YOGA SCIENCE QUOTES
By Leonard Perlmutter
Philosopher, Educator, Author and Founder of the American Meditation Institute
“Meditation trains you to use the mind to go beyond the mind. It helps you access an inner reserve of creative energies that can begin to work miracles in your life.”
“Thoughts are your most powerful resource. Steward them as conscientiously as you would a gold mine.”
“Meditation is not meant to eliminate thoughts. It teaches you how to direct the traffic!”
“Act with love and speak the truth to your neighbor, because on the highest level of consciousness your neighbor is your Self. Every relationship is with your Self.”
“The key to successful living is to base your thoughts, words and deeds on your own inner wisdom. The skill to do that regularly, even in the face of insistent old habits, is learned in the everyday practice of meditation.”
“Today’s public and private institutions are not adequately educating students. Merely memorizing knowledge for the purpose of making a living does not prepare a person to live a creative, compassionate, responsible and rewarding life. Yoga Science provides a framework for understanding and coordinating the four functions of the mind, so that our thoughts, words and deeds can uphold and maintain the highest ideals inherent in both individual and social well-being.”
“As our meditation practice deepens, imagined elements of conflict resolve into a compelling awareness of union. In this new consciousness we recognize the illusion of our previous ‘differences,’ and a profound healing begins to transform our lives.”
“If we want our elected officials to serve the Truth instead of the non-Truth, we must first do the same in our own lives.”
“To experience unbounded fulfillment in every relationship, be aware that the limiting power of the words you and me, yours and mine, often denies the ultimate unity of life.”
“In order to affect positive change in our nation’s character, conduct and consciousness, we must first examine our old, unconscious pre-conceptions. If left unexamined, some of them may dilute our good intentions, distort our perceptions, encourage unskillful actions, and set the stage for some painful, undesirable consequences.”
“Male and Female Principles: Complementary, Interconnected and Interdependent
“The returning influence of feminine intuitive wisdom in our culture is nothing to fear or resent. Remember that all human beings possess both male and female qualities. At birth, one quality generally predominates, but its complementary quality remains present in every life. Because the male principle manifests as action in the world, men have easily embraced the role of hunter/gatherer in society. Similarly, because women are the birth-givers and nurturers for the species, our survival requires them to be inwardly directed and intuitive. Nevertheless, men possess both male and female qualities, just as women possess both female and male qualities. Successful lives and societies flourish when both genders can first access feminine intuitive wisdom, and then skillfully employ that wisdom through the male principle as action in the world. As the Gospel of Thomas states, ‘When you make the male and female one––so that the male is no longer just male, and the female is no longer just female . . . then you will enter the Kingdom.’”
“No matter how challenging your present situation might seem, you have actually designed those circumstances because they provide the precise elements you need for creating a beautiful work of art.””
“Your body is a temple that houses Eternity and the food you eat is a sacrament–a visible sign of grace that has manifested from the One invisible, Supreme Reality. When you base your food choices on your own intuitive wisdom, that food will nourish and strengthen your body, mind and spirit to help you fulfill the purpose of your life.”
“Without meditation, the senses act like wild horses traveling the roads of selfish desires, and we suffer. But when the mind is trained to the rein of the higher Self, we exhibit discipline, discrimination and the will power of sankalpa shakti. Then the senses obey, and we attain the supreme goal of life.”
“Grace is a wind that is always blowing. If you really want freedom and unbounded happiness in this lifetime, set your sail now! Learn how putting your trust in Yoga’s practical and verifiable science connects you to a wisdom that never disappointments.”
“The more you surrender to your inner intuitive wisdom—regardless of your likes and dislikes—the greater will be your reward.”
“When the nurturing, feminine wisdom of the Divine Mother guides our actions, we experience a newfound ease of being.”
“The practice of one-pointed attention, dharana, increases energy, willpower, creativity, emotional stability as well as short and long-term memory.”
“Meditation is not what you think it is. It’s a method of accessing unerring wisdom from the superconscious mind so you can experience a happy, healthy and creatively rewarding life.”
“When you violate your conscience, that internal conflict leads to war. When you serve your conscience, you are a peacemaker both within and without.”
“Yoga Science teaches us to ‘include all and exclude none.’ If the outer guru, in the form of a person or experience, reflects the Truth and light of the inner guru, the advice is to be heeded and served in thought, word and deed. If a suggestion from the outer guru is not in harmony with the inner guru as reflected by the purified discrimination of buddhi, the advice is to be honored and lovingly rejected with gratitude—for your teacher has just taught you what not to do.”
“Meditation leads to Self knowledge, and Self knowledge leads to the freedom from fear.”
“Every thought is only a suggestion of what to give your attention to. It is not an imperial command.”
