Aparigraha, non-acquisitiveness, is the fifth and final yama. This
principle calls for repudiation of all possessions and circumstances not
essential for the maintenance of the body. Here again, the health-related
warrants underlying this principle are preservation of others’ well-being,
and elimination of disturbances to the mind. In this context, one should
reduce one’s concerns about the acquisition, maintenance, and loss of
material possessions. Spiritually, non-acquisitiveness breaks the bonds of
identification of self with possessions, and the pleasures and pains that go
with gaining, having, and losing them.Second Limb: Moral Commitments—Niyama
Íauca, purity, is of utmost importance in Yoga. Purity means physical
cleanliness, mental clarity, and moral rightness. Purity in physical cleanli-
ness—internal and external—is achieved by bathing, and by various
‘washings’ with air in pra ̄Ón ̄ay ̄ama, and with water and other means in
yogic physical purification techniques.^35 Especially important is “washing
away the impurities of the mind” [YBh 2.32]. In ordinary human life, im-
purity is pervasive, and yogic religious therapeutics replace impure physi-
cal and mental materials and actions with increasingly pure ones. What is
purity, in a yogic sense? The guÓnacalled sattvais purity itself. To purify is
to support the predomination of sattva, the guÓnathat is the nature of
buddhi, the power of intelligence. Functionally, something is pure to the
extent that it permits the manifestation of an entity’s true nature as
puruÓsa, and impure to the extent that it supports entanglement in prakÓrti,
thus impeding the expression of puruÓsa.
Purity may be understood in its various applications in terms of the
three ‘bodies’ or ‘vehicles’ composing the person [VC 87–97]. The gross
body is made pure particularly by consumption of sattvic food and drink.
The Bhagavadg ̄ıta ̄ classifies types of foods according to the three guÓnas
[BhG 17.7–10]. Sattvic food is light, fresh, and nourishing, and includes
grains, seeds, fruit, vegetables, and dairy foods, according to their agree-
ability to a given person’s constitution. Sattvic food promotes health,
arogya ̄ [BhG 17.8]. The stimulating rajasic foods are very hot, bitter,
sour, dry, salty, or excessively spiced, and include beverages containing
caffeine. Rajasic foods, the G ̄ıt ̄asays, cause pain and sickness, ̄amaya
[BhG 17.9]. Tamasic foods promote inertia and restrict pr ̄aÓna, the vital
life-energy. Tamasic foods include flesh, alcohol, and fermented foods
such as vinegar, and foods of any type that are stale or spoiled.^36 R. S.
Khare identifies two main Hindu formulations of the relationship of
food, Self, and ultimate reality. The G ̄ıta ̄ represents the position that
classical yoga as a religious therapeutic 109