Definition: Derived from the word ‘virāga’. Joining ‘vi’, meaning without and ‘rāga’ meaning passion, feeling, emotion, colour, interest.

Card Symbology:
Floating is about effortless effort, a kind of active surrender. The more non-attached we become, the more easily we can float through life and be supported by existence.

“Marvelous, marvelous! All sentient beings have the Buddha’s wisdom and virtue, but they fail to realize it because they cling to deluded thoughts and attachments.”

— Shakyamuni Buddha

Sanskrit

Vairagya

English

Non-attachment

Pronunciation

vai-raag-yuh

1.15 drista anushravika vishaya vitrishnasya vashikara sanjna vairagyam

Mastery over desires, both for what is known to bring pleasure as well as for what one has heard will bring it, is the state of non- attachment, or vairagya. — Patanjali

Exploration:

Vairagya is a liberating state that allows you to experience life without being controlled by desire. One translation of vairagya is transparency, like a prism that light passes through. In a yogic sense, transparency means to be without clinging or resistance. Normally, the mind is restless because it is seeking objects of desire to relieve it from the restlessness it is experiencing – in this sense it is like an addiction.

Desirelessness is a completely different quality of consciousness that leads the mind to rest in the Self, from which is found the real fulfillment we unconsciously seek through many habitual patterns.

Since the yogi’s laboratory is our very body and mind, and life is the ultimate experiment, we become better scientists when we enhance our perception and drop our biases. This prevents you from getting caught up in the “drama” of your ideas, attitudes and opinions, where you’re always wanting things to be “this way” or “that way”. 

Discover what it means to be the eye of the storm, the silence amidst the sound, the empty boat on life’s waves. As you move towards your spiritual center you’ll start dropping things that were never yours to begin with, and the lighter you’ll begin to feel. Unburdened by the beliefs, dramas and compulsions that used to control you, life is experienced with a subtler awareness and its simple pleasures enjoyed with greater ease.

A story:

Remember the parable of Chuang Tzu: “If a man crosses a river and an empty boat collides with his own boat, even if he is a bad tempered man he will not become very angry.

But if he sees a man in the boat, he will shout at him to steer clear. If the shout is not heard, he will shout again, and yet again, and begin cursing. And all because someone is in the boat. Yet if the boat were empty, he would not be shouting, and not angry.

If you can empty your own boat crossing the river of the world, no one will oppose you, no one will seek to harm you”

 

 

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