Overcoming Unhealthy Attachments: Reflections

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, were filled with simple ideas that I could easily decipher on my own and create affirmations in response. But one of my thoughts had me in a quandary and in need of professional help. I took my body image thought, # 4, and chatted with my therapist about Aparigraha and my experiment. Intrigued, and open to my experiment she helped me achieve a better understanding of the root of my grasping.

After several conversations, guided meditation, and a large dose of self-compassion, I was lead to the discovery that the underlying possession I am attached to is my image itself. As I thought back on my chart and the times that many of these ideas came to me, I realized that most of my “grasping” came to me in the mornings as I lay in bed thinking about my day. Further, that these thoughts were attached to what I hoped to achieve or “show for” at the end of my day. It was true, my need to present an image of “perfection” to myself and to the outside world, had me in its grips. Driven by my ego and underscored by the stories I’ve retold to myself, I felt that by knowing what had me in its grips was exactly what freed me from them.

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Overcoming Unhealthy Attachments: Conclusion

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 non-attachment. Just brining a sense of awareness to my thought patterns hasn’t yet turned the need for presenting a “good image” off.  However, it helps me contextualize things in a more manageable way. And further, it gives me another chance to practice a complementary niyama, samtosa and further my contentment with my deepest thoughts.

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Yoga Student Conducts Non-Experiment

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 experiment became an examination of this resistance.

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A Non-Experiment of Non-Stealing: Introduction

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 for success.

 Secondly, I couldn’t really define it as being different from aparigraha. OK I could stop myself from recording music from the Internet as I assume that is technically stealing. But what else would I steal. Undeserved praise? That has never been an issue; in fact, I have always had the opposite problem of never taking credit for things that I actually did achieve.

 There were a few ideas I had that I could experiment with, but none of them compelled me. In fact I felt extreme resistance to any experimental ideas. I could have explored vegetarianism as a way of not stealing life from other creatures. I have been eating mostly vegetarian for the last couple months but I can’t say I have noticed any significant changes physically or emotionally. And I started that after thinking about it for a few months. And the more I thought about it for the experiment, the less interested I was in trying to remain vegetarian.

 I could also have implemented an environmental experiment as a form of not taking unnecessarily from nature. No single idea came to me for how to do this and I did not want to upset my routine too drastically to do this. Also, I could not see any great personal revelation coming from this.

 I did think about cutting down on TV and other things that “steal” my time. But the question is who decides what is a wise use of one’s time and what isn’t? Is every moment one is awake supposed to be leading toward something greater? Sometimes you do just need to watch something mindless on TV. It can stop the fluctuations of the mind! I am not ready to spend every free moment meditating, doing yoga, and reading ancient texts. The time commitment for the training is already enough “yoga time” for me right now.

 The fascinating thing for me as I continued to struggle with this and try to come up with an experiment was how much resistance I had to doing any experiment. I physically did not want to do an experiment. And I began to get even less and less interested in attending classes.

 So in a sense my experiment became reflecting on why I was not going to do an official experiment and why I was feeling such resistance.

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A Non-Experiment of Non-Stealing: Refelctions Part I

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 desire.

But are all desires bad? What about my desire to learn more about yoga? If I didn’t have that desire, I wouldn’t be taking this training and I wouldn’t have the opportunity to learn new meditation practices, breathing techniques, and spiritual practices such as the yamas. Without desire, can one grow?

And is desiring pleasurable things inherently bad if they are not harming others in any way? I can understand not being attached to the experience of pleasure and getting stuck constantly striving for pleasure. However, pleasurable things can bring solace and help calm the mind and body. I don’t want to live in a world without the glory of Bach’s music or the pleasures of a crisp fall day or the hug of a loved one.

And how does one live without desires? Like a blank slate with no goals? Is life just a series of routines—purifications, pranayma, meditation, asana, sleep? If that is enlightenment, I am not sure I want it. What is the point of being a living human being with senses if all one is doing is trying to quiet or negate them. I don’t understand a divine spirit creating humans with the capacity to feel and sense the world and then asking them to not feel or sense the world. That just seems like a cruel joke.

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A Non-Experiment of Non-Stealing: Reflections Part II

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 can’t imagine that sense of aliveness by negating everything around me—my senses, my mind. Why be alive?

Yes, I understand from the yogic perspective that there is no “me” to live into. But I am not sure I quite buy into that. I whole-heartedly agree and try hard to live by the philosophy that we are all more similar than we are different, and that we are connected to the wider world and universe in ways that are hard to explain. But at the same time, we are all created physically distinct from one another with a wide variety of skills and talents that we can use to make the world a better place. Those skills and talents make us unique creations. So while I don’t believe in a strong “I” as completely separate from everyone and everything else in the world, there is an “I” that has unique gifts to bring to the world.

 Maybe I am just struggling with the approach of the yoga sutras that feels more focused on what separates us and how we are not to live. I would rather approach life searching for ways that we are connected and how we are to live. Connections are the things that matter, they are what unite us and bring us together. In fact, most of my life has been striving to find those connections rather than looking at what separates us. Maybe my mind set is just not appropriate for the classical yoga of Patanjali. Maybe I am just a tantric yogi at heart.

