I’m back and just as unenlightened as long ago when I last attempted to write a blog post. I continue to study, practice yoga and meditation. I teach workshops and yoga classes but in an informal setting with very close friends (some are former students). In 2020, I lost my job and shortly after, I lost my faith in Yoga as a ‘profession’. For me, Yoga is not for making money and I had to learn this the hard way… by not being paid for many hours of teaching at a failing studio. There were no apologies and no attempts to correct this. I stepped away from teaching for months.
I was bitter and angry. I kept my promise but fellow yogis broke their promise to pay me. Out of work, I also attempted (in the middle of a pandemic) to make Yoga my ‘job’. I quickly learned it was not sustainable and eventually went back to the office work and the steady paycheck to which I was accustomed. I felt like a failure and a fool for being so gullible.
Yet, I began to understand that those yogis were doing the best they could in that moment and it was ME who was attached to the outcome: making a spot of money teaching yoga. It was ME who thought this could be a full-time job: making a spot of money teaching yoga. This led me (in retrospect over time) to begin to understand the dynamic of ‘attachment’- a concept deeply explored in the ancient text, The Bhagavad Gita.
I have been studying this text for 5 years. The Bhagavad Gita is not merely meant to be read and understood and then cast aside. It is a living, breathing form of knowledge that you ingest and digest over time. I have read three books and am preparing to read a fourth translation. Some consider it a very ‘religious’ text as it refers to God (Brahman) and the Soul (Atma or Atman). However, I feel it can be enjoyed by an atheist like myself also. I trip over and feel triggered by the word ‘God’ while reading and I allow this feeling to just be there.
Soooooo, what are the lessons from The Bhagavad Gita with regard to attachment?
The Gita is a conversation between Arjuna, a warrior/leader (who finds himself on a battleground in the middle of a war where he must fight his family and he really doesn’t want to kill his uncles or cousins) and his charioteer (we later learn that this is a disguise for God, Lord Krishna). Krishna shares many lessons with Arjuna during this conversation which is centered around living your life on earth in a way that eliminates Karma so that you may attain a blissful life after you pass …and never EVER have to return to the struggles and suffering of life on Earth. In this way, you eventually escape the never-ending cycles of birth and death (reincarnation). One of the ways to escape is to perform every action (Karma) on earth without attachment to the outcome of that action. When giving anything (affection, gifts, charity, time, effort), expect nothing (praise, monetary rewards, affection, longer life) in return. You just do it for the joy of being alive.
The problem is….being human means you naturally have attachments of all kinds. We love our family and we never want them to exit from this existence. We do not want to pass from this existence either and feel we somehow deserve some form of immortality. We love eating and sleeping and laughing and playing. We do not like being sad or experiencing poverty or suffering of any kind. We do ALL kinds of actions (Karma) to AVOID discomforts and suffering. This takes up a lot of our time and we end up missing the good stuff of life while running around trying to set everything up to avoid the stuff we don’t like. Avoidance of pain is an innate survival method. We wouldn’t live very long if we just allowed ourselves to ignore pain or injuries. However, we take it too far and start to believe that we can prevent ALL suffering if we just….make more money, hover over our children and attempt to control everything around us.
My attachment to the outcome of my teaching (getting paid) was the problem. My attachment to making enough money to live on teaching Yoga was the problem. Eventually, I just let go of my attachment to the money I ‘lost’ and decided to teach in the joy of the moment and the sharing of the practice. I was determined to have no attachment to the ‘fruits’ of the action. With a beautiful loft for teaching Yoga and a small circle of friends to join me, I began teaching again with a new attitude of ‘non-attachment’. I don’t charge a fee but if a donation comes my way, I accept it with a full heart. I felt a new sense of freedom in my teaching. We laugh a lot (mostly at lame jokes or spontaneous singing of songs) so that feeling of needing to be ‘professional’ is not a part of my teaching. I still get my left and right mixed up. I still forget a sequence I just taught. I can’t always recall the Sanskrit names of the poses.
Yet, somehow, the essence of Yoga prevails- a union of personal self and a collection of humans just BEing in the moment.
It’s a small lesson from the ‘Gita but one I am happy to keep learning.
Renee
Aspiring Yogi
Admirer of Goats
YogaCentric 