Yoga encourages the gentle care of your "self." Through the practice of specific exercises known as asanas, you learn where there is strength, flexibility, balance and endurance in your "self" and where there is not. Over a period of time, not pushing too hard, respecting your limits and encouraging your body, mind and breath to work together, your "self" improves. Soon, you notice numerous changes taking place such as your muscles stretching, greater range of motion, increased energy, better concentration and more stillness in the thoughts and emotions. When you take it slowly, let go of expectations and be in the moment, you discover how yoga encourages the gentle care of your "self."

Annie Besant's Comment on the Self and Yoga

The Self in you is the same as the Self Universal. Whatever powers are manifested throughout the world, those powers exist in germ, in latency, in you.... If you realize the unity of the Self amid the diversities of the Not-Self, then Yoga will not seem an impossible thing to you. ”

Annie Besant's spiritual life journeyed from being a vicar's wife to becoming an atheist to embracing theosophy. In 1889, she joined the Theosophical Society which was headed by Helena Blavatsky. She also worked alongside Charles Leadbeater and wrote several hundred books on theosophical thought.