Towards Detachment

Tags

action, attachment, desires, detachment, freedom, goals, inaction, letting go

I emerge from the morning meditation with the sense that I am sitting in a field of brilliant white light, on a mound of white flow snow, warm as I can be… in reality, I am sitting on the floor, wrapped in my favorite comforter, with my eyes still closed as I can feel the brilliance of the morning outside. The hour has detached me from the external and transported me to a world within where I can experience deep stillness and silence, and even nothingness.

You may be familiar with the story of the catching of the spider monkeys in the tropics rainforests. The monkey’s favorite fruit is put in a bottle, whose mouth is just wide enough to fit the monkey’s open hand. The monkey grasps the fruit, but now his fist is too wide to retract through the neck of the bottle. All the monkey has to do to regain his freedom is to open his fist and let go of the fruit. And yet, his desire for the fruit is overwhelming, that he won’t let go — and the trappers have their catch.

In some ways, we live our lives like spider monkeys, driven by our dominant desires in the current stage of our life. We set goals, make plans and take action — driven by our attachment to the ‘fruit in the bottle’. We think that we are different than the spider monkey because we are smart enough not to be trapped by our attachments. And yet, the degree and frequency of fear, anger, anxiety, expectations and such that we experience speaks to our lack of detachment, doesn’t it?

So what is one to do to ‘break the glass’ and regain one’s freedom from the trap of our ever-multiplying desires? The Bhagavad Gita advises – “Do the work to the best of your ability, and let go of the desire to control the results.” This is the classic “letting go” approach to life, which is more often than not, much easier said than done, isn’t it?

In addition, some often (mis)interpret the “let go of the results” advice as an excuse for inaction! If I am to let go of my goals and results, why would I bother to perform any action anyway? The Bhagavad Gita clarifies – “Let not your giving up of the fruit of action, make you attached to inaction!”

As Swami Vivekananda summarizes – “Let your ideal be – work for work’s sake, love for love’s sake, duty for duty’s sake.” Let go of the fruit, do your best work, and be not attached to inaction. If we can imprint the ideal of ‘love for love’s sake’ in our heart, we can walk lightly the path of detachment that leads to true freedom — the sweetest fruit of all.

Kumud

P. S. Join us for our weekly gathering and chat in #Spiritchat twitter, Sunday Jan 30 at 9amET / 2pm GMT / 730pm India. Namaste ~ AjmaniK

The rose blooms… for love’s sake…

On Belonging and Detachment

Tags

attachment, belonging, detachment, purity, truth

In conversations about spirituality, the ideas of attachment and detachment come up regularly. The motivation for practicing ‘letting go’ is that it can potentially help us with our progress on the spiritual path. The question is: how does  detachment really help us grow spiritually?

According to the Indian sage Adi Sankaracharya, doing our work with an attitude of detachment to the rewards helps us purify our inner being or heart. It is when we purify our heart that we develop the burning desire to know the truth. It is when we want to know the truth that we develop the desire to work towards liberation. If we string together the pearls of purity, truth and an inner attitude of detachment, we can travel the path to liberation. 

The path sounds so simple, doesn’t it? And yet, it is often so difficult to walk in daily life. We are constantly getting more and more entangled in the web of attachment woven by our actions. We share something on social media or write a blog post, and we immediately await the ‘reward’ of likes, shares, reactions and comments from others. We are incessantly subjected to a stream of advertising, marketing, and messaging that tries to deepen our fear of missing out on the latest activity or product that will make our life ‘better’.

We want to embrace simplicity and minimalism by reducing our impact on the environment, and yet our desires and possessions seem to keep on increasing. So, what can we do to reclaim our attitude of detachment in our daily living and actions? The Yoga practice of aparigraha – not grasping in any way – can help us reverse course. Aparigraha is a simple, two part practice. The first part is to work towards identifying and then freeing ourselves of our existing attachments. The second part is to turn our focus towards our internal world, which will automatically reduce our focus and attraction to the ‘shiny objects’ of the external world.

Our two-part Yoga practice of Aparigraha or developing detachment can be viewed as an invitation to live our lives in a non-clinging, non-acquisitive, non-transactional and non-possessive manner. When we reduce the transactional nature of our actions, we begin to notice more lightness, purity, and caring emerge in our heart. If and when we truly care about our fellow beings, then giving and sharing can follow. Sharing can create space for us to belong to each other and replace the desire to constantly transact with one another. 

