The Yamas Week 5 - Aparigraha: A Life Lived in Generosity
Yogis —
it feels monumental to reach the fifth yama.
It’s been our whole season so far.
One a week,
so that makes five weeks together.
At the beginning, we said
the yamas are an invitation
into a new life.
Have they let you down?
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve revisited them.
They never let me down.
They always offer something new,
something fresh,
some hidden door opening again.
So what is this new life?
What does it look like?
It’s an invitation to live from the centre of one’s heart.
To live — number one — as the love that you are.
To stop denying that.
To live in accordance
with what you know to be true in yourself.
To stand in your own integrity,
and know that everything you need
to manifest the life that wants to be lived through you—
is already within you.
You came in with the goods.
You don’t need what everyone else has.
You don’t need to grab.
Stand in integrity.
The fourth —
walk with a deep commitment
to this great power inside you.
Trust it.
Stand alone with it.
Be committed to your life,
and to the Life that lives you.
To live in love.
To live in truth.
To live in integrity.
To live with commitment.
And that —
has brought us to the fifth.
to live in generosity.
Aparigraha.
To live life
generously.
If we go back to ground zero…
The great power of Life is living us.
Living through us.
And our life…
is an outpouring of its gift.
You —
are an outpouring
of a great giving power.
Give.
Give.
Give.
Give.
Can you feel it?
That’s Life.
Not even stopping for a “thank you.”
We are sat in the great giving.
Aparigraha says —
don’t let it stop at you.
Don’t block it.
This breath? Gift.
These words I’m speaking? Gift.
The ability to even speak them? Gift.
Whatever I am —
has been gifted.
Not because I deserved it,
not because I’m entitled to it.
Just — gifted.
Aparigraha says:
this can stop at you —
or it can move beyond you.
You can try to possess it,
claim ownership,
tighten around it…
Or —
you can share it.
You can become as generous
as the Great Giver itself.
You can be like Life.
That's the invitation of Aparigraha.
And here’s the thing —
There is a law, —
The Law of Abundance.
It says —
the moment we’re giving,
we are automatically
opening up space in us
to receive.
When we refuse to give,
when we cling,
when we grip —
there’s no space
for anything more to come into us.
We’re like paupers
begging for scraps
instead of kings and queens
sitting on thrones.
The more we focus on giving from ourselves —
without getting transactional,
not with a demand of a return—
just because it’s been given to us —
the greater becomes our capacity
to receive from the Great Giver of Life.
The more you give,
the more you get.
And yet —
the strange thing is,
that fulfilment we’re all chasing everywhere
is actually found
in the giving itself.
It’s in the partaking
of that gift-giving.
The moment you see it —
"Oh my… that’s a bloody gift!"
— even consciousness itself —
that’s a gift!
And when I give
from that Giver,
a satisfaction arises
that needs nothing in return.
We all know that joy, don’t we?
That joy of giving.
Of sharing.
Of playing it forward.
Of letting it move on.
Fulfilment isn’t a result.
It’s a side-effect
of giving.
And yet —
Life keeps refilling us,
over and over,
on greater and greater levels.
It’s almost as if…
the greater the sacrifice,
the greater the reward.
And in this
Between the giver and the gift,
there’s this little figure —
the middleman.
You know the one.
The “me” doing business.
Trying to figure out
how much to give,
how much to hold,
what’s fair, what’s smart.
That one?
It starts to thin out.
It gets shown up for the inadequacy of it.
We begin to see it:
this wheeler and dealer,
this calculating one,
isn’t required in the Great Giver’s economy.
As we allow ourselves to give what’s being given —
when we let Life give through us,
there’s an intuitive knowing
of when to give,
how much to give,
and how to give well.
Because sometimes —
giving requires us to seemingly not give.
Sometimes,
not giving
is the gift.
Sometimes,
me giving you something
might take away the opportunity
for you to find it in yourself.
That’s called over-giving.
But the true Giver —
that great intelligence —
knows.
Knows how,
knows when,
knows what.
But our middleman —
tries to take responsibility for all of that.
And we get disconnected from something very natural.
We become either the tight-fisted holder
or the eager over-giver —
and miss the subtle wisdom
of Life’s giving.
Now this principal will play itself out differently
in different people’s lives.
We’ve deliberately not gone into real world examples with the yamas
because that would inevitably prevent
the opportunity for exploration in everyone’s lives.
But essentially —
Aparigraha is the recognition
of a mechanism inside us
that grasps.
That wants to hold
what’s been given.
That says,
"This is mine now. I’ll keep it."
But Life —
it moves.
It moves through us.
That’s its nature.
It comes,
it stays as long as needed,
and then it goes.
Because that’s what nature does.
When it moves on —
it allows us to appreciate:
“What a gift it was
that came through me.”
But the moment I say,
“Mine,”
and claim ownership —
The moment I store it,
collect it,
label it as “mine” —
What happens?
I become possessed
by what I tried to possess.
Everything only has so long
to serve its purpose —
in any place,
at any time.
Once it’s beyond its sell-by date
in one place,
it becomes fresh and ready
for the next place.
A new stamp,
a new container,
a new life.
An ever renewing sell-by date.
But not when it doesn't move on.
Can you feel the mechanism?
We do this with people.
With things.
With money.
With energy.
With every resource there is.
And look what we’ve done to the world.
We’re doing it to the world
because we’re doing it in ourselves.
