Pantanjali

“Undisturbed calmness of mind is attained by cultivating friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and indifference toward the wicked.”

Emily Bronte

"Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same."

Heather Flores

“The amount of electricity you use is directly proportionate to the long-term damage your lifestyle inflicts upon your ecology. Cultivate an outdoor life, rich in experience rather than gadgetry. Go outside and garden. Go for a walk. Stretch. Sing. Play an instrument. Write poetry. Tell jokes. Talk to your neighbors. Daydream. Hang out with dogs and cats. Watch birds, go swimming. Take a nap. Cook. Read. Play with children. Dance. Make. Love.”

Sameet Kumar

"Happiness is not a light switch. You can't turn it on and leave it on. It's more like a candle in the breeze. Frequently extinguished, it needs to be relit over and over again."

Dr Sara Gottfried

"Your skin is a mirror of your life."

Helen Keller

“The unselfish effort to bring cheer to others will be the beginning of a happier life for ourselves.”

James Joyce

"Our secrets sit silent in the dark recesses of our hearts, but even they weary of their tyranny, willing and wanted to be dethroned."

Carrie Brown

“If I can’t ever tell anyone the true story . . . then no one will ever know me.”

Miss Beautiful Tulip

"You can't make unreasonable people be reasonable." it is worth repeating

John Lennon

“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”

B.K.S. Iyengar

"Yoga teaches us to cure what need not be endured and endure what cannot be cured."

Allen Ginsberg

“Concentrate on what you want to say to yourself and your friends. Follow your inner moonlight; don't hide the madness. You say what you want to say when you don't care who's listening.”

Desikachar

"It is not enough to know how to climb a tree; we must also know how to come back down."

Krishnamacharya

"Where is the conflict when the Truth is known,
Where is the disease when the mind is clear,
Where is the death when the breath is controlled,
Therefore, surrender to Yoga."

VIvekananda

“Was there ever a more horrible blasphemy than the statement that all the knowledge of God is confined to this or that book? How dare men call God infinite, and yet try to compress Him within the covers of a little book!”

Francis Bacon

"the mind can be enlarged, according to its capacity, to the grandeur of the mysteries, and not the mysteries contracted to the narrowness of the mind"

Swami Vivekananda

"We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far."

Samuel Johnson

"The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good."

Tiny House

"In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don't try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present."

Lao Tzu

Tim Robbins

"Worry is just a meditation on shit"

Buddha

"Go forward without a path 
Fearing nothing, caring for nothing,
Wandering alone like the rhinoceros
Even as a lion, not trembling at noises,
Even as the wind, not caught in a net,
Even as the lotus leaf, untainted by water,
Do thou wander, like a rhinoceros!" 

Ray Long

“Patanjali, the patron saint of Yoga, said that mastery combines the balance of science and art. Knowledge of science is like the colors on an artist’s palette — the greater the knowledge the more colors available.  The body is the canvas and the Asanas are the art we create.”

Sat~Nam

softly lit
     barely audible

my arms outstretched
     two fingers point away
     thumbs circling back in

a room full of strangers
     and you

Chanting
     Sa
          Ta
               Na
                     Ma

I can feel the vibration
     of your voice

and then I am lost…

eyes closed
     yet gazing
          upwards

floating past the
feeling I am meant
     to release

Seven Minutes
     my arms reach out
I give and take
     in equal measure

I am the universe
     breathing.
pain searing
     my arms

mara is taunting me.

he is dancing in
     front of me
whispering,
          put down your arms

I resist
     breathing in
          through my
               teeth
releasing through my nose

Chanting
     I am.
          Sat~Nam.

Seven
        Six
            Five
                  Four
                       Three
                               Two
                                    One

Our arms collectively fall
     my body
begins to shake

I can feel
     the sobs
         coursing through me

tears silently sliding
     down my cheeks

I hear my teacher
     sigh

and we sit
     I am not the
          only one
               uplifted

the group has been elevated

we float on our vibrational cloud

joining
     compounding

open your eyes

You have opened my eyes.

You see my tears
     and smile

Knowing that I am
     moved.

Knowing that you moved
      me.

Your being moved with all.

We smile.
                   Namaste'

Osho

"With self-remembering you cannot eat meat, impossible. It is impossible to be so violent if you
remember. It is impossible to harm somebody when you remember, because when you remember
yourself, suddenly you see that the same light, the same flame is burning everywhere, within each
body, each unit. The more you know your inner nature, the more you penetrate the other. How can
you kill for eating? It becomes simply impossible." 

Dhyana

"As water takes the shape of its container, the mind when it contemplates an object is transformed into the shape of that object." ~Iyengar~

Swami Satchidananda

"We are not going to change the whole world, but we can change ourselves and feel free as birds. We can be serene even in the midst of calamities and, by our serenity, make others more tranquil. Serenity is contagious. If we smile at someone, he or she will smile back. And a smile costs nothing. We should plague everyone with joy. If we are to die in a minute, why not die happily, laughing?"

Mother Teresa

“In the West we have a tendency to be profit-oriented, where everything is measured according to the results and we get caught up in being more and more active to generate results. In the East — especially in India — I find that people are more content to just be, to just sit around under a banyan tree for half a day chatting to each other. We Westerners would probably call that wasting time. But there is value to it. Being with someone, listening wihtout a clock and without anticipation of results, teaches us about love. The success of love is in the loving — it is not in the result of loving.”

Henry David Thoreau

"Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed by them."

Antoine de Saint-Exupe

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

Socrates

"The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less."