Aparigraha...What is This?

I had a situation this past week that I thought I should share, because there is a huge lesson involved. About a month ago we had a sewage backup in our basement which involved gutting the basement and thowing away everything that was down there(including all of my one year old son's first birthday and Christmas toys). It was very sad. Then to make it worse, the problem was in our pipes below our house. We had to rip the basement, all the concrete, replace the pipe and then fill the basement with concrete. It was a big, expensive mess. In the middle of the chaos I broke down. We could no longer live in our house and all of our 'stuff' was ruined. I was so upset with what we had lost, but then had a glimpse of reality. The reality was, it could have been worse. Then I started to think about all of the people in the world that have lost their homes to other disasters and that thought me made think about all of the people in ther world who have no place to call 'home'.
All of a sudden I was full of gratitude and reminded myself of everything in my life that I should be grateful. When I went through this list in my head it was all of things that have no monetary value attached: it was my healthy, happy son and husband, it was my mom and dad and all of their love and support, it was my beautiful friendships and family, it was my country and how safe I feel living here, it was my health...all of things I was thankful for were of of simple nature. In yoga we practice Aparigraha which in English means non-attachment. The idea is to not attach yourself to anything, because at any time it could be gone. Take a moment and think about all of the 'stuff' you are attached to; it could even be non-tangible thoughts. Now for a moment imagine if you lost all of this stuff and all of these thoughts. How would you feel? For a moment it may be kind of scary, but it would be ok. The lesson I learned from all of this, is that we are so blessed with ambundance and we should be grateful for this. And, we should take more time and remind ourselves of what really enriches our lives. Is it the house we live in or the home we create with love, happiness and health that makes us really happy?