The 25 Yoga Quotes About Letting Go: Use Them Wisely

Meditating on a meaningful yoga quote about letting go can help with focusing on a difficult practice.

We have collected yoga quotes about letting go from 15 sources that you can use for your spiritual inspiration during your daily yoga practice.

Not all yoga quotes about happiness, of course, were originated by yogis. 

Some of the quotes here are short and memorable. Others are lengthy and intended for their own meditation time. Sometimes a single spiritual master gave us multiple quotes, and sometimes a spiritual master left us but one.

Here are 15 of the best sources for inspirational quotations on the topic of letting go.

1. Abhinavagupta

Abhinavagupta was a Kashmiri mystic, poet, and aesthetician (950-1016).

“Listen carefully! Stop holding on to this or that. Inhabit your true nature, and peacefully enjoy the essence of what it is to be alive.”

2. Deepak Chopra

Dr. Deepak Chopra is a popular American advisor and philosopher.

“In the process of letting go you will lose many things from the past, but you will find yourself.”

3. Pema Chodron

Pema Chodron, born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown, is an ordained Buddist nun, the principal teacher at Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia, Canada, and the author of dozens of books and audio books.

“Somehow, in the process of trying to deny that things are always changing, we lose our sense of the sacredness of life. We tend to forget that we are part of the natural scheme of things.”

Check out these yoga quotes on happiness.

“Impermanence is a principle of harmony. When we don’t struggle against it, we are in harmony with reality.”

You’ll also love these funny yoga quotes.

4. Thích Nhất Hạnh

Thích Nhất Hạnh is a Vietnamese Thiền Buddhist monk, peace activist, and founder of the Plum Village Tradition

“Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything – anger, anxiety, or possessions – we cannot be free.”

5. Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury was a famous American science fiction, history mystery, and horror fiction writer (1920-2012).

“Learning to let go should be learned before learning to get. Life should be touched, not strangled. You’ve got to relax, let it happen at times, and at others move forward with it.”

6. Banani Ray

Banani Ray is the author of Awakening Inner Guru, from which this quote is taken:

“No one and nothing outside of you can give you salvation, or free you from the misery. You have to light your own lamp. You have to know the miniature universe that you yourself are.”

7. Jesus

The following quote is found in the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 17, verse 33:

“If you cling to your life, you will lose it, and if you let your life go, you will save it.” .

8. Yogi Tirumalai Krishnamacharya

Tirumalai Krishnamacharya was originator of hatha yoga, Ayurvedic healer, and scholar (1888-1989):

“Master your breath, let the self be in bliss, contemplate on the sublime within you.”

Krishnamacharya also said:

“When the truth is known ignorance cannot be, when the mind is pure there is no disease, when the breath is mastered there is no death, therefore, surrender to Yoga.”

9. Maharishi Maharesh Yogi

Maharishi Maharesh Yogi is the creator of Transcendental Meditation.

“Just think of any negativity that comes to you as raindrops into the ocean of your bliss.”

The Maharishi also said:

“You may not always have an ocean of bliss, but think that way anyway and it will help it come.”

10. Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, comte de Saint-Exupéry

Roger was a French poet and a pioneer aviator, as well as the author of The Little Prince (1900-1944):

“Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

11. Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Ravi Shankar is founder of The Art of Living Foundation (1981).

“Happiness is when you want nothing, and you want to give. Where the wanting and desires end, and the sharing begin, happiness is exactly there. Memory is not happiness. When you are happy, you forget everything.”

12. Jack Kornfield

Jack Kornfield is the author of over a dozen books, including Bringing Home the Dharma: Awakening Right Where You Are and A Path with a Heart. He is a practicing Buddhist.

“When we let go of our battles and open our hearts to things as they are, then we come to rest in the present moment. This is the beginning and the end of spiritual practice.”

13. Eckhart Tolle 

Eckhart Tolle is the author of Oneness with All Life.

“See if you can catch the voice in your head, perhaps in the very moment it complains about something, and recognize it for what it is: the voice of the ego, no more than a thought. Whenever you notice that voice, you will also realize that you are not the voice, but the one who is aware of it. In fact, you are the awareness that is aware of the voice. In the background, there is the awareness. In the foreground, there is the voice, the thinker. In this way you are becoming free of the ego, free of the unobserved mind.”

14. Anonymous

Let’s not leave out a famous mantra with an anonymous author that has the surprising effect of helping you let go.

“Attitude-of-gratitude, thankful, grateful. Attitude-of-gratitude, thankful, grateful.”

15. Kimberly Mikesh

Author Kimberly Mikesh has assembled a collection of yoga quotes letting go.

“Yoga is not about being good at something. It is about being good to yourself.”

“A flower does not worry about competing with the flower next to it. It just blooms.”

“Be where you are, not where you think you ought to be.”

“You cannot always control what goes on outside. But you can always control what goes on inside.”

“The longest journey of any person is the journey inward.”

“Inhale the future. Exhale the past.”

“Letting go is the hardest asana.”

“Just breathe.”

The Final Word: Yoga Quotes About Letting Go

What practitioner doesn’t love a good yoga quote? 

Reading a yoga quote about letting go before your session prepares your mind for the spiritual practice of yoga. It may even offer an inspirational thought to infuse into the rest of your busy day.