Even if you follow all the steps, you never know how it’s going to turn out
I stood at the kitchen counter chatting with my daughter and tearing basil leaves into our food processor. I had already ground walnuts, pignolis, and garlic into a paste and was now adding the heart of one of my favorite concoctions, pesto. When blended into the paste with olive oil, this particular crop of basil created a shocking emerald green color. I wondered aloud if its flavor would be stronger or sweeter because of its hue.
As I mixed in the parmesan cheese and the bright green faded to a quieter color, I answered my own question. “You never know exactly what you’re going to get when you make pesto. You just have to follow the steps and be willing to enjoy however it turns out.”
Over my shoulder, I said to my daughter, “There’s probably a parenting lesson in there somewhere.” I laughed as I continued, “You follow the instructions – feeding them, loving them, mixing in a little education, and then sending them on their way. But the best part of having kids is that, like each batch of pesto, they surprise you in how they turn out.”
It’s best to start small when trying to let go of your desire for particular results
This willingness to be surprised by something you’ve poured ingredients, time, effort, and love into is a skill that Patanjali teaches in his Yoga Sutras (YS 1.15) and that is nurtured every time we step onto a yoga mat. In Sanskrit it’s called vairagya, which is the ability to let go of any desire for the fruits of our efforts.
To show you how hard this skill is, and how valuable it is to a well-lived life, let me start with a simple example. There you are in your fifteenth, or thirtieth, or one-hundredth yoga class and, just like he did in your first yoga class, your teacher says, “Touch your toes.” And you fold in half reaching valiantly for your toes, determined that this will be the time you don’t have to bend your knees to grab them. You even remember to exhale while you do so.
Because you’re a regular, non-acrobatic human being who sits in a lot of chairs and also runs or walks 15 or more miles a week, your toes remain just out of reach. You have to bend your knees. As you do so, you have a choice. You can choose to be miserable about this failure, or you can choose to be excited and curious about how things are progressing in your forward-fold-journey.
If you choose the first option, you will likely roll your mat back up feeling defeated. You might be thinking that the whole practice rotted because you were not able to touch your toes. You might be questioning the value of all of these classes when you’re seeing absolutely no change in this, the most basic of yoga postures.
When you do let go, you open yourself up to the possibility of being surprised
If you choose the second option, you are practicing vairagya. If you feel excited and curious, you have managed to let go of your desire for the fruits of your efforts. Doing so gives you the space to notice the fruits of your efforts which, without the blinders that only allow you to see one small “failure,” might surprise you.
First, you have actually figured out the breathing! You exhaled while folding forward! Second, your whole practice is feeling smoother, more seamless, requiring less thinking and allowing more enjoyment. Third, though you still must bend your knees in a forward fold, you also notice a lot of change in the flexibility of your legs in other postures. This is exciting! You are indeed feeling excited and curious. What else might change next?!
Do you see? Allowing the fruits of your efforts to surprise you (vairagya) not only keeps you in the game, but it changes the way you approach things. And not just things on your yoga mat. Obviously, this skill (I almost typed mindset, but it’s so challenging for us that it truly is a skill) is easier when what you’re working on is a forward fold or pesto than bigger “projects” like raising a child.
But, if you keep practicing with small stuff, I promise that you will find yourself feeling similarly free of the need for particular results no matter what you’re pouring your time, energy, and love into. I have no doubt that you will begin to welcome and relish surprises in every aspect of your life – many of which you never could have anticipated.
Will you join me in asking yourself, “Where in my life is the way I think things should turn out blinding me to how things might turn out?” It can be a scary question, but it’s very much worth wondering about. Just think – like the oddly green pesto I made, maybe whatever it is will turn out to be amazing!
Vairagya is introduced in the fifteenth verse of the first chapter of The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Depending on the translation it can be defined as letting go or detachment. No matter how it’s defined, and no matter how small or grand our act of letting go, it always leads to the freedom to live at peace with life as it is right now.