Dr. Vijai S Shankar MD.PhD.
Published on www.academ-advaita.com
The Netherlands
9 January 2020
Attachment (1)
“Freedom”
What does freedom mean? You are attached to many a thing in life which results in bondage. Could freedom be to be free from attachments? Man is still trying to do to be detached from all attachments. That is supposed to be very spiritual. Is it not so?
What is striking is that, if man is still trying to be detached from his attachment, it only means that all his trying so far has not detached him from his attachments. His trying indicates that he is attached to his trying to be detached. This trying to be detached results in bondage and not freedom.
Man has been trying for many generations. If your parents and great grandparents have attained detachment, then you also should be born in a detached state. Is it not so?
So your trying to do anything for that matter proves that you are still attached. You conclude that you are attached and that these attachments are very strong to you. Is it not so?
Furthermore, you are simply broken to pieces if these attachments are not there for you. Is it not so? And where does freedom come in? How can man be free from his attachments?
What is the consequence of attachments? The moment you are attached to something, trying to be detached is the consequence of attachment. The eventual consequence of it is sadness when you no longer have it.
If you observe very closely, every attachment will eventually lead to a certain degree of sadness and unhappiness. This is the reason why you want to be detached from your attachments.
If attachment never brings forth sadness, you will be happily attached to everything. The very reason that you want to be detached is because it eventually brings sadness in one form or the other.
Understand that every moment happens by itself and you do not make any moment in life. Understand that what is within any moment will be within the moment and you cannot make anything within any moment in life.
Understand that you will get what you are meant to get in a particular moment in life. Understand that what is meant to go will go in a particular moment in life. When this understanding cements, you will not be attached to anything in life.
The wise understand that you cannot detach from any moment in life no matter how hard you try.
The enlightened is in freedom in every moment in life.
Author: Dr. Vijai S. Shankar
© Copyright: V.S. Shankar, 2019
Editor’s Note:
Every man and woman will always choose freedom rather than bondage. This is instinctively the case with all animate beings as well: to be free and not to be bound. Man, in seeking to be free from the emotional consequences of attachment, as revealed in this article, becomes bound to the very means he sought for achieving detachment. The wise understand that in every moment of life only what is meant to happen will happen. Understanding this is the means to freedom. It is every man’s birthright.
Julian Capper. UK
German Translator‘s Note:
The quality of the encounters with everything and everyone depends on the degree of attachment one has. A wise encounter has the quality that it happens without expectations, demands and hopes. Everything and everyone is thus not my house, my wife or husband, my child or my problem, but is in every moment exactly as it is meant to be. This requires a deep insight into the nature of the movement of energy, which is present everywhere. It is not the human being who does, speaks and thinks, but energy reflects a movement in a way that manifests the illusion of an independent individual in the human mind. This insight is a frightening idea to the ego, for without attachment the ego cannot exist, however illusory. The words of this article are born of one hundred percent clarity, which has been the gift of life. The sharing of the world view, "life as it is“, is an offer that life makes to the reader and that everyone accepts or rejects in his or her own way, as it is meant to be. So be it.
Marcus Stegmaier, Germany