What is detachment and why it is important?

What is detachment?

The English meaning of detachment is "a state of being aloof " but according to Bhagvad Gita it is more than this. Bhagvad Gita teaches detachment in the best way possible and also explains the reason for this detachment. In this post I will discuss on detachment from Bhagvad Gita point of view. To understand the real meaning of detachment we need to understand the Law of Karma first. Once the law of karma is understood the meaning of detachment and its importance can be understood easily.

What is Law of Karma?

The Law of Karma is a universal law due to which every living entity is suffering or enjoying. This law indicates that a living entity will have to face the results of its action. The action can be either pious or evil and the results of it has to be faced by one who is doing action. For pious action the results will be good and then he (who done pious action) will have to face the results of his pious actions. And if he performs evil actions like killing animals then he have to face the negative results of that action. This law is also the answer to one of most important question of life: why bad things happen with good people? This law is also the answer to why some babies die on birth? or why some babies have inherent medical problems? or  why some people are so lucky? One can face the results of his action in present life or next life. According to Vedic knowledge there are three types of Karma: Sanchit, Prarabdha, and Kriyamana. The English meaning of Sanchit is Accumulated, these karmas are the accumulated or stored karmas from many past lives. The word Prarabdha in English means Destined, whatever we are experiencing now is because of prarabdha Karma. It is a the fruit of some portion of sanchit karma. The Kriyamana karma is karma which will be performed in this life. So whatever we are experiencing success or failure in any endeavor is due to our karma. Our desires also comes in law of Karma and whatever we desire we will either get it in this life or in next life. 

Once I was discussing this with one friend and he was trying to troll this law. He in funny tone said "Look I am laughing on Bill gates how rich he is, haha haha... "  And he asked that whether he will become like Bill gates in this life or next life as he was trolling Bill gates richness. According to vedic knowledge he will become like Bill gates in present or next life according to his Sanchit Karma. But he is in ignorance and don't understand the pain of birth or death.

Basically detachment is to act neutrally without attachment to the fruits of the action and perform action without any selfish motives. Detachment also means not showing or thinking proprietorship on any of the possession because nothing remains with us after death. Action can be anything whether it can be eating or desiring in mind everything comes under Law of Karma. So detachment also means to let go the grudges on people who may have behaved in a unexpected way which made us angry on them. To know more about how to achieve this checkout my old posts this and this. Detachment also means we should not be envious of any person's success. If one is not detached then his every action with attachment will be counted according to law of Karma and he has to face its results. 

Every spiritualist will emphasize on detachment from worldly matters, its easy to say but very hard to implement. For this I prefer Bhagvad Gita and act according to it. The most famous verse is :

karmany evadhikaras te
ma phalesu kadacana
ma karma-phala-hetur bhur
ma te sango 'stv akarmani

You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action. Never consider yourself to be the cause of the results of your activities, and never be attached to not doing your duty. (Bhagvad Gita As it is 2.47) 

For practicing detachment I act according to this verse. But its really hard to act with detachment for a new spiritualist, for it, Lord Shri Krishna has said:

mayi sarvani karmani
sannyasyadhyatma-cetasa
nirasir nirmamo bhutva
yudhyasva vigata-jvarah

Therefore, O Arjuna, surrendering all your works unto Me, with mind intent on Me, and without desire for gain and free from egoism and lethargy, fight.(Bhagvad Gita As it is 3.30)

Here Lord Krishna asks Arjuna to surrender all his works to him, but does it mean Lord is in need? certainly No. He is saying such because he don't want Arjuna to be affected by Law of Karma. Same as Arjuna I perform my actions by surrendering all my works to Lord Krishna by which I can be detached from the fruits of the action. For a amateur spiritualist he can perform action without selfish motives first and act just for others. Lord Krishna also explains detachment in following verse:

yasman nodvijate loko
lokan nodvijate ca yah
harsamarsa-bhayodvegair
mukto yah sa ca me priyah

He for whom no one is put into difficulty and who is not disturbed by anxiety, who is steady in happiness and distress, is very dear to Me.(Bhagvad Gita As it is 12.15)

Being detached also means we should be stable in happiness and distress. We should not be elated in happiness(success) and should not self doubt or feel down in distress (failures). One should not behave like Sine wave as given in below image:

Sine wave of Human Emotions

The Sine wave's magnitude changes continuously instead by being detached we should act by being neutral and our emotion state should be steady at any time like DC current (straight). Enough of Electrical Engineering, back to spiritual science 😃 !

