3. Yoga Off the Sumo Mat: The Big Dump II
3. Yoga Off the Sumo Mat: The Big Dump II
Like Being knocked over by a Sumo Wrestler, Aparigraha Throws Salt in my Face
What Dreams May Come!
Continued from
Aparigraha Slaps me in My Face in Real-Fake Life in the Time of Covid
Uh oh! It Is Too Quiet in the Cab of the Truck and Then in the Hotel and I was Oblivious
Yoshiko managed to keep herself quiet until it was time to sleep. And then with passion driven by fear, she turned to me and proceeded to deconstruct the size of the truck and the amount of stuff in it.
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On the surface, and very real to her, was her concern that if something were to happen to me on this long, 3000 km, trek through a lot of uninhabited land that she would be unable to drive the truck. ‘Why bring all that stuff? Do you really need it?’ Is a fair paraphrase of the extended questioning. With hindsight I think that her passion was more than ‘just’ fear. I suspect that consciously or unconsciously she was spiritually aware that as our relationship had continued to expand that my weight of stuff had been starting to expand over and bear down on her spirit, too.
Initially I argued ‘Yes, I did.’ Of course I did! And I vaguely remember using pseudo psychological and practical reasons in my defence. And I stood by that firmly, solidly convinced by the many synchronicities that had occurred in my stuff’s accumulation that it was ‘needed’. Well, not needed, maybe and yet its presence somehow confirmed the completion of, or perhaps solidity of, my existence. Hmmmm. Sounds pretty anaemic writing that, now. I can see now that at the time that that argument was a sure sign of trouble: I had been totally oblivious to the reality of my own hypocrisy about the word ‘need.’ For many years I frequently proselytised to anyone with ears around me a caution that the world ‘need’ removes our power of choice whenever we use it in life much beyond, breath, water, food and peeing. (My sister lived with someone who didn’t poop for 10 months!)
Yoshiko was adamant. In an attempt to calm her and allow us to get some sleep before we hit the road the next morning, with the big truck, I said, ‘I see your point. Give me space and time to meditate on this.’ She was not too happy about that, dear Yoshiko wasn’t and yet that was what I was willing to do at the time. And she gave me the space to do it.
The Rude Awakening
The meditation shocked me awake. The feeling I had was of asphyxiation from the weight of my stuff. I felt my life being squeezed out of me out of my lungs. It was an incredible, overpoweringly strong feeling of my lungs being squeezed to death from my stuff. I more or less jumped up and wanted to dump everything out of the truck right then and there. Once I had calmed down enough to recover my breath, and maybe a bit of my wits, I knew in my bones that I wouldn’t be taking all that stuff to Whitehorse. All the so carefully packed and loved and cherished stuff, that had came to me with synchronistic providence. The time had come for me to let go, to begin aperigraha.
I don’t remember sleeping or not sleeping. Logistics were an issue. We would return to Vancouver and donate the furniture to the Salvation Army and sell the books to MacLeod’s Books, if they would have them.
Early the next morning I got on the phone to initiate the process of unloading ‘our’, meaning mostly my, stuff because Yoshiko had very little and to exchange the big truck for something smaller. Well, Macleod’s was happy to take my books and was still open during the time of the initial covid lockdowns. (Later I learned the owner was very happy, smiling at the collection he received.)
First the furniture, though, as it had been packed last. Well, it turned out that the Salvation Army was closed and refusing donations because of covid. What to do? I called a few people I knew who might be interested in them or in storing them until things changed. Nope. No takers and a serious time crunch. What do do? Well, throw it away? In the city dump — transfer station? Really?
Time is Relative
In 1000 years it will all have been returned to the earth anyway and my act of disrespecting the perfectly good items and the landfill space would have no meaning, I could clearly see. ‘Are you sure?’ Yoshiko asked, as she would many times in the next couple of hours, after I got off the phone having confirmed that the transfer station was open and would take furniture. I was sure.
Now that is aperigraha. The beautiful hand made furniture, the delightful corner cabinet, the wonderful and expensive office chairs and tables purchased at a company discount sale, and the simple elegant new-to-me dining room table and chairs: one-by-one pushed down the truck ramp, down down down into the deep cement pit. All of it in perfectly great condition, and all of it having been accepted into my life with gratitude, joy and love just a score of months earlier.
My body was shaking, a little with the shock of it. I could feel my ego aching to step forward and castigate me for being wasteful and silly. And I would firmly inform my ego that my meditation had made it clear, that my stuff was suffocating me, and that whether or not this goes into the trash today, tomorrow, or in 100 years, it is all the same: ashes to ashes, dust to to dust.
Next the books. We drove into downtown Vancouver with ease. The only traffic were empty buses and the occasional delivery truck. Parking was so easy, right in front of the store! I then began moving out the boxes. ‘Are you sure?’ Yoshiko asked. ‘Yes.’ In the end I deferred three boxes of the eastern books and the two Yoshiko boxes. I hauled eleven large boxes into the store and we took five large boxes away with us.
With hands shaking and my resolve firm, we then went to the U-Haul office and exchanged the big truck for a small truck: we moved the kitchen dishes and utensils, including the blue ho'oponopono water bottle, vacuum cleaner, 5 boxes of books, the organic rubber mattresses, bedding and clothes into the small truck with room to spare. Then we drove back to my old rental suite where we’d parked the car trailer in the morning before enlightening ourselves, hooked it up and re-started our drive.
Where’s the Purifying Salt?
Aperigraha. I didn’t know it, even then, that the new job wasn’t about money or work. It was about taking yoga off the mat and out of the yoga studio and putting it into a the Sumo Ring we call Life. And I didn’t know that I didn’t even know where the salt was to purify the ring of life before beginning to dance with it. (Himalaya Rock or Sal de Mer? So many questions.)
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Yes, self-mastery really is our reason for being in this life, eh?
You have become grist for my mill. I hope you do not mind. I leave here a copy of my substack post for today.
Journal entry inspired by Guy Duperreault’s Substack, 22 Dec 2022:
What a brave thing to do! That is to “unencumber” one’s self of one’s stuff. It has crossed my mind a time or two in my life that I should unencumber myself. We encumber ourselves with things that we think we need to help us move from one point in life to another. They are crutches, really. Until we find out that life its self is the object of the journey, things will always intrude into our consciousness as things needed and wanted. Our acquisitions and our experiences in acquiring begin at an early age to define who we are. In some respect these things give meaning to a life without meaning, or without a direction. Direction and meaning? We hear those two a lot being bandied about as we mature into adulthood; yet, we can live all our life and find neither.
It is a blessing to not have everything you want, but to have all that you need. The human instinct is to have everything that one wants, thinking that is what one needs.