



What is detachment?
Detachment is the:
- Ability to allow people, places, or things
the freedom to be themselves.
- Holding back from the
need to rescue, save, or fix another person from being sick, dysfunctional, or irrational.
- Giving another person "the space" to be him or herself.
- Disengaging from an over-enmeshed or dependent relationship with people.
- Willingness to accept that you can't change or control a person, place or thing.
- Developing & maintaining of a safe, emotional distance from someone whom you've previously given a lot of power to affect your emotional outlook on life.
- Establishing of emotional boundaries between you & those people you've become overly enmeshed or dependent
within order that all of you might be able to develop your own sense of autonomy & independence.
- Process by which you're free to feel your own feelings when you see another person falter & fail & not be led by guilt to feel responsible for their failure or faltering.
- Ability to maintain an emotional bond of
love, concern & caring without the negative results of rescuing, enabling, fixing or controlling.
- Placing of all things in life into a healthy,
rational perspective & recognizing that there's a need to back away from the uncontrollable & unchangeable realities of life.
- Ability to exercise emotional self-protection & prevention so as not to experience greater emotional devastation from having hung on beyond a reasonable & rational point.
- Ability to let people you love & care for accept personal responsibility for their own actions & to practice tough love & not give in when they come to you to bail them out when their actions lead to failure or trouble for them.
- Ability to allow people to be who they "really
are" rather than who you "want them to be."
- Ability to avoid being hurt, abused, taken advantage of by people who in the past have been overly dependent or enmeshed with you.

What are the negative
effects not detaching?
If you're unable to detach from people, places, or things, then you:
· Will have people, places, or things which become over-dependent on you.
· Run the risk of being manipulated to do things for people, at places, or with things, which you don't really want to do.
· Can become an obsessive "fix it'' who needs to fix everything you perceive to be imperfect.
· Run the risk of performing tasks because of the intimidation you experience from people, places, or things.
· Will most probably become powerless in the face of the demands of the people, places, or things whom you have given the power to control you.
· Will be blind to the reality that the people, places, or things which
control you are the uncontrollables & unchangeables you need to let go of if you are to become a fully healthy, coping individual.
· Will be easily influenced by the perception of helplessness which these people, places, or things project.
· Might become caught up with your idealistic need to make everything perfect for people, places, or things important to you even if it means your own life becomes unhealthy.
· Run the risk of becoming out of control of yourself & experience greater low self-esteem as a result.
· Will most probably put off making a decision & following thru on
it, if you rationally recognize your relationship with a person, place, or thing is unhealthy & the only recourse left is to get out of the relationship.
· Will be so driven by guilt & emotional dependence that the sickness in the relationship will worsen.
- Run the risk of losing your autonomy & independence & derive your value
or worth solely from the unhealthy relationship you continue in with the unhealthy person, place, or thing.

How is detachment a control issue?
Detachment is a control issue because:
- It's a way of de-powering the external "locus of control" issues in your life & a way to strengthen your internal
"locus of control."
- If you aren't able to detach
emotionally or physically from a person, place, or thing, then you're either profoundly under its control or it's under your control.
- The ability to "keep distance" emotionally or physically requires self-control & the inability to do so is a sign that you're "out of
control."
- If you aren't able to detach from another person,
place, or thing, you might be powerless over this behavior which is beyond your personal control.
- You might be mesmerized, brainwashed, or psychically in a trance when you're
in the presence of someone from whom you can't
detach.
- You might feel intimidated or coerced to stay deeply attached with someone for
fear of great harm to yourself or that person if you don't
remain so deeply involved.
- You might be an addicted "
caretaker," "fixer," or "rescuer" who can't "let go" of a person, place or thing you believe can't care for itself.
-
- You might be so
manipulated by another's con, "helplessness,'' overdependency, or "hooks'' that you can't leave them to solve their own problems.
- If you don't
detach from people, places, or things, you could be so busy
trying to "control'' them that you completely divert your attention from yourself & your own needs.
- By being "
selfless'' & "centered'' on other people, you're really a controller trying to "fix'' them to meet the image of your "ideal'' for them.
