This month we are looking at Aparigraha, the fifth and the last of the Yamas as we explore the moral and guiding principles of the Yoga Sutras. Aparigraha means “non-grasping” or” non-attachment.” This yama teaches us to practice moderation—taking only what we need, keeping only what serves us in the moment, and letting go if necessary.
Aparigraha is the decision to not hoard or accumulate goods motivated by greed but rather to be truly mindful in your accumulation of material stuff. This can be a tough sell in this consumer culture of ours, but when we take a hard look at why we the feel need to buy certain things, we may start to identify the reasons behind the urges… For example, the fear of not keeping up or fitting in, or, it could be an attempt to fill feelings of some other emotional inadequacy. We can get attached to material goods and find ourselves wanting more and more, and at some level thinking we are what we have. This can be an endless cycle that never really fills the void of wanting and the perpetual accumulation of material goods can become toxic to our minds and our environments. Aparigraha reminds us to practice moderation—to step back and examine the motivations of our “needs” and whether they are actually “wants.”
In our thoughts we can also see Aparigraha at play in our clinging or attachment to wanting things to be a certain way. Often, in yoga, I see students getting caught up in an expectation or comparison mindset of how they should be able to keep up in class—either comparing themselves to others or an ideal version of themselves. Maybe they suffered an injury and their body can no longer do a move they could do before. You can see how there is an easy tendency to cling to that old way of being, but when we get in this comparing mindset we are out of touch with how we are actually feeling and we can then cause harm to ourselves. We must let go of our attachments to who we think we are, and become who we truly are. And while it may be scary, it will also be liberating.
In considering emotions, becoming attached to a positive feeling or a positive experience is completely human—why wouldn’t we want to feel happy for as long as we can? Happiness, joy and peace are important emotions to feel, but so too is sadness, anger and loss. To experience only the good stuff is to experience only part of what life has to offer. The school of life exists to allow us to experience and learn from every aspect of our being, the light and the dark, and to truly live, we must not push away the things we don’t want to feel, but allow them to happen, and know that this too shall pass. When we let the moment be what it is without either trying to cling to it, or to push it away, we can really say we’re living in that moment, allowing things to come and go, without the need to possess any of it.
The Sanskrit word ‘Parinamavada’ is the teaching that ‘everything is in a constant state of flux’. Indeed, change is the only constant thing we can expect in life. Just as the trees drop their leaves in Autumn so that they may grow new buds in Spring, we too go through changes every moment of every day. Material stuff comes and goes, our physical bodies are undergoing change every second with cells regenerating and bones rebuilding, and our thoughts and emotions shift and change continuously. The truth is, clinging to past or present moments will not bring us peace. This is the lesson of Aparigraha. If we are to awaken to the fullness of our being, we must learn to let go. When we practice moderation and non-attachment we are essentially saying we trust the flow of life, and within this, lies true freedom.