Question: What is success and failure? Swami Satchidananda: There’s no need for failure in the worldly sense. If you really work hard, if you know the way, if you gather enough strength, nothing is impossible to achieve. But remember: that, even if you have the whole...
I sat on the bench outside the Integral Yoga Institute (IYI) in New York City yelling into my cell phone at my boss, “Forget it, I’m done. I can’t take this anymore. I quit!” People coming out of the IYI stared at me in horror. An ashram is not exactly the place to be...
Yoga means to control the mind, to master the mind. Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras begins by saying: Control of thoughts is Yoga—Yoga chitta vritti nirodhah (Sutra 1.2). But how is it to be done? Even the ideal disciple, Arjuna, says to Sri Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita: “My...
When I think of what it means to really live Yoga, I recall a special visit in late December, in the mid-1970s. I was serving as director of the San Francisco Integral Yoga Institute, and Swami Satchidananda (Sri Gurudev) was coming to California for the celebration...
Yoga is something that you live. If you want to be a Yogi you should be a Yogi always, not just while you are standing on your head. If you are a Yogi only when you stand on your head, then what are you when you walk on your feet? If you are a Yoga teacher, you are...