- Although you'll still have feelings for those persons, places & things from which you've become detached, you'll have given them the "freedom'' to become what they'll be on their own merit, power, control & responsibility.
- It allows every person, place, or thing with which you become involved to feel the sense of personal responsibility to become a unique, independent & autonomous being with no fear of retribution or rebuke if they don't please you by what they become.

What irrational thinking leads to an inability
to detach?
· If you should stop being involved, what will they do without you?
· They need you & that's enough to justify your continued involvement.
· What if they commit suicide because of your detachment?
You must stay involved to avoid this.
· You would feel so guilty if anything bad should happen to them after you reduced your involvement with them.
· They're absolutely dependent on you at this point & to back off now would be a crime.
· You need them as much as they need you.
· You can't control yourself because everyday you promise yourself "today is the day'' you'll detach your feelings but you feel driven to them & their needs.
· They have so many problems, they need you.
· Being detached seems so cold & aloof. You can't be that way when you love & care for a person. It's either 100% all the way or no way at all.
· If you should let go of this relationship too soon, the other might change to be like the fantasy or dream you want them to be.
· How can being detached from them help them? It seems like
you should do more to help them.
· Detachment sounds
so final. It sounds so distant & non-reachable. You could never allow yourself to have a relationship where there's so much emotional distance between you & others. It seems so unnatural.
· You never want anybody in a relationship to be emotionally detached from you so why would you think it a good thing to do for others?
· The family that plays together stays together. It's all for one & one for all. Never
do anything without including the significant others in your life.
· If one hurts in the system, we all hurt. You don't have a good relationship with others unless you share in their pain, hurt, suffering, problems & troubles.
· When they're in "trouble'' how can you ignore their "pleas'' for help? It seems cruel & inhuman.
· When you see people in trouble, confused & hurting, you must always get involved & try to help them solve the problems.
· When you meet people who are "helpless,'' you must step in to give them assistance, advice, support & direction.
· You should never question the costs, be they material, emotional, or physical, when another
is in dire need of help.
· You'd rather forgo all the pleasures of this world in order to assist others to be happy & successful.
· You can never "give too much'' when it comes to providing emotional support, comforting & care of those whom you love & cherish.
· No matter how badly your loved ones hurt & abuse you, you must always be forgiving & continue to extend your hand in help & support.
-
Tough love is a cruel, inhuman & anti-loving philosophy of dealing with the troubled people in our lives & you should instead
love them more when they're in trouble since "love'' is the answer to all problems.

How to develop detachment
In order to become detached from a person, place, or thing
you need to:
First: Establish emotional boundaries between you & the person, place, or thing with whom you've become overly enmeshed or dependent on.
Second: Take back power over your feelings from persons, places, or things which in the past you have given power to affect your emotional well-being.
Third: "Hand over'' to your Higher
Power the persons, places & things which you'd like to see changed but which you can't change on your own.
Fourth: Make a commitment to your personal recovery & self-health by admitting to yourself & your Higher
Power that there's only one person you can change & that's yourself & that for your serenity you need to let go of the "need'' to fix, change, rescue, or heal other persons, places & things.
Fifth: Recognize that it's "sick'' & "unhealthy'' to believe that you have the power or control enough to fix, correct, change, heal, or rescue another person, place, or thing if they don't want to get better nor see a need to change.
Sixth: Recognize that you need to be healthy yourself & be "squeaky clean'' & a "role model'' of health in order for another to recognize that there's something "wrong'' with them that needs changing.
Seventh: Continue to own your feelings as your responsibility & not blame others for the way you feel.
Eighth: Accept personal responsibility for your own unhealthy actions, feelings & thinking & cease looking for the persons, places, or things you can blame for your unhealthiness.
Ninth: Accept that addicted fixing, rescuing, enabling are "sick'' behaviors & strive to extinguish these behaviors in your relationship to persons,
places & things.
Tenth: Accept that many people, places & things in your past & current life are "irrational,'' "unhealthy,'' & "toxic'' influences in your life, label them honestly for what they truly are & stop minimizing their negative impact in your life.
Eleventh: Reduce the impact of guilt & other irrational beliefs which impede your ability to develop detachment in your life.
