11 Attachment
When we can observe any situation without being affected, then that would imply a non-attachment. And that is the true meaning of renunciation. Renunciation does not mean leaving your family and the world and going to some Himalayan cave. That’s escaping.
Many things in life are paradoxes. One can be totally devoted to someone and yet be non-attached. Now there is a difference between non-attachment and detachment. Detachment is to exclude oneself from all activities of life and just to be far away, to become reclusive. To be non-attached is to be able to partake of every activity of the mind and body and spirit and yet be above it all. Now, when ones goes into detachment, it could be a form of escape, where one does not face up to the responsibilities.
The real Self within us is ever unfolded and encompasses everything existent, tangible and intangible, animate and inanimate. When we speak of spiritual unfoldment we are referring to removing the veils of attachment to transitory values and recognizing them for what they are worth. We are gradually going beyond the shackles that tie us down to relativity. There’s nothing wrong with being in relativity; but being tied and weighed down, that is the condition we are trying to get away from.
Attachment is always generated by need.
If we direct our belief and faith to mundane things, we will achieve mundane things. We will achieve transitory things which can never be fulfilling. The need will always be there, and by fulfilling one mundane need, that one mundane need will create two mundane needs and two will create four.
The cause of all unhappiness and misery in this world is our attachment to name and form.
What man has to strive for is that tranquillity where all the praise in the world does not elate him, and all the blame in the world does not deflate him. This tranquillity brings about a certain kind of nonattachment.
We do not look deep enough. There is nothing in this world that is ugly. Everything is beautiful because it is created and it is a product of Divinity. Once we go beyond the surface value of a thing then we see the beauty within everything.
In performing any action there is a certain amount of desire. Desire produces attachment, but there are different kinds of desires. Desire for gain, name, fame, and power prods one to act in a certain manner to achieve a certain goal. The other kind of desire is the desire to serve, which causes non-attachment.
All unhappiness is produced by our worthless sense of attachment. We get attached to various aspects and facets of life which are transitory. As man unfolds spiritually, he will not only seek the true value within himself and the environment, but he will find it non-separate from himself. That is a sure sign of spiritual unfoldment.
To be able to love without attachment is the greatest achievement a human being can attain.
Unattachment means that you, very willfully, want to be apart. You become indifferent; like the old saying, you can have a crowd of people around you, yet you are lonely. You withdraw within yourself, not because of strength, but because of imbalance between introversion and extroversion.
Non-attachment is something totally different, where you are part of your entire environment, where you partake of everything in your environment, where you can love, where you can become one with another. Individuality ceases entirely: there is no you and me, there is just us. That is created by non-attachment. As the Bible would say, “To be in the world and yet not of it,” is non-attachment.
Non-attachment comes when you find unity in diversity and yet you are conscious of all the diversity around you. In spite of all the diversity which your conscious mind sees, there is that inner self within you that shines out all its glory and encompasses the entire universe in Oneness. Then you say, “Tat tvam asi,” which means, “Thou art That.” You progress still further to say, “Brahmasmi,”—”I am Brahma. I am the entire universe; nothing separates me from anything else.” And that is the state of Christhood. That is the state the man, Jesus reached when he could say, “I and my Father are One,” because the Father is omnipresent. The man Jesus reached the stage where he could become One with Omnipresence; that is what is meant by, “I and my Father are One.”
In the state of non-attachment we face our problems. We face them squarely and try to find solutions; and if we are sincere enough the solutions are there, because there is no problem that does not have the solution inherent within it.
We seek externally for happiness but the external happiness is temporary. It is only by finding the inner happiness that we could put some permanence into that which is temporary, because we go beyond name and form to see the essence which is eternal.
Could you really ever possess anything? . . . especially a human being, who is an individual, thinking entity.
You are seeking freedom within yourself. That is where freedom lies, nowhere else. We cannot rid anyone else of bondage nor create freedom for another person at any time. Bondage or freedom can only be created by oneself. When you view the world or your beloved through the aspect of bondage, you are not binding them but are binding yourself in a patterned way of thinking.
See all attachment as freedom for you can find it to be freedom even though you are attached, just by having a special mental attitude, and a spiritual strength and fortitude.
My love for her is important, not her. I am attached in that love for her, but in that attachment of love for her, is freedom. Because the power of Grace has given me the freedom to love.
With acceptance comes surrender. Although we are attached, the emphasis is not to be on the attachment. The emphasis can be on unmotivated surrender . . . unselfish surrender, unselfish giving of oneself as much as possible to the beloved.
“I” the little ego self, is not the doer. The doer is HE. When you have that idea, you become nonattached to your actions and then any action you perform will not add any samskaras to your mind. You will gradually become free of impressions which imprison you. When your actions and your thoughts become non-binding, then you enter the realms of freedom.