Beryl Bender Birch Quotes

Lots of media people ask me what do you think of yoga in the gyms, and what do you think about this article and what do you think about that, and how about it's so commercial now. I say, look, whatever gets people turned on to it.

I really do believe that the bottom line that creates transformation in the individual is the ability to focus your attention in an ever greater and more subtle way, and that follows the whole path of the limbs.

I started teaching yoga in 1974 in Colorado, I was living in Winter Park, and I started teaching skiers. At that point I was teaching more of the Sivananda system and just pushing it up a little bit to make it a little more rajasic a little more active, a little more physical. People would come, and feel great, and by the time I left Colorado in 1980 I'd taught pretty much everyone in town - the ski patrol, ski instructors, the bar owners.

I always tell people, I can't teach you yoga. Nobody can teach you yoga. I can't teach you to teach yoga. All I can do is teach you a set of instructions and if you follow these instructions, hopefully it will lead you to the experience of yoga.

I'm really fascinated by the parallels between quantum theory and the teachings of some of these ancient texts. So many of the things that quantum physicists are talking about today, like nonlocality and the observer effect, are things the yogis have been saying for thousands of years.

My sangha, what I seem to attract, are people who have been practicing a long time, they're teaching, they're more serious about their spiritual journey.

I'm not a rock star, I'm not Seane Corne or Shiva Rea or Rodney Yee or Baron (Baptiste) or John Friend, and thank God, because there's just too much risk of getting hit by flying tomatoes if you stick out that much.

finding the time to practice takes a little effort and thought. For many of us, already feeling maxed out in terms of time constraints, being told that we need to set aside more time five days a week to do something else is in itself stressful. As you make your wellness and wholeness a priority, you will find it becomes easier to protect your practice by creating a special place and time in which to work on yourself.

I think it's really important to create spiritual revolutionaries.

Separation of mind and body, that's been around since the Greeks.

Practice means making an effort to keep your mind steady. Yoga is about learning to pay attention. That's what drives transformation.