Quotes from Meditations from the Mat: Daily Reflections on the Path of Yoga

“The real payoff of a yoga practice, I came to see, is not a perfect handstand or a deeper forward bend—it is the newly born self that each day steps off the yoga mat and back into life.”
― quote from Meditations from the Mat: Daily Reflections on the Path of Yoga

“Yoga is asking us to pay attention to the nature of all of our relationships and to apply the yamas and the niyamas to them. Whether it is our relationship to our breath, the bottoms of our feet, the ant crawling across the kitchen floor, our families, or to God, we are being asked to pay attention. The aim of yogic practice is to free us from the endless distractions of the kleshas—fear, pride, desire, and ignorance—and to teach us to bring a focused mind to bear on the nature of our relationships. Our time spent on the mat is dedicated to that end.”
― quote from Meditations from the Mat: Daily Reflections on the Path of Yoga

“Whenever we find ourselves ensnared in negative behavior, he suggests, we should increase the amount of time, thought, and energy we direct toward positive behavior.”
― quote from Meditations from the Mat: Daily Reflections on the Path of Yoga

“You may not be what you think you are, but what you think, you are. Jim Clark”
― quote from Meditations from the Mat: Daily Reflections on the Path of Yoga

“There is a river flowing now, very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart and suffer greatly. Know that the river has its destination. The elders say we must push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open and our heads above the water. See who is in there with you and celebrate. At this time in history we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves, for the moment we do that, our spiritual growth comes to a halt. The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves; banish the word ‘struggle’ from your attitude and vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred way and in celebration. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”
― quote from Meditations from the Mat: Daily Reflections on the Path of Yoga

“We spend our days badgered by voices that tell us to judge others, fear others, harm others, or harm ourselves. But we are not obligated to listen to those voices, or even to take responsibility for them. They may be where we come from, but they are not where we are going. There is another voice, a voice that shines. Ahimsa is the practice of listening to that voice of lightness, cultivating that voice, trusting that voice, acting upon that voice.”
― quote from Meditations from the Mat: Daily Reflections on the Path of Yoga

“When nonviolence in speech, thought, and action is established, one’s aggressive nature is relinquished and others abandon hostility in one’s presence. Yoga Sutras”
― quote from Meditations from the Mat: Daily Reflections on the Path of Yoga

“What a beautiful thing, to walk amidst the endless diversity of life with the ability to perceive the source and the reality of its unity.”
― quote from Meditations from the Mat: Daily Reflections on the Path of Yoga

“At long last I came to the breakthrough point, the surrender. I realized that her life, and my fury, were truly over. She was gone, and if I really loved her, I owed it to her to ensure that her passing would bear spiritual fruit in my life. For that to happen, I would have to let go. The relief was profound. There was nothing left to do.”
― quote from Meditations from the Mat: Daily Reflections on the Path of Yoga

“Well, darkness has a hunger that’s insatiable, and lightness has a call that’s hard to hear. Indigo Girls”
― quote from Meditations from the Mat: Daily Reflections on the Path of Yoga

“Love is not a thought, it is an action. And each loving action that we take infuses us with more energy for loving action in the future.”
― quote from Meditations from the Mat: Daily Reflections on the Path of Yoga

Popular quotes

“Yet the possibility of information storage, beyond what men and governments ever had before, can make available at the touch of a button a man's total history (including remarks put on his record by his kindergarten teacher about his ability and character). And with the computer must be placed the modern scientific technical capability which exists for wholesale monitoring of telephone, cable, Telex and microwave transmissions which carry much of today's spoken and written communications. The combined use of the technical capability of listening in on all these forms of communications with the high-speed computer literally leaves no place to hide and little room for privacy.”
― Francis A. Schaeffer, quote from How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture

“A true lady should have the wit and the imagination, or at least the very restraint, to express herself without resorting herself to such base vocabulary.”
― quote from Thief's Covenant

“Though frankly… Tarnapol, as he is called, is beginning to seem as imaginary as my Zuckermans anyway, or at least as detached from the memoir-ist – his revelations coming to seem like still another “useful fiction,” and not because I am telling lies. I am trying to keep to the facts. Maybe all I’m saying is that words, being words, only approximate the real thing, and so no matter how close I come, I only come close.”
― Philip Roth, quote from My Life as a Man

“Before the end of the week, Fudge asked the big question. “How did the baby get inside you, Mommy?” So”
― Judy Blume, quote from Superfudge

“Quentin found it hard not to blame her doctors, and especially her father, for not being open-minded enough to at least consider the possibility that there had been nothing wrong with Diana from the beginning. But they hadn't. Faced with the inexplicable, with experiences and behaviors they didn't understand and were frightened by, they had acted swiftly, with all the supposed knowledge of modern-day medicine, to "fix" her "problems."

Even before she hit puberty, for Christ's sake.

And they had left her only half alive. A pale, colorless, vague, and passionless copy of the Diana she was meant to be.

Christ, no wonder she looked out on the world with wary, suspicious eyes. Finally off all the mind-numbing medications, Diana was clearheaded for the first time since childhood. Truly aware for the first time of the world around her. And not just aware, but painfully alert, with the raw-nerved sensitivity of most psychics.

She knew, now. No matter what she was willing to admit aloud or even consciously, she knew now that she had been kept half alive, less than that. Knew that those she had trusted most had betrayed that trust, even if they had done it in the name of love and concern and with all good intentions. They hadn't kept her safe, they had kept her doped up and compliant. They had sought to hammer away all the sharp, unique edges that made her Diana.

So she could be healthy. Like everybody else.

It had been in her voice when she'd told him, a haunted awareness of all she'd lost.

"I'm thirty-three now. You do the math."

He thought it must have been like waking from a coma or a hazy dream to find that everything that had gone before had not been real. The world had turned, time had moved on... and Diana had lost years.

Years.”
― Kay Hooper, quote from Chill of Fear

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