Aparigraha: what is enough?

Relation to the glossary

The glossary entry /glossary/aparigraha remains the short term room. This guide is the long reading. They should point at each other, not compete.

Yoga Sutra 2.30

Patañjali lists the yamas — ethical restraints — in Yoga Sutra 2.30. Aparigraha is commonly rendered as non-grasping or non-possessiveness, alongside ahimsa, satya, asteya, and brahmacharya. A teaching page with the Sanskrit is at yogastudies.org. The eight-limb map lives at limbs.yoga.org.

Paraphrase, not a claimed exclusive translation: do not clutch at more than you need, and notice the fear that says “never enough.”

Enough is not deprivation

Aparigraha is not a celebration of going without medicine, housing, or safety. Hoarding and clinging are the problem named here; poverty is not a spiritual achievement. Share what you can share without harming the people who depend on you.

In a gift-economy register, this looks like reuse, repair, and passing along what still has use — not dumping broken things on people who cannot refuse them. See GiftingEconomy.org’s organization checklist for design questions: https://giftingeconomy.org/for-organizations/checklist.

Sources

• Yoga Sutra 2.30
• limbs.yoga.org
• Glossary: aparigraha
• Organization checklist

Links were checked for a successful response before this preview. Verse wording on these pages is paraphrase with verse numbers; read the linked editions for full translations.