A little lesson on non-attachment through my mala beads

Several months ago, a very talented friend made me my very first set of mala beads. I immediately fell in love with them and wore them all the time. I somehow managed to work the tassel loose, but due to my attachment, I continued to wear them but only when I taught class, tucking them carefully into my shirt as to not allow any gravitational force on the tassel.

I have been teaching on the yamas and on this particular day I was on the fifth yama, aparigraha - non-attachment.  Can you already see where this story is going?  As usual, right before I left to teach, I pulled my malas out of their bag to put them on.  Only this time, there was a beautiful, gentle flow of each independent strand of the tassel as it fell to the ground at my feet.  It was quite pretty, but since I had to run out of the door, I couldn't take a picture.  I scooped up each and every string and placed it in my bag and hung the beads around my neck.  No time to grieve, forced to let go of the attachment to the beautiful tassel.

Can the universe be anymore magical than that? If I'm going to teach non-attachment, then I guess I needed to be living it at that instant!

The final moment of letting go was the day I wrapped up my beautiful malas and gently placed them in the mailbox to be shipped back for my new tassel to be added. Lucky for me my friend blessed me with some stand ins. It's nice that when we choose, or sometimes are forced to let go of something, it makes room for something else to move into our lives. We don't always know what it will be or when it will show up, but it does. That's the magic of the universe.

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