Best 102 quotes of Darren Main on MyQuotes

Life is a series of choices that are made in the present moment.

Meditation is a time to focus, train the mind, and bring it to stillness. It is not a time to rest and relax.

Try to let go of the idea that you need to do yoga perfectly in order to see its benefits. Rather, let it be a process of waking up to who you really are. If you do this, you will know joy. And that joy will be your gift to a world that very much needs our healing.

we have become masters of projection—pushing the responsibility for our own thoughts outward so that the consequences of our thoughts become someone else's problem.

A closet is not a prison cell. There are no bars on the windows, locks on the doors, or shackles binding your feet. The closet door is as easy to open as turning the knob. To turn that knob requires the courage to empty your hands of guilt, shame, and self-loathing. Once you find that courage, you will wonder why you waited so long to do it.

A gardener cannot make a seed grow. She can simply create the conditions for growth to occur and then patiently wait. A physician cannot heal the body. She can simply create the conditions for healing to occur and then patiently wait. A spiritual seeker cannot enlighten the mind or fill the heart with compassion. She can simply create the conditions for grace to pour in and then patiently wait.

A Kula or spiritual community is like a nudist camp for the soul. Not only are we given the permission to remove our robes of guilt, our suits of shame, and our masks of false identity—we are encouraged to do so. To become naked and hold nothing back is to become truly beautiful.

All great myths and stories follow a similar pattern. The hero gets distracted and questions his power. He struggles and flounders until he is able to face his perceived weakness. Ironically, it is the struggle that makes him stronger and enables him to meet his destiny. Without the struggle, without missing the mark, without getting lost in the mire of the journey, growth would not be possible. We tend to think of life’s struggles as the cause of our suffering, when in fact, struggle reveals our true power and unlocks our latent potential.

All suffering in this world is a result of someone, somewhere, not living his or her life’s purpose. Through spiritual practice, your life’s purpose is revealed. Through spiritual practice, the courage to live your life’s purpose is developed. Through spiritual practice, suffering is eased—your own suffering and the suffering of the world.

Although you could open a can of soup with a hammer, a stone, or even your teeth if you didn’t mind making a mess or chipping a tooth, a much wiser approach would be to use a can opener. The breath is like a can opener for the soul. Can you explore the depths of your being without conscious breathing? Sure. The more relevant question is, why would you want to?

A mud pie is, at the end of the day, attractively packaged mud. A life spent in pursuit of comfort and leisure—of being a slave to your attachments—is, at the end of the day, attractively packaged suffering.

An advanced yoga practice has less to do with what happens when you roll out your mat and move through your practice and more to do with what happens when you roll up your mat and move through life.

Apathy is the bushel basket under which the ego hides its fear of being powerless. It is easier to become apathetic when there are no words or actions sufficient to comfort a wounded body, a grieving heart, or a shattered community. And so we look away and avoid awkward conversations under the guise that we don’t want to upset others. Yet, the most powerful posture for a healer to take is that of the witness. To stand and witness a person or community devastated by suffering, and to let them know that while they suffer they have a hand to hold, offers the most potent medicine of all—compassion.

A prison cell, however tastefully decorated, is still a cage.

As a child, my father was a god to me—at times I loved him, at times I feared him, but I always wanted to be like him. As an adolescent, I resented my father for the sin of being human—for not being the god of my childhood. Then, as a young man, I felt sorry for my father because, in my arrogance, I believed he knew nothing and I knew everything. It was not until I held my own son for the first time that I truly understood my father. Now I can appreciate the man he is and the man he helped me to become.

A teacher’s job is to see students’ potential before they can see it themselves; teachers need to have the faith and foresight to know they can actualize that potential and the wisdom to help students chart their course. It is only with this inner knowing that a teacher can invite the student, over and over again, to the edge of their comfort—and then give them a gentle nudge. In effect, a teacher is like the mother bird who can see her chicks flying before they realize they have wings.

Attachment is the act of trying to control, manipulate, or sculpt the outside world in such a way that we lose sight of our true nature. Nonjudgmental observation allows a yogi to experience the external world as a mirror reflecting back one’s true nature.

At the root of all suffering, whether personal or societal, is the false perception of separation. Yoga, in all it forms, is the practice of healing the mind by joining together that which is perceived to be separate.

