Let me develop the concept from an event that involuntarily causes the ultimate, irreversible detachment - Death. Death unequivocally solves all kinds of worries, concerns, anxieties, ill will, ego injuries, and the like. Pretend to be a fly on the wall as you see yourself die and the rest of the world adjust to your absence. There is nothing but peace, with a definitive end to all negative emotions that plague the living. "The loss is irreparable" is the famous cliche in condolence messages. The reality is that the loss gets very much repaired - sooner or later - as the survivors learn to live without the departed soul. If every loss thus far were to be irreparable, this would be a world in total disrepair! And, we all know it is not.
The learning from death (others', of course!) is not to choose death as a tool to detach. It is how to voluntarily practice while living what becomes inevitable at the end of ones life journey. We may learn a thing or two by philosophically analyzing the anatomy of death:
- Emotional detachment. Reduce the correlation between external stimuli and ones emotional state. As living beings have the option to choose that the dead ones do not, let us choose to react only to stimuli that cause positive emotions (love, joy, happiness), and not to stimuli that cause negative emotions (anger, jealousy, suffering). One also needs to be careful to not become dependent on the stimuli causing positive emotions. In that case, one has developed an addiction - an unhealthy type of attachment - and this flies in the face of the detachment goal.
- Material detachment. Reduce the correlation between material objects and ones state of mind. These may include the house, the cars, other possessions. The critical question that can separate the wheat from the chaff is whether something is needed (such as air to breathe, water to drink) versus whether something is wanted/desired (such as a larger house, a luxurious car).
- Relationships detachment. Reduce the role a relationship plays in your state of mind - including, but not limited to a spouse, children, siblings, parents, other family and friends. Enjoy their existence as much as you can without, again, depending on it - for it would become an addiction of the type discussed earlier. This extrapolates to an interesting and, possibly, the most meaningful of them all:
- Self detachment. Reduce the role that your own self (and life thus far) plays in your state of mind - this includes past glories and laurels, achievements and accolades. This can allow one to truly live in the present, for the present; not on the past or for the future!
Who says there isn't anything to learn from a lifeless corpse??!!
2 comments:
As a wise man once said, "Experience attachment (to worldly pleasures) to know the importance of detachment!"
Something also told in the tale of Yayati.
Unfortunately, the practice of complete detachment is difficult for most of us. Therefore, to such, the advice of move on after the demise of a loved one makes more sense.
"Detachment" by itself is such a powerful word. It is NOT easy to follow the determination to be 'detached' as the human is so used to be surrounded by love, desire, pride, ownership etc that to forget any of it is just impossible. Death is the only answer to 'detachment'.....unless you are out of the 'ordinary'!
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