OUR MOST COMMON ATTACHMENTS
Striving after more and more things leads to the realization that you cannot ever fulfill yourself from the outside. It leads you to hoarding and ceaselessly comparing yourself to what others are accumulating. It takes your gaze away from the eyes and hearts of those that you encounter, to the contents of their wallets and material possessions.
2. ATTACHMENT TO OTHER PEOPLE
Detachment in human relationships does not mean an absence of caring. It means caring so much that you suspend your own value judgments about others and relate to them from a position of love rather than attempting to control or judge them. In learning to become less attached you also learn a fundamental truth about loving relationships. Love is for giving, not for taking or for demanding.
3. ATTACHMENT TO THE PAST
Ralph Waldo Emerson reminds us, “Be not the slave of your own past –plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep, and swim far, so you shall come back with self-respect.”
4. ATTACHMENT TO YOUR FORM
Being exclusively involved with the outer appearance makes it difficult to see that your true essence is a formlessness that resides inside the body. Paramahansa Yogananda, writing in The Divine Romance, put it thus:
The saints say this is how you must treat the body, as a temporary residence. Don’t be attached to it or bound by it. Realize the infinite power of the light, the immortal consciousness of the soul, which is behind this corpse of sensation.
5. ATTACHMENT TO IDEAS AND RIGHTEOUSNESS
Because you are so attached to what you already believe, you insist on considering everyone who disagree with you wrong. It is fine to have strong opinions about anything that you choose, but the moment you become attached to these ideas and thereby define yourself by them, you shut out the possibility of learning another point of view.
6. ATTACHMENT TO MONEY
I firmly believe that having money is a benefit in life, and I have nothing negative to say about it. Money is fine, and working to make money is part and parcel of modern living. I have found that those who are able to do what they love and keep themselves focused on living that way have the amount of money they need come into their lives. They seem to keep that money circulating, using it to serve others, rather than letting the accumulation of capital and cost of things be the dominant themes in life.
7. ATTACHMENT TO WINNING
The test of true awakening is the ability to be detached from the need to win. When we are attached to winning, it becomes an obsession, and we suffer when we do not emerge as the winner. A great test of character is how we react when we lose. Attachment to winning makes many human beings feel like losers.
An attachment to winning almost always goes hand in hand with a need to fight our opponents. The language of competition is similar to that of warfare.
As you examine each of the above attachments carefully and see if they apply to you, remember, it is possible to love things within each one of these categories and still be detached from them.- Dr Wayne Dyer
A TALE OF TWO SISTERS
Once a beautiful and well-dressed woman visited a house. The master of the house asked her who she was and she replied that she was the goddess of wealth. The master was delighted and so treated her nicely.
Soon after, another woman appeared who was ugly looking and poorly dressed. The master asked who she was and the woman replied that she was the goddess of poverty. The master was frightened and tried to drive her away, but the woman refused to depart, saying, “The goddess of wealth is my sister. There is an agreement between us that we are never to live separately; if you chase me out, she goes with me.” Sure enough, as soon as the ugly woman went out, the other woman disappeared.
Men must realize that birth goes with death, fortune goes with misfortune, bad things follow good things. Foolish people dread misfortune and strive after good fortune, but those who seek Enlightenment must transcend both of them and be free of worldly attachments.- Book of Buddhism
Chandru Gidwani
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