Can an atheist practice yoga? Can an agnostic sit in meditation? Absolutely! Belief in God is not a requirement for practice. The only requirement for practice is the willingness to accept that you are not God. To surrender to the possibility that while an all-knowing God may not govern the universe, neither do you.

Contrary to popular belief, the translation of vinyasa is not “sweaty practice.” Vinyasa is connecting breath and movement—a practice that has nothing to do with moving fast, accelerating the heart rate, or manifesting a pool of sweat. It does, however, have everything to do with mindful movement.

Do numbers hold spiritual significance? Perhaps they do. For me, the most powerful numbers are two and six because when you multiply those numbers, you get the exact amount of square feet required to roll out a yoga mat. Even after years of practice, I’m continually astounded that all I really need to heal my body, open my heart, and still my chaotic mind is twelve square feet.

Duality—dark and light, good and evil, high and low—defines more than just the external world. It is the essence of the body, heart, and mind as well. To be at peace with the duality of the world, we first need to be at peace with the ebb and flow of our own emotional, mental, and physical tides.

Each time we come to savasana, we practice dying—we surrender the body to the earth and prepare for our destiny in this life. Facing death and embracing mortality is the key to living. We may fear it, resist it, and spend untold hours dreading it, But our mortality is the place where our human nature comes face to face with our divine nature. In a very real sense, death is our greatest teacher and the one true guru.

Every action, whether noble or immoral, is preceded by thought. That thought may be conscious or unconscious, ignorant or mindful. The only way to act from a posture of loving kindness and compassion is to heal the mind. That is why we meditate.

Evolution is messy. Oftentimes our brains evolve more quickly than our capacity to love. Science has unlocked many mysteries of the universe by harnessing the human capacity for critical thinking, logic, and observation. But without a spiritual science to help the heart keep pace, disaster is often the outcome. Rather than clean sources of energy, we develop atomic bombs. Rather than medicines that heal we develop biological and chemical weapons. Rather than technologies that allow us to share ideas and communicate, we find ourselves more isolated and lonely than ever. Yoga, meditation, and other mystical practices are the spiritual counterpoint to western science. One unlocks the mind, the other opens the heart; and together they reveal humanity’s true potential.

Forcing Your body into a yoga pose is like brushing your teeth with a wire brush. You may get rid of the plaque but gingivitis will be the least of your concerns.

Forgiveness is not something we do; rather it is a process of reminding yourself over and over again that holding a resentment only hurts yourself. Once you embrace that truthfully, forgiveness simply happens on its own

Fundamentalism wears many masks, but always claims a monopoly on the Truth. Many people buy into fundamentalism in much the same way people buy cola to quench their thirst. There are elements of truth in fundamentalist thinking, just as water is an ingredient in cola. But just as the water loses much of its value when artificial flavors and colors are added, Truth loses its value when guilt, shame, and rigid dogma are present. Fundamentalism is to the soul what artificial sweetener is to the body.

Given the choice, most children would have ice cream for dinner. Similarly, yogis prefer the highs of yoga, the so-called “good practice.” But just as healthy children require vegetables and whole grains, advanced yogis need to be challenged during practice. The peak experiences we have during practice may keep us coming back to the mat, but it is the difficult and unpleasant aspects of practice that make us strong and prepare us for the challenges of life.

Gratitude is both a vaccine and an antidote for grief. Grief may be an inevitable fact of life, but gratitude has the power to transform the experience of grief from agonizing suffering to profound joy.

Guilt is like tarnish on a piece of silver. It effectively obscures beauty and radiance, but can never lessen its true value. Just as the true beauty and value of silver is revealed with a little bit of polish, your true worth will shine with regular spiritual practice.

Hell is indeed a fiery pit—but it’s not found in death, but rather in your stomach when you fail to speak your truth, live with integrity, or allow compassion to guide you.

If you live well, you will be shocked and surprised to see how, at the end of your life, it all turns out. But like any great novel, the clues have always been there and the plot twists and turns were hidden in plain sight.

Injuries happen on the yoga mat all the time, but they never happen when we are truly practicing yoga. For instance, most yoga-related neck injuries happen when you strain yourself trying to see what is happening on the yoga mat next to yours.

