Aparigraha (Non-Greed)

This is a short description of the second Yama I covered, Aparigraha, which means non-greed, or non-coveting. In my recent course on the Yamas and Niyamas we are diving deeper into the real implications and subtleties as we apply Patankali's ancient teaching to our contemporary lives.

Transcript

Greed is a quality that arises out of a deep inner sense of lack.

Our desire to hoard or maintain or isolate resources for ourselves is a part of our greed.

Our greed can be with our money,

It can be with our attention,

It can be with our time,

It can be with those things that we have available to give with.

But greed is the sense of poverty that leads to wanting to keep for oneself.

And in this sense of poverty there's an intrinsic distrust in life,

An intrinsic distrust in that there's enough for oneself.

And so the avarice or the withholding that happens within us is a desperate struggle to maintain ours for fear that there's not enough resource and not enough generosity in the universe for us.

These of course all center around the ego,

Our separate sense of self,

And its feeling that it lacks.

And this is intrinsic to every ego.

Every ego carries a sense that I am not enough,

I don't have enough.

And so lack is in some sense the fragrance,

The image of our egoic life.

To be free of this is to realize generosity,

To realize the endless resources of our inner being that then allows us to extend ourselves in money or time or attention,

Recognizing that surely within us there is enough.

Reviews

I wish this were longer, I was just getting interested and it ended.
Thank you for giving me that little push to find more info on this important topic. Namaste 🙏🏻