Tendency to collect

Some months back I realized how many things we were storing in our house which we did not need. Anything for which we don’t find immediate utility, we have tendency to keep it somewhere. So I started throwing out all such things. When wife protested, I reminded her that during our childhoods our mothers would store and preserve things because of many valid reasons. They were running large families and hence requirements were varied; they also had multiple kids of different ages with different demands; and were too busy to visit the market so easily to buy small things and even shops those days did not have everything. But these days we have small families and our requirements are fixed, so we need not follow the old pattern. So I threw out lots of things that we did not need; and gave away some things of utility to the baai (maid). Around the same time I watched a show on National Geographic channel on TV telling how American families have often this habit of collecting or hoarding things. It showed families which stored and kept everything in their homes, then bought cupboards to accommodate all those stuffs; and then went on to keep bigger houses to accommodate all those cupboards. Effectively American homes were much bigger than average houses as compared to some other developed nations and impacting their economy severely. The programme anchor made the respondents review their stuff and classify what items were indeed needed and which were never to be needed. They were astonished to find how much garbage they were storing in their house!

This reminds me of a Sanskrit word around which a philosophy in Hinduism and Jainism is built - Aparigraha. I have read about it many times in books and when I read about lives of Rishis and Sanyasis from Ramakrishna order, I can see that all those followed it. Swami Vivekananda also followed it and though it is not named as a concept, it has been integral part of lives of all the great persons in India. When I remember my sage like grandfather I think he was following it all along in his life…

Once again I have realized that a lot of space in our cupboards is occupied by clothes I do not wear and do not plan to wear. So I am starting to give away those items to our baai or poor people around us. It would be great to keep only those things in our house which we truly need. Whether we see it from economic point of view or cultural or psychological, from all angles this concept of aparigraha is worth practicing by us. I think if we inculcate it in our way of life, we shall be much happier and clear-headed than we are without it. Last time when I was cleaning our house of unnecessary stuffs, I discovered several important stuffs which were ‘lost’ amidst the clutter. I had taken it as a great symbolism also – if we discard all that is not needed, we can discover what we truly need. Since life is all about self discovery and realization, how could we think of achieving these if we make all important things lose and hide amongst all unimportant stuffs?