The True Meaning of Non-Attachment

By Ayush Sinha

The problem with most of us is that we cannot get ourselves detached from what hurts us the most. Situations, people, places, and others' words get stuck to our minds, and we become helpless later on. They start guiding us, although it is we who should have control over them. It is true that more than eighty percent of our feelings can be controlled by us, but this is not what we get to see in today’s date. Non-attachment is not about building a wall around one; it is not about staying away from the outside world. It is about not getting stuck to emotions, feelings, situations, people, and the things that hurt one the most. One will touch everything, but one will not get stuck. 'Non-attachment' is, however, a word that we misconstrue the most of late, making others go astray as well.  

Most of us are so used to positivity and light that we now deny the existence of negativity and darkness; on the other hand, some people cannot even think of positivity and light because of the way they lived their lives, but there cannot be any conception of light without the conception of darkness, nor can there be any conception of positivity without the conception of negativity. We need to accept both of them. With them are our lives so beautiful. For no matter whether it is a write-up or one's life, monotony seems not to be beautiful anywhere.

One wants to forget something, but there is only one way one is aware of, and that is hatred, but one can never forget something with hatred, for there is no way to forget something that is in one's mind. The more one hates something, the more one gets stuck to that. Forgetting things is out of question if there is even a little hatred or love for those things in one's mind. All that one needs to do is to be aware of the existence of what one wants to forget, but the awareness should be without hatred or love. This is the only way one can forget things.

The world that is within is more beautiful than the outside world. For the whole world that is outside will get obliterated the day this inner world gets obliterated. What one should be focused on the most is perhaps the world that is within. One who practices mindfulness can feel that the glue that gets one's mind stuck to emotions starts getting obliterated. This is perhaps the first result of meditating regularly.