“If you have done something meritorious, you experience pleasure and happiness; if wrong things, suffering. A happy or unhappy life is your own creation. Nobody else is responsible. If you remember this, you won’t find fault with anybody. You are your own best friend as well as your worst enemy. (99)”
― Patañjali, quote from The Yoga Sutras
“Truth is the same always. Whoever ponders it will get the same answer. Buddha got it. Patanjali got it. Jesus got it. Mohammed got it. The answer is the same, but the method of working it out may vary this way or that. (115)”
― Patañjali, quote from The Yoga Sutras
“[T]he period between four and six in the morning is called the Brahmamuhurta, the Brahmic time, or divine period, and is a very sacred time to meditate. (140)”
― Patañjali, quote from The Yoga Sutras
“At various points in our lives, or on a quest, and for reasons that often remain obscure, we are driven to make decisions which prove with hindsight to be loaded with meaning. (225)”
― Patañjali, quote from The Yoga Sutras
“If you do not pour water on your plant, what will happen? It will slowly wither and die. Our habits will also slowly wither and die away if we do not give them an opportunity to manifest. You need not fight to stop a habit. Just don’t give it an opportunity to repeat itself. (67)”
― Patañjali, quote from The Yoga Sutras
“There’s no value in digging shallow wells in a hundred places. Decide on one place and dig deep. Even if you encounter a rock, use dynamite and keep going down. If you leave that to dig another well, all the first effort is wasted and there is no proof you won’t hit rock again. (52)”
― Patañjali, quote from The Yoga Sutras
“Mere philosophy will not satisfy us. We cannot reach the goal by mere words alone. Without practice, nothing can be achieved. (3)”
― Patañjali, quote from The Yoga Sutras
“When even one virtue becomes our nature, the mind becomes clean and tranquil. Then there is no need to practice meditation; we will automatically be meditating always. (151)”
― Patañjali, quote from The Yoga Sutras
“Yoga says instinct is a trace of an old experience that has been repeated many times and the impressions have sunk down to the bottom of the mental lake. Although they go down, they aren’t completely erased. Don’t think you ever forget anything. All experiences are stored in the chittam; and, when the proper atmosphere is created, they come to the surface again. When we do something several times it forms a habit. Continue with that habit for a long time, and it becomes your character. Continue with that character and eventually, perhaps in another life, it comes up as instinct. (92)”
― Patañjali, quote from The Yoga Sutras
“. . . I feel we don’t really need scriptures. The entire life is an open book, a scripture. Read it. Learn while digging a pit or chopping some wood or cooking some food. If you can’t learn from your daily activities, how are you going to understand the scriptures? (233)”
― Patañjali, quote from The Yoga Sutras
“[O]ur own bodies are changing every second. Yet we take the body to be our Self; and, speaking in terms of it, we say, “I am hungry” or “I am lame”; “I am black” or “I am white.” These are all just the conditions of the body. We touch the truth when we say, “My body aches,” implying the body belongs to us and that therefore we are not that. (87)”
― Patañjali, quote from The Yoga Sutras
“The cause of bandha and moksha (bondage and liberation) is our own minds. If we think we are bound, we are bound. If we think we are liberated, we are liberated. . . . It is only when we transcend the mind that we are free from all these troubles. (117)”
― Patañjali, quote from The Yoga Sutras
“If we only look within, we will see he Light as if we were seeing our own image in a mirror. (122)”
― Patañjali, quote from The Yoga Sutras
“Temples and churches have become social centers. They have lost their original purpose because the minds of the people are more attracted to worldly things than to prayer. The lips repeat the prayer mechanically like a phonograph record, but the mind wanders to other places. (23-24)”
― Patañjali, quote from The Yoga Sutras
“We don’t exhaust the Bible even after reading it hundreds of times. Each time we read it we see it in a new light. That is the greatness of the holy scriptures. They are that way because they were created by holy prophets who experienced the truth. Each time we read these works we elevate ourselves to see a little more. (81)”
― Patañjali, quote from The Yoga Sutras
“[C]ontinence is a very important part of yoga. If a handful of people come forward with strong wills, nothing is impossible. One Buddha changed half the globe; one Jesus, three quarters of the world. We all have that capacity. (140)”
― Patañjali, quote from The Yoga Sutras
“These Sutras are reminiscent of the Four Noble Truths of Lord Buddha: the misery of the world, the cause of misery, the removal of that misery, and the method used to remove it. Patanjali tells us that pain can be avoided. He further tells us that its cause is ignorance. (115)”
― Patañjali, quote from The Yoga Sutras
“The purification of the mind is very necessary. (72)”
― Patañjali, quote from The Yoga Sutras
“With this truth bearing light will begin a new life. Old unwanted impressions are discarded and we are protected from the damaging effects of new experiences.”
― Patañjali, quote from The Yoga Sutras
“As the mind, so the person; bondage or liberation are in your own mind.” If you feel bound, you are bound. If you feel liberated, you are liberated. Things outside neither bind nor liberate you; only your attitude toward them does that.”
― Patañjali, quote from The Yoga Sutras
“The moment you understand yourself as the true Self, you find such peace and bliss that the impressions of the petty enjoyments you experienced before become as ordinary specks of light in front of the brilliant sun.”
― Patañjali, quote from The Yoga Sutras
“In not only the physical science, but in the real mental silence, the wisdom dawns. (75)”
― Patañjali, quote from The Yoga Sutras
“Let us all dedicate our lives for the sake of the entire humanity. With every minute, every breath, every atom of our bodies we should repeat this mantra: “dedication, dedication, giving, giving, loving, loving.”
― Patañjali, quote from The Yoga Sutras
“If you can control the rising of the mind into ripples, you will experience Yoga.”
― Patañjali, quote from The Yoga Sutras
“If you are that patient, your mind is more settled, and what you do will be more perfect. If you are unsettled and anxious to get the result, you are already disturbed; nothing done with that disturbed mind will have quality. So, it is not only how long you practice, but with what patience, what earnestness and what quality also.”
― Patañjali, quote from The Yoga Sutras
“Opposites meet; extremes look alike. A top that is not rotating is motionless. The same top at its highest velocity also looks motionless.”
― Patañjali, quote from The Yoga Sutras
Patañjali
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“You. All I need is you,” he says, more as an exhausted sigh. “Tell me about your day. All of it. Every last detail.”
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