Aparigraha and the Mind of the Beast

She denies any involvement with this matter…

Although she has been seen around the site of the action right about the time of the incident…

But then…

Could these eyes lie?

No.  Hm…maybe…

Let’s look at the evidence:

The frazzled bite marks on my yoga mat….....................the fangs of the vicious beast. 

Check!



This happened last summer, and since the beast tends to have more of a dog-like demeanour, loyally following my every step in the backyard, I could hardly be angry about her adornment to my mat.  After all, the reason I bought my own about a year ago was by far more disturbing.  At the height of the cold season I took a yoga class—then still using the common mats offered by the facility—when one of the participants took a gigantic sneeze that spread unhalted all over her mat and the ones of her neighboring yogis left and right.  Now my friend, if you have ever seen images of sneezing people such as these… 



…then you will understand that only hours after this memorable class, I owned my very first personal yoga mat.  I think I bought it at REI, just because I had to run some errands there anyways.  You may know that REI isn’t a particularly dedicated source for yoga products, but rather of any kind of outdoor activity.  Honestly, I didn’t even care what kind of a mat I bought.  I just wanted one that would harbor only my own pathogens.

Now, after a good year of quite regular, often daily use, attacks by the beast, and misuse by the kids (sometimes they just need a roof for their play house structures…), even I can’t deny that it probably needs to be replaced.  Too many downward dogs with sweaty paws, attempts to balance a most wobbly crow, and too many times melting into the mat in my favorite pigeon, took their toll on it.

This time, however, I want to be cleverer when choosing such an important utensil!  I looked around in classes and online to find some inspiration, since the muses failed me in that matter.  While I could imagine that size, thickness, and material plays a role, until last week I had no idea that also the shape is a variable.

I was a few minutes late for class, rushed to the studio, squeezed through the door as quietly as I could, removed all unnecessary clothes then turned around to find a spot amongst the yogis who were already sitting in silent meditation.  Whoa!  My attention was immediately drawn to the young yogi, who had her mat placed right in front of the teacher.  To get the right visual, my friend, you must know that said yogi had a ROUND yoga mat that spanned across the space that could usually be utilized by two.  But that was not all…this bodacious, blue mat was bearing the sign—the sign of high quality, being en vogue and bearing a big wallet:  Lululemon.

Throughout the class I couldn’t help but glance over to the front-row yogi to get some idea of how practical this mat is.  I have gotten out of the habit of looking at my fellow yogis during practice.  I even close my eyes most of the time to be more focused (which unfortunately is quite detrimental to my already weak sense of balance…).  This external focus, however, almost led to a forwards crash-landing of my wobbly crow that morning.  But then…I’ve already been known to endanger my health in pursuit of new knowledge (keyword: chai) if necessary, so what’s a crashed crow?!

The young yogi seemed to enjoy her practice within her private double lot, although I could not make out any poses that would have actually required the extra space left and right.  While I’m not opposed at all to an enormous, blue, round mat—nor to Lululemon for that matter—I have some doubts this would be the right product for me…

I guess this leaves me a seeker for now.  Maybe I should consider the eight limbs of yoga to aid me through this process.  The first one, yama, often translated as ethical disciplines, includes aparigraha--the non-accumulation of superfluous physical objects.  BKS Iyengar writes in his book Light on Yoga:  “By the observance of aparigraha, the yogi makes his life as simple as possible and trains his mind not to feel the loss or the lack of anything. Then everything he really needs will come to him by itself at the proper time.”

Here my lack of knowledge in the philosophy of yoga shows terribly…  Maybe aparigraha is a hint to keep waiting for a new mat to magically appear.  Or even worse, it indicates that the old one must do for now, because it’s likely not the proper time yet for another.

I think I'll let the beast decide.

Namaste!