy my real longing.

Despite its widespread acceptance and the number of lives it has improved, what most of us in the West commonly associate with yoga represents only the tip of the iceberg that is yoga, a tiny fraction of what is a vast and profound science.

My hope and my prayer for people would be to find and gather themselves such that their self-understanding, their willingness to act in the face of fear, [imbibes and imbues them] with enough faith [that] is bigger than their fear.

Collect the power. Because our fear has power. And our fear is paralyzing, and our fear sets us off course. So it's about gathering and collecting that power, waking it up. And dedicating your life to honoring it.

Looking back, I see that I was born with the subtle sense that material treasures alone, no matter how grand, would never be enough to satisfy the longing in my heart to see the light, to know the truth.

The quality of your practice is ultimately measured by its effect on the quality of your life. In other words, mastery in yoga is mastery of life.