Twelfth: Practice "letting go'' of the need to correct, fix, or make better the persons, places & things in life over which you have no control or power to change.
Steps in developing detachment
Step
1: It's important to first identify those people, places & things in your life from which you'd be best to develop emotional detachment in order to retain your personal, physical, emotional & spiritual health.
To do this you need to review the following types of toxic relationships & identify in your journal if any of the people, places,
or things in your life fit any of the following 20 categories.
Types
of Toxic Relationships
Step 2: Once you have identified the persons, places & things you have a toxic
relationship with, then you need to take each one individually & work thru the following steps.
Step
3: Identify the irrational beliefs in the toxic relationship which prevent you from becoming detached. Address these beliefs & replace them with healthy, more rational ones.
Step
4: Identify all of the reasons
why you're being hurt & your physical, emotional & spiritual health is being threatened by the relationship.
Step
5: Accept & admit to yourself that the other person, place, or thing is "sick", dysfunctional, or irrational & that no matter what you say, do, or demand you'll not be able to control or change this reality. Accept that there's only one thing you can change in life & that's you. All others are the unchangeables in your life.
Change
your expectations that things will be better than what they really are. Hand these people, places, or things over to your Higher
Power & let go of the need to change them.
Step 6: Work out reasons why there's no need to feel guilt over letting go & being emotionally detached from this relationship & free yourself from guilt as you let go of the emotional "hooks'' in the relationship.
Step
7: Affirm yourself as being a person who "deserves'' healthy, wholesome, health engendering relationships in your life. You're a GOOD
PERSON & deserve healthy relationships, at home, work & in the community.
Step 8: Gain support for yourself as you begin to let go of your emotional enmeshment with these relationships.
Step 9: Continue to call upon your Higher
Power for the strength to continue to let go & detach.
Step 10: Continue to give no
person, place, or thing the power to affect or impact your feelings about yourself.
Step 11: Continue to detach & let go & work at self-recovery & self-healing as this poem implies.

"Letting Go''
To "let go'' doesn't mean to stop caring.
It means I can't
do it for someone else.
To "let go'' isn't to cut myself off.
It's the realization
I can't control another.
To "let go'' isn't to enable,
but to allow learning
from natural consequences.
To "let go'' is to admit powerlessness
which means the
outcome isn't in my hands.
To "let go'' isn't to try to change or blame another.
It's to make the
most of myself.
To "let go'' isn't to care for, but to care about.
To "let go'' isn't to fix, but to be supportive.
To "let go'' isn't to judge,
but to allow another
to be a human being.
To "let go'' isn't to be in the middle arranging all the outcomes,
but to allow others
to affect their own destinies.
To "let go'' isn't to be protective.
It's to permit
another to face reality.
To "let go'' isn't to deny, but to accept.
To "let go'' isn't to nag, scold, or argue,
but instead to
search out my own shortcomings & correct them.
To "let go'' isn't to criticize & regulate anybody,
but to try to become
what I dream I can be.
To "let go'' isn't to adjust everything to my desires
but to take each
day as it comes & cherish myself in it.
To "let go'' is to not regret the past,
but to grow &
live for the future.
To "let go'' is to fear less & LOVE MYSELF MORE.
Step 12: If you still
have problems detaching, then return to Step 1 & begin all over again.
|
 |
|
Losing Custody....
It's been a few years - 13 years - to be exact since my sweet, tenderhearted
little boy left me to live with his father. It was the most painful experience of my life. I still haven't worked out my grief issues over the experience of parental alienation, dishonesty on my ex-husband's part, the conniving, deceiving step mother who used to be my best friend & the state of Michigan's inept Child Enforcement Department.
It was my destiny though, I've accepted that part. I'm so sorry that it was my son's misfortune to have been raised in his father's home, or should
I say, "his mother's home," as the day he left mine, he was told to call her "mom." Two abusively controlling people, who had teamed up with my previous husband to lie & deceive the court had backed my up against a wall with a very well laid plan to demean & degrade me & avoid paying child support, which was his ultimate goal. I gave in. I couldn't take it anymore. I was
mentally & physically spent. My mind was taken over by fear, mental illness & a lack of any self worth.
