If a person is dominated by sattva, What is Sivananda yoga he or she exudes the light of wisdom and the power of discrimination. The common point in all these different paths is to change your ego and bring light into this stagnant ego attitude. You look at the vrittis and you change them. Start now, change now. Saying "I Am That I Am" means entering into complete peace, because we now no longer differentiate. It also means to keep a sense of perspective and to remain calm, to approach something thoughtfully and to concern oneself with it until the matter is completed; it is this method which distinguishes a successful person. Pure and elevating thoughts and pure understanding are dominant in the mind of the person who turns away from sensual pleasures and toward knowledge. In order to attain liberation, we must transcend them as they are forms of avidya, ignorance. Therefore, in this verse, Lord Krishna is using a beautiful analogy in order to describe the meditative mind and compare it with the mind which is unmeditative and uncontrolled.

The gunas are the basis for identification with body and mind. Because you are never the best when you do things you have not done before. You have more talents than you think. You cannot even imagine which talents are hiding within you. There, next to the Ganges River and the Himalayas, I felt for the first time that I was where I wanted to be, where I needed to be and I was so intensely happy then that even now, months later, I still am so. Where is then the third dimension? If we are considering this, then we are really in training, and both our secular life and our spiritual life will be il- lumined by this third dimension. When you are young, you can live with this, but people who are above fifty years old, they have a hard time to keep up. But when you are sixty, you will have many new problems which prevent you from practising. That is why sometimes things in the Centres and Ashrams are not perfect. Why is this? Can I change it? At the occasion of Swami Durgananda’s 70th birthday celebrations, the booklet Inner Path was released offering a selection of Swamiji’s lecture extracts on yoga as a practical system of universal spirituality.

In 1978 Double Yoga was published introducing a new system - Yoga asanas with a partner. Increases lung capacity, strengthens and cleanses the respiratory system. The 5 points of yoga provide a system of complete lifestyle: proper exercise, proper breathing, proper relaxation, proper diet, positive thinking and meditation. The Sivananda Yoga Farm is on 80 acres and has many beautiful quiet spots to practice meditation. Postures lead to meditation. I would highly recommend this program to anyone who is considering pursuing a career in yoga, or deepening their practices in yoga or meditation. To learn more about Yoga you can consider signing up for one of our Foundational Yoga courses where you learn the basics of what is yoga. In fact, pranayama can be performed more than one time throughout a day. The practice of yoga asanas goes hand in hand with the practice of pranayama. Pranayama exercises a direct influence over these nadis and ensures the rhythmic, powerful vibration of prana through all the nadis.

Through the adapted practise of yoga exercises (asanas), the body of a pregnant woman is supported through every stage of pregnancy, gently stretching, easing tension, and adjusting to the moment whilst preparing for the challenge of birth. You will continue to do what you always did, and you also do your asanas in the same way. Rather, he said, "Thank you." Without taking any bath, without saying any other words but thank you, the boy approached the master-covered in filth-in the same prayerful state as when he had finished all of his purification… In the same manner, we may climb the mountain from different routes, one person preferring to go rock climbing, the other preferring to take it easy on a long winding road, and another preferring the middle path… At this point the sattvic person enjoys her or his own superiority and boasts about it. The person who has left behind the three gunas is free from birth and death, decay and pain, and will attain Self-knowledge.