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

tantra and haṭha yoga alike are organized around the principle that all things are sacred.

it even wants to diminish God to a simple idol in order to be able to say, “I got it!” In this way the ego can reign supreme over all creation.

We have to practice in such a way that we allow insight into the union of the body and mind, the inhale and the exhale, the twist and the countertwist, so that we experience our own merging into what we naturally perceive as our background—all that we see as separate from ourselves.

The ego desperately wants to do this because its entire function is to reduce everything, including the whole yoga tradition, to a formula that it can grasp and know definitively

The physical yoga practices, therefore, give us something to observe that is immediately accessible, tangible, broad in scope, seemingly endless, but most important, grounded in the present moment and therefore undeniably impermanent.

The true practice of yoga cannot occur until all aspects of experience throughout the day and night are attended to with singular intention and devotion.

Whatever tradition captures our mind, whatever ancient, medieval, or hybrid form of yoga we find that works for us so that we may dig deeply into the nature of the direct experience, that is the starting point. If it allows real work and authentic inquiry within our own unique circumstances, it is the tradition to follow enthusiastically.

Insight into the subtle nature of sensation and its relationship to internal breathing patterns is believed to be the key to insight into the true nature of the mind.

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