Who would think that after my nightmare of losing my little boy, who had been so close to me, who had been a mirror image of my own heart, that I would have two more children eventually who I felt
totally, "detached" from. Who would have thought that the two little angels that were born after that trauma would be so touched by the evil of those two people
who had stolen my son as promised by my ex friend? She had proclaimed to me, "I've stolen your husband and now I am going
to steal your son!" I was so terrified, frozen within the deepest portals of my soul, that I was help to keep at a distance from loving them so deeply.
After my son left I was held in a web of panic attacks, anxiety, depression, hyper-vigilance & grievous sorrow. I went to the hospital in excess of 300 times to the emergency room
with pain in my chest worse than that I had experienced in childbirth. I had 3 endoscopic procedures, many other tests &
still - every doctor I visited discounted panic & anxiety because of the severity of my pain. I was prescribed Percocet for the constant pain of ensuing attacks. Some
days I experienced more than one attack. Some days I woke up from a dead sleep seized in indescribable pain. I remained on
Percocet for almost a year. The second my mind dared venture on my son's name or remembered his sweet face, again, I was disabled.
This continued for many months & then the months turned into years.
Then thru the births of my 2 younger children, I was never content. I was never able to be filled with the same joy I had experienced with my previous 3 children. I was too afraid. I was truly detached, removed & at arm's length from allowing myself to become so
attached to them in case, just in case, someone should take them from me someday. Irrational as it seems, the trauma had been just too severe. I couldn't forget. I couldn't forgive. I relived the pain over & over again as I missed each milestone in my son's life.
In my son's junior & senior years of high school, my current husband
& two children drove the 6 hour drive to Michigan just to watch his football games on Friday nights. We would then sometimes
turn around & drive back home. Sometimes we'd only have the time to say hello to him, a quick hug, but my love for him, so deep still, made each 12 hour venture so worth the disruption in our lives. I even forced myself to visit him in his father & step mother's home, sometimes spending
the night in their house, just to show my son, that I still loved him so much & cared about his life.
But my two younger children suffered unknowingly because of my detached mothering style. What a shame. Who knows
what will transpire in their futures from my detachment from them. What issues will they face because of my injurious mothering?
In searching for information concerning detachment,
I had to give in & relay my message because of the lack of available resources explaining the severe nature that
detachment can develop into. I have a whole website concerning parental alienation - but I haven't been able to bring myself to write the personal account of what exactly happened to me. The
wound is too deep. Perhaps I haven't grieved it enough. Perhaps I am still too angry about it, but have never figured out how to process anger, being raised in an unemotional family. But it's because of this trauma that I realized the importance of examining unresolved emotions & feelings.
Slowly as I peel back the layers of my pain, sorrow, hurt, grief, anger & whatever unidentified feelings I have buried concerning this horrible trauma, I begin to heal, but ever so slowly, in ever such tiny little pieces. I am proud of the fact that I am aware of my situation thus, naming one of the sites here at the emotional feelings network of sites, "the layer down under." It's been with great faith in the tools supplied within that site, that I've been able to make the progress I've made in my personal growth
& integration so far. I thank www.coping.org for their information which has helped me so much.
I've been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which often leaves me hyper-vigilent still with very little provocation. I've tempered my anxiety a great deal though. My acknowledgment of the detachment from my two younger children has caused me to feel some guilt, but I am grateful that I can recognize that & I'm trying to feel the guilt & let it work for me in overcoming the detachment.
I do have to mention because it wouldn't be right, to exclude important
details in my failings concerning the custody fight. I had been living in domestic violence my entire life without realizing what a normal life was about. I had allowed my son's father, a police officer,
to have extreme power over me & had been submissive in his verbal, emotional & physical abuse until it was detrimental to my image as a mother.
If you're experiencing domestic violence or any abuse what-so-ever & are allowing your children to be subjected to that violence, you must take action to remove
yourself & your children from that situation or you may someday be held irresponsible & unfit as a mother for allowing your children to be present in an abusive home.
It's a sad reflection & caution, but it's very true. I honestly believe that women who are in an abusive situation are detached from life, but that's another story!
If you're feeling detached from your children; a manner of self-protection I'm sure, please take the time and effort to acknowledge it & work towards releasing yourself from whatever is binding you to the detachment.
