The Yamas of Yoga-Aparigraha

Study the Yamas of Yoga-Aparigraha

Since the Yamas of Yoga are applicable to our whole lives, we don't worry too much about the order here. Yama number five, Aparigraha, will be one that we as humans will constantly revisit. Aparigraha means non-possessiveness. Hmm....now this is an idea that can create a few different arguments!

Possessiveness, and the seemingly-noble pursuit of non-possessiveness is always a touchy subject. We can be possessive of material things, and we can be possessive of other people.

Sometimes, when we're possessive of people, it,s a control thing, other times, we feel insecure about ourselves and use other people to fill the void. Generally, we learn to temper our possessiveness of people, and of things by observing our own mistakes. That's a necessary part of developing wisdom and enlightenment.

Possessiveness of a concept, or of a perceived conception of what is ideal is the real challenge with the Yama of Aparigraha.

Holding onto an idea, or a concept you create in your head is a different, more-powerful form of greed that is as elusive as it is obvious. Maybe we see someone else in Yoga class who can do an asana in what we call "perfect" form, with perfect meaning "like the person in the Yoga magazine.

There's nothing wrong with seeing a picture of someone doing a pose and saying: "wow, I want to do that!" But we need to remember not to be too greedy when giving our own selves credit for the effort put fourth, no matter how our pose looks.

Even more important is not being too greedy with our sense of receiving goodness...stated more simply, if your heart can't be allowed to feel and receive goodness, it means we're not giving goodness to ourselves.

What on Earth does this have to do with doing a Yoga pose, like I was just talking about? Well, let's face it: stretching in any pose generally feels good. We release stress and open the chakras and start to feel energized at the same time we start to feel relaxed.

We have to be kind enough to ourselves to let that good stuff be felt. Being kind to ourselves is the opposite of being greedy with our own affection.

The same concept can be applied to people-not being too greedy to see the good being given to us-we'll never feel it if we shut it out. We can also start to see more goodness in our current net worth, whatever that may be, and

Says spiritual teacher Deborah Adele: "An unhealthy need to acquire material things drives discontent that’s similar to clinging to things you have...whenever we become possessive, we are in turn possessed”.

Blessings!

RETURN to Yamas Index

Sources:

Deborah Adele Spiritual Yoga Teacher and author of The Yamas & Niyamas: Exploring Yoga's Ethical Practice

The Yoga Sutras of Pantajali