Attachment and Love

 

A few thousand years back there was a great war at a place called Kurukshetra in India. During the war, it so happened that a famous warrior and Guru called Drona learnt of his son's death in the battlefield. He was immensely fond of his son and hearing of the news of his son's death, was greatly saddened and as a result decided to give up fighting and end his life. As he sat on the battlefield awaiting his death, he was approached by Krishna the King of Dwarka and also in whom Drona saw the divine. Drona asked Krishna, the reason for his loss and suffering when he really loved his son so much. Drona said "I sacrificed everything for my son, as I loved him so much". Krishna said "You did not love your son, you had attachment(Moh in Sanskrit) for him". "You never understood the difference between love and attachment. Love frees, but attachment binds and leads to suffering" said Krishna. "All that you did for your son your entire life was borne out of attachment and your expectations of him and this is the cause of your suffering now" said Krishna. Drona realised his mistake and finally made peace with his loss.

So what is this attachment ?

The dictionary meaning of attachment is - an extra part or extension that is or may be attached to something to perform a particular function.

The question is what is attached to what and how is it born ?

That which is attached can be an object or a concept of affection which becomes attached to the egoic self or the personal identity.

When a baby is born, the baby has no identity, the name is given and the attachment to the name develops. The baby is told they are a boy or a girl and he/she becomes attached to his/her gender. The baby is told they have a mother and a father and gradually it becomes attached to its parents. This sense of egoic identity starts growing as the attachments grow and then one day you ask a child who they are, they recite their name, their gender, their place of birth, where they live, city/state/country of their birth and so on. All of these are things that they feel are what defines who they are. Thus the identity of a person is nothing but a set of labels, concepts and ideas that the person is now attached to. As the identity collects more and more labels, concepts and objects that either others have identified with it or the identity itself has collected, the attachments also correspondingly grow.

 Are desires or cravings attachments too and what about beliefs ?

Lets say you have a desire for an expensive handbag, you fulfil the desire and then give the handbag away or treat it like just another handbag, your attachment was built up and then given up. However on the other hand if the desire for an expensive handbag either starts redefining your choices or becomes an obsession with collecting expensive handbags, your attachment to expensive handbags has started creating a bondage for you. It has started constraining your life, especially if you have limited money or if you have limited time and you spend excessive time dwelling on either looking for a bag or obsessing with it.  Any desire you adopt, which then becomes part of your egoic identity to the point that if expectations of that desire are not met, is an attachment.

Similarly one can either adopt or collect beliefs about a particular celebrity, politician or even types of food, which the egoic identity becomes so attached to, that the person obsesses with the particular celebrity or a specific type of food, leading to a constrained life.

Desires, conditionings, false beliefs, indoctrinations, these are all attachments that bind a person.

What are the different types of attachments ?

Attachments can be either adopted unconsciously, as blind beliefs or indoctrinations or they can be consciously adopted such as desires.

I can understand how attachments are born and how they grow, but how do they cause suffering ?

Lets say you are born in a certain country, in a certain state and go to a certain school. Now if someone critiques any of these and if you have a strong attachment to them, you feel bad, or if someone praises either your school or your country or your state, you feel proud. This roller coaster of emotions arises primarily due to the strong attachments and identification of the said concepts and objects. Anytime your expectations with respect to your attachments are not met, you then experience suffering. Drona in the above story had certain expectations of his son, how long he will live and what he will achieve. His attachment to his son was so strong that he felt that a part of his identity died when he heard the news of his son's death and he felt his life was not worth living.

Attachments lead to expectations, projections, desires and clinging. When the thing you desire cannot be met, there is suffering.

How can I know whether I am attached or not ?

When you have any expectations from a particular object or concept, it means you are attached to it. On the other hand if you have a state of indifference towards the object or concept you are free from attachments related to that object or concept.

Does that mean that whenever I say I love something, do I love them or am I attached to them?

The word love can be used in different contexts, for example when I say "I love candy", "I love my car" or "I love my house" or "I love talking", colloquially speaking you mean you like the object or action. It does not mean you are either attached to them or you love them, attachment only arises once you start having strong expectations from any of the concepts, objects or actions to the point that it creates bondage, which will lead to suffering.

