by Tosha Silver
They describe a Thai meditation master who was asked how we can find security in a world of impermanence. How can we relax and be happy when nothing stays the same?
“He answered by holding up a drinking glass and saying, ‘You see this goblet? For me, this glass is already broken. I enjoy it. I drink out of it. It holds my water admirably, sometimes even reflecting the sun in beautiful patterns. . . . But when I put this glass on a shelf and the wind knocks it over . . . I say, ‘Of course.’ When I understand that this glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious. Every moment is just as it is.’”
And that’s true offering.
THE THREE STAGES
Distinct levels of offering can occur in anyone. Once you know them, it’s much easier to not get deluded or trapped.
STAGE ONE
Here’s the starting line. In this stage, the ego is fully in the driver’s seat, saying, I want what I want. If I don’t get it, I’ll most definitely feel angry or hopeless, maybe forever. Resentment, despair, and frustration are familiar emotions. Attempts to control and manipulate reality crop up all day long.
Now, please don’t misunderstand me, there’s nothing wrong with this. Feelings are fine, and this process sure isn’t about blocking them. But this stage is simply a natural expression of the ego steadfastly fighting reality.
And here’s what’s funny. You could be a rock star with 10 million Instagram fans and still be smack at Stage One. You could even be a “yoga star” with groupies everywhere, and, yep, stuck like glue in Stage One. Because the whole world might be worshipping at your feet while in a way, you’re still a slave . . . to your own desires.
STAGE TWO
Here the awareness of offering becomes intellectual. You learn about surrender and inviting the Divine to lead. Often, this stage unfolds from the sheer exhaustion of not getting your desires. You start trying to “turn things over.”
However, the small self still firmly rules the roost. This stage is the trickiest because you can convince yourself that you’ve surrendered, when in fact the ego is simply using offering as a strategy to try to get what it wants. For example, I’ll offer my money to the Divine so I can become rich. You know you’ve moved to the next stage when you’re no longer attached to outcome.
I’ll give you an example. I was talking to a friend recently who’s quite familiar with these concepts. She complained, “You know, I’ve got so many decisions to make right now, I feel like my head’s gonna explode. Everything’s coming at once.”
“I know exactly what that feels like,” I agreed, “but you also know offering! What if you made a list and one by one gave each burden back to God?”
She rolled her eyes and waved her hand at me. “Oh, yeah, yeah,” she said, “I know all about offering.”
“No,” I persisted, perhaps annoyingly. “You know the idea of it, but you’re still thinking you are the one who carries it all.”
She went silent for a moment. And then, finally, she got it.
Later she told me she wrote everything down and prayed: “Dear God, help me prioritize. Let me know what matters first, then second, and what doesn’t even matter at all. Then please act through me and do it all. I can’t possibly handle all of this!”
As soon as she did that, she immediately felt spacious and relieved. And then voila! She moved to Stage Three.
STAGE THREE
In this stage, the me no longer carries the cumbersome center of identity. Everything that needs to happen starts to happen without you consciously “doing.” The Universe acts through you. And the outcome is none of your business.
There’s no need to judge or compare any of these stages. They’re all just seasons of unfolding, and over time, you may flip from one to another. So eventually, you might be ensconced in Three much of the time, yet occasionally get triggered and even pop back into One, clutching and grabbing obsessively. Then you just breathe and say, Let me return to what I know: everything is indeed out of control and God will hold it all. I can safely let go.
And then you’re back in Three.
APARIGRAHA: NONGRASPING
Aparigraha is one of the deepest secrets of Divine Flow. It means “Let everything that wants to go, go. And everything that wants to come, come.” The more the hands open to receive, the less they clutch at everything. Whether we’re talking about releasing old identities, belongings, or cords to others, it’s all the same.
Aparigraha knows that chasing and attaching reliably pushes away the good that wants to come. It’s a doorway to abundance. Think of chasing a feather. The air current you create by reaching and reaching for it keeps pushing it farther away. But if you become still, it may land right in your lap.
In my own life, this has often felt like one of the main remedial courses I was born to take, perhaps one I’d skipped or flunked in past lifetimes. (Oh my god, will you send that girl back to Aparigraha U again until she finally gets it right?) God has smacked my hand hard every time I’ve gripped something too tightly. Eventually, I longed to cooperate.
But here’s how bad it used to be. In my twenties, I lived for a while in an apartment building in New York that was so flimsy the water pipes froze and exploded one winter. Relying on the most basic common sense, available even to your average toddler, all the other residents had fled weeks earlier. But I was so terrified I might not find another spot that I became the lone holdout—as water drowned the whole building. Clothes, books, furnishings—everything lost because I didn’t trust another landing spot awaited. Yes, I was hanging on that hard. (No matter where you fall on the grasping scale, I hope that made you feel a little better. God can change anyone!)
For some of us, learning to let go is a hard-won victory, but for others it seemingly comes naturally. Here are two stories of people who instinctively understood how to embody aparigraha.