The sense of belonging can create a beautiful heart space. Loving detachment can bring us closer to that space. Working together, belonging and detachment can bring us closer to our divine potential. Let’s work towards that, shall we? 

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly chat, Sunday June 27 at 9amET / 630pm India on twitter. We will talk about detachment and its practice. We hope that you can join us for our #SpiritChat gathering, and grow our circle of belonging. Namaste – @AjmaniK

 

Detached from each other, they bloom best in a shared sense of belonging – hydrangeas

On Detachment and Inner Healing

Tags

attachment, detachment, healing, pain, spiritual

The idea or concept of “detachment” as a spiritual practice has great potential for those who want to lighten their load a little – and we all have life-moments when we need to lighten the load, don’t we?

One way in which we are urged to practice detachment is to be non-attached to the “outcome(s) of our actions”. We are encouraged to “just do the work” and have “faith” that the results will work out for the best – for our best, and for the best of our communities, and for the world on the whole. In fact, one of the central tenets that I grew up with, came from the famous passage of the Bhagavad Gita

Your right is to work only,
But never to its fruits;
Let not the fruits of action be thy motive,
Nor let thy attachment be to inaction.

This tenet is said to contain the essential principle of disinterestedness or detachment. It encourages us to develop a natural tendency, while doing our work, to remain deflected from disinterestedness – particularly if we think of fame or fortune along the way. The tenet of detachment goes beyond that though. It encourages us to work with a perfect serenity – steadfastness in inner composure – indifference to the results.

Those who act by virtue of an inner law ate on a higher level than those whose action(s) are dictated by their whims and emotions. This is the true inner poise and self-mastery. It is the true conquest of anger, sensitiveness, pride and ambition. It is the true Yoga – a temperance that is fired by equanimity in “success” and “failure”.

As I reflect on detachment and disinterestedness, I feel that there is a “hidden benefit” to their practice. I posit that true healing can be ours with any practice that can help us achieve inner poise and self-mastery, equanimity and an attitude that remains unruffled. Yes, external stressors will always surround us, for that is the price that we pay for living in this world of ours. But we do not have to live of this world – like raindrops on a lotus leaf, we can dance lightly with life and the rainstorms that it brings our way. We can maintain our inner health, and even attain healing, by focusing on detachment and disinterestedness – which can lead to renunciation.

“Detachment is a plant of slow growth; if you pluck the tender plant to look for the pods, you will be disappointed.” -Sri Sathya Sai Baba

So, how do we actively practice detachment? What can we renounce – outwardly and inwardly – that can bring us to health, trigger healing within us? Can detachment and disinterestedness lead us to “escapism” and/or lack of “accountability? Is it not our "duty” to be engaged and interested in helping solve world problems – rather than be detached and disinterested? Do you believe that detachment is even relevant to you and your life?

I hope that if you have read this far, you are thinking a little bit more about the role of “detachment” and “healing” in your life. If you would like to share your thoughts, I invite you to share with the #SpiritChat community – in the comments below, or in our live twitter chat (login via http://www.tchat.io/rooms/spiritchat ) at 9am EDT (UTC-4, 1pmGMT) on Sunday March 9th, 2014.

Kumud

P.S. Please note that due to the Daylight Savings Time change on March 9th 2014 (US clocks shift one hour ahead, from EST to EDT), #SpiritChat may occur one hour EARLY in your time-zone, at 1pm GMT. Thank you.

Here are the questions asked during the live chat. The answers are compiled in the storify summary. A full, complete transcript is also available at the hashtracking site (1239 tweets, 90 contributors, 6.4M timeline deliveries, 0.39M reach). Enjoy!

Ready? Q1. Detachment or non-attachment (the same?) - what does it look and feel like to you? #SpiritChat

Q2. What are some inner consequences of not practicing non-attachment...?  #SpiritChat

Q3. Non-attachment to the "fruits of our actions" - is it important? Is it feasible? How so? #SpiritChat

Q4. Detachment from thoughts and opinions - how could we accomplish this? What are the benefit(s)? #SpiritChat

Q5. What kind of detachment can lead to 'outer and inner' #healing? Or can it? #SpiritChat

Q6. "There is no detachment where there is no pain." Agree or Disagree? Why or why not? #spiritchat

Q7. Desire (for worldly objects) creates attachment, creating pain. How do we break this cycle to 'heal'? #spiritchat

Final Q8. To those who are wanting to practice non-attachment, attain healing, you would say...  #spiritchat