Your children will notice the difference in your closeness to them. The very small positive steps I have made in releasing the feelings & actions of detachment have been an enormous benefit to them. I can clearly see it.
Yours truly,
Kathleen
Love & Happiness: Mantra for Happiness - Loving Detachment
By Amitava Basu
Simply put, happiness is satisfaction of mind. However, different
individuals have different perceptions of how to achieve happiness. For
some, happiness lies in wealth; for others, it is in rank and
position; yet others find happiness in fame and name. Commonly, happiness is measured by achievement in terms of money, property, other material
possessions, power, name, fame, education, lifestyle, position and social status.
In their quest for 'happiness' individuals tread a path that destroys the inner
good instincts and virtues. Craving for material wealth begets greed and greed leads to corruption. Similar is the outcome when passion for power drives one's mind.
Life is not permanent; nothing in life can last forever. Saints
and sages have realised this truth and lived away from pursuit of mundane objects and worldliness. But ordinary people fail to see this truth.
Maya impels individuals to believe that material achievement is the
truth of life; and, in the process, it fuels attachment to worldly pursuits and sensory pleasures. Growing attachment breeds addiction to material attainments.
In turn, such addiction intoxicates the human mind, making it oblivious to the truth. So real happiness remains a mirage.
Mahasiddha Naropa, the tenth century mahasiddha of the Kagya School of Tibetan Buddhism, was born in a rich and powerful family. He renounced his family
and wealth at the age of 25 to be ordained as a monk-scholar in Nalanda University where he became a leading scholar
and respected faculty member. He later left in search of a guru to attain moksha and found Tilopa, who was one of the four mahasiddhas of India.
Once Tilopa handed a string full of knots to Naropa and asked him to untie them. Naropa did so and gave the string back to Tilopa. Tilopa threw the string away and asked Naropa what he understood. Naropa replied that all beings are tied by worldly attachments
and they need to untie themselves.
Dispassion for attachment to material pleasures and comforts restrains one's desires, dispels worries and fears
and guides us to the path of peace and tranquillity. To be dispassionate, you need to search your heart everyday and practise untying your passion for mundane matters. An individual who
meticulously endeavours to get rid of expectations, hopes
and fears can set the mind at rest and reach a stage of
detachment from worldly pleasures.
This, however, cannot be achieved overnight. This change needs
preparation of the mind and takes time. It is a practice that an individual needs to pursue for "being in the world but not
of it". You should have a mind open to everything but attached to nothing. This does not mean that you have to run away
from your family, society, duties and responsibilities and be less sensitive. One needs to recognise the Divine in others and work to serve the Divine.
Some may argue that the incentive behind every work is gain,
without which an individual will not be motivated to work. Then how will the detachment happen? The gain is realisation of what is Eternal and the alleviation of material suffering following from this realisation. Sri Guru Granth Sahib says: "As the lotus flower floats unaffected in the water, so should one remain detached in one's
own household". The lotus flower is not tainted by the slime in which it grows. It is an attitude
that an individual needs to develop through belief and practice; and only this can emancipate one from worldly attachments
to derive pure happiness.
|
 |
 |
 |
|
Karma Yoga: Karma Yoga - Lesson VI (of XI )
By Bhikshu
Karma Yoga: Lesson VI
We shall now turn our attention
to "Detachment," (see detachment article above) which
is said to be the meaning of Karma Yoga & this "detachment" is termed "non-attachment" although the latter phrase conveys no meaning, for the one reason
that a negative can't convey any positive, definite meaning.
The difference between the
ideas conveyed by "detachment" & "non-attachment" is that detachment is a positive attitude of keeping oneself
aloof or detached, while non-attachment is vague & of an indefinite meaninglessness which on that account
has been made the subject of voluminous commentaries by cheap philosophers to whom we can attribute the desire to legislate for others via their public lectures.
As says Sankara in his commentary on verse III, 34 of the Bhagavad Gita: "Now I shall tell you
where lies the scope for personal exertion & for the Teaching (Sastra). He who would follow the Teaching should at the very commencement
rise above the sway of affection & aversion. For what we speak of as the nature of a person draws him to its course only through love & aversion.
