CHAPTER 7
HOW TO BE FREE FROM
ATTACHMENT WITH THE FOUR
Thoughts, Objects, Relations And Body
When there is attachment with position,
status, power, wealth, gains or comforts,
it gives rise to ego;
And it is ego that separates man from God.
Tejguru Sirshree Tejparkhiji
1. HOW TO BREAK ATTACHMENT WITH THOUGHTS :
Man gets attached to his own thoughts. Due to this attachment, he becomes attached to every thought that comes in his mind and becomes identified with it. Due to this tendency, the same unhappy thoughts keep recurring time and again. If these thoughts happen to be of depression, then attachment to such thoughts can even prove to be the cause of his death.
We should not fall prey to our thoughts. All around, we find people falling prey to thoughts. If through meditation*, you just start witnessing them, then the glue that attaches you to the thoughts starts giving away. Learn this type of meditation to know the method of witnessing and dissolve the fixation for thoughts. Two types of meditations are given below, the practice of which will prove extremely beneficial for you. Just do it and know it for yourself.
Thought Meditation
1. Close your eyes and sit in the meditation posture. (Sit down with legs folded and spine erect with the Gyan Mudra or Wisdom Posture - the hands should be on the knees with the palms facing upwards. The index finger and thumb should be touching each other with rest of the fingers kept straight).
2. Start watching your thoughts. See which thoughts are going on within you.
3. Keeping the body steady, continue watching the types of thoughts that are passing through your mind from a distance (without getting identified; remaining separate). In this meditation, while being separate, you will know what kind of thoughts go on in your mind, what thoughts are going on about various subjects…
4. Keep watching and knowing your thoughts like a witness. Don’t label any thought as good or bad. Avoid any such desire that I want more thoughts or I don’t want any thoughts.
* For learning more about meditation in detail, you can read the book ‘Meditation – 222 Questions’ published by Tej Gyan Foundation)
5. Initially practice this meditation for 5 minutes and gradually go on increasing its time. When you become an expert in this meditation, then start giving numbers to your thoughts.
Thought Numbering Meditation
1. In this meditation, for becoming thoughtless, thoughts are eliminated by giving sequential numbers. Sit in the meditation posture. Begin the meditation by watching every thought.
2. Now start numbering every thought. As soon as one thought arises, number it in your mind as ‘one.’ As the second thought arises, number it as ‘two.’ In this way, continue counting the thoughts.
3. Sit quietly even when there are no thoughts. If the thought arises, “At this time I don’t have any thoughts,” then number this thought also because “I don’t have any thoughts” is also a thought.
4. Don’t pursue any thought. Just number it and leave it.
5. With this meditation, the number of thoughts will reduce drastically. Sometimes even a thoughtless state will result. Practice this meditation regularly without expecting a given result.
What are the other ways to attain freedom from attachment to thoughts?
You must look at thoughts as though you are looking at your children. When children start troubling you, you teach them to keep quiet. In the same way, when thoughts come and bother you, you must train them to sit quiet. The attachment towards children often becomes the cause of misery for their parents. Likewise, your attachment to thoughts can become a cause for your downfall.
If your children insist on your taking them out at odd times, you merely tell them, “Go and play now, we will go out later.” The same way if thoughts appear at any time and insist to take you into the world of illusion (Maya), you should tell them, “Go and play now, we will go out later” and they will leave.
You should not allow any thought to appear and snatch away your happiness. You should not allow sorrow and misery to enter in your life. This can happen only when you learn to watch your thoughts the right way. For instance, if a person happens to see a few gray strands in his head, a thought arises in his mind that I am growing old. When there is no control on thoughts and there is no detachment from thoughts, then what happens? As soon as he got the thought, “I am growing old,” he begins to feel weak. He is not able to think that what happened in a day? Until yesterday he was strong, and then he saw the gray hair, and one thought arose in his mind and instantly he felt weak. This is the power of thoughts. Instead in that event, you should just tell the thought, “O.K. son, go and play now” and get detached from it. If you start getting attached to that thought, such a thought itself can really make you old. The day a person gets a thought that he is becoming old, he actually starts feeling weak. Therefore, know the power of thoughts, turn them into positive thoughts, and utilize them to your advantage. If the power of thoughts, due to attachment with them, begins to work against us, we may die (be defeated) before our time.
Whenever the child pleads to be picked up, it is not every time that you pick it up. Similarly, do not pay attention to thoughts or entertain thoughts at all times. Just as children who have got spoilt do not come under anyone’s control or even become criminals, even the thoughts, if they become bad, can make you do all kinds of sins. As you study ‘child training’ books, you may also need to study ‘Thoughts Training’ books. ‘Tej’ or ‘Bright School’ is nothing but Thoughts Training School and you need to take admission there.
‘Thought of Anger’ may be a devilish child, but it is your child. Do not pick it up in your lap. Do not get attached to it. Try to teach it a lesson by saying “Great, my child. Let us discuss later. You can go and play now.” Or you may say, “I will listen to you also. But now sit in silence for 10 minutes.” By doing so, you will start becoming aware and alert towards your thoughts.
Quite soon you may even realize as to how many children or thoughts you have. (You need not tell this to anyone else, as people may not easily understand this).