I know its hard to act with detachment and I will explain easy methods for detachment in future posts.
Such detachment helps one to get rid of future distresses and in severe cases depression because detached person won't feel any happiness or sadness for the result of the action he does and he will attain peace of mind. There is no wealth than peace of mind in this world. This is one of material benefits of detachment but spiritual benefit is more important. Lord Krishna explains our current situation by analogy of a Banyan Tree in Bhagvad Gita. The verse is:

sri-bhagavan uvaca
urdhva-mulam adhah-sakham
asvattham prahur avyayam
chandamsi yasya parnani
yas tam veda sa veda-vit

The Blessed Lord said: There is a banyan tree which has its roots upward and its branches down and whose leaves are the Vedic hymns. One who knows this tree is the knower of the Vedas.(Bhagvad Gita As it is 15.1) 

adhas cordhvam prasrtas tasya sakhaguna-pravrddha visaya-pravalahadhas ca mulany anusantatani karmanubandhini manusya-loke

The branches of this tree extend downward and upward, nourished by the three modes of material nature. The twigs are the objects of the senses. This tree also has roots going down, and these are bound to the fruitive actions of human society.(Bhagvad Gita As it is 15.2) 

Banyan Tree

Lord Krishna says one who knows this tree is the one who knows Vedas in real. Knowing means to understand it spiritually. Banyan Tree is one of the strangest trees I know and this tree is amazing me even more after reading Bhagvad Gita. Its structure is first of all very weird and creepy (according to horror movies and serials 😃) compared to other trees and in India some people believe Ghosts stay on this tree. But it gives very important spiritual message of results of attachments to action and its results as enlightened by Lord Krishna from Bhagvad Gita. According to above verse, the branches of this tree which goes upward and downward are nourished by three modes of nature we need to relate this analogy with our lives. As I wrote in my blog post the three modes of nature decides the personality of a person. So his actions are also bound by these modes and attachments to his actions will bind the soul to this material world. The banyan tree also has roots going down and according to analogy it indicates the attachments to actions and due to such attachments we are bound to take birth for reaping the results of our actions according to Law of Karma. The down direction of the roots indicates we are going down in mortal lives.

Detachment can be learnt from Lord Krishna by studying him. Though he was there in the great war of Mahabharata he was not attached to the war or the results. He clears this in Bhagvad Gita by the verse:

na me parthasti kartavyamtrisu lokesu kincanananavaptam avaptavyamvarta eva ca karmani   

O son of Prtha, there is no work prescribed for Me within all the three planetary systems. Nor am I in want of anything, nor have I need to obtain anything—and yet I am engaged in work. (Bhagvad Gita 3.22)

He is God and he don't need anything but still he is there with Arjun performing the role of Charioteer in war. He is the best example of detachment and Renunciation.

 What is the importance or need of detachment?

Spiritualists are trying to get out of the cycle of birth and death and reach the spiritual abode of Lord Krishna i.e Vaikuntha. Vaikuntha is where the Lord Vishnu stays where everything is ideal and perfect. One who goes there never takes birth and there is no death and only happiness. According to law of karma every action leads to binding of the soul(we) to this material world which is full of miseries and sadness. By detaching there is very less or no Kriyamana karma and hence no results to suffer or enjoy. However this doesn't guarantee ones entry to Vaikuntha, for it one has to develop strong devotion towards Lord Krishna, but detachment helps in decreasing risk of increasing future births.

I hope I explained the detachment and its importance in easy language. If you have any doubts please comment them in the comment box below. And please follow this blog for future posts.

