Attachment and Detachment
ek yukta vairagya govind radhe, ek phalgu vairagya dhoka bata de
This is a couplet from Kripalu Bhakti Dhara and an English translation of its explanation follows:
When we are positively attached to someone or something, that person or thing enters our mind and becomes embedded there. No matter where you go and what you do, that person or thing is there in your thoughts. This is also true for whomever you are negatively attached to. While eating and drinking, while going here and there, you keep thinking, “I want to kill him! But how should I do it?” Just as we repeatedly think about the person we love; we repeatedly think about the one we hate. Through this process of repeated thinking, that person becomes firmly established in our mind.
When you heat wax, for example, it melts. If you add dye to it, the colour of the dye will permeate the wax. This process of attachment works in the same manner. Our mind melts with emotion when you form attachment, and then that person permeates your mind like the dye permeates melted wax. It may be your parents, spouse, alcohol, or anything else, but the process is the same. This is also true with negative attachment — your mind melts in animosity and thoughts of your enemy permeate your mind. When a person consumes poison to commit suicide he will die, and when someone is deceived into drinking it, he will also die. The effect of poison is the same.
Similarly, all things related to God are divine. If your mind is attached to divine subjects, regardless of your feelings, the result will be divine. Adi Jagadguru Shankaracharya gave the example of a touchstone. If a piece of iron touches it, the iron turns into gold. The transformation occurs because they touch. It does not matter if this contact is made from love or hate. A mother lovingly feeds her child a sweet, someone else is served one with animosity, while another is force-fed it! In all three situations, the taste will be sweet. Even though attachment is of two kinds — favourable or unfavourable — the result is the same.
Therefore, any action, virtuous or sinful, is performed by the mind. A crime is determined based on one’s motive, is it not? Everything is determined according to one’s intentions. The problem is that human beings possess limited understanding, and therefore judge erroneously based on external evidence. A person cannot know another’s internal motive. But God, who dwells in everyone’s heart, notes our thoughts even before we enact them. Hence, even though great Saints like Hanuman and Arjun committed thousands of murders, only their external actions appeared murderous, as their minds were established in God.
The conclusion is that your attachment and animosity can only be related to the world or to God; there is no third place. Why? Apart from the soul, there are only two entities: God and the world. Your mind must be attached to one or the other. If a person claims, “I am neither attached to God or to the world,” this is utterly impossible. A person may claim he feels no attachment to his mother, father or spouse, but when that person dies, he feels devastated. If you asked him, “What are you doing?” He will say, “I don’t know why I started crying.” This is because he was attached, but he did not understand this before.
Your intellect is incapable of properly determining any situation. A person asks himself, “Am I prideful?” He will answer, “No, of course not.” “Am I greedy?” He will answer, “Definitely not.” We cannot pass judgement against ourselves. The truth is that until God-realisation, everyone possesses faults. Everyone has desire, anger, and greed etc. but everyone thinks that they are perfectly fine and that everyone else is wrong. This is pride.
The extent of your detachment from this world is proportional to the extent of your attachment to God.
Renunciation happens by itself through attachment. You do not have to try to be renounced. Just think about God and your mind’s attachment to this world will stop automatically.
An English translation of a discourse delivered in Hindi by:
Jagadguru Shri Kripalu Ji Maharaj
17 July 2010
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