THE BLESSED FAILURE
Sometimes a bump in the road or a detour is really a blessing, no matter how maddening it seems. Once, during a huge, glorious storm, I ducked into a ceramics shop in Berkeley. As the rain pelted, I ended up in a conversation with the owner.
He told me that years ago he’d had three galleries and was super “successful.” He was so busy he worked from six in the morning till eleven at night.
Then, in the big Bay Area earthquake of 1989, one of his shops was destroyed. People commiserated, “Man, what horrible luck. How sad!” But he noticed how with two stores rather than three, he only worked from eight until seven. His life was simpler.
A few years later, massive fires came to the Oakland hills, and his second location burned to ashes. At that point, a friend said, “Dude, I’ve never known a nicer, sweeter guy who’s been more cursed. Bad luck follows you like a love-starved puppy.”
“But,” the owner said, grinning, “who really knows?” Because finally, with only one shop, his hours were nine to five, something he’d never even imagined.
Of course, by then, he had less money and needed to sell his large home. But his wife and kids were so thrilled to finally have time with him that no one cared much. They moved into a smaller place and became a real family for the first time.
“So, was it bad luck or good?” he asked me.
I smiled and looked outside.
A faint rainbow hung over the horizon.
ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK
Isn’t it strange to hear “Never give up” when sometimes that’s the most important spiritual tool you can use? For an old soul, sometimes nothing can change until you do. The Emmy-winning actor Uzo Aduba had to release her most passionate desire: to perform. She broke out of her prison of attachment only to end up incarcerated in a role of a different kind.
Uzo was playing in Godspell in New York City and auditioning for television pilots, waiting for her big break. It went like this: Try, try, try, followed by no, no, no. One day, she finished a particularly critical audition, feeling things had gone well yet sensing she still wouldn’t be picked since she’d been 20 minu
tes late. This failure, she reasoned, would be “God’s Universe” telling her, “this is not for you, so stop trying to take something that’s not yours.” On the subway home, she “prayed it up” for a clear sign to quit acting and head to law school. She surrendered fully.
Forty-five minutes later, right after walking into her apartment, she got a phone call. The part of Suzanne “Crazy Eyes” Warren in the TV show Orange Is the New Black was dropped straight into her lap.
VAIRAGYA: DETACHMENT
Vairagya means even more than detachment. I love that it actually means without color, as in “you see clearly, without the tint of emotions and desires.” You may have preferences, but you’re not at the mercy of them.
Often people will cavalierly say, “Well, it is what it is,” but down deep they actually mean Screw this! I completely hate that it is what it is. But vairagya is when you really feel I can accept this.
It’s part of radical acceptance. The overlay of resistance falls away.
You think, It’s just how it is right now. An hour later, all could be different.
THE SACRED MEAL
When a particularly intense desire has been cooked in the fires of offering, it transmutes into a preference. And often the process is painful as hell because lifetimes of attachments, delusions, and addictions are being stripped away. You may feel as though you’re bathing in turpentine.
But over time, when the offering is sincere, you become free of that bondage. You soften and let go. You feel neutral and spacious.
Vairagya has come.
You know when it’s arrived because you no longer feel shackled.
You’re no longer a totally crazed addict.
You finally feel whole in your own skin, with or without the delivery of that desire.
You might even passionately adore receiving this “whatever,” but you’re no longer enraged or dispirited without it.
That’s often exactly when the preference can finally be received and enjoyed . . . as a sacred meal.
Allow me, Divine, to offer You my deepest longings, trusting You to know exactly how to handle them. Lead the way and free me from my chains. And please let me know my own wholeness and freedom most of all.
So here’s a story about vairagya. Someone thinks they’re going to get their big break, but their desire strangles them like a boa constrictor. Vairagya allows them to get free.
No One Is Your Source (No, Not Even Oprah)
A few years ago, after a vinyasa class, I ran into an author I knew. When I asked how things were going, he wondered, smiling, if I wanted to hear about his “writing tragedy.” Of course!
He told me he’d come out with a big yoga book, and a friend offered to get him on SuperSoul Sunday. He was beside himself with excitement. Finally, he’d be discovered. He saw the Broadway marquee of his future stardom glimmering around the next bend.
And then . . . the test began. His interview was scheduled, then changed. And changed again. On the final round, it was moved up to where he only had 48 hours to prepare.
He was horrified that Amazon would have no time to fill their coffers with his book. He begged for another date to no avail. He’d finally be getting his “big break” without his work even being available.
This threw him into such despair, he was little more than a robot on the show. Laughing, he told me that he might be the only author ever featured by Oprah to have zero happen.
But I had a different perspective. Maybe he didn’t get the riches he was expecting, but what if he’d gotten something far more valuable? After all, he’d written a book on yoga, which in Sanskrit actually means yoked to the Divine. What if God took him on that wild voyage to acquire vairagya? What if it was one of those perfectly handcrafted-for-his-own-freedom experiences? What if it made him a true yogi and not just a chaser of outcomes? What if he could finally let go?
Feel, Then Offer
Detachment is sometimes mistaken for turning off feelings or going numb. It’s certainly not “spiritual bypassing,” which means ignoring the most vulnerable parts of our human selves to sound evolved. No, not at all. It just means you feel, then offer.
