Just somthing I would like to share

I am starting a yoga teacher training program, and I have been doing some reading in the yoga texts. My perspective of the body, from something that needs to be punished and shaped and subdued, into something that is divine and holy, has really changed how I feel. I have noticed that I am far less angry with myself, when I remember how hard my body works, in order to keep me alive. It works to extract energy from food. It is intelligent, and it compensates for my less that optimal choices. It is the ultimate optimist, in that it takes whatever I give it, weather it is great, or crap, and uses it to do its job. In "Light On Yoga" it says, "The Yogi realises that his life and its activities are part of the divine action in nature, manifesting and operating in the form of man. In the beating of his pulse, and the rhythm of this respiration, he recognises the flow of the seasons and the throbbing of universal life. His body is a temple which houses the Divine spark. He feels that to neglect or to deny the needs of the body and to think of is as something not divine, is to neglect and deny the universal life of which it is a part. The needs of the body are the needs of the Divine Spirit which lives through the body. the yogi does not look heaven-ward to find God for he know that He is within, being known as the (inner self) He feels the kingdom of God within and without and finds heaven lies in himself. Where does the body end and the mind begin? Where does the mind end and spirit begin? They cannot be divided as they are inter-related and but different aspects of the same all-pervading divine consciousness. The yogi never neglects or mortifies the body or the mind, but cherishes both. To him the body is not an impediment to his spiritual liberation nor is it the cause of its fall, but is an instrument of attainment. He seeks a body strong as a thunderbolt, healthy and free from suffering, to dedicate in the service of the Lord for which it is intended. As pointed ou in Mindakopasisad the Self cannot be attained by one without strength, nor through heedlessness, nor without an aim. Just as an unbaked earthen pot dissolves in water the body soon decays. So bake it hard in the fire of yogic discipline in order to strengthen a purify it. We must love our bodies, as they are a part of us, and we are divine.