He then neglects his own duties & sets about doing the duties of others. When on the other
hand a person restrains these feelings by means of their enemy, then he will become mindful of the Teaching only when no longer subject to
his own nature. Wherefore, let none come under the sway of these two; for they are his adversaries, obstacles to his progress
on the right path, like thieves on the road."
The Sanskrit of Sankara is Sanskrit of the 8th century A.C. & the translator hasn't expressed
the sense in modern English using philosophical parlance. What is conveyed is that the practitioner could with regard to the
objects of objective world, avoid having either affection or aversion.
He could at all times view
the oncoming thought or contacted object dispassionately; having learned to let it pass, as stated in Lesson IV, having learned
to bear with it as stated in Lesson V, he might go a step further & remain quite aloof from it, all the while eagerly
watching the thought fructify or the object working out the fulfillment.
As already stated, the first position of the Karma Yogin towards the oncoming thought or towards the universe is to accept it, the next
position is to accept it without being affected by it. The Karma Yogi must especially guard himself against getting into researches of cosmogony, against bothering himself as to how the thought arose, or how
it happened.
"The question of being is the darkest in all philosophy; all of us are beggars
here; for all of us alike fact forms a datum, a gift which cannot be burrowed under, explained away or left
behind," says a westerner. It's as well to leave aside the logical riddle untouched of how the coming of whatever it
is, whether it came piecemeal or came it all together can be or at all logically understood. In the East this is termed Kismet, the Doctrine of Fatalism in the form expounded in Islam, of men who have combined a great sense of personal moral obligation with religious resignation as to the final outcome of human
life. These have been characterized by their meek acceptance of the Present, of the Event as an Act of God, something that one should not question or trace out; most of
the great religions are clear that life in the world is a tangle of disharmonies; in one way or another they say that this
world is damned or is the abode of suffering, but the Doctrine of Kismet says that these disharmonies are here, this damnation is here inexplicably.
Why indeed explain, ask they? In the Buddhist metaphysic, the present is the consequence & the inevitable consequence of the Past of that Freewill once exercised which still is available for exercise.
The attitude towards the oncoming Thought must, therefore, be
to put yourself in a proper mental (& physical) condition therefore, to meet it.
Be sane, always. Asceticism is not for you Karma Yogis at all; asceticism excites the mind, the object of the
Karma Yogi is not only to calm it but to continue to keep it calm. Of course,
during the periods of actual concentration there is no time for any but the work itself, but to make even the mildest asceticism a rule of life is the greatest of errors, except perhaps that of regarding asceticism itself as a virtue.
I don't begin here an instruction again asceticism, though asceticism has always been the stumbling block most dreaded by the wise.
Christ said that John the Baptist came neither eating nor drinking & the people called him mad; He himself came eating & drinking & they called
him a gluttonous man & a wine bibber & the friend of publicans & shlllers. It must always be remembered that the Karma Yogi always does what he likes
or rather what he wills & allows nothing to interfere with it, but because he is ascetic in the sense that he has no
appetite for the stupidities which fools call pleasure, it has become the fashion with snobs, what we call the Sastris of India, to expect him to refuse things both natural and necessary.
It has been put to the Karma Yogi that he must accept his
environment, and also wrongly we say that he should not only accept his environment but also stick on till death to that environment.
The notorious caste system had been vainly trying for ages to assert that a cobbler
should be a cobbler, an oil-monger an oil-monger, but that only a Brahmin could become a God. Alas, Kabir, Nanak, Chaitanya, and a host of others have been deified and were not Brahmins at all. No doubt the Karma Yogi has no right, no business to break up his domestic circumstances;
for the Karma Yogi's doctrine is pat with the Rosicrucian doctrine "that the Adept should be a man of the world, for such is nobler than the hermit."