 

 

  

 

 

Layers above pure soul

Our body is a very complex machine/vehicle and we are its driver, without our direction the body cannot go anywhere. As mechanic cannot repair vehicle without knowing the mechanism of the vehicle in the same way we cannot repair our psychological problems without knowing the mechanism this body works. We actually have two bodies one is Gross Body which can be seen by naked eyes and the second is Subtle Body which cannot be seen easily by naked eyes but can be understood and felt by experiences. Every one has such two types of bodies but its hard to differentiate between them. For example people judge easily someone by his looks and make a definition of him and behave with him in that way.

See the above picture of the punk. What do you think about him? Any normal person would start judging him on first sight by defining him like He may be rude, lost to drugs,aggressive,etc. But without knowing him personally how can we judge some one?

Lets see other example:

See the person in above picture. Any normal person (who don't know him) would think that he is a decent man playing with baby, a good guy, etc. But he is Pablo Escobar one of dangerous Drug mafias. But why we judge someone by just looks without meeting personally?

We judge people due to experiences we had in our lifetime. These experiences can be added to us by movies, or any other means which affects our psychology. Like in first example the guy who looks like a punk maybe a decent person having good morals and character but he changed his look like punk because may be he liked punk like look.

In this way everyone possess two types of bodies. We can understand this by considering thinking on ourselves. Just see yourself in the mirror/photograph and try to judge yourself (its hard I know it) by your looks from a third person perspective. And think once again that however you look and the judgement you get for your looks are you truly that? The answer would be definitely NO. Everybody has a personality within which he lies and works. And as explained in my last post this personality is developed due to temporary modes of Nature. So we should never judge anyone by just looks as everyone has a deeper personality which can be understood only by knowing that person.

Fig: Coverings of soul

The above image gives a conceptual understanding of the coverings on top of Pure soul. The Pure Soul (Atman) is covered under these two bodies The gross body is the body which is purely made of matter or atoms and the subtle body which is our personality developed due to influence of modes of Nature and False ego and we the soul is more deeper than this subtle body. All the psychological insecurities, qualities, etc is our subtle body. This cannot be seen by naked eyes but its existence cannot be denied. The soul here is called pure, because it is nirguna or without any qualities or personality.

So one should know him(her)self to be transcendental and should not fall prey to insecurities of the personality and should act beyond the boundaries created by the personality. The depression is one of the major disorder of today's world and person understanding and applying this knowledge will not have any depression or negative thoughts.   

How should I utilize this knowledge in normal life?

What would you do if someone becomes angry on you? dependent upon your personality and without this knowledge the you may react in different ways like counter anger, listen silently and hold grudges which will further lead to revenge, etc. But a person in this knowledge will keep himself silent and won't hold any grudges on the person becoming angry because he knows that only the modes of nature due which his personality has developed is making him acting like this but he is not the way he is acting instead he is soul. I think marketing or sales guys should learn this knowledge and utilize it in their works, it will definitely help them to bring in positive results. Because marketing or sales person needs to face many rejections and disappointments which can decrease his confidence but having armed by this knowledge he won't be affected by disappointments.

You can utilize this knowledge in any phase of life and act without any expectation knowing that you cannot control behavior of the person you are dealing with and he/she will act according to his/her personality.

I hope I explained in easy language if you have any doubts then ask in it comments.

If we all are same souls then why do we behave differently?

All living beings are souls including trees but every living being behaves differently even beings of same species behave differently what to speak of different species. But why is this? Why there are different types psychologies of humans? Why some are very aggressive,evil,good, matured, calm, rude, etc?

The answer for this question lies in Law of Karma and the gunas (qualities) of the body of living beings. Every living being has some inherent qualities in boundaries of which it works, enjoys, and tries to pursue dreams.

What are Gunas (Qualities)?

