“No attachment is freedom”. The name of my entire blog. What does this even mean? To be honest, I’d say that for most people, the name of my blog alone brings a certain level of comfort. There is something peaceful in just the mere idea of being able to be detached from all external things.
Meaning
I think the meaning is quite self-explanatory. To live your life almost entirely free of any emotional attachments to anyone or anything. This means your happiness is originated almost entirely from within, not from another person, car, house, your body, house or anything outside your consciousness. This does not mean you can’t allow things or people to add to your happiness, but the goals are to optimize emotional well-being to its fullest extent, alone, first.
for example, a breakup won’t break you, you will still be genuinely content and happy without that individual. While they may have added to your joy, they did not make your joy. This same logic is to be used in every other external factor in your little world.
Why?
We are in a society, that from birth, all our subjective experiences are geared towards finding external things to emotionally attach to. From the moment we start comprehending self-awareness, our consciousness is emotionally tossing itself out to whatever it so chooses. Even as a child, we were doing this. From video games to toys, we were already subconsciously giving away our emotional wellbeing to external things. As teenagers, we began dating and already giving our hearts away to people we barely even knew at the time.
As we become adults, it gets no better. If anything, our attachments to people and things just continues to grow. We become somewhat obsessed with houses, new cars, money, validation, sports, our bodies and other external matters. The most potent of all these things is other people, as in relationships. We are in a sense, tossing our happiness out like candy to all sorts of various things, subconsciously hoping they will all collectively hold up our emotional well-being.
The monumental issue with doing this, is any given day, you could lose all of these things. To broaden the perspective, even if you lost one thing, your happiness is going to be smothered. A man obsessed with money is only one bad recession from losing it. A person madly in love is only a breakup away from losing their world. Someone obsessed with their bodies and physical appearance is only one injury away from emotional destruction. The average individual in society is attached to everything except themselves.
It’s not only about “things” or “people” regarding attachment, but also the innate aspect of yourself. The innate emotional clinging to every negative issue or energy you receive. Yes, we all innately have these things, it’s a part of us naturally, yet just because it’s innate does not mean it is helping us. It’s actually destroying us, subtly. How many otherwise good men are weak and fragile with their lust? How many people can’t let go of arguments, road rage, rude energy or disrespect? how many people depend on validation to keep moving forward on their ideas? Even if you feel complete justification for acting upon these matters, you are still losing. What is happiness without freedom? These are powerful natural strings that have us tied down and it takes comprehension of this in order to tear away from them. Take mental notes.
This is concerning to me. Most people don’t even understand themselves, who they are and what their purpose is. They just follow society, running from high-to-high throwing up their happiness to everything around them like dollar bills in a strip club.
Suffering Vs. Detachment
A part of the reason detachment brings peace is due to its colossal ability to almost entirely stiff-arm suffering. Emotional suffering will be radically reduced by detachment. I firmly believe, that with correct mediation and mental comprehension, you could literally lose all things in your life and still continue to feel authentic content. If an individual lost everything, was forced into a state of being entirely alone with nothing, they could in fact feel the refreshing waters of peace through it all. If you actually think about it, a massive portion of human suffering comes from losing attachment to something or someone. This one concept is the author of sorrow for most people. To radically cut out the potential for mental anguish in your life is a comfortable, calming thought, in itself.
How
The reality is most people are not going to be able to hide away in the mountains and live the life of a monk. This is terribly unrealistic. I do believe that there are three ways to attain the fullness of detachment for anyone though. They are:
- Perspective
- Meditation
- Self-awareness
Perspective: Understand the reality of this existence. The value of the moment and time. A true comprehension of how beautiful life is, has potent power. Just knowing that at any given moment you could leave this existence, is to be deeply valued. How many people actually are in the “moment”? How many people worldview is drowning in ignorance? Perspective takes time and considerable mindfulness for most people to achieve. We must understand the world for how it “actually” is, not what we wish it would be.
Meditation is quite self-explanatory. It is the act of manually stopping everything in your life, putting all obligations on hold, to focus on nothing but a specific thought. The act of mental exercise will create a secure, hefty and robust mind, putting each thought on a leash. Imagine how that would affect your peace? Meditation is ridiculously underrated and underused. It single handedly, is the answer to world peace. I said what I said.
Self-awareness is in regard to external factors in your life. Such as a new commitment or your possessions. Awareness is knowing how your emotions are connected to these things. Having comprehension of what exactly is occurring to your emotions allows one to stop it before it dives off the ledge. This takes time for most people also, considering we are emotional creatures and usually aren’t thinking about “emotions”, we just go with the flow, thus opening the door to suffering.
Final thoughts
We start comprehension as a child, trying to figure out reality and be accepted. Our ignorance as a child typically leads us into a losing existence of attachments and suffering as we grow into adults. It doesn’t matter if you’re rich, famous and attractive, if you’re unhappy you, the emotional well-being that gives you reason to live is dehydrated and starving. Just as much as your subjective experience is only yours, you’re entirely responsible for your own happiness and liberation. This is all up to you. No one can jump into your “experience” and change this issue. This is the reality of life. The beautiful truth about all of this is we all can find authentic peace in this existence through meditation, honest perspective and legitimate self-awareness.
As yourself, as you read this right now… “am I honestly happy and content”?
-Jarom
NO ATTACHMENT IS FREEDOM 