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A Non-Experiment of Non-Stealing: Conclusion

So if I have any conclusion from my random thoughts concerning the yamas and Patanjali’s yoga sutras, my conclusion is that the process of yoga needs to be a natural, organic process. Just saying or thinking that one needs to work on one of the yamas, does not mean that it will actually happen. While the yamas are about freeing oneself from desires, one needs to have the desire to free oneself to actually make progress. And my assumption is that one rarely chooses which yama to address, rather a situation will arise that demands attention and challenges one’s beliefs which then leads to exploration and realignment of one’s attitudes and behaviors.

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Yoga Student Explores “Wise Use of Energy”

During Axis Yoga’s teacher training, students explore the application of various yogic prinicples to their daily lives. This particular student relates the prinicple of brahmacharya (celibacy) to his marraige. He adapts the principle to present day Western society, redefining brahmacharya as the “wise use of energy” and “control of the senses.”  He explores how this principle can be used to create an intentional space of intamacy and connection with his partner.

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“Wise Use of Energy” Introduction

The primary question I had regarding this experiment was how brahmacharya could be practiced by yogis in the context of a married relationship.  Although celibacy is certainly an option for married couples, it does not seem conducive to a more loving union, nor do I think it is a moral prerequisite for practicing brahmacharya.  I feel that it is important to make an attempt in understanding the context in which Patanjali authored his aphorisms in order to understand this yama.  It may also be important to investigate how the historical-cultural context of the Yoga Sutras, relate to contemporary western society. 

Another matter of investigation is the universality of the Yoga Sutras.  Many religious texts claim universality and timelessness in their teachings, yet they are colored with the culture and historical context in which they were born.  I feel that Atha yoganusasanam must always emphasize the “now” to ensure the relevance of the text to our embodied experience.  Therefore, forming a definition of brahmacharya is more than simply taking the transliteration “celibacy” as the only way to investigate this essential yama.  Fortunately, I discovered that well respected yogis have enumerated upon brahmacharya from an integral perspective of ashtanga (e.g. B.K.S. Iyengar, Desikachar, Michael Stone).  In simple terms, this means that brahmacharya is essentially about the wise use of energy and control of the senses.  These explanations helped me develop ideas for the experiment which, inevitably, required the consent and creative cooperation with my wife.

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“Wise Use of Energy” Experiment

The question we have chosen to pose as the basis for our experiment begins with the definition of brahmacharya as the “wise use of energy” in the context of marriage.  The hypothesis we developed is, “If we practice mindfulness within our relationship (which includes creating a spiritual intention for shared space, time, intimacy/sexuality) and apply principles of chastity in the sense of purity, specifically purity of intention through mindful lovingness, then we will experience a deeper connection to the divine through mutual shared and selfless devotion to God within our relationship”. 

One key text in constructing this hypothesis was Desikachar’s Heart of Yoga which distills the yama of bramahcharya in the following way; “Brahmacharya suggests that we should form relationships that foster our understanding of the highest truths… it means responsible behavior with respect to our goal of moving toward the truth.”  B.K.S. Iyengar also points out in several of his writings that the householder (grihastha) is just as much capable of being a brahmacharya as the celibate monk.  I know this from previous life experience when I lived a monastic lifestyle for two years in an ashram in Fresno, California.  During that time I observed myself consumed with egotistical thoughts and attachment to the forms of brahmacharya.  As a married person, I have learned that in many ways my spouse is a mirror to my movements away from God.  Through this relationship I am frequently reminded of my own avidya and this causes me to reexamine the path.

As the both of us took on this effort to be specific in our observation of brahmacharya (along with the other yamas and niyamas), it became very clear that we need to adjust several environmental factors in our home and external relationships.  We have always been a spiritually minded couple, but at times this has itself become an attachment as we have opened our home to numerous guests and rarely have time with just each other and to ourselves.  Consequently, when we are afforded time together, we are often too exhausted to be truly intimate.  Baba Hari Das emphasized that married couples must become one, and therefore intimacy is an important part of this union.  Both of us have spent most of our creative energy in other areas of our lives.  This experiment brought us together on the issue of the wise use of energy and it resulted in an increase in awareness to the “energy drains” on our lives including housekeeping, organization of time, personal relationships outside of the marriage, and work.  Additionally, we realized that in order to participate in the act of mindful intimacy and lovingness, we needed to unencumber our minds with worldly concerns, worries and barriers.  Further, we tended to “unfinished” business and projects within our home, essentially clearing stagnant energy while tending to our “bedroom” space.   Through the commitment of attending yoga classes together, reading discussing and planning our spiritual growth both individually and as a couple, we have increased our participation in each other’s lives on a spiritual and physical level.  To deepen this connection through the application of the experiment, we have taken greater steps towards building a more sustainable spiritual and emotional lifestyle.   In terms of the actual application of practicing moderation and chastity within the relationship, I believe that we are still working towards what that might look like as we continue to develop from within.  We have definitely increased our discussions around our sexual practices, present levels of emotional intimacy, spiritual connection to one another & God, and our intentions for our relationship on a day-to-day basis.

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