The material nature has three qualities/modes: Sattva (Goodness), Rajas (Passion) and Tamas (Ignorance). All living beings are bounded by these qualities and behave only in the boundaries of these qualities. Lets see what these qualities are:

1. Goodness: As the name suggests the person having this quality behaves good or kind. Behaviors like kindness, calmness, polite, happy, content,sympathy,compassion etc. all comes under mode of goodness. The person dominated by this mode/quality always sees good in everything, he is innocent, he wants everyone to live happily, he is very polite to others, he tries to help others, etc. There is a scarcity of this quality in today's modern society where people are becoming selfish and self centered.                                                                                                           

   

    Fig: Example of  action in the mode of goodness

                                                                                          
2. Passion: This quality indicates lot of desires to enjoy or sense gratification. A person influenced by this quality works very hard to fulfill his desires. Today's modern society is highly influenced by this quality. We can see everyone is just running to fulfill his desires and working so hard as if they are going to live forever with all their possessions and enjoy for eternity. Desires can be anything from having a beautiful woman or handsome and successful husband to owing a large mansion, cars, entitled for respect, etc such desires arise due to this quality. So any desire to enjoy or have something from this material nature comes under mode of passion.                                                       

   

   Fig: Example of action in the mode of passion

                                                                                                 
3. Ignorance: This quality indicates madness or doing anything without considering its loss to self or others. People influenced by this quality behave irresponsibly, they are attracted by different addictions, they are mostly depressed, not have any interest in spiritual knowledge,etc. They think that this world is Only truth and there is nothing beyond death. Again our society is highly influenced by this quality as there are very few who are interested in searching answers for important questions of life. The people in this quality are in illusion and too sentimental, the suicidal thoughts is the result of this quality.                                                                                                             

   

   Fig: Example of action in mode of ignorance attraction to addictions        

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

   

   Fig: Example of action in mode of ignorance                               

                                                                                                                                                        

Dependent on the amount of dominating quality in a person his behavior is bounded. Every person has different amounts of these qualities it is not possible to have only one quality. But one quality dominates him and he behaves according to that quality. Mode of ignorance dominates animals as they are mostly engaged in killing, eating meat, or no intelligence to find answers to their existence.
Depression is result of the mode of ignorance, as a person who is not in knowledge identifies himself with the body and takes the sorrows seriously when depression further dominates he get suicidal thoughts.

One may think that if one's nature is already inherited then he is not responsible for bad karma, but this is not so. As explained in my last blog post that we are soul and we have minute independence to "select" difference between good and bad, so it is our choice and hence we are responsible for it. 

Now whenever you find people behaving unexpectedly you should know that they are behaving according to their inherited modes and they are actually not the way they seem and hence we should not expect anything from others, because everyone behaves according to mode they are influenced by.

How Law of karma is related with behavior of people?

I am learning all this spiritual knowledge from Bhagvad Gita As it is. The answer for this question is given by Lord Krishna in Bhagvad Gita. He says:

sariram yad avapnoti
yac capy utkramatisvarah
grhitvaitani samyati
vayur gandhan ivasayat

The living entity in the material world carries his different conceptions of life from one body to another as the air carries aromas. (Bhagavad Gita as it is 15.8)

You might have heard that our thoughts create our destiny its true spiritually, as we are part and parcel of God (Lord Krishna) we have power to enjoy as we desire (but its limited!) and hence we get a specific type of body to enjoy in next life. Suppose one girl is not happy with her looks and is envious of others beauty then she will surely fulfill her desire in upcoming birth by getting beautiful body. This applies to all living beings. Hence Lord Krishna says that living beings carries his different conceptions (desires & Karma) from one body to another and gets specific body to fulfill that desire. That is why Bhagvad Gita and other Vedic scriptures teach us to give up desires and become detached from these gunas (qualities). You will know the reason why detachment is taught in upcoming blog posts.

All these gunas are in our mind and it creates a illusion so that soul remains entangled, but we should control it with our intelligence received from scriptures like Bhagvad Gita. During war Arjun was also dominated by the mode of Goodness (Sattva) and he refused to fight with his own kinsmen, but Lord Krishna with the lamp of knowledge removed such attachment and Arjun won the war.