“The major crisis of our culture is not one of IQ—intelligence quotient. The problem we face individually and collectively is one of WQ—will quotient.”
“Enormous possibilities for health and creativity are held captive by your likes and dislikes. Inspecting your desires and attachments to food and making choices intuitively—with discrimination—will make your spiritual practice and every other relationship more rewarding.”
“Prayer is an intimate conversation between the personality and the Higher Self. In that quiet conversation, the ego can let go of old limitations in order to receive unimagined blessings.”
“Meditation guides us beyond the matrix that gave birth to our pain. It leads us to a new matrix of higher wisdom that can resolve the most pressing issues of our time.”
“By practicing Yoga Science as mind/body medicine, you can purify the lenses through which you view the world. With clarity of vision, you can see the blessing contained in every moment .”
“Our raga/dveshas make us prisoners to the mental lenses through which we view the world. No matter what actually appears before us, our vision is always skewed, and as a result we suffer.”
“The most effective way to reduce health costs is to reduce demand, and the easiest way to do that is by Self-Care.”
“When you experience the Higher Knowledge of the ultimate Truth, your fear, anger, doubt and mistrust will dissolve and you will begin to joyously fulfill the noble purpose of your life.”
“By practicing Yoga Science as mind-body medicine, you can purify the lenses through which you view the world. With clarity of vision, you can see the blessing contained in every moment .”
“DNA is not destiny. Sitting atop each gene is a switch called an epigenetic mark that can be turned on or off by our skillful or unskillful choices. When our actions are greased with love, we can even reverse the proclivities of our genetic karma.”
“Remember Abraham Lincoln’s words: ‘I am not bound to win, I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to the Light I have.'”
“Life without a daily meditation practice is like driving an automobile with a steering wheel that only turns in one direction.”
“Our unconscious concepts skew our perceptions, and the choices we make, based on those distortions, often lead to darkness.”
“Meditation provides a clear perspective on what is to be done and what is not to be done a more practical and trustworthy perspective than a college education or any computerized gadgetry can give.”
“Meditation not only heals the body and mind, it also provides us the intuitive wisdom to resolve our most pressing personal and cultural problems.”
“If you meditate every day and follow the wisdom of your conscience, doors will open where once there were only walls.”
“When we tell a lie, whether it be white or any other shade of non-truth,we will inevitably experience some form of dis-ease––even if we cannot identify the causal relationship between action and consequence.”
“Beware the ‘yeah but’ mantra, a virus already installed on the hard drive of your mind. It causes much of the unhappiness and pain you experience in life.”
“When you redefine every “problem” as a situation, you lighten your load. Then you can more easily apply the intuitive wisdom of your conscience to creatively and rewardingly make the skillful choice.”
“The dogmatic perspectives used as weapons in today’s culture are undermining our civility and union.
To be free, happy and secure, and to make democracy work, we need to know the difference between the real and the unreal; between Truth and non-truth.
AMI Meditation can guide you within, beyond the limitations of thinking and feeling, where you will experience the real and know the Truth that heals divisions and ensures a rebirth of freedom.”
“Among the essential functions of the human mind, only the conscience can provide access to higher knowledge and empower us to make wise, compassionate decisions. Unfortunately, many of us are choosing to medicate our stress-related symptoms with a variety of debilitating avoidance mechanisms that compromise the normal functioning of the conscience. These can include anti-depressants, opioids, alcohol, marijuana, sugar, overeating, pornography and wanton consumerism. These addictions weaken our capacity to question the limited perspectives favored by the ego, senses and unconscious mind. As a result, we are creating a culture that increasingly relies on the myopic messaging of the reptilian brain—whose only concerns are short-term pleasure and self-preservation. Instead of such addictions, the daily practice of AMI MEDITATION trains the ego, senses and unconscious mind to honor and trust the wisdom of the conscience. As a result, the entire mind-body-sense complex experiences a more loving, creative and rewarding way of being.”
“Everything that manifests in the world is preceded by a movement in a more subtle realm. Thoughts appear first in the mind before the body can take an action. Conflict and war appear because of pre-existing conflicts in the human mind. Inner conflict is the mother of all problems. Meditation teaches us how to diminish inner conflict.”
“Because so many of our unconsciously held concepts are neither true nor valid, the perceptions our minds form, and the associated actions our bodies take, often lead to more pain—not the desired overcoming of pain.”
“In relationships, anger appears when a desire is thwarted. If that desire is approved by the conscience, then we are obligated to dive deeper into the ocean of consciousness to pick up a pearl of wisdom that communicates the desire in a more creative, compassionate and non-injurious manner. Such skillful change of attitude can bring about a genuinely rewarding outcome for all concerned.”
