Inside Yoga

"However beautifully we carry out an asana, however flexible our body may be, if we do not achieve the integration of body, breath, and mind, we can hardly claim that what we are doing is yoga. What is yoga after all? It is something that we experience inside, deep within our being. Yoga is not an external experience. In yoga we try in every action to be as attentive as possible to everything we do. Yoga is different from dance or theatre. In yoga we are not creating something for others to look at. As we perform the various asanas we observe what we are doing and how we are doing it. We do it only for ourselves. We are both observer and what is observed as the same time. If we do not pay attention to ourselves in our practice, then we cannot call it yoga."  
by T.K.V. Desikachar "The Heart of Yoga: Developing a Personal Practice"

Luckily my first exposure to yoga in 1995 was by a Kripalu teacher who was already informed of this wisdom. After practicing asanas for now over 20 years, I can assure you, it is not about the postures. Every morning when I wake to do my practice, it becomes a journey into a moving meditation of me and all my parts. Some days the internal critic is loud and other mornings, less noisy. Either way, I return time after time on my mat to see what I bring to my day and by savasana, make peace and accept my experience.