Aparigraha

“When there is firm conquest over covetousness, they who have conquered it wake up to the how and why of life.” — Yoga sutras

“The final yama is aparigraha, or nonpossessiveness and nonhoarding. As befits the end point of such a journey, aparigraha is about letting go. The yoga sutras advise us not to waste any energy holding on to that which is not really ours in the first place.” — Rolf Gates, Meditations from the Mat

Aparigraha is the fifth yama described in the Yoga Sutras, and it is often translated as “non-hoarding”. Like with the other yamas, it is easy – and somewhat distracting – to focus on the behavior and not the intention. The practice of aparigraha is not about giving up all your possessions. It is about giving up the belief that your happiness depends on your ability to hold on to what you think you “own”. What you think you own is not just your material belongings, but your time, your relationships, your memories, and your beliefs. When you have freedom from this belief, it is almost irrelevant what you actually own or possess.

So, aparigraha can also be translated as “non-attachment”, which more accurately captures the intention to let go of the fear and clinging associated with trying to protect what we own, or protect ourselves against loss.

This yama, more than any others, has a profound effect on our momentary suffering and happiness. All suffering is caused by a resistance to real or imagined loss. When we cling, we suffer. — Kelly McGonigal

“One who is not greedy is secure. He has time to think deeply.
His understanding of himself is complete.” ~ Yoga Sutra II.39

For me, with my usual focus on process, a part of aparigraha is also about not attaching to the results of what you do. When making art, we might not get exactly the result we thought we would when we started a project, and consider it a failure instead of letting go and letting the piece be what it is on its own as a result of our process. Or, we might accept what it is and feel badly about it, rather than trying again, attaching to the piece as it is rather than re-inventing it in our imagination. Either way, our art suffers. We need to both accept what is, and still be willing to dream of what might be. Letting go of what has happened in the past frees us to do something new, or to re-invent what we’ve done in the past as something new. Either way, we move on to the future instead of staying stuck in the past.