We’ve turned the great joy of giving
into something we fear.
We’ve forgotten that the Great Giver
is infinite in its abundance.
And when we hold —
grip —
clench —
we move into the realm of lack
because we block the incoming flow.
We don’t leave room
for what Life wants to give us next
because we’re too contracted
around what it gave us previously.
But the great discovery is:
It always has more for you.
Always.
Not because the next thing is “better” —
but because it’s the right thing
for right now.
We deny ourselves experience.
We deny ourselves relationships.
We deny ourselves the next wave
of love, beauty, joy —
endless abundance in a single lifetime,
simply because we’re holding on
to what we’ve got,
with desperation.
Because we think that if we let it go
there will be nothing else incoming.
Aparigraha says:
Look to the Source.
The one that’s been giving you everything
since your first breath.
It is always giving,
In the right proportion,
at the right time,
in the right way,
exactly what’s required
for your ongoing growth and evolution as a human being
Aparigraha —
is a step into deep trust.
Non-ownership.
Non-possession.
It doesn't mean we can’t ‘have’.
of course we all ‘have’ things.
But it points to the grasp,
the hold,
the sense of entitlement —
“This is mine. I deserve this. I earned it.”
No.
You earned nothing.
Even your ability to earn
was given to you.
Every breath —
a gift.
Every movement —
a gift.
Even the desire to give —
gift.
There is nothing
that isn’t a gift.
In the old sanctuary —
long before this one —
we used to play a little game.
Steve used to hold out his hand.
See this hand?
Relaxed.
Open.
In the Chinese tradition,
they call this the beggar’s hand.
If you dropped a pound coin in it,
it’d just sit there.
Not clutched,
not grabbed —
just resting.
It’s just... there.
Now — anything that’s placed in this hand,
I can see it.
I can enjoy it.
I can pass it to someone else .
I can put it here, or there.
You see how usable this gift becomes?
But now look.
Clench the fist.
Hold it tight.
What’s happened?
I can’t see it.
I can’t share it.
I can’t even feel it.
It’s gone.
And now —
what do I have?
I’ll tell you:
tension.
I am possessed by my accumulation.
Life is not about accumulating.
We become heavy and burdened by accumulation.
We don’t become wealthy by collecting.
We become unbelievably rich
through generosity.
The more we give,
the more Life says,
"Ahh — now here’s someone I can use."
A giver.
An open channel.
But if it just hits a wall —
if there’s no room —
then Life has nowhere to go.
And so the abundance
stays dormant.
It’s a law.
Like gravity.
All it takes
is a little courage
to test it out.
Not to believe it —
but to try it.
It might not work
the way you expect.
But I bet you’ll see
that it works.
Aparigraha is a big deal.
It makes the world go round.
It makes love go round.
It allows all the good stuff to happen
It blesses everything it touches.
It is such a blessing to be able to serve somebody
when they are in a bit of trouble.
We’ve handed that over to centralised power.
Let the state do it.
Let the structure do it.
And then we say —
"I don’t even get a chance to give."
Nobody lets me give.
It’s too abundant already.
There's nothing left to give to.
And yet —
there’s such a dire shortage
of the giving of love,
of comfort,
of smiles.
The biggest gift as far as I’m concerned,
is attention.
Just to give somebody your attention when they are there with you.
There is a massive shortage of this.
But now —
you understand why we practice the way we practice.
You understand why we don’t just hold postures.
Because the whole practice is this:
Receive. Give.
Receive. Give.
That’s it.
We're building a mechanism into the system,
that finds it difficult to hold,
and easy to release.
All the movement —
all the breath —
all the presence —
it’s just weaving the cycle of reciprocation
into your biology.
So that giving becomes natural.
Effortless.
And then all those old friends —
selfishness, self-importance, insecurity —
they start to show up.
Not as enemies.
But as visitors.
As things that don’t really work anymore.
They show up
to be seen,
to be cleared.
Because they no longer bring the fulfilment
you’ve now tasted
by living in the giving.
And so —
you get purified.
Naturally.
Aparigraha.
Live a generous life.
Give, give, give.
Because in the end —
You’re not taking anything with you.
You didn’t come in with anything anyway.
That much is bloody obvious, isn’t it?
So what does matter?
What matters is how much you gave
in the middle part.
Not how much you stored.
Not how much you won.
Not how much you held onto.
But how much you let move through you.
So what have you got at the end?
Preferably —
nothing.
That’s my plan anyway.
No material things left behind.
Nothing clung to.
Nothing left unshared.
When I take my last breath I will own nothing.
It’s already moved on.
This is called sannyas.
Nothing but freedom.
A clean way of living.
Aparigraha.
These teachings —
they don’t require effort.
They don’t need you to try
to “be generous” or “give more.”
Just the opposite, really.
They ask you to relinquish.
To let go of the contraction
that says, “Mine.”
The Great Giver
simply works through you.
Just like it does
in your postures,
in your breath,
in your life.
It gives
when it needs to give.
And it holds back
when that’s the wise thing to do.
We just allow the greater intelligence of Life to operate in our lives.
We take the prompts.
Sometimes in our keenness to be the giver from the psychology
we might not give the opportunity for someone else to give.
I’m so busy trying to give all the time that I’m not giving anyone else a chance.
We give simply by not judging.
By making space.
By softening our hold
on how things should go.
That too —
is giving.
Namaste.
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