A strange thing happened recently: My car (and actually my father's) which I use for daily office commute, was being taken away by the pickup guy for regular maintenance.
And I feel a pang: as if a loved one was being separated from me! My mind took a step back to seek to understand this better. How can I feel thus, for something that's clearly a non-living object. Up until now, I would rationalize this feeling when placed for living beings, especially humans. This pang resembled when my son was going to Anantapur for a week in 2014 after we'd just moved back, to give me and wife time to set up home in Bengaluru. And of course, there is no comparing the two for me, in mind and heart. I'm hardly attached (at least I thought so) to what's "material".
I had to now accept it: This pang was irrespective of living or non-living. This was nothing but a feeling of possession, an attachment! And "material" constituted both the living and non-living. For me, for all of us!
And this realization is the first step. This awareness that this attachment is irrespective of the object. It's the feeling of attachment that lies within. It shows, no matter what you think you are, you still have some distance to cover in the practice of detachment.
And why's that detachment important? The further tied down, the lesser the freedom, the experience of true bliss. The less this feeling of pure happiness, the more the desire, the seeking of pleasure, and delusion, the pursuit of objects (aims/ambitions including) in this world.
And I feel a pang: as if a loved one was being separated from me! My mind took a step back to seek to understand this better. How can I feel thus, for something that's clearly a non-living object. Up until now, I would rationalize this feeling when placed for living beings, especially humans. This pang resembled when my son was going to Anantapur for a week in 2014 after we'd just moved back, to give me and wife time to set up home in Bengaluru. And of course, there is no comparing the two for me, in mind and heart. I'm hardly attached (at least I thought so) to what's "material".
I had to now accept it: This pang was irrespective of living or non-living. This was nothing but a feeling of possession, an attachment! And "material" constituted both the living and non-living. For me, for all of us!
And this realization is the first step. This awareness that this attachment is irrespective of the object. It's the feeling of attachment that lies within. It shows, no matter what you think you are, you still have some distance to cover in the practice of detachment.
And why's that detachment important? The further tied down, the lesser the freedom, the experience of true bliss. The less this feeling of pure happiness, the more the desire, the seeking of pleasure, and delusion, the pursuit of objects (aims/ambitions including) in this world.
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