When I started my experiment, I became downright tortured by this dynamic. I knew what I was doing, and didn’t know how to stop. I beat myself up, made a spectacle of myself in my plight when Santosh opened up the room for discussion, and still have no real idea how to resolve my sins. […]
As part of Denver’s Axis Yoga teacher training program, students are asked to apply a yogic principle to their daily lives. This student chose to combine the yogic principle of Aparigraha (non-possessiveness, non-attachment) into her therapy sessions to begin to understand and overcome her attachments. She becomes aware of how her attachments are linked to […]
When the task came to choose a yama with which to experiment, I was certain that Aparigraha was the right one for me. Over the past six months I have been working weekly with a therapist on overcoming many of my attachments to unhealthy parts of my past. Because breakthroughs in therapy have come in […]
With excitement in my undertaking and dedication to my personal growth, I set off with Desikachar’s words on my mind: “When we are attentive to our actions we are not prisoners to our habits”(Heart on Yoga p.6). My experiment happened in a rather linear style where I created a table highlighting a thought for which […]
As the experiment became more incorporated into my life, I was shocked to see just how many things were showing up on my chart, and I had no clue that so many of my thoughts were attached to needing to achieve an outcome. Many of the first rows, as exemplified in #’s 1 and 2, […]
Thus, I can firmly say that as my experiment concludes, my question was answered and my hypothesis was accurate. By combining Aparigraha with my weekly therapy sessions aiming at the same outcome, I did usher in change (regarding my self awareness) with greater ease and speed than just using therapy to achieve the goal of […]
As part of Denver’s Axis Yoga teacher training, students are invited to apply one of the yogic prinicples to their daily lives. Students explore prinicples such as truthfulness and non-harming. This particular student gives an honest account of how his selection and relationship to astaya (the principle of non-stealing) provoked so much defiance in him, that his […]
From the start I should have realized that there was no way I would implement an experiment on Asteya. First, I chose it because there was only one person in the group when we began forming groups. Choosing a particular spiritual practice because no one else is doing it is does not set oneself up […]
I understand the basic concept of the yamas and the goal of reducing and ultimately eliminating desire. That makes some sense to me. I have become more aware of my desires as they pop up during the day from grocery shopping to how I spend my day, and I can see the constant cycle of […]
I understand the concept of restraint and thoughtfulness, but the yamas and the yoga sutras of Patanjali appear to me at this point to be more about negation. I don’t want to negate myself and my body, I want to live more fully into myself and my body. I want to be alive. And I […]