Week 4: Nirodha

निरोध

   

Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.

—Mahatma Gandhi 

 

Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.
—C. S. Lewis

In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had better aim at something high.
—Henry David Thoreau

An aim in life is the only fortune worth finding.
—Robert Louis Stevenson

Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.
—Lucius Annaeus Seneca

 

If you would hit the mark, you must aim a little above it: Every arrow that flies feels the pull of the earth.
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

 

You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.
― Rabindranath Tagore

 

A perfection of means, and confusion of aims, seems to be our main problem.”
― Albert Einstein

Begin where you are and such as you are, without aiming mainly to become of more worth, and with kindness aforethought, go about doing good.”
― Henry David Thoreau

The greatest risk to man is not that he aims too high and misses, but that he aims too low and hits.
― Michaelangelo


Reading for Week 4
Nirodha 

Pranayama for Week 4
Pranayama/Antara and Bhaya Khumbhaka

Week 3: Klesa-s

क्लेस

 In a marvelously unified and dynamic composition expressing the rhythm and harmony of life, Nataraj is shown with four hands representing the cardinal directions. He is dancing, with his left foot elegantly raised and the right foot on a prostrate figure — 'Apasmara Purusha', the personification of illusion and ignorance over whom Shiva triumphs. The upper left hand holds a flame, the lower left hand points down to the dwarf, who is shown holding a cobra. The upper right hand holds an hourglass drum or 'dumroo' that stands for the male-female vital principle, the lower shows the gesture of assertion: "Be without fear."

—Subhamoy Das 

Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called 'Ego'. — Friedrich Nietzsche

 Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence. — William Blake

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.
— Epicurus

To fear death, gentlemen, is no other than to think oneself wise when one is not, to think one knows what one does not know. No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew that it is the greatest of evils.

― Socrates

Reading for Week 3

Klesa-s

Pranayama for Week 3
Bhaya Khumbhaka 

Week 2: Avidya and Dukha

The sun appears to a child like a radiant golden disk precisely the size of a human face. Why? Because it is so far away, and the child has no notion of such vast distances. If we were to come close to the sun, we woul dno longer find the sky or even ourselves—only the sun in all its inconceiveable intensity. We must cultivate this direct acquaintance with the true nature of God. 

—Ramakrishna 

Readings For Week Two 

Things that Darken the Heart (read this first!)

Avidya and Dukha
Anatomy of Breath 

Pranayama for Week Two
Antara Khumbhaka 

Week 1: Atha

साधना

I am circling around God, around the ancient tower, and I have been circling for a thousand years, and I still don't know if I am a falcon, or a storm, or a great song.
— Rainer Maria Rilke 

Dear Students (sadhakas), 
I am so glad that you have decided to deepen your yoga practice and/or continue in the efforts to build a sturdy  lifelong  effort to know Self. This is the work of your sadhana (practice).
 
Formalizing the yoga and committing to a daily practice can be a very transformative experience. 

One thing that seems to be true is that when a serious and committed discipline is cultivated in one part of your life, it's easier and more graceful to access that habit of being in any aspect of your life you choose to place emphasis.

This site is where you will find  readings, images and quotes for inspiration during your  Sadhana Course at Loka Yoga. 

I bow to your studentship (adhikara) and your wish to grow in yoga through self study (svadyaya)
Yours in Yoga.
Alice

God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.
— Voltaire

And therein lies the whole of man's plight. Human time does not turn in a circle; it runs ahead in a straight line. That is why man cannot be happy: happiness is the longing for repetition.
― Milan Kundera

Eternity is in love with the productions of time.
― William Blake

Time is a created thing. To say 'I don't have time,' is like saying, 'I don't want to.'

 ― Lao Tzu

Time is the most valuable thing that a man can spend.
― Diogenes Laertius

With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now. 

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Being with you and not being with you is the only way I have to measure time.
― Jorge Luis Borges

Time is an illusion.
—  Albert Einstein

There is more to life than simply increasing its speed.
― Mahatma Gandhi

With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now. 

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Reading for Week 1
Yoga Sutra 1.1

Pranayama for Week 1
Pranayama Week One