Is It OK To Have Attachments?

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The very questions whether it is good or OK to have attachments might be seen to be on the edge of being derogatory for those with a typical understanding of religion. Isnt having attachments considered a bad thing for a spiritual person or anyone who wants to progress on such path? After all isnt attachment one of the five major forces which bind a human being to the body namely kaam, krodh, lobh, moha and maya or lust, anger, greed, attachment and illusion.

We feel that attachments are often misunderstood. It is important that we have an attachment. Will life be better if we did not have any attachment? It is the attachment that stops us from attaining moksha. Well all this maybe is true. We will try to get into the details of the same and try to understand the concept of attachments in a new perspective.

Is it ok to have attachments?

Let us try to understand this simple statement in a more profound manner than we usually think about it.

It is human nature to be attached to things. However, whatever we see and feel is nothing but a dream within a dream. We did not come into this world with anything and when we leave again we will not have anything.

Do you think you will feel any pain if you were not attached to anything. The answer is “no” as pain comes with attachment only. This is exactly why we say that attachments are not good. Most of the religious teachings will tell you to be detached. If you are attached to the material things you will be entangled in the material world and that can give you pain.

When you get pain you will automatically divert from the path of spiritualism which is not good. We all are alive and we need to be alive. If you want to be happy you must be able to enjoy and live every moment. If you try to detach yourself you will soon realise that you are dead even before death has actually come.

The practical aspects

If you want to be spiritual in your life you cannot drop people. Many people feel that family can be a big hurdle in your path to gain spiritualism. This is not true. You must be aware of all t able the things that you are associated with. You must now about their existence and value only then you will be able to gain spiritually and grow as a human being.

The biggest attachments

Our biggest attachment is not our money or our family. The biggest attachment we have is with our personality and ego. We all have our own ideologies, our likes and dislikes that we have developed over a period of time. This can be very dangerous and can lead to a lot of problems. If you can do away with these things then you will do away with the deepest attachments and with negative attachments that we actually do not need.

Dynamic not static

As you grow older in life you will notice that your attachments are also changing. When you are young you want freedom everything that comes between you are your freedom you start to dislike it. As you reach midlife you start to feel that emotions are more important and you start to look deeper into the relationships.

As you grow older you start to attach more to spirituality at least most of the people if not all. For example you feel this is how things around you should be and if you feel that your wife or your child is coming in between how you feel life should be for you then you might start to think of a life without them. Can you drop the way you think or you feel about the situation in life. No you cannot do that because that is how your personality is. You are thus more attached to who you are than to anything else. When you can compromise on the way you feel about your situation in life only then you can actually be detached and start progressing on the spiritual path.

Our attachments

We are basically attached more to our body and the way we think about ourselves. Our attachment to people and things around us is actually not the problem. It is not easy to leave our body or our personalities. If you can actually forget about these then you can actually become free in the true sense. Try to make yourself believe that this body is actually not yours only then you will be able to free yourself and life a better life.

The story of King Indra

We will now discuss a story from Hindu mythology that will help you understand what we are trying to say. Once Indra decided that he needs a break so he came to earth. He liked the pig as an animal so he took the form of a pig. He got married to a female pig and had many children. The Gods waited for Indra to return but Indra had no intentions to he was very happy in his new life.

So the gods decided that they should kill the pig lets maybe then Indra will get back out of the sorrow that those deaths would bring. However, Indra got more and more attached to his other kids who were alive. This was his way of dealing with the death of his piglets. Now the Gods had to think of something else so they decided to kill the wife of Indra. Now Indra got so upset that his relatives suggested him to marry again. After this marriage again more piglets were born. Indra was happy again and he showed no signs of coming back to heavens.

Now the Gods went to Narad and told his what Indra was doing. Narad was a wise man and he laughed at the Gods. He said you killed all the piglets and the wife of Indra for no reasons. It was not required at all. Indra is actually attached to his body. If you had destroyed the body of Indra your problem would have been solved.

So the Gods killed the pig in whose body Indra was living. As soon as the pig died Indra came out of the body and he was surprised to think what he was doing inside that body and in that filth. This shows that we are actually attached to our body and to our feelings. If we can detach ourselves from this we will be able to make better progress in spiritual path. There is no need to leave our children and spouse or the money that we have earned.

Conclusion and Summary

Finally it can be stated that doing away with attachments actually means realizing your own true self. When you realize your true self, the attachment with the body goes away and once that happens, other attachments which are due to the bodily connections and karmic accounts automatically stop affecting you and you become a free soul.

Sudipta Ray

http://www.metaphysics-knowledge.com/beliefs/is-it-ok-to-have-attachments.html/