A Rabbi was worried about having enough food to help the poor during an extremely desperate time, with many families needing help. He made visits to many different people who lived in their village, asking people to donate money to help others. The Rabbi decided to visit the most stingy, miserly member of their village. […]
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 […]
Richard Freeman, The Mirror of Yoga, states that Aparigraha is a tendency of the mind to be under the sway of the ego, to simply snatch at things and claim them to be it’s own. “This I identify with and that I do not.” So why do I cling to fear as my first emotional […]
My journal of drawings, quotes from various readings, meaningful conversations, and journal entries direct and capture my observations. Immediately I find out how often I do react with fear. This looms greater than I realized – a pattern so subtle and yet so loud at other times. “…obstacle to deep yoga practice ..relationship at the […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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.
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.
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 […]