People do not only identify with the material goods but also with various opinions, even with their spiritual goals. Aparigraha is often synonymous to simplicity or frugality. Indeed the human being has limited needs, unlike what we have been used to thinking. The elimination of unnecessary needs liberates a person, with the result of making him/her perceive the higher spiritual world. Getting rid of any fake need constitutes both a victory and an action. Apart from the needs of the physical body, we must also shake off our social aspirations and later on other pursuits and goals. This elimination indeed offers more than it takes. During their lives people exchange the stars for dimes. They whine for their bad fate and deal with useless details, thus depriving themselves from the potential of expanding their goals. In Buddhism there is a vow called “bathisatvi”, according to which the person who takes the vow can enter Nirvana only if all the souls, the plants and even the stones become enlightened. This unattainable goal makes it possible for someone to achieve the unconceivable. This offers the energy and the understanding that human perfection is endless. On the contrary, a limited goal diminishes strength, takes away freedom, limits development. If we don’t dream of the impossible, it will never be accomplished. In the beginning you will need to have goals, but think of the biggest ones, do not think that you cannot achieve them. This is only a thought. After the perfection of your spirit, you must abandon all your goals. It is impossible to find freedom when you have goals, in the same way that it is impossible to enter Nirvana when you pursue it. In the end of the path we need to leave even our highest goals behind, so as to become lighter and attain the unconceivable. This is the transition from action to no-action. No-action is the action that does not have any aim.

Once people asked a monk who had reached freedom: “How do you live now?” And he answered: “I carry water, I chop wood.” So people told him: “We do that as well.” And he answered: “You are not devoted to what you are doing, but you do that in order to achieve something, to have a result, a reward. I take pleasure from the act.”

We have forgotten how to enjoy life and simple actions. We look for the reward, without knowing what to do with it sometimes. We always seek the result, we run our whole lives towards a finish line, but this finish line is death. We need to stop identifying, live in the present, enjoy life, be satisfied with our fate. We look for something outside ourselves; we want to look like our idols and in this way we turn away from the truth, from ourselves and forget our unique personality. The result is that we live through the opinion of others, blocking forever our path towards creativity and freedom. Go towards yourself; you are neither better nor worse than the others, but you are unique. This moment, your personality is buried under the lack of awareness in society, the social aims and programs. Get rid of it all, because it kills you and brings you unhappiness, affliction and misery. Be yourself. Live every moment, take off your “glasses”, do not think whether you’ll be accepted by the others or not; accept yourself on your own, totally, do not feel pity. For yourself, you are the best, when you are under the control of your own spirit. Conflict is generated by the programs of society which do not let you be yourself and hold you back. In order to practice aparigraha, reveal your desires, analyze them, do not identify with them, relax and exhale freely so that you eliminate them.