Non-Attachment – The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
“The consciousness of self-mastery in one who is free from craving for objects seen or heard about is non-attachment.“
“DRSTANUSRAVIKA VISAYA VITRSNASYA VASIKARA SAMJNA VAIRAGYAM“
This sutra discusses one of the biggest steps of yogic life. In modern life we desire everything that attracts us, and these desires never end. Desire for objects, positions, rewards as well as worries of how we look, what people think about us, and what people want us to be, to become. These aspects of life hugely affect our mind and our life. The mind never stops craving the things it sees and hears. Our mind is busy trying to find a way to reach those things. For example, we want to be in a particular career position and we work hard to get there. We want to buy a particular brand because everyone seems to buy it. We want the hair colour that our friend has. We want the jewellery that we see in shops and the clothes we see on television. We selfishly want everything we can possibly have.
The next stage our mind goes through is worrying about how to reach these things, how to find a way to have them. We can blindly do things (that we would never normally do) to reach our desires. For example, being a friend of someone who we don’t actually see as a friend, having a relationship with someone we don’t even like, doing a job which doesn’t make us happy but gives us good money anyway. We even hurt people or steal from them just to reach our desires. How can our mind rest a minute with all of these worries, thoughts, uncomfortable actions and even the guilty thoughts of these actions?
Even worse; how sad, frustrated and resentful we can become if we cannot reach our desires after all. Our mind may say: “I never liked this girl and I took all of her trouble for nothing”, “why on earth have I’ve been in a relationship with this person for that long when they didn’t even buy me a house” or “I spent my years in this blasted job but what I earn is never enough”, etc. etc.
Our desires are so strong that we even can try to do business with God. We pray to God to give us what we want and we offer to do something as an exchange.
Let us say we received what we desperately wanted.. what happens then? Does our mind stop? Can we be happy forever now? And are we free of the thoughts we had every day? The answer is “No”.
We will be after other things also. Other materials, other careers, other items. This vicious circle will continue until we die. When we come to our last moment in life we realise that we have never been happy. Everything we had, slipping away and what is surprising is we cannot take anything with us. All we would need in our last moment is peace.. peace of mind. But even in that moment, our unsettled thoughts and feelings would not leave us alone. We would feel sadness and regret. Too late, we realise how little happiness we found in the things we had been chasing our whole lives. We would wish that we could actually live our life differently and more happily. Sadly it would be very late to realise it in our last moment.
Therefore this Sutra of Patanjali is a gift and a guide for all of us. It helps us to find the wisdom of how to have a better quality of life by keeping our mind free from attachments, and rise to light and happiness. Yoga and meditation practices are very helpful to reach some level of stillness of mind, but alone they might not be enough. We need to watch our mind and our thoughts and learn to understand its way of processing, its patterns. Most importantly we need to learn not to get caught up in our mind’s games and traps.
I see the mind like a river, but the water that flows within the river is not always clean. We need to filter the water, to clean away the impurities in order that the water becomes fresh, healthy and thirst-quenching. Then it is pure and gives life. If we can separate the distractions from our mind, as we would separate the impurities from the river, then the end result will be far healthier.
“The Vedantic Scriptures say:
*“Even the desire for liberation is a bondage.” “Mokshabheksho bandhaha.”
Even if you desire liberation, you are binding yourself. Every desire binds you and brings restlessness. To get the liberation you have to be completely desireless…. Is it possible to be desireless? No … As long as the mind is there, its duty is to desire.”
By knowing this the best we can do is to give direction to our mind and thoughts.
*“But the secret is that any desire without any personal or selfish motive will never bind you. Why? Because the pure, selfless desire has no expectation whatsoever, so it knows no disappointment no matter what the result. But the thought that it expects nothing, has its own rewards.”
We can make other people happy, and find enjoyment in that. We reach actual richness and pleasure by giving or serving others.
*“There is a joy in losing everything, in giving everything. You cannot be eternally happy by possessing things. The more you possess the more sad you become…. By renouncing worldly things, you possess the most important sacred property: your peace.”
It might seem a bit of an unusual example but I find it quite interesting that the movie ‘Fight Club’ mentions this aspect of yoga in its own way. “It’s only after you have lost everything that you are free to do anything.”
Another benefit of non-attachment is we can do a job perfectly with a clean, detached mind.
*“When the mind is free from personal interest we do our work well and feel joyful. Our lives become meaningful.”
When we don’t have expectations or worldly desires, then we know neither disappointments nor fear. It is then that we reach a state of freedom and quality of mind.
July 2012
Dee Cooke
*The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali – Sri Swami Satchidananda – Chapter 1- 15