Meditation and silence will pretty soon liberate you from attachment and will also protect you from the ill-effects of negative thoughts.
When you get attached to thoughts, you also get attached to your imaginations and perceptions. People get attached to some perceptions of God and even become opposed to other religions. Clashes and violence due to caste or religion are basically due to such attachment. This apart, man gets attached even to his own ideas and suggestions. Due to such attachment, he tries to prove that only his ideas or suggestions are right. If someone does not accept his suggestion, he becomes very angry. If someone steals his idea and calls it his own, he even gets ready for getting into blows. Hence, you need to be very careful while uttering words such as ‘my thought’, ‘my opinion’, ‘my idea’, etc.
2. HOW TO BREAK ATTACHMENT WITH OBJECTS :
After getting liberated from attachment with thoughts, you have to break the shackle of attachment with objects. For instance, if my watch breaks or my cell phone gets lost, I feel pretty unhappy, but if it happens with someone else, I am not that unhappy. Similarly, one can see a lot of attachment for ‘my ornaments’, ‘my dresses’, ‘my wealth’, and so on. Whenever the word `my’ is added to the `object’, it gives birth to attachment. To be free from such attachment, first bring it to light. One may read further on this point in the chapter, 'Everything that is happening is perfect.'
3. HOW TO BREAK ATTACHMENT WITH DEPENDENCY ON PEOPLE OR RELATIONS:
When any close relative passes away, a person due to ignorance and attachment remains sad throughout his life. If he had been in true love with the relative, not merely attached, and if he had the knowledge of life after death, he would not have been in sorrow. At the root of every sorrow - ignorance and attachment can be found to be hidden.
When we are dependent on the people around us, gradually we begin to become their slaves. If for every work, we need the support of somebody else, we start becoming lazy and also start avoiding work. Other people start exploiting this. They start making us do things according to their whims and we become slaves. Therefore don’t be attached and dependent, let us get rid of attachment towards people. This does not mean that we should not take help from others. It only means that we should make efforts for becoming self-reliant or independent. Depending on the need, you may lend support and may also take support. If you want to live independent and free, or you want to remain happy by making others happy, or by making sorrow fail you want to keep bliss with you all the time, you will have to attain liberation from attachment as soon as possible.
4. HOW TO BREAK ATTACHMENT WITH BODY :
Just as we have attachment with bodies of others, we also have attachment with our own body. Our body is made of four coverings or walls. Within the four walls, what is in the center is our self, the real ‘I’. We are not the body, but we are in the body. If due to ignorance, we start believing that `I’ means `my body’, we then have very powerful and deep attachment with the body.
You are using your body, but you are not the body - this must always be borne in mind. Whenever pain arises in the body, or attachment arises towards the body, you may utter the mantra: “I am in the body, but I am not the body.” By this mantra, your tolerance power goes up. Apart from that, your identification to the body starts breaking, the level of bliss goes up and attachment goes down. If you forget this, attachment once again raises its head. But then you have to utter the mantra again. Whenever you remember, keep on repeating it. In this manner, by constant efforts, you will get freed from this attachment also. Try to meditate on how a child in its journey begins to get attached to objects (nonliving) and bodies (living).
On being a small child : When the child is very small, his relationship with everything is “I and objects – I and objects.” In other words, he believes everything to be inanimate or nonliving. He picks a thing and hits it on another thing. Whether glass breaks or the heart, it does not make any difference to him. Due to ignorance, breaking up things is normal for him.
On becoming a little bigger : When the child becomes slightly bigger, his relationship with everything is “I and objects – I and you.” That means he thinks his parents, brothers and sisters are objects, while he believes inanimate objects to be living things. He starts loving objects like his pen, watch, computer, motorcycle, dress, perfume, etc. But by being stubborn, he makes use of people just like objects. He never bothers about their feelings.
On getting a little understanding : When the child becomes a little mature, he acquires better understanding, and his relationship with everything becomes: “I and you – I and object.” That means he starts giving more importance to relations and people as compared to objects. He begins to understand the feelings of people. Love begins to develop in him.
On getting even more understanding : When he grows up and becomes quite mature, then his relationship with everything becomes: “I and you – I and you.” That means he starts giving respect even to inanimate objects. He believes that even in inanimate objects, there is the same vibration, which is present in man. He then stops throwing things around. He starts keeping things with great care. Within him, the ‘bright’ or ‘Tej’ love, which is beyond love and hatred, begins to develop.
On becoming quite knowledgeable : After getting the wisdom, when he acquires substantial understanding, his relationship with everything is: “Object and object – object and object”. In other words, he realizes that until now, he used to think of his body as ‘I’ and the body of the opposite person as ‘You’. In reality, ‘I and You’ are both not bodies. Only because we believed these to be bodies, we were behaving like I am a body and you are also a body. That means, objects were interacting with objects. After getting to this stage, he reaches the last stage.
On becoming fully knowledgeable : After attaining final knowledge or wisdom, when he acquires complete understanding, his relationship with everything is: “You and You – You and You”. That is, he sees God in everything and everybody. In this state, attachment gets completely destroyed. From the above, it will be clear that for complete liberation from attachment, one has to attain freedom from attachments towards all four - thoughts, objects, people and body.