Aparigraha: Assessment + Test + Study = Experiment

This assessment and study has turned into a test of sorts.  Fear seems to be popping up everywhere – giving me lots of opportunity to befriend it.  As Passover approaches, I am reminded that just like the metaphorical story of the Jewish people crossing the Red Sea, I am passing through narrows – mitzrayim.

This reminds me of two important Jewish concepts –

mochin d’kutnut:  narrow mind, separate from the world, isolated, alienated and scarcity

mochin d’gatlut: spacious mind, lovingkindness, abundance, engage life from place of interdependence and compassion, sees self as connected to G-d and as whole.

This is a helpful awareness for me to realize that I am looking at my fear through the eyes of mochin d-kutnut – narrow mind.  I begin to shift now, opening my eyes – my heart, mind, body and spirit – to mochin d’gatlut – spacious mind.  An important connection is back to my earlier reading of T.K.V. Desikachar, The Heart of Yoga.  Here are a few quotes that say the same thing to me:

Yoga means to come together, to unite or to “tie the strands of the mind together.”  Yoga also means acting in such a way that all of our attention is directed toward the activity in which we are engaged…when we are attentive to our actions we are not prisoners to our habits…another classic definition of yoga is “to be one with the divine”….when we feel in harmony with that higher power, that too is yoga.”

Many other experiences continue to unfold, helping me increase my awareness of how my fear is part of my whole – an expression of the Divine or Skechinah.  In my Kabbalah class, I find in an exercise that trust and fear is a theme that arises for me yet again.  I transition to search for the hidden spark of holy light in my being – what will help me with this?

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Aparigraha: Practice emerges

One aspect of my fear is that it lives in either the past or the future.  So I return to living in this moment  – finding the Divine in this specific moment in time.  This is a relief.  Somehow I am now ready to move from observation and study to develop a practice.

My search on how to embody this process opens to several practices.  First, I find that I hold the fear deep in my belly, a tightening and tension.  So I decide that a breathing practice might be beneficial to loosen up the fear and to move with the fear.

Leonard Felder, in Here I Am:  Using Jewish Spiritual Wisdom to Become More Present, Centered and Available for Life, suggests the practice of listening to that still, small voice inside of me that asks the question “Where are you?” It is a way of becoming present when I feel the fear arising.  I answer “Hineini.  Here I am.” This helps me not run away from the fear into problem solving, swaying my ego to look like a “good parent”, be overly attached to our adult children or cling to belief that I should come up with a good answer that might fix, change or save my children.

Rabbi Rami Shapiro, in The Sacred Art of Lovingkindness:  Preparing to Practice, visualizes the name of G-d by moving the Hebrew letters vertically to represent a human body:

yod is head & face

hey is shoulders and arms

vav is torso

hey is pelvis and legs

I incorporate this practice he suggests – see yourself as the Name of G-d, the Image of G-d.  It is not enough to know you are God, to see the Name of God written with your body.  You must also see the Name in everyone and everything else.

I use this image to honor my own wholeness – fear or no fear.  This breathing practice helps calm and focus me, to “tie the strands of the mind together” (Desikachar).

My breathing practice helps me dissolve any feeling of separation from The Divine, especially when I feel fear.  First I image that when I breath in – G-d Is breathing out and when I breath out – G-d breathes in.  This sacred partnership of breathing with G-d brings me a deep sense of peace and connection.  I am present to this moment, not moving to past or the future – just here.

This practice begins to calm me and allow me to stay with the fear – to hear, touch, smell, taste many aspects of the fear.   Other emotions begin to emerge.

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Aparigraha: Second Round – Breathing practice (pranayama) and sadness

By listening, I have found that under my fear is great sadness.  Sadness that: I can’t save my daughter from her illness/condition, sadness about some things I would have done differently in raising my children, sadness about my daughter’s poor health and the unknown, sadness that my mother is dying, layers of sadness.  This is a surprise turn of events, as I have not even worked with my needs connected to these feelings.

