It is generally believed that a detached person is much less emotional than an attached one. I do not completely disagree.
However, I do not think that it is possible for an ordinary
human being who is not emotional enough to become detached. I think detachment
is nothing but being more attached to certain things and being detached to many
things that majority of people in the world generally remain attached to. One
may find that, wealth; power, worldly gains, popularity, relationships etc. are
the things the people easily get attached to.
When one realizes that name, fame, wealth, power, material gains,
worldly success etc. have little significance due to their impermanent nature
and that they could never become sources of true happiness; he loses interest
in them and gets more inclined to things that provide him satisfaction and
contentment that could last longer. This may become his first step towards the
process of detachment.
It may be noted that I have avoided calling it ‘state of
detachment’ and have preferred to refer it as ‘process of detachment’.
It is pain that one wants to get away from. We have been
taught that to avoid pain is our nature. God has made us like that. One who
wants to know and explore truth of everything, may contemplate and find that
root cause of all unhappiness is our attachment towards all that are short
lived, destructible and uncertain. If one turns away from all such things, we
say, he is getting detached from worldly things.
But objects are inanimate; how can one be influenced by them
in any way? One can identify that the cause lies within him. It is his failure
to guide and convince his desires as to what is not good for him or what could
cause pain to him. Objects can provide
us only very temporary sensory pleasure. Loss of such objects may cause pain.
We can go on thinking about several animate and inanimate entities that became
sources of pain, but ultimately we may find that, in fact, it is always we
ourselves, who carry pain within us. The outside world just acts as some medium
that we can put blame on.
It is said that being unhappy is not in our nature. But, we
often find that we search for a cause that can make us unhappy and inflict pain
onto us.
If I continue arguing
we will go round in circles and will not reach anywhere or stop at any point on
the circle, erroneously assuming that to be the final point.
Therefore, let us tentatively agree on the following;
1.
Happiness and unhappiness both are in our nature.
2.
How we relate to what exists in the outside world
(both, animate or inanimate) may become the cause of sorrow or pain.
3.
As we are good at establishing relationships we can,
perhaps, merge our ‘I’ with ‘We’. ‘We’ may mean other human beings or all that
is animate or inanimate. We may call it universalizing of ‘I’.
Now, things become simpler. Your pain is my pain. If you are
unhappy I am unhappy (i.e. because of you unhappiness). I am unhappy because a
few men on the street are hungry.
Yes, I am referring to ‘compassion’; being concerned about
others.
Let us not stop here. Our objective is to reduce pain and
not ‘sharing the enhanced pain’. Attachment with things those are not necessary
for our survival or the things that rightfully belong to others but have been
cornered by us due to our greed or unwarranted fear of assumed unavailability
or shortages in future; become a cause of pain for many. Some experience pain
due to loss of those objects that do not rightfully belong to them; and many
others experience pain due to being deprived of objects that were necessary for
their survival.
For example; if a food grain merchant hoards food grains for
making more profit when conditions of famine existed and his entire stock of
food grain is burnt due to fire; he would be unhappy and at the same time those
who were deprived of food would also be unhappy having been deprived of food
that was necessary for their survival.
We must merge our ‘I’ with ‘We’ that helps us in sharing
pains mutually. If we share pains it becomes easy to bear them. At the same
time we cannot afford to forget that our main objective is to reduce pain from
this world. We must ensure that we do not become attached to the objects
considering them as our own even if they do not belong to us rightfully. God
has made provisions for survival of all who are born in this world. All of us
can make efforts and get enough for our survival. It is the greed of a few, the
tendency of few to corner others’ share that makes the life in this world more
painful.
Whether to universalize our ‘I’ first and then detach
ourselves from what does not belong to us rightfully; or to become detached
first and cultivate the ‘We’ awareness later; becomes a matter of our
individual choice. In my opinion, realization that we exist as a participant in
the universal whole is the essence of both of the above steps and hence, we
should cultivate both of them together.
I think, this shall make the process more beautiful.
Man should not be afraid of doing hard work and bearing some
inconveniences in life. Inconveniences are not the causes of pain and sorrow.
They are meant to enhance our capability.
Some tears for those who are in difficulty, are not wasted.
Such tears are constructive for the entire universe and provide opportunities
to grow to those who shed them.
10/1/2013
**************************************************
0 comments:
Post a Comment