The Yoga of Having My Car Stolen

On Friday night, my car was stolen. As yoga has taught me to do in so many other situations, I have been asking, What can I make of this situation? How can I use it to know myself better?

I don’t believe that everything happens for a reason, and as such, I don’t think that the universe schemed to have my car stolen to teach me a lesson. I do believe (as the Tantra teaches) that when things happen to us, we can choose how to respond. So I am choosing to use this experience to learn more about my relationship to material possessions as well as to the concept of stealing itself.

Aparigraha is the fifth yama described in the Yoga Sutras, and it is often translated as “non-hoarding” or “non-possessiveness,” and it is common to study this yama by cultivating non-attachment to material things. Tantric interpretations usually add a twist, and it is no different with this yama. Douglas Brooks, a scholar of Sanskrit and Tantric Philosophy, translates this yama as “never without attachments.” He says that since we are never without attachments, we need to make conscious choices about what things we bring into our lives, and what things we don’t. So, according to Brooks, Aparigraha is, not an attempt to do away with our attachments, but an invitation to acknowledge the attachments and then make conscious choices about how to act on them.

I chose, a little over ten years ago while living in Hawai’i, to purchase an almost new Honda Civic with only 11,000 miles on it. When I moved back to New England, I chose to ship the car to LA and flew there to meet it. The car carried my father and me across the country, through twelve states, six national parks, and two Canadian provinces, and then it carried me to my new home in Western Massachusetts. It has served me well, reliably bringing me to work and home again, and it has carried me more than 160,000 miles and yet, I also choose to see it for what it is is — a car made of metal, wires, and other things. I remind myself that no one can ever actually take from me the things that have real value. The things that truly matter, at the deepest, most core level, are not material. . . And still, throughout the day on Saturday, I kept remembering things that had been in the car: a beloved meditation cushion, a fairly new pair of yoga pants, a new pair of shoes, a yoga top, and my driving glasses. I felt (feel) the loss of these things, which (with the exception of the meditation cushion) is more the pang of spending money to replace them than anything else. I remind myself that they are objects that I have projected things onto. I can replace them, or I can do without them, and I can allow my attachment to them to dissolve. And this experience of unexpected material loss is helping me to look at that, and therefore cultivate a deeper relationship with Aparigraha.

Prior to discovering that the car was missing, we had been cleaning our house, and we continued to do so after the discovery — caring for our sweet home with love and devotion. As I cleaned, I reflected on the importance of giving attention and care to the things that I own, while at the same time realizing that at any moment, something unpredictable might happen that could forever alter or even destroy the object that I am caring for. My relationship to the material world will always be temporal. The process of cleaning my home is less about owning the home and more about treating the space I live in with sacred care. Caring for the things that are in my temporary possession is about the relationship I have with things in the present, rather than a guarantee of any future relationship. It is a choice to acknowledge an attachment, even while honoring that impermanence is an inevitable aspect of all relationships.

The car was mine for a time, and I was attached to it. And it served me well. Perhaps it will be discovered and will serve me longer, and perhaps it won’t be. If it is discovered, I will clean it and care for it. If it is not found, then it will be time to choose to let it go and move on.

As for people stealing things from me, I have been surprised that I have not felt afraid or even violated, and I keep wondering why I don’t. I think it’s because this doesn’t feel at all personal. It doesn’t feel like someone took my car to hurt me or to attempt to diminish me. In my search for understanding, I turned to another yama – Asteya, the third yama in the Yoga Sutras. The classical translation of Asteya is “non-stealing.” The Tantric interpretation, according to Douglas Brooks, is that we already have everything we need, so we don’t need to (and can’t) take it from someone else; we are all sufficient unto our own joy.

And it seems to me, that through the experience of having my car stolen, I have been able to glimpse this truth: that no one can really take anything from me because I already have everything I need. And this everything is intrinsic — it cannot be taken. As Douglas teaches, I am sufficient unto my own joy. I think, perhaps, that my gratitude for the spiritual and emotional gifts in my life is stronger than the feeling of having something material taken from me. And for this, I have even more gratitude.

It is also true that I am assuming that the car was probably taken by teenagers or young adults, as that is, sadly, the profile of Honda thefts in our city, and this stirs up deep compassion in me. And though I hold the people who took my car responsible for their own actions and choices — and I hope that they learn (and choose) to make conscious choices grounded in integrity as they move forward in their own lives — I also know they are part of a dysfunctional social system. Our public school system is failing (or has failed) them, and the current state of the economy is hitting people in the urban, low income areas (like my neighborhood) even more profoundly than it is other parts of the country. I struggle to both hold the individuals accountable and to understand the context that they are operating in. I am painfully aware that I am privileged to even have a spiritual practice. I am privileged to have my needs met on a daily basis and, therefore, to be content with what I have. I want for there to be more appealing opportunities available to young people, so they have avenues for feeling successful and don’t feel the need to take from others. And, ultimately, I want for young people to cultivate Aparigraha for themselves, despite the false promises of our hyper-commercial culture that tell us that we are what we own. Perhaps, the opportunity before me, in having my car stolen, is to offer a yoga class to urban youth in my area. And, if I do so, to offer the teachings without expectation of the outcome. . .

UPDATE: July 31, 2009. My car was recovered two days ago. It is in decent shape, though the ignition was ripped out. My yoga clothes, meditation cushion, and other personal belongings are still in the car and in the same condition I left them in. The insurance appraiser will be coming on Monday. . .