True story. Bouncing through the Indian countryside in an SUV on our way to see how the organic Mysore rugs are made I asked my supplier “So how many of your 75 buyers come to see you and how your products (cushions, rugs, bags etc) get made? He said “One of my biggest buyers of 17 years has never been here. About 15 or so come to the office and then a handful to see the looms.” I mean why would they? It's not like they would be in India learning yoga or anything. It’s something that I see very commonly. Businessmen selling yoga products without a yoga education. From the surface it might not look like it matters...
I don't even think people can practice ten years without moving deeper in a spiritual level. If you're not moving deeper, you probably you start to do something else because asana, it has a limit somehow." - Petri Räisänen Deeper Branches I even think that the whole Asana practice is partly just to make people to start yoga because so many people want to do this physical and become flexible. Most people doesn't think about any mental or spiritual reasons. But after practicing for some years, it easily becomes more important. I don't even think people can practice ten years without moving deeper in a spiritual level. If you're...
I think that's one thing too that practice has taught me through the years. We want to sometimes hold on to something. Anything. But whatever it is we want to hold on to, it never can... you can't keep it forever. -Krista Shirley There's many times I've doubted myself as a person, or as a teacher or as a boss, or as a mother. Just if I'm doing the right thing, or am I making the right choices. Or, can I do it better? But with the practice, that again, I feel really really blessed because it's never been a question for me. I felt like I've always felt out of place in life, sort of I didn't fit in....
The main thing is that I would like people to realize the happiness that is within them, and that they can experience that through these practices. For people not to get too caught up in just wanting more and more, and pushing and pushing. But rather to be able to sit still and to experience their bodies, and experience that stillness in the heart and mind that these practices are designed for. - Mark Robberds
I really wanted to change my life. I saw....you know, yoga sounds completely positive. There's nothing negative. - Petri Raisanen I've read Yoga Sutra before starting yoga. And I read some other Indian books and I had this feeling that there's something mystic in yoga. But I used to do lots of sports. I was playing ice hockey in a kind of high level. So the physical practice was very common for me. It was nothing. We practiced so much. But the flexibility was completely new. I didn't know how to use the body, how to stretch the body, how to breathe; that was all new. There was a time when I quit ice hockey, I was 17. Before I...