Each month we offer ways to focus your practices of Yoga.
Our teachers, and students f eel the sense of community when we gather around a common goal. Using a different lens each month to view our practices gives meaning and focus to our individual practice and connects us to each other through sharing that focus. Within that central theme, there are many ways to organize a daily practice. We invite you to join us in the experience of finding new and fresh ways to inspire yourself and others.

Aparigraha: Non-Possessiveness or Non-Attachment

This season we are inundated with messages to accumulate. We can balance these urges by minding the concept of Aparigraha.

Aparigraha is one of the yamas, or ethical constraints, defined in Patanjali's Yoga sutras as abstention from greed. Iyengar calls it "freedom from hoarding or collecting, absence of greed, and of possessions beyond one's need." Sometimes Aparigraha is defined as non-attachment. In Buddhism, it's acknowledged that attachment is the root, and the cause of suffering.

Nischala Joy Devi offers a different view of "greedlessness." She writes, "A more positive approach goes to the heart of Aparigraha and unveils the positive perspective as "awareness of abundance," so that sharing what you have and taking only what you need follow naturally."

We can practice Aparigraha not only by sharing our things, but also by taming our wants and letting go of attachments on the emotional level. Freeing ourselves of unnecessary possessiveness on all levels makes room for new experiences, and allows our spirit its greatest expression.