All quotes from
Alan's book
Remind yourself that
at any given moment you are exactly where you need to be.
Acting consistently
is much harder than acting radically.
The law of karma
makes sure that we never miss the lessons we are due to get; we will always get
a second, third, or forth opportunity -- however many it takes -- to learn the
lessons that we need.
If you are like most
people…you are accustomed to feeling uncomfortable, and you cannot begin to
remember what true relaxation, stillness, and peace feel like.
Practice a new
vision: learn to greet the onset of stress positively, because it signals a
situation that is causing you discomfort, giving you an opportunity to break
old, harmful patterns of through and behavior and consciously create healthier
new ones. The key is self-examination.
Practicing yoga is
not a cure-all; nor is it insurance against the onset of future illness. It
can, however, shift your attention away from the illness and help you redefine
yourself, so that illness never defines you.
Asanas are not
exercises that need to be perfected.
They are tools for self-exploration.
The more clarity
(the Sanskrit word is viveka) you can bring to your relationships, the less
stressful they will be. The more you fine-tune your awareness of your emotional
connection to others, the more you will be able to approach every relationship
in your life as if it were a mirror reflecting back valuable information about
where you stand spatially, physically, emotionally, spiritually, and
philosophically from moment to moment.
When an action
remains incomplete -- when it has not been rectified, made right, or amended,
when it has not come full circle -- it does not simply disappear into a void
somewhere…. The universe has made a record of your action and intention, called
a samskara, and that samskara lodges itself deep in your unconsciousness. You will eventually come back to this action
in the future, even if you have momentarily erased it from the forefront of
your memory.
Your body and your
unconsciousness are virtual storehouses for your unfinished actions.
We have been put
here in order to love. The foundation of
the universe is unconditional love -- it is made of harmony and
nonconflict.