In most forms of exercise one’s breath follows the movement—the faster and harder you work, the faster and harder you will breathe. In yoga, the exact opposite is true. Rather than changing the breath to match one’s movement, the movement is changed to follow the breath. In doing so, a yogi gains immediate and unconditional access to the deepest levels of consciousness, because just as breath and movement are connected, so too is the breath bound tightly to the mind.

Instead of asking, “How can I ease my suffering?” yoga would have us ask, “How can I better serve my brothers and sisters?” Because only in answering the latter can we hope to answer the former.

It has been said that the body is the temple of the spirit and the mind is the altar within that temple. When we practice hatha yoga we allow ourselves to come fully into the temple of the body—not simply as a tourist wishing to admire the fine architecture, but as a seeker on a pilgrimage of deep devotion and reverence. Meditation is the devotional practice of placing on the altar of the mind that which is sacred, holy, and revered. Just as you would not place garbage on the altar of a great temple, meditation allows a yogi to place on the altar of her mind that which is noble, pure, and free from attachment.

It is easy to make the mistake of thinking yoga is about touching your toes when in fact yoga is about learning to touch others. Likewise, many people think the purpose of meditation is a perfectly still mind, when in fact, it is a more compassionate heart. Spiritual practice is measured by one’s ability to ease the suffering of the world one breath at a time.

It may seem humble to belittle yourself, but it is every bit as arrogant as grandiosity. Just as it is impossible to be more than you were created to be, it is also impossible to be less. When we pretend to be more or less, we are destined to search for wholeness everywhere except where it actually resides—within.

Like the tightly closed eyelids of a child trying to escape the reprimand of a parent, there is a part of the mind that needs to shut down in the face of an internal dialogue that is steeped in guilt, shame, and self-loathing.

Many believe bliss and gratification to be synonyms, when in fact they are antonyms. Bliss is the nature of your most true Self and it is with you anytime you become still enough to listen. Gratification is what you seek to fill the imagined emptiness, and is generated by a false sense of self.

Many look at the blessings in their lives—money, talent, love, abundance, and so on—and say, “I must be one of the chosen ones.”But the blessings in your life were not bestowed upon you to help you live a life of ease, but rather a life of service. You were chosen—chosen to serve.

Meditation alone cannot heal the world, but it can and does speed up the healing process.

Meditation is the alchemist of the soul. It transforms disappointment into acceptance; betrayal into forgiveness; scarcity into abundance; loneliness into self acceptance; fear into love; despair into hope; anxiety into peace; and apathy into compassion.

Mindfulness is the bedrock of all spiritual practice. With mindfulness, the simple becomes profound, and the common becomes extraordinary. Without mindfulness, even gold and silver will quickly lose their luster.

Most people believe that pain and suffering are synonymous—that one begets the other. A yogi recognizes that pain is an unavoidable aspect of life and that suffering is a choice. Pain is what happens when you stub your toe, suffering is what your mind does with the sensation.

Most people spend years trying to feng shui their lives—to decorate and reorganize life in such a way that order and peace will finally arrive. One can decorate and redecorate for years, but a fresh coat of paint is not going to patch the cracks in your foundation—the only way to do this is through the practice of non-attachment.

Most yoga practice starts with the goal of doing the extraordinary and supernatural— to place the feet behind the head, balance on one hand, or cheat the aging process. But the true practice of yoga aims at doing the natural and the ordinary—to stand on your feet, to find joy in filling the lungs, and to release with each exhalation.

My mind has evolved from that of a child to that of an adult and passed through countless changes along the way. My heart has known great love, heartache, joy, and anger—it has shifted directions more often than the wind. My body began as two cells, has grown, aged, and passed through sickness and health. Even the face in my mirror is far different than the one that once stared back at me just a few months ago. But through this state of flux that has defined my life, there is a part of me that has been entirely the same throughout. This changeless part of me has sat quietly witnessing, at peace and smiling softly.

Non-attachment doesn’t mean you forgo possessions, pleasure, or comfort. It simply means you are at peace when those things fail to show up in your life. It means that while you can enjoy moments of ease, you are equally at peace when pain, hardship, and struggle define a given moment.