The true Detachment

 

The true detachment

 

Summary:

 

True detachment is not indifference, nor lack of interest, nor sacrifice, nor deprivation. True detachment is possible when you have found something else to attach yourself to: to detach yourself, to let go you must have something to attach to in replacement and this replacement must release you. This is the purpose of The Path, of its practice: to propose this to you. We call this «thing» the Holy-Name or Word, but we can give it other names, like Satnam, Te, Grace, etc.

When it comes to detachment, as a virtue indispensable to spirituality, some worry and talk about the usefulness of enjoying its senses, the beauty they see in getting involved in this world and in human relations.

 

The same do not understand that one is wary of the race for money. They explain that it takes a house to live in and a car to get around and ask what the point of long studies would be, if there were no hope of legitimate returns, etc.

 

They also say that it is necessary to love one’s spouse, parents, children and friends, that to remain lonely and poor is not desirable. They are right!

 

Detachment is not lack of interest, insensitivity, misanthropy or social relegation. There is indifference and, what in India is called, true detachment.

 

Wanting to increase one’s consciousness does not mean going to the bottom of the forest to live as a hermit. The spiritual life does not prevent to love the countryside, rather than the city, to be interested in the Sumerian civilization, to love football, or to find its charming neighbor or neighbor.

 

Awareness of the essentials

 

True detachment, that of a well understood spirituality, is the awareness of what is essential and what is not. Being the owner of a beautiful house, with a large garden is not a problem, what is, it is when your happiness depends on this house. One day a flood can destroy it. Will you find yourself completely depressed and crying, "My life is ruined!"

 

It applies to everything: a car, furniture, a social position. You can acquire these assets and enjoy them. To rest everything on it is unconscious: all these things can be removed from you brutally. Own them, but they don’t own you.

 

It is like sentimental love: this feeling is indispensable to the human being. When he lacks love, he goes crazy and goes out like a ember that nobody blows on.

 

Depending on a person to have that love is dangerous! Imagine: that person leaves you, leaving you alone with your love for her. This barren love becomes suffering. This position is dangerous. The fear of losing that love makes you jealous and eventually makes you lose it.

 

Endless source of satisfaction

 

How to achieve true detachment? Not by making detachment a moral, intellectual posture or by striving for it. It comes when you have found the source of peace and love in you. This is the purpose of The Path. “Detachment opens the door to the kingdom, indifference closes it” (Bhaktimàrga 173).