As part of an exercise in working with the sutras during a workshop with Patricia Walden, I was able to connect the theme of aparigraha with a meaningful event in my life.

For my study, I read commentaries on the subject from four sources: B.K.S. Iyengar, Reverend Jaganath Carrera, Edwin Bryant and Rohin Mehta.

Carrera’s definition is to be free of greed, non-hoarding. Guruji says it is non-possession and non-rigidity of thought. Bryant elaborates that if we are seeking enjoyment, bodily or otherwise, that is an outward expression, and we can only become aware of past and future lives by having clarity, which only comes from inward seeking. Mehta’s commentary is the longest and was the most challenging for me to understand, but it was his that brought the idea of aparigraha and its teachings into my own experience.

Mehta says it is not non-possession, but non-possessiveness. Discarding stuff is relatively easy, but non-possessiveness happens in our minds.  With non-possessiveness our minds become homeless—or not rooted in, or clinging to, any conclusions on the meaning of life. It involves giving up its projections and patterns—the same rigidity of thought that B.K.S. describes in Light On The Yoga Sutras. Only by giving up these preconceived notions, can we truly understand the significance of life, and, more importantly, what true action is. This true action is ahimsa, which is only possible when the mind is completely free from all corrupting influences of psychological memory.

My 40-year-old daughter has lived in Rishikesh for 15 years. She has taken vows first as a Bramachari and then as a sannyasini. She is the most content, beautiful, nurturing, nourishing woman I have ever met. At the time of her first vows, her spiritual leader, Swamiji Chidanand Saraswati, bestowed the name Bhagawati on her, and that is how she became known.

When I was a young teen reading The Catcher in the Rye, I decided I would have a daughter named Phoebe. When my daughter was born she was Phoebe. It suited her beautifully. She was, in the 70s and early 80s, the only Phoebe in Los Angeles. Bhagawati was a name I could barely pronounce correctly. Over the years each time she came home from India, my husband and I began calling her “sweetheart” or “cutie” or anything BUT Phoebe or Bhagawati. I was stuck, rigid, and clinging to my past.

Recently when she was at our home a new friend of mine came to the house and said “Phoebe I am glad to meet you.” I could feel her shrink. She would never say anything to me in anger, but I could feel that I had committed an assault on her being. Later, when I apologized, she explained that if I kept referring to her as Phoebe, of course people would continue to call her that.

A few evenings later, she and Swamiji were guest speakers at a studio in Los Angeles. The place was packed. She spoke for 15 or 20 minutes about inner peace and freedom.  I was overwhelmed by, and marveled at, her insights, intelligence, poise and serenity.

When the program was over I said to her “Phoebe has gone and in her place you have truly become Bhagawati.” By releasing my rigidity of thought I was able to truly feel the meaning of ahimsa in a sincere and thoughtful way. And I can understand how, by practicing aparigraha I had prepared for my future life as Bhagawati’s mom.