Letting go of material attachments is one of those guidelines that seems to come up in every religious and spiritual text. When I was younger, this concept fell under the list of sins that my grandparents and their churches spoke of and my rebellious nature was filled with disdain. Later I came to understand that restraints are given in spiritual texts to lift up the individual when the pleasures and pains of life become overwhelming; having this structure helps one sustain their growth towards true happiness.

Aparigraha

Non-possessiveness is one aspect of yama, or restraint, given by Patanjali in his Yoga Sutras to help the yogi to live in society without losing sight of the spiritual path. The sutra that describes aparigraha is translated by B.K.S. Iyengar as:
“Knowledge of past and future lives unfolds when one is free from greed for possessions.”
In other words, we learn who we truly are when we let go of what we are clinging onto. When I ask myself “who am I?”, it is so hard to come up with an answer outside of the material world. At times, I have been a student, an engineer, a cook, a sister, a wife... but none of that will come with me when I leave this body.
A challenging aspect of this practice is recognizing what truly brings us happiness and what no longer serves us. Does your house, your car, your career, your relationship truly improve your life? What are you holding onto simply because it may be painful to break the attachment, even when peace is on the other side of the pain?

Spiritual Warfare

When my spiritual path led me to explore shamanism, I was struck by a common issue healers of different cultures face in their community: sickness and even death are caused by spiritual attacks triggered by envy, jealousy, and resentment. People in the Amazon jungle fear attracting the envidia of their neighbors, in case it leads them to hire a sorcerer to take away their health and happiness. The Italian side of my family knocks wood to prevent sending malocchio, the evil eye, to those they admire. In their culture also, it is a dangerous thing to spend too much time looking at what others have.
It seems to me the best defense to an attack is an offensive one. That is, to avoid flaunting wealth, beauty, success, or whatever other gift one has. Another layer of this is to freely share wealth that goes beyond what we need to live so that our neighbors can also find happiness. This concept feels so opposite to how many people act in the society I live in. Here in the United States many seem to find great pleasure in inciting the envy of their neighbors with a green lawn, flashy car, or new shoes. I am not spending time worrying about a spiritual attack, but I have come to recognize that it gives me much more joy to share what I have with my community. How can we measure success without putting ourselves above and below those around us?

