The ugly, the sad, the joyous, the exhilarating, the dark, the funny, the weird, the enticing. All the thoughts and feelings are close by. Asana somehow raises the energy level allowing the experience of all of this, and much more. And a lot of the time I don’t want to feel them, I just want to carry on in a little bubble of okayness. And this is the work of yoga, the exposing, the releasing, the allowing and the observation, understanding, of all we are. It’s right there, and a yoga practice will put us in touch with it whether we like it or not. I suspect this is why people give yoga a try and then quit pretty soon. It can get tough, even in the gentleness. Breathing really helps. No matter what is happening, the breathing really helps. And there’s nothing to learn unless I am in touch.

Hittleman:

You can be assured that in stimulating the life-force you are increasing your organism’s healing power, and this is the esoteric explanation for the marked improvement in health that is so often experienced by yoga students.

Krishnamurti:

An idea is not a fact, it is a fiction. God is a fiction; you may believe in it but it is still a fiction. But to find God you must completely destroy the fiction because the old mind is the mind that is frightened, is ambitious, is fearful of death, of living, and of relationship; and it is always … seeking a permanency, security.