The other day, my friend Loreen told me how frustrated she was as a stepmother to three kids. For help, she’d been listening to a certain recording about detachment. It said, “Just turn off all bad feelings and refuse to indulge them. Lock them in a vault.”
“So how’s that working for you?” I laughed.
She winced. “Terribly. I’m furious. So many ridiculous things that have gone down. I’ve put everybody’s needs ahead of my own for years, yet continue to be scapegoated anyway. How could I just shove this away? Can’t I have feelings?”
I wholeheartedly agreed, suggesting she write everything down and burn it. Then do everything possible to really feel those emotions. (We discussed many ways in Week Four.) A coconut could also be broken as an offering. As Loreen did this, she began to see how she needed to set much stronger boundaries with everyone in the family.
Vairagya comes through owning that precious vulnerability of our feelings, then offering it all. If you just hide your emotions in some psychic footlocker, they’re guaranteed to detonate later, causing much suffering and misunderstanding.
Feelings can indeed be felt and then offered. This brings detachment . . . and the right action at the right time.
ISHVARA PRANIDHANA: SURRENDER
Surrender is at the core of being Abundance. You move into a joyous flow of giving and receiving. You let yourself be used by the Divine.
As true offering arises, it becomes easy to let go, because you start to trust that more will always come in. You make the shift from mine . . . mine . . . mine to God’s . . . God’s . . . God’s. Such a difference!
For the last 11 years, I gave everything to an expensive manifesting program and chased every longing. I became so exhausted that I could barely see straight. But here’s what’s funny. All that time, I’d been visualizing a work-at-home job. Nothing ever happened. But after just a month of surrendering and doing the Change Me Prayer, my current company simply handed me that job. Same pay, same benefits, and no two-hour commute. Thank you for explaining offering in such a practical way.
It’s easy to fall into blaming yourself for “failure at manifesting.” But that’s all based in Stage One thinking, at the level of ego. Instead, learning to surrender and open to Source will often solve the problem.
Over time, reciting the Full Abundance Change Me Prayer brings a Divine cushion that holds and supports you. You’re no longer in freefall. Many of your fears may well evaporate. You start to trust you’ll be okay with or without your desire; you tap into the peace that comes when demands end. You sense that every true need will indeed be met, one way or another.
Once you make room for this holy plan, you no longer insist, “My way at all cost!” You start to say, “God, show me how to live this. Let me at least pretend for now that You are truly my Provider.” As you open this way, prosperity can come from unlimited, unexpected sources. Love is far more creative than the rigid, constrained, yet exhausted ego.
I’m scared if I let go and surrender to the Divine, I won’t get what I really want.
One of the biggest misconceptions is that the Divine is separate from us. But when you understand that you’re actually surrendering to your own inner Great Self, your own wisdom and clarity, it’s so different. (However, as you know from Week Five, often this involves becoming the committed parent of that terrified kid.)
And here’s the truth: Love always runs the show whether we surrender or not. A brand-new world shimmers open when you choose to cooperate.
LET’S MAKE A DEAL
I get that we’re learning from every experience, but the ones that are challenging are hella challenging! So why can’t the Divine just send a lesson plan or something? Why must this always feel like an episode of Let’s Make a Deal, where you guess what’s behind the door?
Anyone else remember that game show? I wa
tched it every day after junior high school. If you picked the correct door, you might win a set of living room furniture, a freezer full of ice cream sandwiches, or a ski boat. But if you’re an old soul, the prize behind each door is aparigraha, vairagya, or ishvara pranidhana.
And that’s the lesson plan too. If we instantly got every desire here on Earth, there’d be no incentive to develop these sacred qualities.
Very often people find my work because the “other way” of chasing and grasping has crashed and burned like a meteor. But that painful destruction is a moment of tremendous grace as well. Because when the ego finally sees the utter madness of trying to control and lead, you come to a sacred crossroads in your own evolution.
Someone once said to me, “The angels all applaud when this letting go occurs.” You’re finally ready to let something greater than the ego take over. True intimacy with the Divine can begin.
This is the road to freedom, but not because all longings vanish. Instead, desires melt into preferences and no longer own you.
Of course, when things get challenging, it’s natural to have preferences. The other night, I deeply preferred that my cat not throw up that hairball in bed with me. I equally preferred not to lose five hours of writing as I did last week when my Mac crashed out of nowhere.
But here’s how it goes: Your interest in true offering takes precedence over all else because the soul is hell-bent on freedom. Hell-bent.
This exquisite way is straight out of the ancient scriptures. And isn’t it lovely to know that this route can be done in modern-day life and not just 10 centuries ago in India or Persia? God is just as numinous and available as ever!
So what if you look at your life right now without any judgment and ask, Which quality am I learning? Which crown jewel? Whatever comes to mind first is your curriculum.
For example, let’s say you recently lost a job that you were very attached to. It could be a chance for ishvara pranidhana, or surrender into what is. You’re not having to accept it forever, only for this exact moment. By opening to Divine Source, something superior can come next.