Fig: Visualization of three Gunas affecting a person.

Above is the visualization of how the three modes of nature is pulling us and we are entangled in it more and more. Scriptures teach us to get rid of all the three gunas not even goodness is allowed to be attached with. Because this world is of dualities and Good or evil is part of this world and we are beyond such gunas.

I hope I explained the modes of nature in easy language. If you have any doubts or suggestions please do write in comment section.

Am I the mind?

By reading my last blog post one might have got the idea that he is not body. But then who are we? Lets find out the answer for this in upcoming lines...

Any neophyte in spirituality would say that I am not the body but its hard to tell what we are actually. Such person thinks that he is brain, or feelings, or mind but soul or Atman is beyond the mind and even superior to intelligence! As a student of Bhagvad Gita, I refer to this verse for understanding between the mind and me (soul). Lord Krishna says,

indriyani parany ahur
indriyebhyah param manah
manasas tu para buddhir
yo buddheh paratas tu sah

The working senses are superior to dull matter; mind is higher than the senses; intelligence is still higher than the mind; and he [the soul] is even higher than the intelligence. (Bhagvad Gita as it is 3.42)

This verse clearly explains that we are neither mind nor intelligence nor feelings but we are different. If there were no senses then we would be just like a block of flesh without any actions so senses are superior to dull matter (our gross body) because they provide a way to see and understand things. But would just senses suffice to make a complex being like us? no so the mind which controls the senses is called superior here as without it we cannot use our senses. Further the differentiation of the mind and the intelligence is said. Normally we think that mind means intelligence, but its not that. We develop intelligence according to our experience whatever we learned till now. For example, we don't jump from top of building because our intelligence explains us that it is dangerous for us to jump and can damage our body hence intelligence is superior to mind. But then further Lord Krishna even differentiates us from intelligence and says that we (soul) is even higher than intelligence. Its confusing but we can visualize this by image below:

As can be seen from above image the soul(we) are superior in hierarchy. This applies to all living things anywhere from small microorganisms to complex living beings like us. Just we have a good type of body which has the sufficient intelligence to search answers for important questions like Who am I? , Why am I here?, Why we die? , Why we cannot live forever?, Why there is pain and sorrow in life?  so on and other animals don't have any intelligence to search for such questions. But we are different than them and can search answers. We are superior because we decide the ultimate outcome of our action. So whatever attachments we have with this world is just illusion created by our mind. Our true attachment can only be with God and no other thing/person, this seems contradicting but its true. I will prove this statement correct in future posts in this blog. Below image gives a visualization of the soul and mind by a computer analogy.

One can understand by thinking on this analogy what soul is. As seen the hardware is body and the software (without which the body/hardware is useless) is the mind and lastly the user which is soul (without user/soul the whole software and hardware is useless). So we are actually the user of this body and mind. So it should work according to our wish and not other way around. As we ignore some features of the software which we don't need in the same way we should ignore some thoughts which are blocking our spiritual endeavors and focus on what is important.

Further Lord Krishna says:

evam buddheh param buddhva
samstabhyatmanam atmana
jahi satrum maha-baho
kama-rupam durasadam

Thus knowing oneself to be transcendental to material senses, mind and intelligence, one should control the lower self by the higher self and thus—by spiritual strength—conquer this insatiable enemy known as lust. (Bhagvad Gita as it is 3.43)

So we should learn to control ourselves by knowing our self superior to our mind and intelligence and should act in that way. Once anyone understands himself as the soul by thinking deeply he can differentiate the illusions created by mind and the world. The lust is also in the mind and not us, as we are superior we can control the mind and get rid of lust.

If one think rationally by considering the above verses and going back in flashback, we can understand that we have been programmed that this is happiness, sorrow, etc by using different mediums like movies, other people, etc. But any rational person can think that happiness which we get is don't last longer and we get bored with the thing/person which gives us happiness in some time. For example, if I buy my dream car I will get compliments by people and they will admire me for some months and I will feel happy. But after some period I will get bored by the same car for which I worked very hard and my dream car would feel like a normal car. This is because we cannot be happy by anything we get from materialism and hence spiritualists call it illusion.