What this means in modern American society

I am finding it increasingly difficult to engage in American society while practicing non-possessiveness. When did so many people begin to admire the influencer? I am not above this. Although I would like to use social media as a tool for connecting to my community, it is challenging to avoid being sucked into the call for materialism and envy of our connections. Go onto Instagram or Facebook and one is flooded with posts advertising courses that will teach you to how to live a happy life, if only you have enough money to support the teacher and the companies they are partnered with.
The line between comfort and true happiness is hard to discern. I am grateful for the abundance I have which keeps me well-fed and stocked with tools that make my life easier. I choose to live in the material world and to keep up with the practice of non-possessiveness, I will need to keep asking what I really want and what I am chasing for a fleeting moment of gratification. Do you feel like you can find more peace by letting go?
this territory is moderated
Since first going away to college, I've probably moved every other year on average. That definitely reinforced non-possessiveness.
We have family members who know they need to move for financial reasons, but they can't afford to, because of all the stuff they're attached to. It's a real curse being so attached to stuff.
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I hate moving, but I’d probably hate it less if I had less stuff. I’ve been working to reduce my inventory on both ends: getting rid of stuff, and buying less
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82 sats \ 5 replies \ @freetx 8 Apr
One of my pet theories is that a resulting bitcoin-standard will naturally enforce a more minimal lifestyle. My hunch is that deflationary pressures results in your own less things, but the things you do have are higher quality.
Its seems true if you look back at our grand-parents. They basically lived in a more-or-less disinflationary money system. Your great grandmother owned 3 pots and frying pan that lasted her thru her whole life. Moreover, at that point the expectation was that all things were to be owned for life. They were to be repaired and mended. It still makes me wince to throw something usable away simply because the economics of repair don't make sense.
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Thanks for this comment. I don’t understand much about Bitcoin but I intuitively feel that is my best option for savings and that it supports a more minimal lifestyle.
My grandparents life fit the American Dream mold quite well. And it seems that they were able to live that life in part because they had money up front to buy high-quality items and hold them for life. I’d like to move more of my consumption to supporting artisans and get back to that way of being.
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I think this is true for sure. Once people get into Bitcoin, they tend towards less greed and consumerism. Low time preference behavior. And they tend to feel more abundant so they want to give, share, and build. Fiat system encourages us to spend, spend, spend.
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I think this is right, but I don't fully understand why.
We do know that inflationary money leads to lower quality goods (shrinkflation) and rewards high time-preference consumer behaviors. So, it stands to reason that deflationary money would result in the opposite.
I think it has less to do with deflation causing those things, than it does with people generally preferring them and being able to act on those preferences in the absence of inflation. In other words, inflation is a distortion.
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It's so strange how my perspective has shifted. Inflation feels to obviously ridiculous now. What a lie I have been believing.
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71 sats \ 0 replies \ @freetx 8 Apr
In other words, inflation is a distortion.
Very good point. I'm sure no one mentally goes to the store thinking "I'm hoping to go buy a blender that I can throw away in 3 years because the cheap metal alloy used in the gears wears out". We would naturally prefer to buy a blender once.
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I definitely don't think moving a lot is great, but not being able to isn't good either.
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180 sats \ 0 replies \ @anna OP 7 Apr
I’m actually observing the same thing with my family right now. It seems so overwhelming after decades of accumulating. I like to live light.. it’s easy to evaluate what I really care about when I’m trying to pack it all into the back of my car
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Life of an academic?
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More like the life of a poor person. Whenever our lease was up, we would look for a better deal and usually we found one.
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That’s good you found a better deal. Where I live it’s almost impossible. Not impossible but unlikely. Sometimes you get lucky 🍀 lol 😂
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There's a reason I always tried to live in places that might have better deals. I have some family in California, so you definitely have my sympathies.
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I would move except for my mother. She likes the weather in California. After my dad passed, I paused my plan to move to another state
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My theory is California is so terrible because the weather is so good. If the weather were worse, people wouldn't put up with it and they'd leave.
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Very true.
Also my mother is semi retired and my dad built a nice nest egg. She is not rich but she is comfortable. She also gets social security and Medicare.
I pitched Arizona and Texas to her, her response was too hot 🥵
I am not going to force my mom to relocate even if I could.
On the other hand I know recent retirees who moved to Texas and Arizona and Florida and are extremely happy with their relocation.
These folks also follow politics. My mother does not. She is politically right but I have to tell her how to vote
132 sats \ 1 reply \ @IamSINGLE 8 Apr
I must say, hour knowledge about Indian philosophy is great. You already made me realize that the greatest tects are those that the ancient Hindu culture holds and I believe that aprigraha is the way to get real happiness.
The modern societies of West definitely lack these attributes and it is not a bad thinking when you let go things for inner peace.
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110 sats \ 0 replies \ @anna OP 8 Apr
Thank you for reading 🥰
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I read so many spiritual Vedic texts that relates with the notion of spirituality and found out that one can only find 'who he is', only when someone practices Aparigrah.
My uncle who is a Yogi and I myself being from the traditional Hindu Brahmin family gabe me a chance to explore these complex topics of self-realization since my childhood. I read Vedas, upnishads and other texts including 'paranjali' when I was hardly 15 years old.
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110 sats \ 0 replies \ @anna OP 8 Apr
That’s wonderful. They’ve been so helpful for me and have slowly led me back to seeing the truths in Christian texts that my ancestors followed. I think all spiritual texts hit the same themes but the Vedic texts present it in a very beautiful way that was easier for me to connect to.
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121 sats \ 1 reply \ @Malachi17 7 Apr
One naturally undergoes different phases of living in life. Non attachment is realizing what one actually owns and what is ownable.
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💚
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I am not familiar with these teachings at all but this makes a lot of sense to me. It feels like letting go has been a huge part of my journey. I went from wanting it all to wanting to live with less and less. Thank you for the share. Very thoughtful and we'll written.
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I feel like this post from @anna goes more in depth about what we were sharing about recently. @PilumMurialis
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