June 10-2009:
Is Total Detachment Possible?
Is it humanly possible for anyone to be totally detached from any person, place, or thing, for all of
his/her life?
This thought came to me tonight, and I decided to explore this realization or thought, to the extent that I am able to conceptualize it.
Firstly, I have read volumes of books or the biographies of seers, religious personages, philosophers, and ordinary individuals who espoused this ideal. Some have even tried it for a while and failed to achieve it totally in the end. And yet, most aspirants who pursue inner peace, love, enlightenment, or some insight into who and what they truly are, seem to feel that detachment from all things physical is the key to that end.
But then again, us humans are inclined by circumstance to be attached to something, or some place, or someone. Even primitive people in the earliest times were attached to their own hunting grounds. Because experience showed them that it was available, or familiar territory that provided prey for their hungry mouths. So they often hunted in that or those places where they were certain (from past experience), to find prey or food to kill and eat.
When the prey or food became scarce due to drought, famine, or some other natural or human element. They went to other un-explored areas in search of prey or food, in order to survive. They risked being killed if discovered by some other unknown people or being, they might have imagined or feared (without any rationale for so doing). But risked it anyway, because they had to eat, or provide for their young ones, or communities, which was eventually formed.
Could modern life facilitate detachment totally?
Modern societies have certain rules that are either oral, written, or implied. And if any human wants to live or survive within it, they have to acknowledge, or abide by certain rules already established by the culture or society they find themselves in, in order to survive, thrive, and have some form of well being, without harm to his/herself un-necessarily. Police forces were established to protect the immediate or local communities, and armies were established to protect the larger community or state of the entire culture.
If one wants to live a detached life, this will entail a lot of things that my conflict with society's expectations of him/her, in this regard. Thus creating inner and outer conflict within that community or culture.
One has to find some place to live, which will entail renting a flat, apartment, house, or buying one's own place or abode.
One has to be either able to sell his/her services physically, mentally, or intellectually, or (all of the above), in order to gain employment, to earn money, to provide for his/her physical needs or necessities. And to do this, he/she must earn money by seeking employment from someone else, or some other form of self employment.
This is where the element of attachment conflicts with his/her need to be free or detached. Because if one has to earn a livelihood via employment, then he/she has to honor a contract of service with someone, some firm, or business enterprise. Which entails that he/she reports to work on time, punctually, regularly, and performs on the job to meet whatever is required of him or her by his/her employer.
So how could anyone become detached without coercion or obligation to anyone or anything?
I believe that detachment in a spiritual sense is the ability to be involved with someon or something, but never feeling that this person or thing defines who and what you are or want to be or acomplish.
In other words, one can live with someone, love someone, be attracted to someone, or even committed to someone or to something, but never feeling that if he/she loses that person or thing, it will devastate him/her, to the point of self destruction or suicide.
Priests, Nuns, Seers, Sages, Yogis, and very religious personages strive for this type of detachment. Many fail in the quest, while others may falter sometimes, they never give up the quest for total detachment. It is a life long quest, and very few of us humans ever attain it.
Derryck S. Griffith.
http://thethingsthatmatter.blogspot.com/