 If we give it a chance, yoga - including the asanas, pranayamas and even bandhas - happens by itself. Be light enough to allow for the spontaneous arising of kriyas and samadhi. Yoga is not just following a sequence, or mimicking a form. Listen to your body's intelligence. It is the teacher that you carry with you everywhere you go. - Peter Littlejohn Cook "The ultimate purpose of yoga is the awakening of kundalini shakti, the evolutionary energy in man." - Swami Satyananda Saraswati (Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha) |  "It is by proceeding gently that we will feel light and be able to breathe easily in the position and therefore really benefit from it." - T.K.V. Desikachar (The Heart of Yoga - Developing a Personal Practice) |
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| "It is important to distinguish between yoga and stretching. While stretching is a feeling sensation, Classical Yoga is not concerned with these sensations. The keywords in describing the physical sensations of yoga poses are steadiness, comfort, and relaxation of effort. Nowhere does it say that yoga consists of stretching exercises. Many modern practitioners engage in conscious stretching, done to purposely lengthen a muscle by holding a stretching position with a high degree of tension for a sustained period of time. As a result, the muscles are in fact, injured. There is a resultant increase in muscle-resting length from the tearing of muscle fiber. This is not Classical Yoga." - Mukunda Stiles (creator of Structural Yoga Therapy) |  |