But under any condition, in every environment, confronted without
any proposition or any difficulty, aye, even with destiny in its darkest adversity, it is always open to the Adept to exercise his Freewill. Those who have master
souls, says M____, refuse to be bound by anything but their own wills. "They may refrain from certain actions because
their main purpose would be interfered with, just as a man refrains from smoking if he is training for a boat-race. But there are sane
people so hypercritical that they claim their dislikes as virtue and it very often happens that the literature before the would-be Karma Yogi is full of the self-bombast of the poor, weedy, unhealthy degenerate
who cannot smoke because his heart is out of order, and cannot drink because his brain is too weak to stand it or perhaps because
the doctor has forbidden him to do it for the next two years, the man afraid of life, afraid to do anything lest some dire
result should follow." Very often those acclaimed as the best and greatest of mankind are these slaves to custom and habit those unable to realise that
the Karma Yogi must never be less, but always more than a man. The desie for the flesh has ever grown stronger for ascetics as they endeavored to combat
it by abstinence and when with old age their functions are atrophied they claim vaingloriously "I have conquered," "I
have Vairagya."
It is quite possible to attain Vairagya, that sort of indifference that marks a high stage in moral strength;
an indifference that approaches disgust for everything what would remind the Englishman a great deal of the "Oxford manner." It is typically the phlegmatic type which declines to be moved by anything good (bad or indifferent)
that does not belong to one. When one is affected by a wrong thought, a thought that does not, however, provoke pain
for which latter the treatment has already been given, it is possible for the Karma Yogi to remain indifferent thereto; nay the indifference may be so far
strengthened so as to be made a sort of disgust not expressively so, not even intensively so. The nature of the attitude of
disgust herein called Vairagya is to remain quite phlegmatic about it, towards undesirable thoughts as towards needless Acts
and happenings in the world around the Karma Yogi. Where it is as well to let well alone, it is the rule of Karma
Yoga to remain indifferent, apparently indifferent all the time. However,
the Karma Yogi watches the event, ready to intercede should harm be likely to
ensue. The Karma Yogi can remember the famous adage: "Too many cooks spoil the broth too many physicians kill the patient-too much
of care is not necessary about every passing thought."
The attitude of Vairagya herein suggested is, of course, a passion-free attitude; there is a particular
method open to the Karma Yogi of keeping himself up in the state of equilibrium with which things
can be done which bear no fruit and have no reaction. The Eastern Scriptures state that the Karma Yogin's status is like that of fishes
in water, of kites in the air; they affect not the element in which they move. The Karma Yogi lives and moves in the world but he lives and moves practically
incognito, practically as if he were making himself invisible, while continuing to work. It is best to explain this attitude by a
praxis which has been advised and I quote the advice at length:
The student must set aside a small part of his daily life in
which to concern himself with something quite different from the objects of his daily occupation. (Five
minutes a day will suffice.)
He is not to occupy himself with the affairs of his own ego
or with the thoughts that occur to him, in such moments. He should rather let the thoughts he experiences as messages from
the outer world re-echo within his own completely silent self. (And note, you, yourself have to be
utterly silent), the silence being assured by your taking up the attitude of disgust Vairagya.
N. B. And he will prepare himself to receive quite new impressions
of the outer world through different eyes. (He need not be waiting particular results at all; he
ought not to do so.)
For it is quite possible to view the universe through various kinds of spectacles, from various points of view; and similarly it is possible to consider each oncoming thought from a different point of view. The
hint is to change your Point of View rather than attempt to change the Thought by going into the whence and why of it. He
may of course remain perfectly indifferent to the experience furnished by the Thought, and the reason for the indifference
requires to be better understood.
Just as the seven forms of perception and contact by perception
generate a sevenfoldness of thought, so every thought deals with seven planes of experience in eastern psychology as stated by the Vedas. They are: (I) Memory, Smriti, (2) Vision, Pratyaksha, (3) Association, Aitihya, (4) Induction, Anumana. These four planes of thought work in collaboration and interrelation
with thoughts from (5) the Sanchita, the storehouse that is the individual make-up; (6) Association or contact
with which creates another thought, Prarabda; (7) accidental sympathetics, Agamya, crowning the whole. When the attention runs as a shuttle does through this warp it creates a weft of Action and Reaction called Samsara. One way to avoid this creation of Samsara is to deal with the original thought and inhibit it, by remaining in an attitude
of disgust theretowards, and the attitude of disgust or Vairagya has to be taken up to every thought other than the subject of
meditation. And before the attitude of disgust should the attitude of watchfulness hereinbefore advised be taken up.