It would appear that everything that I thought I loved is either an attachment or something I fleetingly like. What then is love ?

Perhaps this story adapted from Rumi's (a 13th century Persian poet) Masnavi works (translated by Maryam Mafi) sums up love.

A man desperately in love, arrived at the house of his beloved and enthusiastically knocked on the door.

"Who's there ? asked the lady.

"Its me" declared the man full of hope.

"Go away, there is no place for someone like you in this house, you declare yourself as 'me' and still proclaim your undying love for me? A lover who only sees himself is no lover at all, but needs to roast in the fire of separation until he's properly cooked."

She refused to open the door and the distraught man eventually backed away. Burning with the pain of separation and after a year of travelling from place to place, he gathered enough courage to approach his beloved's home again and knocked at the door.

"Who's there ? asked the lady.

"No one! The one on this side of the door is also you" expressed the man humbly.

"Now that you have stopped seeing only yourself, you have become me at last!. Two people could never exist simultaneously in this house. Now you can enter as there is no difference between us any more, we are one and the same."

Based on the above story, when the object of affection and the subject become one, then there is love. History is littered with countless stories of such types of love.

Isn't this type of love very difficult to achieve ?

Yes and No. It is very easy to cultivate this type of love, if and only if you can surrender yourself completely to the object of your love. However most people are so strongly identified with their attachments or their egoic identities, that they cannot let go or surrender. This is the reason it can take years of practice to get rid of one's attachments to false beliefs and indoctrinations.

The more stronger a person's attachments and egoic identity, the harder it is to be in love. The moment you drop your egoic identity, you are free to become one with any object, concept or experience. It can happen in a second or it can take lifetimes, it all depends on one's readiness to let go and discover themselves.

Does this mean I can be one with anything, a person, a concept, a physical object, a divine form ?

Yes. In this state of love you can become one with your chosen deity or god or anything physical you may choose and will adopt the attributes of the object of love. In such a state of love your egoic identity no longer exists, you are in a state of bliss, the object no longer matters, in fact you become one with existence and all there is then, is just existence.

Kabir Das a 15th century Indian mystic and saint summed this up in one of his poems.

Jab Main Tha Tab Hari Nahin Ab Hari Hai Main Naaheen.

Prem Galee Ati Saankaree Jaamen Do Na Samaaheen.

When I the egoic identity is there, then Hari (meaning divine) is not there and when Hari is, I the egoic identity is not there. The alley of love is so narrow that only one of us can be in it at a time.

Once the I of the egoic identity disappears, all that remains is love, which some call it the divine, others call it stillness, existence, Brahman or Dao.

What is the benefit of this type of love ?

When you are in this state of love, you are free from suffering, you don't waste countless hours running in circles around false beliefs, indoctrinations, limiting habits and worrying about inconsequential things. You begin to see everything for what it is, minus all the conditionings and prejudices, you become free and liberated.

What do I need to do to be in this state of love ?

In actual fact everyone is already in this state of love, unfortunately the egoic identity and attachments to various indoctrinations have completely covered it all up. To re-discover this state, the ignorance associated with egoic identity needs to be removed. It can be achieved through any of the paths below -

• Path of devotion, wherein one picks a deity and worships it, till they become one with it.
• Path of action, wherein one surrenders their doer ship and they become one with the activity they perform
• Path of energies, wherein one uses meditative practices to realise who they are and achieve oneness.
• Path of knowledge, wherein one gains the essential knowledge about the self, the illusion and becomes one with existence

There are many other paths that can be chosen, whatever the path, an experienced guru is highly recommended.

The journey on the above paths could take a while, is there something I can do to avoid collecting attachments in the short term ?

Not exactly, any of the paths can take you to your goal instantly, it all depends on how quickly you are willing to let go of your impurities.

There are two things you can do to avoid collecting attachments and suffering in the interim -

• Be in awareness and conscious when you pick an attachment to anything. Unfortunately most of the attachments are collected in an unconscious state.
• Even if you have already pick up certain attachments, be a witness, by being in awareness all the time, which will enable you to avoid acting on the compulsions of the attachments.

If you are in awareness most of the time, attachments will never unconsciously form and even if they do actions carried out in awareness will not cause suffering. As the attachments reduce and surrender develops, love will begin to develop.