06/01/2026
After a month of exploring ease & softness, we are about to shift into one of the most challenging (and often misunderstood) teachings of yoga, aparigraha.
The concept of non-attachment is often over-simplified, leaving us feeling like in order to practice it, we have to stop caring about the people or things in our life, which for most of us feels impossible. Who would want to live a cold & detached life?
In reality, aparigraha is much more nuanced. Rather than asking us to detach from the people and things we love, aparigraha asks us to let go of our attempts to control the things we love. Loving things as they are may be the fiercest act of love after all. It removes the selfishness of love. When you truly love the flower, you don’t rip it from the earth. You let it be as it is.
Playing in the cool mountain stream is much more fun when you allow the water to flow around you, instead of trying to hold on to a fistful of water. This means accepting that you’ll never sit in the same stream twice.
Things are always moving, always changing, always adapting. Aparigraha is the practice of loosening your grip on what you love, releasing the fear of things changing, and loving life not in spite of its impermanence, but because of it.