Today suicide rates are increased more than before because so called modern people have become so entangled with materialism and competition that they don't try to search information about self or soul by reading literature like Bhagvad Gita and fall prey to illusion created by mind and world. I don't understand where this competition will take us, ultimately everyone have to die and leave all the success which was earned by hard work. I am not suggesting to leave work and sit idle and not even Bhagvad Gita suggest, one should work but there should be no attachment or proprietorship and should work in knowledge about himself. The reason for this detachment will be cleared future in posts on this blog.

I hope my explanation was easy to understand. If you have any questions/suggestions please let me in know in comments. Follow this blog and be tuned for future posts. 

 

what is spirituality?

Many people struggle understanding spirituality as its a hard topic to understand for normal people like us who are entangled in materialistic way of life. I will try to explain the spirituality in layman's terms so that every one should understand in this post.

In basic terms spirituality means to self realize that we are not ordinary like our bodies which just a lump of dead matter. For understanding what I mean by this check out image below:



To understand spirituality we need to make ourselves clear that we are not this body. As seen from above image our body, this universe is changing continuously. Everything changes continuously around us like we grow from a infant to teen and then from teen to adult and from adult to old age person.

By considering the above image we are not we after some period of time! I know by reading this line you would be feeling like this:

Confused aren't you? 😀
You would say that I am - I am after any time period, yes you are. But your body changes and not you. So this is the first step to understand spirituality that body changes but I am unchangeable.

Secondly we say my hand, my eyes, my brain, etc. but who is this to say my? This also proves that we are not this body we never say that I am hand, I am eyes, I am brain.
So what we are?
We are souls entrapped in this body. I will again prove that we are not this body...

We were infant and slowly as years passed our body grown in different size, change in hormones, etc. but we are the same as we were from baby age. This is hard to digest but its true and any person can understand that we are unchangeable we are what we were as a baby just our body changed and our emotions changed. For explanation of this check out below image:


As seen from above image the soul is the same and just the body changes its shape and its properties. This is not limited to any religion but a fact which can be understood by any human by thinking. To understand spirituality you don't need to perform hard penances done by ascetics just normal thinking and understanding difference between us and the body.

So spirituality means to understand that all living beings including us are not body. Yes even animals, trees, insects are all souls trapped in that type of body. Spiritually there is no difference between us and other living beings. Self realization is only possible in human beings and not in any other living beings.

Some say that soul is something different and we need to understand it with very hard ways but its not so. We are soul trapped in the body and not any superficial thing that needs to be pursued.

Why should you care to understand spirituality?

1. Your focus will increase and you will become more productive.
2. You will become more audacious than before.
3. You will get rid of psychological disorders like depression.
4. You will lose the ego which disturbs your relationships.
5. You will be more calm and cool than before.
6. You will become more optimistic. 

In today's fast paced and competitive life psychological problems are increasing more than before and we need spirituality to repair this. Without spirituality we are seeing negative impacts in society like suicide rates have increased more than before. Such suicides are increasing because we are identifying ourselves with body and entangled in illusion.

Some so called rational people say that all this is false and there is no soul but lets consider a case. When anybody dies we say that he expired or he is no more but why we say this? despite he can be seen there lying before us. So who is no more? this gives the answer that the soul which was in the body whom we called by some name and identity is not in the body anymore.

When we die people even don't call us by our name and call dead body instead! why this? because they know that their beloved one is not in that body anymore. So this proves that we are soul and not the body. The body is just a dead matter without soul and once the person dies (or soul leaves the body) the body starts to decompose.

Any sane man can understand that we are not weak like body which has many weak points like its bones can break, heart can fail, etc. but we soul are ever energetic and eternal.  We might have heard old people say "My body don't support now as it was before" so it can be understood that body is weak and not we (soul).

So I guess I have explained what spirituality is in easy language. If you have any doubts/suggestions let me know in comments.