And so my experiment evolves.  Holding my fear with lovingkindness, I find that perhaps it was easier to react in fear than to hold this great bouquet of sadness.  Perhaps I can now begin to let go of the beliefs that are tied to my fear and how I should or should not react.  Ah – now I found myself with new questions.

Jay Michaelson, in God in Your Body:  Kabbalah, Mindfulness and Embodied Spiritual Practice, builds upon the visualization of the Name of the Divine as our Body by the following breathing practice:

yod ~ empty all air – empty lungs – hold

hey  ~ breath in – fill with air – inhale

vav  ~ body full of air + extended – hold

hey  ~ breath – exhale

I incorporate this breathing practice into my daily practice, especially when the sadness feels so great.  Somehow it changes, softens, is part of my wholeness.  The journey continues.

As T.K.V. Desikachar, The Heart of Yoga states:

We begin where we are and how we are, and whatever happens, happens.

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Aparigraha: Moving Forward

As in the initial story of the Rabbi and the stingy man reveal, one can let go of hoarding and  change those beliefs that no longer serve you.  I hope to deepen my own patience, persistence, presence and lovingkindness towards myself in this journey of non-grasping and making it simpler.

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A Journey Towards Contentment

Axis Yoga Teacher Training Students begin their studies with a hands-on study of Yoga’s yamas (restraints) and niyamas (observances). Through some self-reflection this student found the road to santosha (contentment) to be a mingling of all yamas and niyamas.

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A Journey Towards Contentment: Choosing

Selecting the yama/niyama I was going to focus on for my experiment was a difficult process for me.  Upon reading through all of them, it seemed like there were bits and pieces in each one that needed improving on in my life. On the evening in class where we were told to separate in to groups based on the yama selected, I felt like a lost puppy. Everyone seemed to move directly and effortlessly to their prospective group. I felt like everyone was so clear about what their intentions were with this experiment. In a pinch, I plopped myself down with the aparigraha group. Just pick one. Maybe I needed to work on that non-possessiveness thing with the objects and people in my life.  As we began to talk about aparigraha, it didn’t seem like a “perfect” fit. I’m not really a person who cares about material possessions, but maybe I need to delve further. I do feel that I try to control the people around me though. A possession of sorts. Maybe this “is” the perfect fit.  I was not content with my aparigraha decision.  Hmmm, “kind of sounds like Santosha” were the words that came from my wise yoga teacher as he sat observing our group.  Santosha?  That’s not even one of the options for this project!   It does kind of sound like I have an issue with discontentment though.What to do, what to do.

Later that evening when I got home, I re-read the yama’s and felt, maybe it’s staya that better fits my weakness. Maybe weighing my words before I speak them will help me to not try to control and fix everything. Then upon reading about asteya, I thought maybe that is the yama that best deserves my attention. Am I really being honest with myself?  Do I say one thing and act another? Do I criticize people for doing things, trying to control their actions, then turn around and do them myself? Then it hit me. An ah ha of sorts. Just this act of not being able to be content in picking a yama, searching for the perfect answer for my experiment, maybe this, maybe that, led me to consider those words from my teacher, Santosah…contentment.

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A Journey Towards Contentment: Defining

Ironically, that same evening, I had opened my class notebook to some “favorite quotes” I had been keeping track of since class began.  There, sitting in the top spot, was one that I had written down during the first week of class that had resonated with me from the Mirror of Yoga book:  “Contentment is the ability to be happy right now for no particular reason at all.  “You can actually cultivate this feeling by simply deciding right now I am going to be content.” Santosha sounded more and more like a fit.

