Aparigraha: And so it is Similar

Just like the Rabbi acted towards this stingy man, Aparigraha takes patience, persistence, presence and lovingkindness to alter the habits of grasping, hoarding, and holding onto beliefs that no longer serve me.  This Yama is an ethical precept of Patanjali’s Ashtanga Yoga.  This restraint represents nongrasping, non-hoarding, reducing the amount of input or stimulation, and asks the question of what will you let go of?

As I sit down to write this paper, I find myself lucky to have another opportunity to practice letting go – not grasping onto fear.  Our daughter, Sarah, skyped from China to tell us she is having another new round of symptoms.

Fear seems to be walking with me in many areas of my life right now.  So I choose to let go of ~ to not grasp or cling to ~ fear as my first emotional reaction to situations:  Our daughter’s continued ups and downs of her illness/condition, her difficult challenges being in China this school year, financial concerns covering her medical bills, our son is buying a house with a girlfriend and it is a “shaky” relationship, my mother’s decline in health – there are so many areas of my life that I have the opportunity to practice non-grasping of fear.