The importance of detachment

People often ask me how I can live a life without limits. The answer is simple: learning to detach is the secret. Detachment from energy, emotion and material goods.
Detachment happens when you are completely self-sufficient.

But we must not confuse detachment with not caring about things. We can still care, and when we listen to our hearts, we find ourselves in a state of pure love. Detachment takes practice. Detachment is a responsibility that, when practiced, will teach you not to ask for anything in return.

What is attachment?

Attachment is when we depend on things or other people for our happiness. When we do this, if things don’t go the way we wanted, we will encounter disappointment, failure, or pain. Let’s look at a simple example: if we like chocolate we can eat it and enjoy it when it is available. However, if chocolate is not available, it will not affect us or put us in a bad mood. This is detachment.

We are all conditioned by our past. If we have been denied something in our past, that same thing attracts us. We believe that this thing will give us happiness. For example; If you have always wanted to live in a big house (because during childhood you lived in a small one) your way to success would be to live in a big house, especially if you were unhappy during your childhood. So, living in a big house appeals to us because we have never done it and we think it will give us happiness.

We set goals, sometimes unattainable, and we stick to them. We think that everything will be solved with that thing we want. Getting attached or obsessed with having something that you think will give you permanent happiness is only going to cause recklessness, obsession, confusion and it will become the only thing you think about.

When we lose that thing we have become obsessed with, we believe that we have lost everything, that our world has ended. We can enter a spiral of fear, doubt and self-sabotage, without being able to see beyond. We are unable to create a long-term plan.

Our human mind has conditioned us to measure our success with “things” that will give us happiness. When we strengthen our heart and mind, through practices such as meditation and breathing techniques (Pranayama), we gain clarity of thought through connection to the heart and clear mind.

When we pay attention to the wisdom of the heart we see life in its entirety instead of just one aspect.

Why is detachment so important?

When we look at life as a whole, whatever we do we will do it joyfully, because we will not be focused on one small aspect. When we do this and decide what we want to do with our life – what will make us happy and follow the plan – we probably won’t have a midlife crisis, wondering what went wrong. That’s because we made that decision with complete clarity.

When we have clarity of thought, we can choose the kind of life we want, a life that will bring us happiness, and then we can create a plan and follow it as best we can.

The secret is that while we make the plan, we should not get attached to the result and should only focus on executing it.

If we can focus on executing our plan without receiving anything in return, we will have achieved detachment.

When we achieve it – and expect nothing in return – we achieve true freedom and live without restriction.

Sri Swami Purohit