The Mirror of Yoga: Awakening the Intelligence of Body and Mind

Using the mind, the senses, and the ego to realize yoga is like asking a bull to fix the porcelain it just knocked off the shelf; there is a very real danger that the bull will make an even greater mess.

this is the foundation of the practice; that we simply train ourselves to observe the presentation of the mind, the vṛtti, whatever it is and whenever it drifts into our conscious awareness.

much of our life is spent avoiding the undercurrent of anxiety that surfaces as we place a mask of happiness (or tragedy) over what on a deeper level we are actually aware of—the present moment.

When we practice yoga we cultivate the ability to concentrate the mind so that as we move into various physical postures, we begin to notice our habitual patterns of holding within our own body, just as we might observe physical patterns of holding in musicians as they perform.

you will not be able to drop deeply inside of your own experience and truly practice yoga if you have placed even one sentient being outside of your heart.

the practice is both an observation of what is arising and then a letting go of the frame we were looking through.

The breakthrough happens when we fully comprehend that our conditioned ways of perceiving the world are not only habits of memory, as if we were haunted by dreams, but that they are also physical patterns within the body that over time have rooted themselves in our flesh and in the deepest layers of muscular patterning within our body.

Gradually we train both body and mind to be awake, and, little by little, we decondition ourselves from the habits that keep us dull and stuck in the routine of our own suffering.

Our very own body, which is immediately available to us, becomes a laboratory of consciousness, a field of exploration into the truth of our own existence so that, figuratively speaking, our body becomes a temple for open awareness.