“It’s commonplace to complain that in our modern civilization, people don’t believe in anything anymore. However, upon deeper examination, it appears that the opposite is true: people will believe in almost anything.”
“We are deluded when we think of ourselves as separate individuals. Our faith in the limited powers of the senses, and our adherence to old neural pathways in the brain have led us to this delusion––even though we are equipped for change. When we begin to realize the unicity within the diversity of apparent separations, the play of life becomes a great and rewarding adventure.”
“When we do not see the unicity within the diversity, our blindness imprisons us to unskillful actions that lead to pain.”
“Our distorted perceptions, reinforced by the unexamined pronouns ‘I, me and mine,’ enslave us to the reptilian brain’s fear of annihilation. In that captivity we lose the capacity to discriminate, and all our relationships become increasingly colored by anger, jealousy, aggression, conflict, competitiveness, superstition and deception.”
“When you recognize and serve your wife or husband as a reflection of the Supreme Reality, your marriage will help you attain the highest state of enlightenment.”
“Stress and pain are shadows of the outstretched hand of the Divine Reality asking you to make a change that will help you fulfill the purpose of your life.”
“If our actions today conflict with our own inner wisdom, we are assuring ourselves a rendezvous in the future with a challenging experience that will test anew our attachment to ignorance.”
“When you serve the shreya and sacrifice the preya, you become One with the metaphoric Father who is perfect in the subtle world called heaven. This is the secret of happiness and immortality.”
“According to the U.S. government, 53 percent of all illness is caused by lifestyle choices. That makes daily meditation and Yoga Science the cheapest and most practical form of health insurance available.”
“Freedom does not mean being able to say or do anything you want. You experience real freedom and happiness when you are no longer enslaved to those charms, attractions and temptations that conflict with your inner wisdom and bring you pain.”
“When you face a challenging decision, choose the intuitive wisdom of the buddhi and you will experience freedom.”
“Only when the higher jihad is fought with full engagement—and won—will new battles cease to erupt both within and without.”
“Only through the higher jihad of purifying the mind in every personal relationship can a lower jihad be certain of its Divine inspiration.”
“More than any other single event in human history, seeing earthrise set into motion a subtle, but deeply significant and irreversible shift in human consciousness that impels us toward peace.”
“Yoga Science is not just a scholarly pursuit. It is a moment-by-moment and thought-by-thought practical guide for living.”
“You cannot will the mind to be calm, but when you regulate the breath diaphragmatically, you automatically calm the mind, and a calm mind makes healthier choices.”
“Understanding the nature of the gunas can help us learn to free ourselves from the habits that brings us unintended pain.”
“By practicing Yoga Science as mind-body medicine, you can purify the lenses through which you view the world. With clarity of vision, you can see the blessing contained in every moment .”
“The obstacles to your health, happiness and security reside in your mind. When you change the software of the mind, you change your reality.”
“By uniting the enormous power of our emotions with the Source of wisdom within, we gain the energy, will power and creativity to flourish in the midst of life’s challenges.”
“Our unconscious concepts skew our perceptions, and the choices we make, based on those distortions, often lead to darkness.”
“Seeing your Yoga practice as applied quantum mechanics helps you better understand the subtle effects the mind and breath have on the health of the body.”
“Our habitual unhappiness and insecurity are not caused by a lack of anything. They are caused by our persistent belief that ‘I lack’. The mind, therefore, is both our problem and the solution to our problem.”
“Repetition of the mantra can help us make kinder, more enlightened choices by freeing us from our self-imposed prison of likes and dislikes.”
“You cannot will the mind to be calm, but when you regulate the breath diaphragmatically, you automatically calm the mind, and a calm mind makes healthier choices.”
“Shreya thoughts are expansive and creative; preyas are contractive and destructive. Only when we steward our thoughts with discrimination, do we experience the health and happiness we desire.”
“The obstacles to your health, happiness and security reside in your mind. When you change the software of the mind, you change your reality.”
“By uniting the enormous power of our emotions with the Source of wisdom within, we gain the energy, will power and creativity to flourish in the midst of life’s challenges.”
“Prayer is an intimate conversation between the personality and the Higher Self. In that quiet conversation, the ego can let go of old limitations in order to receive unimagined blessings.”
“Meditation guides us beyond the matrix that gave birth to our pain. It leads us to a new matrix of higher wisdom that can resolve the most pressing issues of our time.”
“When my Master, Swami Rama, was once asked if he were enlightened, he humbly replied, ‘If I said “yes” it would be ego.If I said “no” it would be a lie. So I said nothing.'”
“Unexamined, unconscious concepts skew our perceptions, diminish our problem-solving capacity, restrict our freedom of action and weaken the body’s immune system.”