Or like digging a well, you don’t get down to the water by digging ten holes. David Swenson, long-time Ashtanga teacher and author of the Ashtanga Yoga Practice Manual, answered a question about eclectic practice by asking: "name a few of your favourite foods," and then: "...OK. But would you put them in the same blender?”
- August 2001 workshop, Ashtanga Yoga Studio, Montreal

Or Beryl Bender Birch: "There is always a faster boat. There is a wonderful story in the yogic literature about an eager student who comes to the shore of the river and is most anxious to get to the other side, where he believes the answer to life may be found. He sees a little rowboat go by, and eagerly flags it down for ride. The people in the rowboat kindly stop and pick him up, and he begins to make his way across the river in the rowboat. A sleek and beautiful sailboat passes by. Captivated by the smooth efficiency of the sailboat and its passages across the river, and tired of the hard work of rowing, our friend gestures wildly to the sailboat to pick him up, and as it come by, he jumps from the rowboat to the sailboat. But shortly thereafter, the wind dies and the sailboat comes to an abrupt halt; now it is being carried downstream by the current, not across. Impatient with the turn of events, the student jumps into a motorized boat passing by that is obviously the best transportation to the other shore. But shortly after jumping onto the motorboat, he becomes irritated with the noise and fumes from the motor, and then doubly annoyed when the boat runs out of fuel. Now he looks around and sees that the rowboat, with its hardworking rowers, is steadfastly making its way to the other shore. Ahhh. If only he had stayed in the rowboat."
- From "Power Yoga", by Beryl Bender Birch

"The original image (of digging lots of wells) comes from intentions that are off.
· We might do a lot of different practices to accumulate in some way.
· Or we may do a lot of different practices because we can’t bear to go through the difficulty of any one. I have
  been that way, in meditation, when I got to the point where I knew a lot of different techniques, sometimes I’d
  sit, and things were getting a little boring, or frightening, and I’d think: I’ll just do that other one. And I do that
  for five minutes, and that would start making me uneasy, and I think I’ll just go on and do that other thing…
  And that’s not a useful way to incorporate a lot. So that can be a problem, but not the actual practicing of
  different approaches.”

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