I decided to start this article with something my partner told me last night: “Don’t worry. Everything is going to be OK, because it’s always OK. Right now, everything is as it should be. All you need to do is be grateful for this present moment. Be grateful for these legs that take you walking, and for this air filling up your lungs. That is all you have to do.”
Yes, your life is changing in leaps and bounds. Yes, people you’ve loved have come and gone. But it’s all for your personal evolution: for the unfurling of your luminous center. The universe is trying to peel away the layers shielding the shining, blissful, eternal self at your core. That’s all this duality and impermanence is about. The yogis tell us that is what all this living is for, in these particular bodies, at this particular time, with these particular minds. Our suffering comes from the mind’s perspective on all that change: often not the event itself, but how we interpret it.
Spring, the great teacher of change
As spring approaches, it’s easy to observe impermanence in our everyday environment. Where there were once bare branches, buds begin to grow, changing the smell of the air. Where there was darkness, there are longer hours of light, changing how my body feels. It’s brighter and lighter as I walk outside without layers, hats and gloves. Even the soundscape changes: each morning I wake to birds outside my window, returning from their adventures in warmer climates. And almost comically, every time we near warmer weather, it snows again, perfectly capturing how impermanent it all is!
Each new moment holds a new possibility, a new aroma, a new meaning, a new experience. It’s our minds that get caught up, holding on to past realities that no longer exist. We grow very attached to fleeting experiences, expecting them to hold, but reality never holds. It keeps moving, and we remain paralyzed. As Rumi said, the hand that opens and closes, and opens and closes, is alive; if it were always open or always closed, it would be paralyzed.
You are not your hand
There’s a beauty to impermanence. The ebb and flow of existence is something to honor rather than fear. We can stare at the ocean with reverence for hours, watching the waves undulate, or watch a candle flame dance during meditation. The yogi observes the environment in awe, watching the continual cycle of birth, sustenance, death and silence. Rinse and repeat. Because the yogis teach that we are something deeper than all that change. We are pure consciousness. We watch the change, and we remain.
When you contemplate what has been permanent in your experience, hasn’t it been that being at the bottom of yourself, watching the world fly past? Even science tells us these vehicles change. Look at your hand. It’s much larger than when you were a baby. You might think it’s just your baby hand, stretched out, but the cells in your hand have been replaced many times over. It is, in a real sense, an entirely different hand. And you can observe yourself observing that. So you aren’t your hand. You are something deeper.
When this realization happens, our perspective changes. A natural non-attachment arises that makes it easier to move through the world. It is still the same world, but now you see it through a new lens, one that isn’t coated with suffering.
The joyful swami
They say this is the difference between the swami, the self-realized individual, and the layperson. Swamis are joyful people, yet they still do the same things: wash the dishes, take walks, drive the car. On my last visit to India, I even saw a swami on his smartphone, and now we’re friends on social media! Same activities, but they see the world as it is, not as they want it to be. Because of that, they can enjoy life deeply, the way a child spontaneously sings and dances, without preconceived notions distorting their vision. They can be themselves. This is what is meant by renunciation of worldly life.
Renunciation is not a cave
When yoga students hear that they must renounce worldly life, a sick feeling often rises in the pit of the belly, and defensiveness explodes: “I will not abandon my possessions! I will not abandon the people I love! I will not move to a cave!” It’s a common misconception, but that is not what renunciation means. You can renounce worldly life and live in a mansion, with money in the bank and a house full of children, and not extract suffering from those things, but truly enjoy the moments as they change.
Swami Rama taught that to really enjoy swimming, you have to renounce the ocean. If you try to hold on to the moving water, you will drown. Your hands must glide through the water, letting go of each molecule as it comes and enjoying each new one as it arrives. Life is often like that. We swim through it trying to grasp the water in our hands, yet it always leaks through.
Non-attachment is the natural recognition that the material world is defined by duality and impermanence. When that recognition rises, we keep moving into new moments, so present that we actually enjoy what we have.
Have you ever been in a relationship where you were deeply in love but panic-stricken that something might happen and that person might leave you, perhaps because you’d been left before? Then all your actions are defined by fear of a future moment that hasn’t happened and may never happen. Or maybe you’ve expected a situation to be exactly like a past one, and missed an opportunity because expectation, not reality, dictated your actions. Non-attachment doesn’t discount your past experiences. It helps you learn from them without being ruled by them.
Renunciation means beginning to master the mind, so we can easily see things as they are: changeable. Then we learn to deeply love and enjoy things as they come and go. We learn to love the process instead of clinging to a moment in time. Through yoga and meditation this comes naturally, and it is quite different from detachment.
Detachment versus non-attachment
This is a very important point. What is the difference between detachment and non-attachment? Don’t they both mean not being attached? Yes, but one leads away from self-realization and creates more suffering, while the other arises naturally as you approach self-realization.
In teacher trainings, I often use the example of my attachment to cupcakes. One day I ate five large, scrumptious, cream-filled cupcakes (despite being lactose intolerant) and got very, very sick. Fast-forward two months: I’m standing outside a bakery staring through the window at a particularly beautiful cupcake with pink frosting. My inner wisdom says, You probably shouldn’t have any more cupcakes. My ego cries out, Oh, just one more! You deserve it. You worked so hard today. When you were little, you always got a cupcake as a reward. Wisdom responds, Don’t you remember last time? You really, really shouldn’t!
If we try to forcefully detach, we create inner drama: “No, you can’t have the cupcake!” “But I want it!” It causes a split, and more suffering. Trying to crush our desires with sheer will creates an unhealthy mind.
Yoga is not about denying your desires. It’s about filling yourself up with something better, so the cravings your wisdom knows won’t serve you subside naturally. You walk through life so inwardly satisfied that when wisdom speaks to you about which actions create freedom and which create suffering, you easily choose freedom, because you already feel fulfilled. Then the fluctuations don’t affect you as much. This comes slowly, in waves.
The new situation looks like this: I walk past the bakery window after a healthy lunch of fresh, nourishing food, followed by a great yoga class and a juicy meditation. Feeling satisfied in body and mind, when the inclination for the cupcake arises, it doesn’t take hold. I don’t need to fill a void. I remember that I got sick last time, and without any drama, in a split second, I walk on by and don’t think about it again all day.
Ahh, yes. Freedom.
