A Graceful Vairāgyam
Autumn's letting go
Outside, leaves are falling. Lifecycle complete, they’ve budded, grown, flourished. With summer season fading, their host releases them, drawing energy inward for a rest period from continual proliferation. In a beautiful finale, leaves glow glorious shades of red, orange, purple before their trees release them, and they fall away from their source, fodder for future growth.
What we release also helps us grow, and living within this environment shows us that the work of detachment is only natural; yet, not for us. Eventually, we have let go of the metaphorical leaves of what we love, what we need, what we live for, what we long for, what we work for, what brings us comfort, what fills our voids. Either they leave us or they agitate or dull the mind, getting in the way of the goal of a settled, balanced mind, or because they are getting in the way of our dharma.
We can hold onto what sucks the life out of us for far too long. For us, non attachment will not feel or look beautiful until its last phase. Liberation requires intelligent, intense effort. And it’s the most often neglected aspect of modern Yoga. Yoga fine tunes our system so we have the capacity to let go. By using disciplines such as yama, ahara and vihara niyama, āsana, prāṇāyāma, pratyāhāra, bhāvana, mantra, mudrā, nyāsa, dhārana, dhānam and samādhi, we gradually remove the impurities that tie us to unhealthy thoughts, habits and emotions. We create sanctuaries for our souls to flourish, eventually sensing a presence that begins to decide what to do, what not to do, what to say, when to say, how to proceed, which path to take.
At first, we are strongly practicing non-attachment along with the aforementioned tools, perhaps not buying the chocolate, blocking the ex, staying away from the friend who smokes the marijuana, detouring past the department store, leaving the phone in the other room. Then, we can be in the presence of the thing and feel yet not cave into its sensory pull. Finally, it ceases to phase us, revealing itself as a depleter of peace, a saboteur of sanity and a sucker of prāṇa. And we release the something, like the tree releases the Autumn leaf. And like the tree, which will grow leaves in a season not far off, we must fortify ourselves, the host, so we can continue to push out newness meanwhile our old patterns remain dormant, yet integral to our current version.
Join next month’s 4 Week Meditation to specifically support your own letting go process.