Non-Attachment or Detachment?
Last week we looked at attachment (to read part 1 click here), and how this universal law helps us to break free of the various forms of manipulation and game playing employed by our ego to get what it wants.
This week we are going to look at the other side of the coin, which is the problem of detachment. Have you ever had the situation where something is not going the way you want, and so you wash your hands of it? You abdicate the entire thing to someone else and don’t take any further interest? You cut yourself off and pretend to your self it is not important? The impulse of the heart is ruthlessly squashed down and a grim detachment takes the place of whatever the objective was.
As a means of getting over attachment, some people go a bit too far in the opposite direction and they create another problem. Instead of achieving non-attachment, which is a level of joy and satisfaction no matter what happens, they instead become detached. In their detachment they could not care whether the thing happens or not, and there is a flatness to the effect, an apathy and joylessness, which leads increasingly to a dour, grey, voidal kind of nothingness.
Quite often the person will deny any interest in a situation, but inside is a level of anger that is pushed down to avoid. They will not contribute, assist, share their knowledge, or give help because they have washed their hands of the situation and they are quite content to watch someone else fail. This is just as egoic and unevolved as the issue of attachment was in the first place. It is just the polar opposite, in the same way that arrogance is just the polar opposite of poor self esteem.
Neither end of the spectrum is the place we want to be. In the middle is the sweet spot: genuine non-attachment, just as on the polarity of arrogance/poor self esteem the sweet spot in the middle is genuine humility.
Compare the dullness and isolation of detachment to the radiant and enthusiastic joy of someone who is abundantly internally happy and at peace whether they have a thing or not. The detached soul will start to close down to the world, and will miss altogether the grace and majesty of non-attachment as a lifestyle.
I bless you with greater capacity for non-attachment: breathe in, think thank you and receive the blessing now.
To read part 3, click here.
