Since my eyes became crooked from slipping off a cliff and smashing my face into a boulder 11 years ago (you should see the rock!), I’ve noticed kids who are too young to know “better” will often stare at me without shame for a laughably long time. While I’m definitely disabled, when I live into this label I suffer, because I get frustrated I have to walk everywhere or rely on buses/rides, or become angry that cooking, cleaning, writing, and many other tasks take me longer than “normal” people. Interestingly, hurt also comes when I over-identify with positive labels like being a man, dad, husband yoga teacher, and writer.
Something I love about the way yoga and Christianity play well together is a prime aim of both is freedom. Saint Paul tells us Jesus gifted us with a new way of being human, a blissful way of being that sees beyond the limiting labels of man and woman, insider and outsider, citizen and foreigner, and other distinctions that divide us to the Truth of our universal unity and harmony. Aparigraha, the yogic principle of non-attachment, meanwhile, gives us a practice for experiencing this enlightened way of living.
One aspect of this game-changer is NOT attaching our identity, worth, belonging, or dignity to our labels, titles, or doings. Aparigraha invites us to allow “it” to be in us without defining us, realize words can never describe our souls, and remember form does not define our formless essence, spirit. With this in mind, today I invite us to practice non-attachment, being one-humanity, and enjoying the bliss beyond words and boundaries.
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MUCH Love and Many Hugs,
Lang
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