All that is required in this stage is an inhibition of thought. The Karma Yogi has to recognise that the thought that occurs to him is very necessary
in itself and ought to be borne with, suffered, allowed to pass on without regard to any end outside itself. This thought as has been
mentioned is but a resultant, a reaction and hence cannot be avoided. But at the same time it is very necessary to avoid treating
the thought as all actuality or reality. To do so is a further action, a furtherance of "bondage," as has already been said.
It may even be necessary to put oneself in all attitude of disgust. A little later the practice of elimination of thoughts
could be tried, but so far the neophyte Karma Yogi has to train himself to change his point of view, whenever
he has to deal with an experience that is alien to his own will. He, as it were, goes up the "Hill of Meditation" take up a point of view
of Udaseenata, a sort of view of the plains as from the top of a hill, a comprehensive view, the view of a superior person. How can the Karma Yogi think as a God, if he has not the outlook of a God, the Isvara Bhava! And to have the outlook of a God one has to change his
own point of view, the point of view that is as but putty in the hands of Intelligence. Towards the on-coming thought what the
Karma Yogi here has to do is to judge for himself whether to God such a thought
would be possible, before he entertains the thought. This Isvara Bhava has also been spoken of as the attitude of the Kshatriya, Kshatra denoting both the Kingdom of God and the Human Body (soul and body combined). Just as nothing
can exonerate the Karma Yogi from doing his utmost to determine and perform the right Act and just as nothing can excuse his failure
to do so, in the plane of thought "culture" (miscalled), nothing can exonerate the Karma Yogi's failure
to obtain the right thought by the process hereinbefore mentioned.
But if these themselves were not enough, a settled practice
has been encouraged by the HinduYogi Philosophy with regard to wrong thoughts namely to eliminate them. The charge to
the Karma Yogi has always been to eliminate rubbish from the Mind he should eliminate
anything which does not serve his purpose. He can, as by the "Neti," "Neti" mantra eliminate (& thus select for use)
thoughts pouring in as he sits to meditation. As each thought comes on before you, you, having been trained already
by the practices before mentioned and not being the slave of the thoughts, being careless about the results, begin by
examining the thought and reject it, if you think it useless to yourself, by the Mantra "Neti," Not so; "Neti," Not thus; Oh, no, certainly not. This "Neti," "Neti" process requires a very deep psychological investigation as a preliminary.
It is not sufficient to get rid temporarily of these thoughts; one must as it were seek their roots and destroy their roots
so that they can never rise again. A helpful suggestion is to bring about the habit by auto-suggestion of declining thoughts that are not useful to one's purpose, as
a settled practice of Karma Yoga by the use of the Mantra
"NETI, NETI"
All along you have to remember that your experiences, (again these thoughts that you are advised
to deal with) are not the ultimate truth. They are only sensations that change with your status and as you
advance in the direction of more and more untiring energy. "Thine to do" is with thought only, says the Bhagavad Gita; "not with the results" which results are the resultants of the
whole universe acting on the Act initiated perhaps by you, the reaction of your action. It is quite open to you, Karma Yogi, to take out use for anything into yourself because yours is the kingdom of thought but it is as well that you do
not revel in the silence of not dealing with the occurring event, as it or as you require. This carelessness as to what it may cost
the Karma Yogin is to be found more in the West nowadays apparently combined
with the desire and impulse to work; and if it is not to be found in the East, it is because the conditions of life
possible in the Sannyasi mode of living have made it unnecessary for anyone to be a Karma
Yogin at all. And the commingling of the West and East have made
it equally impossible for a Grihee (householder) to be a Yogi, much less a Karma Yogin unless he be truly ardent.
NA ITI NA ITI
NOT THUS, NOT THIS
This articles is from a series in eleven lesson in Karma Yoga, From "The Yoga Philosophy of Thought Use" and "The Yogin Doctrine of Work"
The kingdom of Thought is truly yours;
you can select values, reject vanities, eliminate dross, live as the uncrowned and crowned Emperors have lived in the utmost independance, ordering for yourself Happiness, distributing the flowing surpluses thereof to all around you.
Chicago, U.S.A., Yogi Publication Society, 1928
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|