Gary Kraftsow Quotes

I studied Sanskrit for many years, and I’ve got all the coursework for my Ph.D. And a lot of what’s going on in American Yoga is just made-up stuff. Smart people, even good people, Western therapists, Yoga therapists and other things, Western healthcare practitioners who love Asana and say, “Let’s make up yoga therapy.”

I like waking up in the morning when I don’t have to get up and think about the next thing, and I can just be present with the feeling of being alive, I guess.

My life hasn’t been static – I spent a lot of time in Europe, a lot of time in India. So I traveled around a lot, and I kept moving.

I’m very happy when I have time to just be.

The thing that I do in my day-to-day is teach Yoga, and train teachers, and train therapists, and now my life has gone to a whole other level because I became involved with people at the very top of American healthcare.

I know what the teaching is, but to realize the teaching in a life experience, the sh*t really is an opportunity to find out who we truly are. To really learn and to awaken to our potential.

There’s the kind of people like me, who spent years in India, have learned Sanskrit, have done this work deeply – they probably say for lifetimes – now interfacing [with the mainstream].

For me, life has been interesting and entertaining, and I’m interested and curious about what’s going to happen each day.

We all have a dark side, and we have to confront our dark side. That’s pop American psychology.

I just think that the reality of life is impermanence. That’s the foundation of understanding what Yoga is, and we’re here for however long we’re here, and then it’s over. And I’ve known this since I was a kid.

Why I wake up in the morning is that I’m still alive, and I want to figure out whatever I can before it’s over.

Our job with our digestion is to absorb nutrients and eliminate waste, and to not dwell on the waste – which is my issue with some of the pop American psychology masquerading as Yoga, by the way.

Even before I knew Yoga in this life, I was into that kind of thing.

I’m here, and I know that it’s finite; I know that I’m not going to always be here.

I have projects in life that I’m engaged in, I have things that stimulate me in my life, that make me happy. But more interesting for me is: I’m still trying to figure it out.

Your experience is nutrition. You digest your experience and you grow from it.