Dr. Vijai S Shankar MD.PhD.
Published on www.academ-advaita.com
The Netherlands
10 January 2020
Attachment (2)
“Freedom”
Point one is: there is attachment. So where does man stand in attachment? There are many ways to get rid of attachment to which you become attached. This understanding is complete. It indicates that there is no hope, no room for you to be free.
Therefore, a wise man will only go about in another way. He wants you to find out, what is this attachment? What could it be? You will observe very clearly that there are many things to which you are attached. They are living and non-living entities.
And then, you are attached to your thoughts. So, a wise man will ask you to understand what happens in this attachment. What is the mechanism?
In prehistoric days, was man attached to anything? It will be very difficult to comprehend with certainty, but you can know that man was simply migrating from place to place.
When his mind started evolving and when the notion of liking evolved, primitive man liked something. He began to grab the very thing which he liked and he started to possess it. Once he started to possess, he became attached to it.
Therefore, the attachment begins only when man believes: this is mine. What does this mean? It means that he is simply putting a boundary on to certain things. He is putting a boundary on others; he is putting a boundary on subjects and he is putting a boundary on his thoughts.
Man is attached to so many things in his life. My car, my house, my cupboard, my clothes, my wife, my children. And this will not go unless there is a deep understanding of it.
Furthermore, you feel sad the moment the attachment gets destroyed or goes away from you. It is so evident in life, for example, if your car breaks down or gets destroyed, you are so sad. Is it not so?
But, if your neighbour’s car gets destroyed, you are not as sad? So that should make you wonder, did the destruction of the car make you sad or what is it that made you sad?
The thought that it should not happen to you makes you feel sad. But understand that you neither make any moment in life nor what is within any moment in life. Understand that every moment in life contains what it is meant to contain and cannot contain other than what the moment contains.
When this wisdom cements deeply, you will not be attached to what is within any moment in life. You will understand that what is within any moment in life is gifted to you by life and you will live in freedom.
The enlightened live every moment in life in freedom.
Author: Dr. Vijai S. Shankar
© Copyright: V.S. Shankar, 2019
Editor’s Note:
The three most regularly-used words in any language are almost certainly ‘I’, ‘Mine’ and ‘My’. Their deliberate use is akin to a car’s wheel being deliberately clamped, although a mere financial payment will secure release from the clamp. The combined contents of the vaults of every existing bank will never secure release from the hold of ‘I’, ‘Mine’ and ‘My’. As a matter of fact, the contents of the vaults would almost certainly enforce the hold. The deep understanding of the wise alone, as revealed in this article, will undo attachment, if it is meant to. Thus, wisdom manifests the natural freedom in every moment, bar none. Each moment contains what is gifted - at no expense - by the intelligence of life, not by the agency of man. The freedom once realised is never again compromised.
Julian Capper. UK
German Translator‘s Note:
Only a clear understanding of what attachment means, freed from attachment, as Dr. Shankar points out here. The many ways to avoid, get rid of, or fight attachment are all doomed to failure, because you will also become attached to it again. Such is the conditioning of the mind that believes attachment to be a reality. The clarity of the Enlightened Beings comes from the deep understanding that attachment is nothing more than an illusory thought in the conditioned mind. This article lays the foundation for man's liberation from the endless labyrinth of attachments in his mind. More wise articles will follow.
Marcus Stegmaier, Germany.