A Quote by T. K. V. Desikachar
If we do not pay attention to ourselves in our practice, then we cannot call it yoga.
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Practice means making an effort to keep your mind steady. Yoga is about learning to pay attention. That's what drives transformation.
Pay attention to your friends; pay attention to that cousin that jumps up on the picnic table at the family reunion and goes a little too 'nutty,' you know what I mean? Pay attention to that aunt that's down in the basement that never comes upstairs. We have to pay attention to our friends, pay attention to your family, and offer a hand.
When I speak about attention, I mean literally, "How much attention can we pay to ourselves?" As children, sometimes we cannot hold our attention for more than a couple of seconds. Over the years we are able to attend to more and more. Yet, we're seldom schooled to hold life in respect, to enlarge our ability to love, take care of, and be respectfully connected with all things around us.
From the simplest lyric to the most complex novel and densest drama, literature is asking us to pay attention. Pay attention to the frog. Pay attention to the west wind. Pay attention to the boy on the raft, the lady in the tower, the old man on the train. In sum, pay attention to the world and all that dwells therein and thereby learn at last to pay attention to yourself and all that dwells therein.
It is important not to abandon the practice of yoga because we believe it is driven by the wrong motivation. The practice of yoga itself transforms. Yoga has a magical quality.
The moment that we realize our attention has wandered is the magic moment of the practice, because that's the moment we have the chance to be really different. Instead of judging ourselves, and berating ourselves, and condemning ourselves, we can be gentle with ourselves.
The point of yoga is to develop a level of clarity and self-understand ing so that when we’re done doing our yoga practice we make really good decisions, because that will determine whether we’re fulfilled. Not the quality of our poses. But really the yoga is what happens when we’re done practicing yoga.
Pay attention to the hungry, both in this country and around the world. Pay attention to the poor. Pay attention to our responsibilities for world peace. We are our brother's keeper.
If your skin is crawling, pay attention. If something doesn’t feel right, pay attention. If the hairs on the back of your neck prickle, if your gut clenches up, if a wave of wrongness washes over you, if your heart starts beating faster, pay, pay, pay attention. Do not second-guess yourself or rationalize anything that impedes your safety. Our instincts are the animal inside of our humanness, warning us of danger.
When you practice yoga regularly, you get more then you will from jogging on the treadmill catching up on the last season of 'Lost.' When you practice yoga, you use your body and your mind, and you're gaining awareness and intuition.
Any of the yoga poses could be substituted in this analogy. How you practice is much more meaningful than what yoga moves you can or cannot do.
All we need to do is pay attention to ourselves and pay attention when somebody gives you a compliment based on something that you do naturally. Then that lets you know that that's your talent. I mean, talents come in so many different sizes, so many different colors, so many different ways.
I encourage students to check out different styles of yoga and different teachers even within one system. Seek the teacher that inspires you, and practice the yoga that makes you feel the best. You'll then find the authentic practice for your life and path.
Our Christian destiny is, in fact, a great one: but we cannot achieve greatness unless we lose all interest in being great. For our own idea of greatness is illusory, and if we pay too much attention to it we will be lured out of the peace and stability of the being God gave us, and seek to live in a myth we have created for ourselves. And when we are truly ourselves we lose most of the futile self-consciousness that keeps us constantly comparing ourselves with others in order to see how big we are.
I really like United States so I pay attention to what goes on here. I don't really pay attention to what goes on overseas or in other countries, unless it affects us, then I'll pay attention.
Do you not think that sometimes when matters are at the worst with us, when we appear to have done all which we ourselves can do, yet all has been unavailing, and we have only shown we cannot, not we will not, help ourselves; that often just then something comes, almost as if supernaturally, to settle for us, as if our guardian angel took pity on our perplexities, and then at last obtained leave to help us? And if it be so, then what might only be a coincidence becomes a call of Providence, a voice from Heaven, a command.