I have had a daily meditation practice for almost two years.  Though I have felt it has helped me in many ways, I feel my mind still races with discontentment while meditating.   Get this done, what if that happens, I must try to change it, get them to do it differently, etc. etc.  From my interpretation of what Santosha means, it is that “it is impossible for one who is dissatisfied with oneself or with anything else in life to realize the higher consciousness.” ” Dissatisfaction (the lack of contentment) makes sadhana impossible.”  Meditation impossible.  ” One who wants to attain meditation must practice ALL yamas and niyamas.” So, I realized, this is maybe why I had a problem picking my yama.  I need to practice ALL of them to reach Santosha…contentment.  Tall order.

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A Journey Towards Contentment: Applying

I set out to be content. Enter daily life. A beautifully challenging teenage daughter. A marriage. A huge redecorating project that I had volunteered for with a deadline. A  beautifully challenging teenager now with a broken collar bone and pretty cranky. Financial challenges. A broken car (again). etc. etc. This is going to take A LOT of practice, this contentment thing.

To begin with, I decided to assign myself a mantra…”be content.”  I repeated this mantra daily, hourly, sometimes each minute to remind myself.  I liked this mantra.  We have become friends.  It helped to a certain extent.  I began offering my yoga practices to contentment.  This was a nice reminder also.  When I visited the Gong Bath, I sought out a crystal that would help with contentment.  Each morning, after my meditation, I would read over the yamas and contemplate how I can do things to live this knowledge.  All of these practices seemed to help me with becoming more content each day.

I did find, however, that when the going got really tough, like people dropping the ball with not doing what they were supposed to on my redecorating project, or my teenager not eating appropriately, or my husband not doing what “I” think is the “right” thing,  or my car breaking down for the eighth time, etc. etc.,  that my little mantra was challenged. “How can I be content in a situation like this?” Then one day, in the middle of waiting for someone who was 45 minutes late and I had a boat-load of things to do, I had another one of those ah ha moments. Contentment = dropping control. Stop – Drop – Control.  Kind of like that thing you were taught as a kid if you catch on fire. Pretty much the same concept too.  The more you run and struggle with the fire(control), the hotter and larger it will get and the more extensive the damage. So a second bouncing baby mantra was born to me, “drop control.”

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A Journey Towards Contentment: Reflecting

Over the past two weeks, me and my little mantras have become very close. They have been helping me to “be aware”.  I have been practicing. Weighing each word before speaking it…staya. As I try to push my opinions on my teenager and husband, I found myself literally stopping in mid sentence and calling on my “drop control” mantra. After all, they have their own dharma in this life. This absence of harmful control…ahimsa. Non-attachment to others through cleanliness. getting re-aquainted with my netti pot,  paying attention to food I am putting into my body and daily yoga and exercise to start, leading to contentment…shaucha. Becoming “aware” of this hidden wealth all these practices are bringing…asteya.   Working on non-possession of the outcome of the situation…aparigraha.  Ah, there is that aparigraha again.   Together, all of this leading toward the perfect body and mind.   Not to outwordly look good at the pool in a few weeks, but to ignite the internal flame…tapas, to lead to that deep meditative state and then, finally, contentment…Santosha.

I realize that in these short three weeks I cannot change the control I have been striving for over my lifetime.  This will take time.  Maybe the rest of my time in this body on this earth, but at least this experiment has made me that much more “aware” of the yama and niyama principles and it is a new start to the ultimate contentment.

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A Journey Towards Contentment: Continuing

So as we approach this beautiful season of springtime, I plant my garden of contentment.  I spread my yama and niyama seeds into the earth.  I “drop the control” as fertilizer.  I shower it with the awareness of contentment each day, I bathe it in the warmth and depth of meditation each day, and watch as the new little sprouts of peace,  non-violence, truthfulness, honesty, vigor, energy, courage, non-possessiveness, cleanliness, purity, meditation, and most of all, contentment,  begin to sprout, grow, and flourish in this season I call my life.  My little mantras, “ be content” and “drop control”, always at my side, waiting to tap me softly on my shoulder least I forget they are there.

Thank you to all of my teachers, past, present, and future, who continue to help me find my center, my perfect yoga. My contentment.

Namaste.

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